Tim Price: Led by donkeys

from Tim Price a very good piece:
A terrific article by Tim Price on the execrable quality of governance currently in the UK and the US. Here are a few excerpts from "Led by donkeys"

Governments throughout the West have proven themselves functionally unable to steward their nations’ finances. Labour had already made the forced redistribution of wealth from rich to “poor” a core component of its policy since election in 1997 (the net income gain for the poorest decile in the UK has been 12%; the net income loss for the most affluent decile has been 15%. But poverty has now become an entirely relative rather than an absolute concept, defined as a level of household income below 60% of the median income, thus ensuring that within a socialist culture, the poor will always be with us, at least statistically if not in fact, no matter how affluent our society becomes as a whole. That culture bears the seeds of its own ultimate collapse; as Margaret Thatcher is rumoured to have said, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.)

and

Government finances are already hopelessly strained; they cannot be extended indefinitely. Future taxpayers have already been dreadfully mugged; all that remains is for them to wake up to the fact. Needless to say, few political parties or politicians are willing to make the extent of the pain to come remotely obvious or transparent. This past week’s UK Budget was a masterpiece of sleight-of-hand. No real hint of the heaviness of the axe to come. And the grotesque indebtedness of the government was portrayed as a glowing improvement in deficit finance. The budget deficit was £11 billion better than expected. What about the absolute level of that deficit, a figure amounting to some £167 billion ? We may or may not be lions, but we are certainly being led by donkeys.

Tim hits the nail on the head and I believe the Tea Party movement is an effort to deal with this problem of inept and corrupt political leaders. Neither of the US political parties is qualified to lead the student body of a mediocre high school. The modern media has been co-opted by the existing power structure and what used to be journalists trying to accurately present factual evidence is now nothing more than wannabe television personalities spouting "we are the world" and "all you need is love" philosophy with all the depth of a Brittany Spears lyric.

This is a perilous time financially in the world and the current crop of political leaders got us here. They will not get us out. Throw all the bums out! I realize that throwing all the politicians out of office is not enough but like the joke about the bus full of lawyers going over the cliff with 2 empty seats it is a good start.
(with apologies to some close and admirable relatives)