Capitalism?

Well, here we are, finally found a discontinuity on which to fulminate. Sorry, but it is my old friends (emphatically old - in thinking, if not in chronology) the Conservatives that have raised from my somnambulance.

Just to reiterate the Conservative mantra - the market is king, it will ensure efficiency and delivery of the best possible product to the people at the best possible price. Hallelujah, praise the lord, we shall be saved by the beneficence of the capitalist soldiers, fearlessly forging a path to a brave new world. A world where there is eternal growth, where living standards rise like the smoke plumes and gas flares which presage industrial success. Indeed, a world where resources never run out, where climate change means sunshine for all, and everybody is a millionaire (oops, that is sounding just a bit like Interwar Germany, and we know where that went, don't we?)

The latest wheeze of the strong, stable, Cameron Conservative Government of London is to further inflate the housing bubble by finessing a path to allowing 95% mortgages on houses (old and new) costing up to £600,000. So far, so blah, but think on a bit - what happened to the market? That anthropomorphic entity seems to have gone AWOL. Surely, if there is a pent-up demand for housing, with people slavering for a hit of mortgage fiefdom, why cannot the marketeers come up with a cheaper house? But hold again, surely houses do not actually cost that much to build? Perhaps, dear readers, there is another agenda, not unknown to business persons - squeeze supply and the price goes up, which means, of course, more profit for the builder (or the financer of the builder), and the poor old consumer gets shafted. Happy days! Hallelujah. The government comes along and finds a way to provide a flock of new sheep for the fleecing or lambs for the slaughter and the market goes about its rapacious ways unencumbered by market forces. What price now that holy grail of small government? Where is the light hand on the tiller of the great HMS England (same plans as used for Titanic, but using the same steel as used for the original Tay Bridge - that of silvery fame and disastrous construction)? Gone missing, too busy flogging the family silver for a mess of pottage.

The current Conservative thought processes seem a lot like positive feedback loops - which never end well, as any student of science will tell you. Still, who can show me a conservative who ever listened to a scientist? Hype and snake-oil, smoke and mirrors - the stock in trade of today's Conservative Elites. Mind you, doesn't say much for the perspicacity of our fellow persons who lap it up. Cowering in the gutter, mumbling that it would surely be worse if there were a socialist in charge. Pathetic, sniveling wretches, twitching in response to the puppeteers. Dare to hope, we have little to fear but fear itself.