Quote: Originally posted by MartyM on 04/3/2009
Virtual rotten fruit duly pelted, Returnee.
We aint gonna get Zimbabwe here, before that we would get random South American countries & their economies still function, their people still work & eat.
As you say not much money actually exists in £20 notes, but thats only paper & gold is only metal, it has as much notional value as the figures that appear on your internet banking page on your PC.
Its about confidence & belief, people have always worked, traded & generated wealth, why? because they desire to do so, ok, you always have greedy gits, like bankers &/or criminals who want what they havent earned, & get it but the vast majority of us work for a living & we still have jobs, we just get on with it.
Various countries are different, over the centries, this country seems to have achieved position & status in the world far beyond what you would think from its size. Why is that, summat to do with the people that live here maybe?
Which brings us neatly back to the OP, why, if the economy is in meltdown arnt they selling half price caravans?
As I said earlier, possibly because things aint quite so bad as they appear on the BBC news.
This is getting way off topic for this forum - so I'll make this my last response, but in answer to your assertion:
Why on earth *shouldn't* we descend into a Rhodesian-style economy?
Our manufacturing base?, our role as a world financial centre?......sadly, no.
Manufacturing has all but ceased to exist - and even the things we do manage to cobble together (such as caravans) utilise mostly imported components. London will soon lose its position as a global economic giant as investors pull out and the emphasis switches to far eastern markets.
Our much vaunted 'service industry' (sic) is all that has propped us up for at least two decades - the manipulation and apparent creation of wealth that was never anything other than an illusory bubble.
Many of the decisions taken by politicians in the last quarter of a century are so breathtakingly perverse that one has to ask whether those who made them were guilty of gross incompetence, or are guilty of the calculated betrayal of this country.
For example; remember 'dash for gas'?, which went hand in hand with the deliberate destruction of a coal industry that had several hundred year's worth of reserves, in favour of a finite resource that, even in the 1980's, was known to be running out.
Who but a madman or a traitor would close coal mines and invest in a form of power generation that can now only be sustained by Russian imports, and which are subject to their whims?
This is only one example of the madness (or badness) that has left this nation as vulnerable as any 'third world' country - indeed, we are actually in a worse plight than many of them because they, at least, have natural resources to exploit, and we do not.
Much of their poverty is brought about by greed and corruption - by the refusal by those in power to distribute the wealth that accrues from their resources. However, they at least *have* these resources - we in Britain have nothing, we cannot even feed ourselves!
Back in the early 80's I heard a radio 4 programme about the Japanese economy, in which a prominent Japanese politician poured scorn on the American budget deficit (very modest in those days, when compared to the the colossal extent of current US debt).
The Japanese gentleman was of the opinion that Americans would have to adjust their thinking and adapt to what he called, 'the new reality' of Japanese economic power.
I can clearly remember how stunningly arrogant I felt those remarks to be - Japan, that overcrowded little country with no energy reserves of it s own, telling the United States to 'know its place'!
Such is the arrogance that thrives within bubbles. When push comes to shove, when Americans learn that they can survive without Japanese electronic gadgets, when all the glittering toys that have seduced them are seen for the foolish and worthless trinkets that they really are,, then America will still be able to feed her population - and the Japanese will starve.
Substitute shiny 'Financial Instruments ' for 'Walkman's' - and I'm afraid that we are talking about the UK...........
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'If it ain't broke, don't worry - it soon will be'
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Topic: Caravan Sales
