A Place to Stand

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), has slashed its growth forecast for the UK economy to 0.2% in 2012 (from 2.3% in its June 2011 forecast) and 1.4% in 2013.



Last summer the IMF predicted economic growth of 2.3% this year. Since then the UK has experienced a double-dip recession and if the predictions by the IMF are to be believed, the economy is now not set to recover for at least another year.

Letter,
           The government's alleged policy to get us out of recession is clearly in taters with the IMF announcement that they expect growth over this year to be 0.2% (about £3 bn in an economy of £1.6 trillion).

           However this is not so surprising since none of the officially supported parties in Britain are actually intent on achieving growth. They all claim to, in the same way they all claim to want a "bonfire of the quangos", to cut immigration, all promised us an EU referendum over the Lisbon treaty, all claim to believe in catastrophic global warming.

           Throughout what has been reported as the "world recession" of the last few years, the world economy has been growing at 5%. If we exclude the EU portion, the rest of the world economy has been growing at 6%.  There is no question that if this is being achieved by even average countries it can be achieved by us.

            All that is required is to allow the free market to work. The correlation between growth in electricity use and the total economy is as close as any relationship in economics. A free market in energy, allowing shale gas & nuclear to develop and not pouring 10s of billions into windmills would, over time, cut energy costs by over 90%. %0% of the money in Britain is spent by the state, which not only produces nothing but whose regulatory busybodies destroy the effort of many millions of productive workers. A free market in housing would allow modular building and cut housing costs across the board by 75%. EU Commissioner Verheugen years ago admitted that EU regulations alone destroy 6% of the economy of the member countries. And so on and on.

          Every serious politician and tame journalist in Britain knows we could be out of recession in days if such political parasitism were ended.

         By definition this means that every politician or tame journalist who denies that we could be out of recession in days if they would end this parasitism cannot be trusted to tell the truth on any other subject either.

         I have just watched a BBC "news" discussion involving representatives of what the polls show are the 1st, 2nd & 4th parties (Labour, Conservative & LibDem). Absent from what the the BBC, untruthfully, call a "debate" was any representative from the sole party willing to put the case for real growth - UKIP.

        Such censorship of political debate is incompatible with any claim that our state broadcaster is maintaining the "balance" legally required under its Charter. A monopoly of broadcast news (70% is an official monopoly & the state broadcasters together easily exceed it in news coverage) is , quite obviously, incompatible with a real democracy.

        The OECD recently suggested the Russian elections weren't fully democratic because the government owned considerably less than half the media and the smaller parties were only guaranteed 21 hours of airtime. How much further from democracy must Britain be?

        One example of how the government could actually help growth, rather than just getting out of the way, is in the commercial space industry. This is growing at £1 billion a year, which means it will make up 1/3rd of the entire British economic growth this year unless the IMF estimate is downgraded again. Yet the total promised future support to our most successful industry will be £10 million - barely token compared the £200 billion to be wasted on windmills. Once again only UKIP - with its promise that the money we give to and is wasted by the European Space Agency, instead be put into technology X-Prizes for the industry. Nobody in any other party even disputes that this would give us a British space plane, but not one of these useless MPs support doing so.
######################################

    It appears I one again underestimated the uselessness of our current leaders a few days ago when I suggested growth of 0.5% and thus that the space economy would be just under 20% of our total growth. Clearly it will be about 30%.

   If anybody on the "left" thinks this can be disputed as less than fully truthfiul without making themselves look ridiculous one of them or of my self appointed nemesii will doubtless try.

   If  I find it published, even in a severely edited form (which I have specifically allowed) it will be evidence that there is some part of the British media which is not 100% censored. I will let you know if this proves to be the case.