Brown Firmly Securing Stable door with Banking Changes
22nd Feb 2009 14:49:27
The media has decided that actually, there are stories more important than the most unlikable person in the world having cancer, and a violent thug having his already lenient (4 months out of 18) prison sentence for brutally beating a 16 year old boy with a gold club relaxed further by Jack Straw himself.
Honestly, the media in this country make me sigh. At the date and time of writing this article, BBC News, the Daily Mail, the Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian AND the Independent ALL had stories of Jade Goody marrying Jack Tweedy, and all but the Guardian and the Independent had pictures accompanying the headlines. Perhaps the definition of "News" and "Mindless Celebrity Gossip" have been interchanged while I'm not listening. It might sound a little harsh, and I certainly don't want Jade Goody to have cancer, even though I find her unlikable. I'd just like to read about news.
Oh, whatever. Anyway, breaks were taken to report on some actual news, and that news is the whole stable door, horses/bolting thing. Brown is to ban 100% mortgages on properties. Finally. Younger readers won't know this, but if you ask parents and grandparents, they'll tell you they had to put a "deposit" down for a house. I know, a crazy idea, right? This is Brown's Britain, we just borrow the money!
You might think I'm being a bit overly sarcastic about this - after all, regardless of anyone's perceived failings of Brown, the market has to be stabilized, and responsible lending can only be a good thing. Whilst of course, it's true, it's a clear-as-the-light-of-day admission by Brown that irresponsible and unregulated lending was a major cause (and I would go further to say that it was the root cause) of the recession.
But thank God the Government is borrowing sensibly. The government has been chipping away at the national debt, and has managed to reduce it to half it's previous figure. Oh no, sorry, they've increased it to 1.5 trillion quid. Now, I'm studying maths, so comprehending exactly what large numbers mean is quite easy for me, so here's what £1.5tr could buy you, if you had it floating round. (Oh, by the way, a trillion is a thousand billion, or £1,000,000,000,000, a one with twelve zeroes).
- About 10 million Lambourghini Sports Cars (at £150,000 a pop), OR
- 5 million Rolls-Royces (if comfort is more your thing), OR
- Employ 68million teachers for a year (at a yearly salary of £22K), OR
- 5 billion second-hand hatchbacks (at an average price of £3,000. The cars could then be stacked, one on top of the other, to reach about 450 million miles high, getting on for twice the distance from the earth to the moon), OR
- 150 trillion penny sweets (what? Someone had to say it).
Ignoring the silly analogies for the moment, and just making one sensible one, the debt works out (at 65million people in the UK) to more than £23,000 EACH. That's every man, woman and child, the young and the old. Every one of us will owe 23 grand. Don't take my word for it, either. It's not some Tory think-tank that's punched out the numbers, it's the ONS (Office of National Statistics) themselves.
- The Guardian
It's an astonishing legacy that Gordon Brown will leave with.
Submit this Story to the following Social Networking Sites:
