They are selling your future

One should never celebrate or make some kind of positive statement about any kind of politician or political party. Sooner or even sooner they will disappoint. I have been praising the right-centre government in Sweden for not wasting resources and of course they almost immediately announce extra billions on this or that.

First two positive things. One; they do not spend as much as the left would do. Second; this takes the edge of the last big “argument” the socialist has since this is the only thing they might gain momentum on; promising lots of billions they don’t have. I also have a slightly higher confidence in the current government’s ability to handle state finances. In other words, tactically speaking, this is a great move. The masterful tactician* and great politician* (*not a positive judgement) that Reinfeldt is, he knows this knocks the opposition for a second count. The socialists will of course claim this isn’t enough, but not with any credibility and without the lefties really explaining were all the extra billions comes from, this issue is pretty much dead.

But there it stops. This is stupid. The idiotic Swedish government is now, before the real crisis, wasting away reserves that will be needed and making more money available. All they need now is to print even more money and have some industry sector heading towards a big crisis and Sweden will end up beside UK and America in bad positioning. From now on (well pretty much already) all Sweden can do is borrow and once a government started to go down this road you can bet your life savings it will continue. And they will “need to” because as said, this is only the beginning. We have many years ahead of us with this recession and if (which it will) this recession goes over to be a full depression the game is over. The Swedish government is consequently selling out the country for some very expensive votes.

What they ought to be doing is to cut expenditures, a lot. There is several departments and governmental project that can be put to rest forever and there is still publicly own companies to sell, it might be at a low price, but it would be worth it. And let companies and banks fall, if they cannot make it, they shouldn’t. Higher unemployment and more people on social welfare at this stage might sound bad, but the alternative is worse. Also they should encourage higher interest rates (which hardly anyone else will agree with me on). This partly so people don’t spend their last savings and instead save more and partly for preventing any bubbles in the economy from growing. Lastly, IF they want to spend money, they should do it on cutting taxes or putting money on infrastructure and research, things that will come in handy if/when the crisis turns around.

We are going to have a crisis and it is going to last for a long while. And if I’m right, this will be really really bad before we might see the light. If the world’s economies don’t stop what they are doing, it might never end. People should demand a cut in expenditures from the government and local councils should be turning down this extra money, but intellect is a scarce commodity so I have no hope for that scenario.

Some great news

The United Kingdom’s public finances have deteriorated so much since November that the basic rate of income tax would need to rise by the equivalent of 8 percentage points to bring government borrowing back on track by 2015-16, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said on Monday. FT

Car sales in Britain have fallen by more than 200,000 in the first three months of the year, triggering fresh calls from the industry for a car scrappage scheme in this month's budget.
Guardian


Somali pirates have seized a British-owned cargo ship and a Taiwanese ship, maritime officials say, after capturing three other vessels over the weekend.

Japan is to implement another fiscal stimulus plan of more than 10tn yen ($99bn; £66bn) to fight the recession. It comes on top of 12tn yen of stimulus spending that has already been agreed. The new sum amounts to more than 2% of the annual output of Japan's economy.

MUMBAI: India's iron ore exports in the just-ended 2008/09 year may have fallen 8 per cent and could fall a further 15-20 per cent in 2009/10, a senior official at Essel Mining & Industries Ltd said on Monday.

Religious conviction is a disease

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