Dr Bollocks has, throughout his long and variable career, conducted studies on the nature of underdogs. This has led him to posit that there is a correlation between being an underdog, being on the on the side of underdogs, and leaving underdogs on the side of one’s plate. In short, it is not necessarily a dog-eat-dog world, but it is going to the dogs. This morning, the Good Doctor focuses on Top Dog solutions to Underdog problems.
I have just attended a very important meeting in the German Finance Ministry, given by an old fellow in a wheelchair. It was on the subject of his new discovery, ceiling wax. The invalid – whose name I think was Ausgang Schäublegruber – described the trend noted throughout the world (but as yet only noted by a few of us living on the ceiling) for those ceilings to move upwards without warning.
It is Herr Sillybugger’s hypothesis that the substance pushing the ceilings upwards towards the heavens is paper money. As evidence of this, he cites the obvious fact that wherever there are places full of worthless paper money such as financial districts and Government departments, within a few short years their ceilings rise to create buildings in excess of 120 storeys. It is a compelling argument, albeit one that has not been field-tested as such yet. Now, however, he has perfected the answer to this problem of inflation.
Schnebel’s solution is the development of a new super-wax so devoid of friction, it can be painted onto all ceilings – so that instead of pushing upwards, the currency will slide sideways and out of the windows, banishing unrepayable debt forever while ensuring that the debt ceiling stays firmly in place.
What is more, he maintains that the money raining down from the windows will remove the need for any jobs or social security to be provided: bankers and bureaucrats will be free to keep on wasting money while feckless Üntermenschen keep on spending it. It was, he said, a perpetual virtuous circle.
Andrew McMarbles of the BBC asked him if this hadn’t already been tried in the form of Quantitative Easing, at which point Mr Stübeleingang shot him for insubordination.
“Your fate is now sealed,” he observed, “and soon our ceilings will be waxed, Englischer Dummkopf”.
“Scottische Dummkopf,” McMarbles gurgled from the floor, before breathing his last.
Once more I am in demand in the corridors of Whitehall, as Mrs May’s Democracy of National Unity looks on anxiously at the Russian bear out of its cage and daring to snatch salmon from beleaguered British fisherman in the English Channel. So I am pleased to announce that I will join the Government’s Escalation Think Tank in the near future, on the assumption there might be one. A future I mean, not a tank. There will definitely be at least one tank.
While inside the Tank (a 1983 army surplus FV107 Scimitar) we will be given complete freedom to think outside the box about any form of suitably provocative escalation costing less than £15 – or as it will be next week, £4.
The current Secretary of State Mr Felon and I have had several constructive meetings to date, and I note that since then he has agreed with NATO that Britain will station eight G4S security guards on the Estonian border as “a credible deterrent and not just posturing”.
Discretion is of the utmost importance in such matters, but I can confirm that several schemes come to mind. One leading idea I’m running up the flagpole between the box and the tank ceiling (as yet unwaxed) is to put Jeremy Hunt in a sealed train to Moscow, offering him as a Peace Envoy tasked with the job of restoring normality in Russo-NATO relations. My expectation is that, within weeks, Jeremy will have the entire Russian army out on strike, the civilian nuclear shelters and hospitals in a state of underfunded chaos, and Sir Philip Green in place with the job of privatising Putin’s naval fleet by Christmas.
You know, as I look around me and see this marvelous world we have selflessly created for ourselves – without a thought for our own safety while wiping out entire continents of predators, vermin and savages – I do wonder more and more why so many people are dissatisfied with their lot. Never in the field of human debt have so many owed so much to so few, or so few owned so much and yet paid so little to so many, while at the same time spent so much on so many with so little effect on any. I think we would all do well to remember this.
Let us remember many other things we take for granted.
We are all living longer, but complain that the taxes we paid have proved insufficient for sorely pressed governments to look after us now – governments who only overspent in the first place to keep us well-defended, healthy, happy, and at all costs voting for them. How selfish of us to castigate our leaders for breaking promises – when our part of the bargain, surely, was to pop off quietly just before the pension became due. We cannot cheat the actuaries and then expect the Department where they work not to cheat us.
A mere four thousand years ago, Britain was ravaged by giant sabre-toothed tigers. Today, they are a thing of the past. We have not had a plague worth talking about for 450 years. 800 years ago, one could be hung without trial or indeed a safety-net for hunting the King’s deer. A mere 170 years ago, you could be sentenced to 20 years hard labour for stealing sixpence. Today, you can murder your entire family, and be out with good behaviour after eight months. If this isn’t progress, then I don’t know what is.
Every year, world gdp grows by a least 1.5%, but the cost of that falls by 3% thanks to the firing of quite well off people over here in favour of the employment of very poor people over there. The advantage of this approach is that wealth inequalities level out, the fired people go to live in a neighbourhood you wouldn’t dream of driving through, and the very poor people are at least 8,000 miles away where you can’t hear them moaning or – even if you did – understand what they might be on about.
This means, for example, that three pairs of socks can be purchased for just £4…..or very soon £15, living proof that the inflation we all seek is making a comeback. Fully 700,000 new jobs have been created in the UK since 2010, the hours required to fulfil these being so brief, many people are able to take on second or even third jobs. Growth continues, new jobs appear, stock markets rise, the cost of credit falls and our houses increase in value. Yet all we hear about is ill people, old people and mad people. Almost three quarters of the population are none of these things. In 1789 France, everyone was ill, old or mad. So much so, the country was run by a family of biscuits.
Rejoice! The bad old world is far behind us. Britain has more billionaires than ever before, more cars than ever before, more food banks than ever before, and more porn channels than ever before. Why be poor, pacing the pavements, hungry and frigid when you could – with just a little more application – be wealthy, behind the wheel of a Korean safari jeep, obese and sexually insane?
Set out before all of us is a world of plenty. Plenty of people are fooling around part of the time, and plenty of people are fooled all of the time, but it doesn’t require plenty of people to fool around with other people’s money much of the time if they fool around with plenty of money every time. So for a time, plenty of media people talk about a new paradigm, but in time all of the people wind up asking buddy can you spare a dime.
Be happy with your lot, that’s my motto.
The Slog 