The Bleeding Obvious

I am not sure what amazes me more....

Is it that the Bank of England has finally caught up with Bozo?
Bozo, as you all know has been predicting lower growth, lower house prices and a fall in the stock market for a long while, and, today the Bank's re-forcast will fall into line.

Is it that they were so wrong in the first place?
Well so were many other people - only two weeks ago some think tank predicted ten per cent rise in house prices this year. I mean seriously!

Or is it that some politicians think that by saying often enough that everything is all right (when it clearly isn't) that, somehow, everything will be all right. The economics of the Ostrich?

Or is it that those same dim witted people want to criticise the Government for talking openly about spending and job cuts, as if in reverse ostrichness that by talking about the facts, they reduce confidence yet more.

Of course as a communications guru I do accept that what we say and how we say it does matter.

BUT.

The first thing any communication strategist should say to a client is that they need to understand and respect their audience.

Spending cuts, and job cuts, following Gordon Brown's mortgaging of the next 50 years of our economic prosperity in the great goal of the minimum wage and the the black hole of the NHS. Such statements may raise an eyebrow among regular readers who know Bozo's deep socialist beliefs. But socialism is not served by doubling the funding of a public service in order to achieve a 5% improvement in services. Socialism, dear Gordon, is not served by stupidity. Socialism is not served by believing the bullshit of the City cowboys.

Anyway, I digress.

The point is that, the English electorate is not a totally dim-witted audience.

Sure they have become shallow in their analysis of issues.
Sure they have the attention span of lesser spotted grebes.
Sure they watch too much awful reality TV,

They frequently in fact behave in dim-witted ways!
BUT
They are not actually stupid...

If Dave n Nick were to stand up and say "don't worry we can cure this economic disaster without anyone suffering" the public would know it was disingenuous bull-poo.

The economic suffering that will be forced on the average working man in the balance of 2010 and 2011 is "the Bleeding obvious"

City cowboys, immune from much of that suffering may still think asset prices look cheap, but that's because they aren't about to have their house repossessed.

The reason socialism is actually a good idea (I am talking about the concept not any specific form of delivery) is that in the modern western world we live in a society that is integrated.

Anyone who thinks that house owners or the stock market are immune from the wash on effects of the suffering of the ordinary working man is an idiot.

And it's about time we had politicians who spoke openly.
Who told us the truth, even when it;s not what we want to hear.

And all of those people who think that stating the bleeding obvious is damaging to confidence is insulting the intelligence of the consumer.

Comments

[Bozo]

Hello David, how's your squash game?
I am pleased you were provoked to enter the debate, because, although its an arguable point (!) that the purpose of the Bozo Blog is provocation as well as (management) education.

So I agree with you that bailing out the financial system which was a major (but not the sole) contributor to the fiscal meltdown was necessary and possible refundable.

The issue for me is that the planned investment created a black hole even before the banking collapse - and it created it because of the myth, spun to Gordon and believed that the farcical way the banks were operating would continue to fund the investment for the rest of all time in a painless way. I hold Gordon accountable for that. Because in so wanting to believe it, he, as Chancellor and as Pm actually encouraged it and made it worse.

If we hadn't been investing (planned) more than we could afford in public services we could have taken the knock of the banking collapes more easily on our chin. The proof of this is the faster return of Euroland (Germany in particular) to positive growth.

The other thing is that - and like you i am a poor business consultant not a government planner - i tend to feel you should judge the success of planned investment on the returns it delivers.

I am not saying the improvements aren;t improvements. I am saying that given the level of investment we should have got much, much more for our money.

I hold Gordon accountable for that too.

Many readers, Bozo's Antagonist for a start will be smiling at me arguing against public spending in this vicious way, so let me clarify some things.

I believe in socialism. I believe that a society that cuts loose 99% of the poor because they don;t like the 1% that defraud the system will rapidly become a society none of us actually want to live in.

I do not believe that rich people or businesses (in the main, there are exceptions) in the 21st century give a toss about anyone but themselves, and therefore someone else needs to take responsibility for providing for those less fortunate. And yes, luck plays a part.

I also believe that ANY government has to be accountable for its successes and failures and, if anything, a Socialist government needs to be better, because i expect more of them. Gordon and his cronies buggered it really badly. We cannot let them off just because their core beliefs may be laudable.

[Dmbooth]

I've got to take issue with you Bozo about your comments on "Gordon Brown's mortgaging of the next 50 years of our economic prosperity in the great goal of the minimum wage and the the black hole of the NHS...".

Two points:
1)it's important to distinguish between a) planned investment in improving public services or alleviating socio-economic disadvantage b) fiscal strategy that left the UK economy overstretched when the global economic crisis occurred and c) emergency funding (some of which the taxpayer could get back in due course) to avoid a meltdown of the financial system that would have had even more dire consequences. It amazes me that no-one appears to have clearly and simply spelt out the relative contribution of each of these to 'the UK debt' (a sign of the communication weakness that contributed significantly to Labour's election result).
The examples you use are in a); c) was arguably necessary; and only b) is where criticism could fairly be levied. (The criticism that the Government should have taken action given the high impact risks in the global financial system is also valid, but applies to many other countries - and should be tempered with the understanding that unilateral action that affected UK's economic competitiveness would also have been criticised during the years of growth!)

2) I disagree also with your criticism of the NHS investment. This was a planned strategy to increase resources and capacity to a)make significant improvements in treating heart disease and cancer; b)improve the evidence base and national implementation of effective treatment(NICE); and c)reduce waiting times to a level (18 weeks maximum)that removed one of the key inequalities that meant those that could afford it would choose private care. A relative reduction in the level of investment was also planned for the next phase, including driving forward productivity (cost effectiveness) improvements that were building momentum at both commissioner and provider level. And, as I'm sure you know from your work with organisations, the benefits of such systems change take several years to materialise - and need consistency and reinforcement of strategy and ownership throughout the system (which has now been thrown into disarray by the unsignalled Lansley reforms). Again, it has been a telling failure of the Labour Party to articulate this, allowing the current Coalition 'positioning' an unhindered ride into public acceptance.

There is a critical need to restore balance and objectivity in the face of the Coalition PR bulldozer, not just to regain effective political debate, but so that proposed policies, actions and their consequences can be considered objectively. The success of the Coalition in setting public perception and establishing a positioning that allows unfettered such radical reform - most of which was not part of any pre-election strategy debate - is another extremely concerning example of the paucity of political debate in the UK today (and the propensity to accept glib, superficial, or populist comments). That is why - regardless of political orientation - I feel it is important to challenge any statement that might not help present a balanced and objective analysis of the situation.