Monday, October 27, 2008

Financial Mess

I remember back in the late 70s early 80s wondering what monetarism was. Although being politically active since school, where I also studied politics, government and economics, I would never profess to be an expert on government finance. I was surprised back then to discover that monetarism turned out to be exactly what I thought it was, don't live beyond your means.

It seems to me now that the main reason for this current fnancial fiasco is people, and business, living beyond their means, including government. So the message seems to be, to me at any rate, that many individuals, businesses and government need to tighten their belts, pretty damn quickly and pretty damn severley. Like most things in politics and life I favour the simple and commonsense approach, it is usually pretty effective.

So I am confused at the moment, especially having read this article. A rash of public borrowing and spending may mask the problem, and give the government some very short term political benefit, but in the longer run we are even more knackered thanks to this irresponsible government response.

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