“So much easier to believe in a convenient lie....than an inconvenient truth” from the Salem Witch-hunt
It comes as little surprise that those with an agenda lie. The truth even when totally self evident is often a roadblock to justification of a path about to be taken. It had been a long tradition to align unrelated truths together and claim that the outcome is related. The witch-hunt’s were a great example of this, any minority outcome when compared to a majority outcome could be declared witchcraft. I have always been fascinated by the ducking pond method of establishing if a woman was actually a witch. Hold her underwater and she drowns... she’s innocent. Hold her underwater and she survives...she’s guilty. By aligning two unrelated truths: a) the most likely outcome of trial by ducking pond is drowning and b)the activities of a witch including performing supernatural activities the witch-hunts were able to ‘prove’ the truth that they had indeed captured a practitioner of witch-craft.
This kind of lie is fabulous for those with an agenda... you can justify just about anything with 2 unrelated truths... especially when your audience are stupid enough not to question your choice of truths.
We've done it since childhood... blame the person with the smoking pistol rather than look for the person with the gunpowder residue on their fingers. It's a habit that is easily manipulated by those with an agenda.
Take these popular truths going around Britain today.
A) A) The UK has an annual bill £164.7 billion in welfare payments currently. B) The UK is in debt currently.
The obvious conclusion to gain from this is that the first statement led directly to the second statement. Which leads you to conclude that the eradication of A) will eradicate B).
It sounds like common sense. It’s a witch that floats... so to the stake with it we say!!!
Except.... are those two facts the whole story? Or is it a case of someone being left with a smoking pistol? I mean after all the welfare system isn't something new to the UK. Why is it that suddenly we can't afford to run it? Should we be looking for a new phenomena? Could it possibly be that the debt may have been run up elsewhere?
Here's a few candidates who have gunpowder residue on their fingers...Northern Rock Bank, Abbey, HBOS, HSBC, Nationwide Building Society, and Standard Chartered Bank. These banking institutions all took bailouts that account for £134.5 billion of net debt. In addition the govt purchased a 68% stake in the Royal Bank Of Scotland and a 43% stake in Lloyds Trustees Savings bank ... bringing the amount of public funds spent bolstering the banks to a staggering £850 billion .
Now then which figure is bigger.. £164.7 billion or £850 billion?
Still want to burn that witch?
But hang on BANKS in debt? Don’t be stupid!!! Lets just blame those people who don’t work...it makes more sense... doesn’t it? I mean they are contributing nothing so the debt MUST be their fault. Isn’t it?
The benefits bill covers pensions, disability living allowances, income support and job seekers allowances (people who are on benefits are there for a variety of reasons - not everyone is just lazy) but even taking an underclass of job-shy into account the UK’s income tax receipts have always comfortably covered the benefits bill. There have been blips like in 1999/2000 where the government of the day found themselves £1.5 billion out of pocket, but normally there is a comfortable margin. This was true up to 2008/2009.... but then the 2009/2010 figures showed £24.2 billion short. Suddenly there was more going out in benefits than coming in from income tax. And you can't possibly blame the banks for THAT!
Or could you?
Money is a strange thing.
Money is needed to generate money. It is nothing new that banks use deposited funds to buy stocks and shares and make money. The bowler hatted brigade have been at that since ...well kind of forever.
But here is something new.
Do you remember the noughties? Do remember the headlines about The Tsunami of Cash? Remember when everyone seemed to be throwing money at you? It seemed true that wealth and liberation came in the form of paper or electronic money and every bank was up for distributing limitless amounts of this commodity as a cure for all social and economic ills. Happy Days! Cool Britannia indeed.
Want a bit of bling, then pop it on your credit card and if that is maxed out get another at 0% interest for the next 2 years! Want a car? Lease finance companies were happy to fund your car (don’t settle for anything less than the car of your dreams)! Want a house? Then Mortgage companies would lend you the purchase price PLUS the money for stamp duty and a refurb and possibly a holiday to get over the stress that is moving home. It was a real time of buy now...pay later. Everything was underwritten by the banks...all you had to do was sign your name.
The days of bowler hatted respectable banking, of cautiously managing money and avoiding risk were over, banking got sexy... it was all about hedging your bets. Banks started to gamble and it seemed to be paying dividends. It was all about debt - except no one likes the word debt so it was renamed risk management. Money was borrowed from funds that were going to repaid someday and used to buy a share or a bond,or a future contract and were traded on the margin. Thus invisible, locationless money ebbed and flowed around the world ... no one quite knew where the money was or if any of the debts were going to be repaid. It didn’t seem to matter as everyone was living off the margins. Even when the loan defaulting began (remember all those repossessions?) it never occurred to anyone that eventually all that money that was borrowed, loaned out and sold on as 'risk' would eventually have to be repaid and there was little chance of that happening if the money that had come out of nowhere was returning to exactly the same place. NOWHERE.
The money wasn't real. The only thing that was real was that the banks were being asked to honour the promises THEY had made and they simply did not have the cash... or any one left to borrow some from.
So the government stepped in.
Basically... put in straight forward terms.... the banks loaned money to people which was money they themselves had borrowed, the people the banks borrowed the money off wanted their money back. The people the banks loaned the money too couldn’t repay the money. The banks asked the government to loan them the money to repay the people the people they owed money to.
And it would have worked apart from one thing. The banks had to close lines of credit. Those lines of credit went to businesses whose products and services were purchased by people who also had those lines of credit which meant that no one buying stuff. This meant that companies had to let staff go because they couldn't pay them. Which meant that those people were no longer paying income tax which is the money in the public purse ,which is the money the government has to spend.
BUT the government couldn't let the banks crash. So it loaned them the money from the public purse but only had 64.9% of the total to hand so borrowed the remainder of other countries and investors.
Oh and just when you think things couldn't get more ropey... Guess who started defaulting on the money THEY had borrowed...
The banks were supposed to pay the government back ... but before long it became clear that Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley were obviously unable to pay back their £123 billion. Then a further £9 billion given to the Dunfermline Building Society went the same way. As if that wasn't bad enough, the picture got considerably worse as sure thing repayments from high street big name banks were clearly not going to be paid back. The Office of National Statistics shows Britain has pledged £851.2 billion in capital injections and liability guarantees and liquidity support to the banking system ...that hasn’t shown any sign of resisting defaulting.
So... still unsure what has this got to do with the fact that more money goes out in benefits than comes in income tax?
Well... I'm no economist but...
Many private sector businesses depending on lines of credit that have now gone... (and among them some very established names....Woolworths anybody?). Job losses are a casualty of that scenario. Other businesses are trimming the fat... and that means redundancies as companies prepare for the leaner times ahead. Public sector employees are most vulnerable of all as it is their paymasters who have the emptiest of coffers... job losses in every area from posties, to teachers, to soldiers, to policemen, to nurses, to lollipop men. Here's a couple of cold hard facts. In December 2008 - 1.07 million persons were registered as unemployed in the UK, In December 2010 2.56 million persons were registered as unemployed in the UK.
Some extra facts to add to witch burning menu... The 'buoyant' economy of the noughties was built on borrowed money that was not repaid. To stave of a bank crash the UK loaned £850 billion to the banks of which almost a third was borrowed. Without the lines of credit the 'buoyant' economy started failing. The failing economy added 1.49 million extra to the unemployment figures. The revenue raised to cover welfare payments comes from income tax. The amount raised from income tax has declined as 1.49 million people are not contributing to it who were previously. The UK is in debt to the tune of £300 billion to overseas governments and investors who are charging £42million annually in interest.
But come on... just because those figures are a matter of public record doesn’t mean to say that we have to believe them! Come on we’ve been told that the problem with this country is that lazy arse people sit a home watching day time tv living the life of riley while the rest of us struggle to put a crust on the table. And these people are below our contempt... (well they are certainly lower than us on the economic ladder)... BLOODY SCROUNGERS!!!!
Yes...lets’ build a pyre... wander down to our local sink estate and chuck the first unmarried mother who is claiming benefits on it. Because it’s logical that the economic mess that the country is in is HER fault.
Yes... let’s BURN THE WITCH!!!!
Of course... because if you can blame her and those like her... you won’t have to think about the house you bought, the car you drive, the holiday you had or the bling you bought.... on the credit from the banks, who when you and others like you couldn’t repay fast enough (or at all), were bailed out by the government, who borrowed money that plunged us all into this mess.
Yes... easier to burn the witch eh?
I return to the quote with which I started....
“So much easier to believe in a convenient lie....than an inconvenient truth”.
Isn’t it?
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