So the UK public pension deficit is over £1.3 trillion!!! That means that there is no money in the bank for these 6 million Government employees who want to retire – mostly early. Now if they were private sector employees then hard luck chum! But no they work for the Government therefore they are allowed to accrue debt as if it were wealth. Unlike the great unwashed in the private sector who pay for all of this debt – the public sector masses get to ratchet up the UK National Debt without caring about who pays!

Stop it – stop printing money you politicians, stop creating your client state of dependant voters – whether you have conned people into relying on the State for “benefits” or “gold-plated pensions” you are nothing less than thieves – the definition of which is – “ a thief who steals whatever is readily available without using violence” – how about not paying people when you have no money to pay them with? Why not try that?

Meantime – how about starting up a new Bank – a Pension Bank. Now we will introduce all new born babies to this new arrangement.

“Dear Tom or Cloe, unfortunately there is no money left to pay for a pension for you when you grow older, so don’t expect any freebies from your Government, as we have no money left. But we have come up with a great new idea. From today we have opened a bank account for you – the money in this account (which has a balance of nil today) will be held for you in a safe place, we haven’t found a place that’s safe yet, but we think Zimbabwe might be fine. Anyway, as you grow up and start to earn a living, you will have to save – now I know your parents and grandparents don’t know what save means, but trust us, it is a cool new thing to do. What it means is that from now on, until you retire,  we will make you pay 5% of whatever you earn into your new Pension Bank personal retirement account.  Now remember, you will never have a state pension as the money has run out, and all your savings will be tax-free, and also free of Inheritance Tax, as we decided to get rid of IHT because we figured out that as you had saved all your life for retirement then any money left over should not be taxed – I know you won’t believe us but honest we won’t take your money! Oh by the way – you can put any amount of extra cash you have into your personal pension account, also tax free. We only ask that you cannot touch it until you are 60 years old, then you can have a ball!

I hope you have a long and healthy life and are able to enjoy every penny of the savings you have made for your retirement. As far as your Government is concerned, we are still trying to pay of the debts of your parents and grandparents, things are getting better though – retirement age will soon be coming down to just 75 years of age. “

I don’t think there was ever a time when people who worked for Governments were truly Public Servants as many like to call themselves. On the other hand, people who prefer to do real work in the Private Sector have become the new Private Servants of Governments who have wasted zillions on any scheme that will improve their chances of retaining power. As the Socialists and Progressives have demonstrated – you can soak the Private Sector workers much harder and for longer than the unionised battalions of politically-created jobs  that Private Sector workers alone have to sustain.

You see, Private Sector workers are the easy low-hanging fruit, and there are more of them, at least up till now. The great unorganised Private Sector masses pay their taxes because they are lied to by politicians who spin prudence and instead give them a future financial hell.

A time must surely come when Private Sector workers wake up to the reality of the waste that their taxes have been used for.  Public Sector workers are made to feel safe, secure, wanted, needed and important. Whilst the Private Servants are required to work harder, longer, more productive, more effecient and take their chances as they and their company struggles against high taxes – poorly spent, increasingly daft rules designed to make the chances of success even harder. The rules of course are issued by the Public Sector workers so valued by their political masters.

It’s time to free the Private Servants from their servitude and release them so that they can provide for themselves, their families and their communities – freed from their national and local political masters.  Private Servants with more of their own money through lower taxes, Private Servants free to choose, free to make mistakes, free to be responsible, free to work long hours, free to go the extra mile and free to develop. Private Servants with a right to decide how much Public Services they need and which they want to pay for. Private Servants free to pay and provide for their own medical needs, free to fail, free to make profits, free to choose the size of their Government and the size of their Government’s workforce.  Free to pay a price for things that are said to be free.  Free to be generous to those less fortunate. Free to say no we don’t want to pay for that.

One day Private Servants will be free – but only when Public Service workers start to serve and stop claiming that they are the servants.

As governments worldwide compete with each other to borrow ever greater amounts of our cash, we should all be aware that the very people borrowing the money are the ones who will in a short time be putting up our taxes. What goes up must come down and as the billions of whatever currency you fancy (except the Zimbabwe Dollar, in which case we could say zillions or multi-killions or something equally perverse) are borrowed and printed – we should all be careful and see them as they really are – the new loan sharks.

If you can’t afford something – don’t borrow money – end of story. No matter how low interest rates go – they will only serve to lengthen the period of your agony and fears over your financial future. The Government loan sharks act as if they are your saviour (just like the ones that prey on those who are desparate) – don’t worry guys – no need to do something as horrible as sacrifice that holiday or not buy that new gizmo or satellite subscription – just watch us on one of these many TVs you poor people have out there and we will organise things so you can borrow more, or delay your payments – instead of buy now  pay later we can offer you a discount now and pay double later and even later. Let’s live for now and let others worry about next year and the year after.

Governments have become the new loan sharks. Desparate not to upset any of us poor little mortals with such challenges as having to pay our own way in the world – the loan shark political elite who cannot solve Aids, Cancer and Alzheimer’s, well – that would mean doing difficult things like being determined to solve these problems with effort and hard work – think they are clever and can solve our Credit Disease by simply ignoring what has happened in the past and giving us more of what they think we need and what got is into this problem in the first place – easy money.

Whatever happened to these nice guys on TV that showed us how to get out of debt and budget our expenses and even encouraged us to save for our future?  Oh, they now work for the Government – that makes sense.

No need to worry about those millions of young people about to leave school and university who will inherit this mess, just sign here and we will look after you. We will buy the banks and mortgage companies so that they cannot do these nasty things like take away the property that you should not be in because those nasty Wall Street execs gave you a 125% “housing loan”. It really doesn’t matter anymore – because these new loan sharks have long put aside those silly values like – thrift, saving, living within your means and family budget control. We had the good times – now let’s have the bad times – only trust us – they won’t be that bad. In fact let’s try and avoid them – we could buy the car makers so you won’t lose your job as an overpaid assembly line car washer, we could also buy the oil companies so we can stop all that noisy drilling out there. Let’s not stop there – we will buy the Medical Companies so you can get free stress relief from all this worry and we’ll buy the Hotels up so we can give you some welcome relaxation time when you come out of rehab after we bought the Breweries. We will do whatever it takes to get you to vote for us.

So we surrendered manufacturing and don’t make things anymore – so what – you have all those Public Sector saviours like “Director of Specialist & Direct Delivery Services AND Director of Universal and Prevention Services” both Local Government positions are advertised today with salaries of 98,000 pounds pa and of course the Local Government Management have retained the services of an expensive Recruitment Consultant to help, because they themselves would not know a do do from a bo bo at the interview. I bet there are wonderful pension benefits with these “jobs” as well.  Could they perhaps save some money here – don’t be silly, these jobs are vital to somebody – but not us.  Central Government have given us a billion pounds of tomorrow’s savings and by jings we are going to spend it all before they change their minds!

So there we are – if you have over-borrowed and are over-paid,  you are one of us and we will look after you.  If you can do a job that does not create wealth – then your on our side. Let us climb that mountain together and put those who cannot manage properly at the front of our expedition – you see when you don’t know where your going – any road will take you there.  Let tomorrow take care of itself as we will be too busy looking for somewhere to hide.

How about Zimbabwe – I hear there are plenty of sharks there?

As Governments around the world pretend that they have found a cure for our Credit Illness – have we been cured of this blight? Have we suddenly all changed into the prudent and thrifty people we should be?  Whilst we have all been re-educated on Global Warming (the UK must have missed Global Warming this summer!) and how we must change our light bulbs and ensure the plastics are kept separate from the newsprint – have we changed our financial habits that have led us into this financial mess? In fact describing it as a mess may be something of an understatement.

No worries – the Governments are in charge – they are all rushing to print and borrow money – loads of the stuff – the same stuff that was so scarce a few months ago that the policeman’s pay deal couldn’t be honoured and the NHS refused to treat sick patients because of a committee called NICE. As mega-size tankers full of cash compete to dump taxpayers earnings down the drain (does anyone know where all this cash is going?) we are told that everything possible will be done to ensure the security of our banking systems.  Everything Possible – that depends on who is in charge of the possible! I don’t think so – the bill is coming and when we see it we won’t like the possibilities that they chose.

Have the Governments addressed the causes of our Credit Illness? Are there new rules in place to prevent greedy Bankers from lending to high-risk Borrowers? Have Borrowers learned anything from their illness? TV Advertising still continues to encourage people to take out loans they cannot afford – they tell people to release the equity in their homes so that they can take that holiday they did not earn! In small type on the screen appears a warning that they may lose their home if they don’t keep up the payments – but who cares – the catchy 60’s pop tune makes it so attractive to those who are the most vulnerable amongst us. At a stroke, Governments will not hesitate to legislate on anti-smoking laws or ant-fox hunting legislation. But nothing is done to educate the TV public on how to be prudent and thrifty. Governments prefer silly causes to sound values – but we better learn about prudence and thrift – because therein – lies our cure.

Anyone in business will tell you that getting out of a mess will take longer than getting into it – but not the politicians – borrow a few hundred billion and hey presto we can all get back to spending too much again! The public need to know exactly what we all need to do in order to keep our economies healthy, progressive and in good condition. We need to be made to understand the harsh realities of our financial over-indulgence.  Schools need to teach sound business principles – e.g. how to run a profitable business – understanding the basics of Cash Flows and using existing assets better. How to reduce financial waste – or time waste – all waste – not just environmental waste. Young people need to have an understanding of how markets work well and how they get ill. They need mentoring on how to make the most of their talents. How to uplift themselves in order to be better – and more positive about the future. There needs to be a School Exam / Diploma for every student – that assures us that students leaving full-time education understand the basic principles of a well run business and the basic principles of self-development. At least that way we will spot those who can’t tell a raffle from a good business proposition!

Much of the Credit Illness comes from a lack of education and ignorance about how our market economies really work. It is made worst by people like Gordon Brown who distort peoples beliefs by his over spending and high tax regime.  Free Markets suffer when Governments take control – history proves that when Governments think they know best – that is when things go badly wrong. Time will tell just how bad Gordon Browns wasteful spending has been – like all Socialist causes – it will end in tears.

Today our Governments are getting bigger instead of smaller – they are have an increasing influence on our future financial decisions. They are trying to do things that they cannot do well – and the free market is turning against them. Things will get worse before they get better. It has taken many years for our Credit Illness to take hold – it will take even longer for the free market to cure it.

The world is more bereft of leadership than ever before. Without Vision the People will Perish says the Bible. I have enough faith in the free markets to believe that we can avoid being perished – but leadership has never before been more needed than it is today.

We have not even started looking for cures – but rather we assume that Governments know best. We do so at our peril – we should assume that our Credit Illness is just that – an Illness – we need to start taking our medicine, change our bad habits – learn healthier ones and be prepared for a bumpy ride.