From time to time I like to send letters to some good friends of mine who now live in Cyprus. I like to keep them abreast of events in dear old Blighty and, as we share the shame warped sense of humour, the letters usually contain a slice of life as I see it. This correspondence is titled, Letters from home and it begins with the price-hike in crude oil, and slips neatly into the start of the credit crunch, and the Northern Rock cock-up, and it’s dated 27/10/08.
Dear ex pats. You may have heard that dear old Blighty is a tad short in the old ‘wedge’ department. Well my British chums, this does seem to be the case, but who’s to blame? Well that’s still under discussion over here. Mr Brown is blaming the yanks. The yanks are blaming the oiks in the sub-prime market, who couldn’t pony up the dough for their mortgages, when the price of gas and food went through the roof. Now, call me old fashioned, but why did the prices go up in the first place, moreover, where did the problem really begin? Pull up a petunia and I’ll give my version of the events. Please set your visual receptors to radical.
Bush and Blair decided to look for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), in a land far, far away that just happened to have an inordinate amount of crude oil. Did they find any WMD? No, in brief, not even the bloke in local tourist information kiosk could help them. Did they pop over to Iraq to grab some free crude? Well, I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Did Bush and Blair upset any of the other members of OPEC? Oooh you bet your bippy they did! Wallop! Up went the price of sweet crude. It was priced at $80 a barrel at the time, then, surprise surprise, six months later a barrel of ‘go-juice’ topped out at $153. The knock-on effect, of course, was that the cost of all things transported went up too, three in some cases. And it wasn’t long before the inflated prices were past on to the masses.
The timing was perfect for the stock market to step in and secure the latest recession. The ‘buy, sell, dollar, Mark’ brigade, in my humble opinion, they should be hung, drawn and quartered and then hung again. In all intents and purposes it’s a ‘money for old rope’ job. I wouldn’t mind so much, but the money isn’t theirs, and come to think of it, neither is the rope! Let’s take the futures market for example, what a plum career that is. Shit, I could do that job lying in bed! If I’d have known, when I left school that you could apply for a job guessing for a living, I would’ve taken it! I looked on a job search site last week in fact, but I didn’t see a single advert saying, WANTED – ONE OMNIPOTENT.
While the banks are in a state of panic, the reliable British Post Office has reintroduced four old accounts that were used by millions of UK residence during the 40’s and 50’s. The Under the floorboard account, the Mattress account, and the Shoebox account. If you’re all ready using the popular, Shoebox & Mattress combined account, you’ll reap the benefits of a 3% bonus at Christmas, which will then be taxed at 4% in the New Year.
So, who’s going to bail out the people who have had their pensions reduced, their income slashed, and now can’t afford to pay their mortgages because they’re unemployed? That’s right, you and me, the ‘little’ people, the ones who can least afford it, and haven’t got a bloody clue how we got in this state in the first place! In banking terms this is called, the fungi effect. The clients are kept in the dark, for months at time, and crapped on twice a day. As plebs our job is to pull together so we can save the careers of the higher echelons of our great city. Two bank mangers have already handed in their resignations, but don’t fret, they won’t have to go through the depressing act of signing on or losing the their homes and cars, because they were due to retire in four days anyway.
So how can we help the poor rich? Well for a start you can begin by having a good root around at the back of our sofas and armchairs, slash open the material at the back if you have to. Empty your child’s piggy bank, and send the contents, however small, straight to a stock broker. You may have one living in your street. If so, just tip what you’ve found through their letterbox. Next, rally your friends, and see if anyone is willing to retire at the age of 106. The extra tax will come in handy. You could write to the BBC and suggest that Blue Peter starts an appeal, and if you could cancel Christmas that will be a great help too. The cash you’ve saved can be posted directly to the stock exchange. And finally, petition your local MP, and ask for a fresh air tax can be introduced. Once a FAT has been implemented all UK nationals except: Royalty, people who think they’re Royalty, tennis club members (much the same thing), Lords and MP’s and all of their relatives, and of course, the stock brokers, will be fitted with an oxygen cylinder and pay-as-you- go meter, and if you can’t keep up the payments, well I’m sure you get the picture.
Part two of, Letters from home will include: who else could help if they wanted to? And, new currency for the plebs. And in part three I’ll take a look at, new currency for the stinking rich. What about the interest on my account? Where will my new bank be? (plebs only) And, where will my bank be if I’m loaded?
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