General Election (8th June, 2017)

[I_am_not_mafia]

I remember a British skit show from years ago when they were supposedly interviewing one of the founders of the Greens.  When asked what their defence strategy is, the answer was, "We're going to build a large hedge around Britain..."

It was Alas Smith and Jones.

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If you are thinking of voting Conservative because you don't want a repeat of Labour in the 70's, realise that the world is a very different place now. The Soviet Union collapsed over a quarter of a century ago and we left the gold standard a long time before that. Governments no longer have to fear the spread of Communism, which used to be the typical means by which fascist parties convinced authoritarian governments to give them power. We live in an economy that has to exponentially grow for it to be stable. Standard economic doctrine is around 2% a year to avoid a deflation. But economies such as ours grow by lending and the increase in debt. We have no choice but to get further in debt. The question is whether we want to get further into personal debt or whether the government should. Debt increases the money supply and always outstrips the amount of money because it has to be paid back with interest. A vote for the Tories means that you think personal debt should grow because of a cut in services, reduced funding for academia and other investments in the future, higher tuition fees, lower wages, higher house prices and higher cost of living. Labour may be the party of tax and spend, but the Conservatives are the party of backhanders and selling off national assets at reduced prices. Often to foreign state owned companies who use it to reduce prices in their own country. Or to corporations who are legally obliged to maximise shareholder profit. Which means a higher cost of living for you, less chance to form savings and greater pressure to get into debt. Shoppers laden with personal debt have less money to spend which depresses the economy.