Money matters?

Hello, dear reader!

It’s time to address the elephant in the room.

I try to stay away from political matters, I really do. Apart from anything else, it tends to displease my mother when I stick my oar into those murky waters and risk an opinion or two.

At the moment, however, I don’t think it’s possible, other than sealing yourself in an underground crypt with your fingers firmly lodged in your lug’oles as you sing along to some loud and discordant music (I’m thinking something from the Death Metal genre. Either that or Christian ‘rock), to avoid the daily Downing Street Tragicomedies

So here goes.

Trickle Up
No, in fact, here doesn’t go. Because, I’m not going to go too far down the rabbit hole of specific policies and tax cuts. For one, I don’t have the expertise, and for two, I’m not sure how to make such dry, ideologically driven decisions an even half-way decent read (What do you mean ‘no change there, then?').

What I do know is, following the mini-budget/financial event/ other made up terminology of two weeks ago, life seemed to immediately get a whole lot worse. Yes, the energy bills will only double rather than quadruple, which is nice, but my mortgage (which luckily still has four years of a fixed term to run) suddenly seemed a lot more of an expense waiting to happen. Add in the spectre of rolling black outs, which may, or may not be a feature of the coming winter and the rising prices of both household energy and the food on the supermarket shelves (which is fast becoming noticeable) and, yes, the future’s not all that rosy.

Now we do live in an unstable world at the moment. There is a war on. Not here, you understand, but a few thousand miles away. Nevertheless, it’s a war that is impacting the everyday lives of normal people (not as much as it is the normal, everyday lives of people in Ukraine). I understand that. I do.

What I don’t understand is relying on the magic of trickle-down economics to fix it.

On The House
Giving to the rich, in the hope that they will make life better for the poor is a busted flush. It is a theory, as Monty Python might say, that is bereft of life. It rests in peace. It has kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. It is an ex-economic theory.

Alright,, I’m paraphrasing. The crux of the matter is that it doesn’t work. It has been shown not to work again and again. Give the wealthy (and no, unless your a billionaire, or at best a multi-multi millionaire I’m not talking about you, even if you do have two nice cars and a mortgage free house) money and they will either send it to the Cayman Islands where it will do a cracking job of not paying for public services, or maybe buy a(nother) house or five which they can then rent back to people who, thanks to rising prices and the need to have any mortgage application signed by both maternal great-grandparents and a unicorn, guaranteeing they can afford to pay back twice as much as it costs, will be stuck paying more than that for something they will never own.

And on it goes.

Game Theory
It’s like Monopoly, you see, except this game really does never end. There’s no tidying up when tea’s ready and writing down who had which of the two greens, or who owns the railways. We play on until all the property is owned by a vanishingly small number of people, the landlords and the mortgage providers (with the landlords currently creeping ahead). Oh, and on top of that, the tax system means that, although we get £200 for passing Go, those who can already afford the houses and hotels get £2000 in the hope they’ll give us £20 for putting the pieces back in the box..

Seems fair doesn’t it.

Our society, and I’m talking on a global scale, is built on inequality, and that inequality is self-serving. It is an inequality that is growing, and intentionally so. Leaving the poor poorer as the wealth that should (in theory) be trickling down, is hoovered up.

Greed Isn't Good
The sad truth is, I’m not sure that capitalism can ever be stopped. Man is a greedy animal, it seems, and while a figure in a bank account means a small amount of people can obtain real assets such as property, food, and other solid, real, things and make that number bigger by selling, or better, renting them on* I don’t know how we can avoid situations like today, where real are finding survival to be unaffordable. I mean there’s things like a fairer, and less escapable tax system, and the right for everyone to own their own home, and the public ownership of resources such as heat, light and water…but that’s Marxism, right?

Yeah, much better to stay with the status-quo*.

*I’m sorry this got a little ranty, but as I said, this is affecting real people, and I am (last I checked), a real person.

** For a better explanation of assets vs money, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViY-zI3b5JQ. It’s a longish watch, but very much worth it.

Until next time.

***
Hey, folks! If you would care to take a look at some of my more creative writing, then the links below will transport you to the magical worlds of a few anthologies my short (and in two cases, very short) stories have been included in. Feel free to check ’em out!

New Tales Of Old: Volume 2

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09TMVTX9H/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Death Ship

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/9198684140/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_TWEMTA3KWK7T89QEZPF6?fbclid=IwAR322Fx5nfgVUQAA62ZZ6CUsNnBm8pbSxPanzz6Qkjg3vAv4ESipq7iKKhs

https://www.waterstones.com/book/death-ship/david-green/s-o-green/9789198684148?fbclid=IwAR2gP4CXHSG7wTccO39wOqXFtI81k0259Ep8DUM48Ki6kTUdlKoF3yafojA

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9198684140/ref=ewc_pr_img_1?smid=A2XZ7JICGUQ1CX&psc=1&fbclid=IwAR2Wa6sGxb82_VCsC7l1CGXwHjsSwTheqba6jDX_G8EDsywZoGpC93nXr2w

Reaperman

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reaperman-Drabbles-3-Legends-Night-ebook/dp/B099NNPTQ1A

Pestilence

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pestilence-Revelations-Black-Ink-Fiction/dp/B09MDLZGHY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2VP38WZDWJVAF&keywords=black+ink+fiction&qid=1654090896&sprefix=black+ink+fiction%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-1

The Musketeers Vs Cthulhu

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Musketeers-Cthulhu-Court-King-Louis-ebook/dp/B09YQKQQB7/ref=sr_1_18?crid=2VP38WZDWJVAF&keywords=black+ink+fiction&qid=1654091002&sprefix=black+ink+fiction%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-18