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| Traffic Warden |
Slough, yes Slough this town has had it in for me for years don cha know! It all started 21st October 1975 when I parked my car for a few minutes to get myself a potato masher from the local Do-It-Yourself hardware shop on Dingwall Street.
When I came out, with a rather dubious potato masher I hasten to add, a sodding Yellow Crested Parking Eagle had issued me with a parking ticket on behalf of the local borough council! I wasn't going to have that!! So I ran up to this animal and explained to it that the parking was an emergency and the potato masher was for Timmy, a small child who was confined to living in an isolation bubble, had not had a hug in three years and his previous potato masher had died after it had escaped into the polluted atmosphere of the Slough environs. That one nearly always wins but the bleedin Traffic Warden accused me of lying! Moir!? A liar!? Bloody disgrace! Well, admittedly it was a lie but that's not the point is it?! She said I was a liar!
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| Quantitative Easing |
Quantitative Easing, yes that's right Quantitative Easing, just what the blazes is it? I frequently have disappointing people approaching me in the street asking me such questions. You may recall an earlier post in which I described one such disappointment asking me in his dialect "Oi you fahckin cahnt why don chew fahck orff!!' Unfortunately I didn't have a translator handy so his question was lost to the wind. But I digress!
So what is Quantitative Easing I hear you say. I don't know about you but I have trouble spelling the blasted thing let alone having to explain it. Nevertheless, after much personal research I have managed to get to grips with it and will now attempt to explain it through analogy.
If you wish to replicate my explanation yourself at home with your family you will need the following;
An Economy
This is best represented through the use of a person. Economies are rather organic in their nature and not very scientific at all despite what economists tell you so a person fits the bill perfectly. I used five of these 'people.'
A Bank
Yes quantitative easing is all about those friendly, fascist, rip-orff, shitbags posing as nice institutions who look after your money so it is imperative to have them represented in this simulation. Again banks are just like people in that once they get hold of money they will fight to the death to keep hold of it no matter who they take down with em. For this simulation I suggest using a barman.
Money
Yes money. Money has been described as, "The perfect liquid asset" and with this in mind I think a liquid makes good sense too. For this analogy I lined up several dozen few bottles of gin.
The Bank of England
Obviously at the top of the pile this is the major player and it is imperative to get this in somewhere otherwise your simulation will be open to ridicule and we don't want any of that sort of thing do we. For this simulation I used a distillery
Right so simply place your barman behind a bar at a discreet distance, may be cleaning the glasses, you know the sort of thing and get your 'economy' to inflow the first 'money.' The 'Economy' is very pleased with this and therefore they all offer the 'bank' some of the 'money' as a sign of their contentment. Obviously not much happens here and in this case that reflects a perfectly healthy economic situation. The barman is happy polishing the glasses and enjoying a little drinkie and the 'economy' is happy has it has received an 'inflow.' Marvellous.
This inflow process carries on until both the 'Economy' (the people) and the 'bank' (the barman) are absolutely plastered out of their heads and I'm talking really gone here. No light tipsiness or feeling a little woozy, no sir! I really mean it! Soused, blotto, planked, totally and utterly newscasted.
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| Bank of England |
This situation represents the current economic crisis with both the 'economy' AND 'the bank' of no value at all to anyone. This is where 'the bank of england' (the distillery) steps in to quantitatively easy the situation to bring about a more healthy economy. You see what happens is that with both the 'economy' AND the 'bank' totally incapacitated, the owners of the distillery start shitting themselves as nobody has the ability to get their wallets out of their pockets due to their plasterediness nor even stand up straight. With nobody drinking their gin they will go bust, will have to sell their homes, move in to a council house thus leading to unhappiness which leads to depression and we all know what that leads to. Yes that's right global thermonuclear war and we don't want that do we?!
So this is where the quantitative easing comes in. The distillery (not wanting to end up in council run accomodation) starts distilling, or printin, more and more of its 'money' and simply hands it over to the barman to distribute to the 'economy' The idea being that with lots of free and cheap 'money' floating around everybody will eventually get bored of drinking it, start sobering up thus will be able to put their hands in their wallets and start eventually paying for the booze thus stimulating the 'economy' again and everything will be great.
What actually happens though is that with all that free 'money' flowing in to the pub the barman (bank) simply starts drinking the lot for himself and his chums and starts using it to pay for vast swathes of land and property across the globe for his own selfish bleeding greed and gluttony leaving the 'economy' completely starved of any 'money' at all.
The moral of this analogy? If you want to rob a bank just go and bloody work for one.
