I'm basically living in a self-imposed news blackout at the moment. I am waking up to silence rather than the Today programme, avoiding news.bbc.co.uk (a harder thing to do than I ever imagined), switching off the television set (not very hard at all) and not buying newspapers.
It's not that I don't care about global economic meltdown, but there is Nothing I Can Do. For anxious people, this is all the chickens come home to roost. We secretly knew they would. We hate being right.
But I can see no point in immersing myself in the current media frenzy, with its heated debates and BIG DOWNWARD POINTING ARROWS. It doesn't help, it just makes the dull screaming noise that's usually far in the distance much, much louder. I don't need the dull screaming noise right now. I've got stuff to do.
The dust will settle, and I will re-engage. A lot of it will be bad, but there are good bits too. One of them, of course, is the death of Thatcherism. I am glad she lived to see it. There are many, many things that the free market will never provide, and they are mostly the same many, many things that are worth celebrating about humanity.
So here's to more human times, eventually, and in the meantime check out this glorious Steve Bell cartoon. I broke my news blackout for this one, and it's going on the wall.
joella
joella
10 comments:
Yes, there is something satisfying about knowing Thatcher is witnessing the death of her baby. I expect her arrogance prevents her from seeing that this was part of it's inevitable design, but none the less...nice cartoon.
"So here's to more human times"
You are so right.
There is so much more I want to say, so I shall curtail and make a new blog post instead....thank you!
x
...oh...and the Eats, Shoots and Leaves part of my brain just noticed a second too late that, in the excited writing of my previous comment, I have bequeathed you with a superfluous apostrophe.
You are the person who taught me what an en dash is, so I feel duty bound to point out that I am not a totally errant proofreading student.
Happy Sunday - go slow :-)
'happy Sunday?' Oh dear lord....
I got an email from my friend Andy yesterday which was followed immediately by another apologising for a superfluous apostrophe. I clearly have a reputation here...
Look forward to the tomato take on global meltdown (I keep wanting to do smileys at the moment, must suppress this). x
I'm also veering between gnawing worry at the Global Meltdown and cheerfulness at the Death of Thatcherism, which seems to be the only certainty to so far emerge from this whole unsightly business. On balance I'd say I will take the gnawing worry, especially when I remember how much worse it would have been if that expensive and utterly untimely move to Manchester's fashionable Westside had ever come off...
Death of Thatcherism. Count me unconvinced, at least from where I'm sitting.
1) Crisis will send scores of undeserving poor countries to the wall and bring in the IMF to pick up the remains. The IMF prescription will be, you guessed it, tight budgets, state asset sales and liberalisation of markets.
2) The primary aim of Brown's rescue package was to restore the functioning of markets.
3) The UK's "nationalised" banks ain't all that. They're neither fish nor fowl and I can see the government selling its stakes (perhaps even at a profit) in a few years. Remind you of anyone?
So,even when it's dead with a stake through its heart, Thatcherism can return? How appropriate.
Spine... can you see no grounds for optimism at all? Nowhere we could use the word 'but'?
I can see some social, cultural and environmental advantages to the resurrection of thrift and regulation. As Nick Cave might almost say, I do believe in an interventionist state. If it were a sensible and reasonable one. Your cynicism may be entirely legitimate though. I haven't heard the news for weeks.
Uncle Richard: will email you!
Sorry, but I'm with Spine. Everything the governments of the Western world are doing at the moment is financial CPR. They'll probably succeed in keeping the old bag going and people have short memories... in a few short years things'll start to pick up and everyone'll go credit card happy again.
I'm not saying the condition isn't terminal, just that it's got a long way to run yet.
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