I’ve seen the future & it will be, I’ve seen the future & it works
It has been 10 years since your humble correspondent was last did the walk of shame twixt the fleshpots of Asia & 11 years since he was last in China: not much has actually changed other than the pace of change itself which continues to remorselessly accelerate. As Bill Bailey once said on the subject of telling jokes
three blokes walk into a pub ... & the whole scene unfolds with a sickening inevitability.
Our economy is a bit like that. In the West, ever increasing burdens are heaped upon the dwindling pool of the economically active. In fact, it is no longer a ‘pool’, more of a fast evaporating puddle. Any incentive to actually work & create wealth has all but been removed & replaced by bloated social welfare schemes that cripple the economy with unsustainable levels of taxation. They have little benefit save for affording increasing numbers of the population the opportunity of lounging around at home all day while on the taxpayers nickel, watching debt consolidation advertisements & reruns of Murder She Wrote.
Just remember that the next time you see a posturing government minister disgorging a whole raft of policy initiatives in an attempt to deflect attention from whomsoever has been making them undisclosed campaign donations: they are not announcing a war on drugs … illegal immigration … gun crime … puppy farms … the gratuitous use of unlicensed doilies in built up areas during the hours of darkness or indeed whichever increasingly absurd must solve crisis it is this week. Indeed it is probably not just me the feels that to be flying both in the face of common sense while declaring jihad upon anything that could remotely be construed as a coherent social & economic policy, is quite an achievement . As concurrent activity goes, that really does take some doing.
While we in the West devote increasingly column inches to the relative merits of unceasingly unproven renewable energy sources, in Asia in general & China in particular they are getting on with the grubby business of making things - & making things in ever increasing quantities. Last week I stood in an office in Western China & frankly marvelled at how the progress than had been made on a particular project. In 11 months they had got further than anyone in the UK could have done in 3 years. & you wonder why their foreign currency reserves are so high? Well just look round the office. There everyone is at their desks doing something & when I say doing something I don’t mean passing the time away on the internet, trying to book a SleazyJet flight to Malaga so that you can go on this weekends violencebingedrinkcasualsex-o-thon.
Back in London, the majority of the populous seem more concerned with trying to either slab their neighbours to death or spending as much of the day as possible in Starbucks, reading about the latest celebraty sob-in because Colleen’s new ‘celluite busting diet’ isn’t working.
China doesn’t seen to have time for that sort of nonsense; people are too busy doing things & making stuff to worry about whether Taz has gone on a 72 hour alco-pop Vicodin binge because Dazza from boy band Useless has been photographed with a failed Big Brother contestant, coming out a nightclub where the music is not only truly atrocious but also so loud that to spend more than 5 minutes there is to incur at best, irreversible hearing damage.
Europe in particular has removed the financial imperative to getting out of bed in the morning, going to your place of employment & doing a full days work. China on the other hand fully comprehends what it takes to compete in a globalised economy & is doing something about it. If we continue on the course we have currently set, I can tell you what the future will hold & I can also tell you that it hurts.
Comments
"We" aren't the ones that set our course just as the chinese aren't the ones that set theirs. Our plight and theirs too is by design, slow and subtle, but design none the less.
Communism was designed and built in Britain (when we still made things) albeit with immigrant labour. The communistic roots of China were laid in by lost soul English social scientist types such as Bertrand Russell. Mao was funded by the Illuminists and China has long been seen as the blueprint for the worker beehive model they would like to impose upon the rest of the world.
I prefer Britains when they make things of more substance than the vacuous squeels of mindless enthusiasm they reserve for the latest reality tv televisual mindrot. The fact that we don't, is a result of top down planning. One little known example of this is the loss of ship building, apparently due to the uncompetitiveness of our shipyards. The root of their demise lies not in overly expensive shipwrights, but in the agreement Margaret Thatcher struck with Germany. Flush the cash surpluses from North Sea oil and still in need of settling the war reparations debt we owed Germany, the Iron Lady settled the debt ahead of schedule on the condition that UK shipyards would be "wound down" so as to leave the path free for German shipyards.
Once the chinese have served their purpose they will be discarded, and then the Brits can show them all how to live on social services, our new chief export industry for the 21st century.
Posted by: Paul | January 29, 2008 10:23 PM
Paul is right, Modern China is a creation of the west. And when China is no longer useful, or they think/Act above their station... The plug will be pulled.
Posted by: Larry Graham | January 29, 2008 10:54 PM
Paul are you sure? War reparations went the other way and only after WW1. We had a massive debt to the USA which I believe has now been cleared. UK shipyards stopped being competitive when we stopped buying Naval ships. Honestly when did we last have a navy worthy of the name 1982? That was scraped together. Civilian shipbuilding died when flags of convenience were accepted allowing Liberian flagged ships to trade between the UK and the world. No need for UK based shipping lines as the Koreans can build them cheaply and quicker than the poles and germans.
Posted by: TimC | January 30, 2008 12:13 PM
Hi Tim -
I am sure. We declared war on Germany due to their attack on Poland. Very little that we receive from so-called authoritative channels can be trusted - you know, history is always written by the victors and therefore is oft far removed from truth.
We have Mr Churchill to thank also for the loss of what was left of empire. The US took full advantage of that and in less than 60 years have flushed any legacy they may have used wisely, down the toilet.
It is not us, the little people, who cause all this mayhem, but our erstwhile psychologically damaged sociopathic leaders whose modus operandi is now well past its sell by date.
As Buckminster Fuller accurately observed:
"The end game in politics is to pick up a gun".
Posted by: Paul | January 30, 2008 9:10 PM
I think Paul is wrong about Churchill, FDR wanted to end our Empire and at that time there was a little bit of strife in what is now the EU. One thing is certain, without Churchill, and his friends, we would be fluent in deutch, or perhaps Ruski. As for our shower of shit leaders, or would be leaders, they are beyond contempt. Wilson and heath were the first and major villains, Thatcher just delayed the death, as good as she was.The current group of helmsmen are just clowns, believing they are great steerers cos they missed theislands and boulders, not realising we are headed for Niagra.Cross you fingers for me, I have a job offer and immigration lawyer in Canada!!
Posted by: Chris Edwards | January 30, 2008 9:41 PM
Hi Chris -
Agree with all you said except (obviously) the bit about Churchill. He was a shill for the PTB (Powers That Be). His indebtedness compromised his position and he effectively worked as a frontman for the Rothschilds. They paid off his debts, he became their donkey.
He was a liar, psychopath and utterly useless as a commander; see Gallipoli. Kitchener opposed him on that and was done away with in an appalling act of betrayal.
You may want to check a recent audio interview (Jan 2007) with englishman T Stokes under the Post "Churchill Hitler & The Occult" at: http://www.thefreepress.org.uk/
It is massively useful.
Posted by: Paul | February 1, 2008 3:49 PM