I think we may be witnessing the beginning of the end for the Thatcherite free market programme. As we watch the Greek tragedy unfolding we are continually being told that we are watching a crisis for the Euro and the Eurozone. That is not accurate. Certainly the euro is in crisis, but the real culprit is not the currency but the economic ideology that is controlling both the currency and the financial system within which it operates. Should we actually have the foresight and the intelligence to properly identify the cause of our financial problems then the euro would operate perfectly well and efficiently in a properly controlled and regulated economic system that replaced the current neoliberal free market disaster we see today.
In today's economic system wealth is equated to money. Greece has run out of money and so it has no wealth. But that is simply wrong. The wealth of any nation lies in the amount of goods and services it produces. Because we think that wealth is money we fail to regulate the financial system and fail to ensure that the money we do have services the economy rather than dictating the economy. Money is a means of exchange, it is not an end in itself. It should be directed to investment in both capital resources and labour. What we do is take money out of the economy, we give it in huge bonuses to gangsters and in profits to large multinational corporations who hoard it in different tax havens all over the world. Our money leaves the country rather than being invested in the country. Thus, as in Greece, there is no meaningful investment and therefore no meaningful production. On top of that, the elites in all developed countries have been reducing the amount of money available to the general population thus removing spending power thereby reducing demand. Additionally, those who are in work are seeing their income falling and therefore the government is losing tax revenues, whilst those on benefits are seeing their income falling as well and so no-one is spending money. So, not only are we failing to invest, we are quite deliberately depressing demand for any goods that are available. As a result, our stock of wealth is steadily diminishing regardless of how much money some people might have.
This is the economics of the madhouse. The people who attacked the tourists in Tunisia understand this. Tourism is a valuable export for any country. Just as when the Scots sell a bottle of whisky in America to earn dollars, so what tourism does is sell a service. If an American comes here to play a game of golf, he/she is effectively buying a product and is paying for that product, so, in that sense golf is an export. The terrorist knows that if he/she effectively damages the tourist trade, they damage the export trade and deny that country valuable income. By attacking tourism the terrorist is effectively attacking the countries wealth. Tunisia's wealth is not its hoard of money, its in its beaches, it scenery, its climate and in the goods and services it has to offer. In Scotland our golf courses are as valuable and as productive as our whisky industry, they are a real source of wealth, a national asset. Robert Burns has been dead over 200 years but is still part of the wealth of the Scottish nation. Money is not wealth, money expresses wealth, but only up to a point. If a nation's wealth declines its money loses value and a point arises when the money becomes worthless.
The free market economics that dominate all our public and private policy-making is a fraud and is destroying our society. It has destroyed Greece, is threatening to destroy the UK and is most certainly going to destroy the EU. The only way to avoid Scotland becoming independent is to abandon the austerity demanded by our neoliberal masters, and that is not going to happen. The Tories are going to produce an austerity driven programme over the next five years with consequences that we can only imagine, and austerity, as I continually warn you, is a lie. If the Greeks have any sense they will align themselves with Russia. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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