European Union Blues

Isn’t it lovely to see and feel the return of spring once again. The leaves are unfurling, the flowers blooming, and the insects, my food, are taking advantage of this fresh new season. Oddly, and quite unlike certain members of your government, Bob has built his own duck house, although none have actually visited it as yet. Anyway, for the moment, I’m taking advantage of this floating masterpiece to compose my blog. Ribbit!!

Once again, I have to own up and say that I’m hopping mad. Why is it that humans always seem to believe in the things that they assume can do them the most harm, rather than in the opposite? Here, I’m talking about the European Union and those among you who advocate that Britain leaves it. In other words, they want the British to becomes isolated once again. Croak!!

Let’s get one thing straight. Leaving the union could turn out to be one of the most harmful events that the British could bring upon yourselves. Why? Because, among other things it will make doing business with the European market suddenly very, very expensive. I dread to think of the countless thousands of jobs that will be lost. All businesses that currently trade between themselves and the community, would suddenly find that they are no longer competitive with their former European market traders. As you are well aware, your manufacturing is already in tatters, unfortunately a legacy of the Thatcher years, and since then continued by the Labour party. Can Britain truly afford to isolate itself from Europe and go it alone? I really don’t think so, Croak!!.

On top of this, what is it about you all that drives you bite the hand that feeds you? How many very expensive community projects throughout Britain, have been completed to date, and every single one made possible only through your membership of the European Union? I can tell you that it’s thousands, and worth a total of hundreds of millions of pounds in EEC grants. Yes, this country does put a lot into being a member, but don’t forget that it also takes a whole lot out of it too. Ribbit!!

Many people today, scattered throughout all political parties, have never liked Britain entering the European Union. These people often talk about losing sovereignty, a poor excuse if you ask me, and since when has anyone had a hold over what the British government wants to do? Do you really want the old system to return, the one that saw you pulling out your passports every time you went from one European country to another? Have you any idea as to just how much the British would be hated by all the European states, if it was to actually pull out of the union at this time? This is already being discussed in certain European countries, and they are serious. Croak!!

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again for those of you who missed it the first time round. Why do you think that Britain, or at least certain people within Britain, don’t want you to have the Euro? I’ll tell you, it’s partly because a great many very greedy people make money, pots of money, every time you leave and return to Britain on your holidays or casual visits, like shopping sprees, etc. Even more so, it’s when British businesses deal with the European states. The greedy people want the British currency to stay this way, simply because trading in currencies is worth millions to them. However, since the Euro is worth about the same as the pound in your pocket, you’d actually lose very little, if anything, from a change in the deal to take on the Euro. However, greedy currency dealers would have to look elsewhere to ply their trade. Ribbit!!

Perhaps it’s that you are one of these people who think that we should keep the pound, though technically, there is no advantage to Britons in doing so. Perhaps it’s that you like to look at the Queen’s portrait every now and again, if only to give you a sense of belonging? I should think that the only people who would fear, or be terrified by a change of currency, are those who stand to lose heavily by it happening. I mean to say, imagine that you are some kind of crook, and that you have millions of crisp pounds stashed away somewhere, a place that remains hidden from prying eyes. If a change of currency was to come about, you’d feel more than a little ticked off about it, now wouldn‘t you? After all, you could hardly wander into your local bank and casually ask them to change it for the new currency, now could you? The bank would have much more than a few questions to put to you, though it would probably coincide with the dulcet tones of our boys in blue, speeding round to help the bank with their enquiries. Croak!!

Seriously though, trading with others has been a part of social life for thousands of years, but suddenly, Britain, or certain people who live here anyway, find the need to stand alone in society. Britain’s economy cannot afford to go it alone, as they seem to think. Do you seriously consider that this country can survive on tourism alone, because this is about all that Britain has left to offer. Trade means jobs and security for everyone. Take that trade away, and the economy will most certainly crash. How do you think that you get along without jobs, or the means to live in society? Croak!!

Don’t believe anyone who tells you that Britain, and you lot, would be better off by pulling out of the European Union. These people would be among the very first to leave a sinking ship. Talk about European Union Blues... Ribbit!!

Froggy

Media News, or is it?

A very happy new year to one and all….

Even though the weather is still very much against my doing the gardening, there is always something that needs my attention, for example; a little pruning here, some tidying there. It never fails to surprise me just how much detritus gathers in all the out of the way places, dark nooks and crannies. These are the left over’s from late autumn and early winter, and they have to be cleared away if next summer’s garden is to look at its best.

With Froggy still in hibernation, other creatures that are forced to live the winter out in the cold have to search for things to eat. That my garden has its resident robin proves that there is food available, even if it does take some ferreting about to find it. For all the other birds, I do my best to keep the feeders well stocked and some standing water free of ice, something that’s almost impossible where the pond is concerned, it‘s just too big.

This week I want to talk about my views of Britain’s media and the news it provides us with. With all that is happening within Britain’s economy lately, one has to seriously wonder whether the media is not making matters worse in their fight to keep it alive?

Take the winter weather for instance. If we get a bit of snow, these reporters blow it up out of all proportion and usually beyond what I, and indeed most around my age would see as being truly serious. Get a bit of snow on the ground, let’s say two centimetres, and today’s young motorists simply have no idea how to drive their cars around in it. The result, it gets news headlines. I can recall winters that regularly saw drifts of snow as high as ten feet or more and presented us with difficulty in getting into work five miles away, but we got there. Today’s drivers would be well and truly jiggered in conditions like that. I think that they have gotten soft and want a relatively easy time of getting around, just so long as it‘s not snowing.

Only the other day, one young journalist ranted on about a pond being frozen over, well, I had to laugh when the older couple remarked that it was nothing, since in their younger days, they would skate over the pond every time it froze, but it certainly wasn’t damned well newsworthy like it appears to be today.

On to our economy. Have you noticed all of this doom and gloom the media keeps on spouting each and every day? Well, I have and I’m damned well sick and tired of it. You know what? If someone keeps on repeating something for long enough, even a lie, in the end this can be made to sound like the truth. This is what the media is doing to us and our economy. Crikey, I can remember that it wasn’t that many years ago when the FT 100 was around 4,500 and the country was getting along swimmingly. Now that it’s at this level today, the economy is suddenly going to the dogs, if the media has its way.

I believe that if this country is going to pick itself up off the ground and get back to profitability once more, then we really must shake off this cloak of doom and gloom. For instance, all of you people out there who enjoyed the rich pickings of your investments before the world went totally mad and announced a collapse in the economy, why aren’t you investing again for the future? Crikey, the tax payer owns the banks and money couldn’t be safer than it is today. If you keep on believing that these same shares will never rise again, then perhaps that’s just what will happen, but I very much doubt it and so should you.

If you are one of those who fall in line behind the media and believe in what they keep on preaching to us, then you don’t deserve to make anything from the stock market or whatever. The biggest trouble with today’s economy is that we have stock brokers who panic at the slightest hiccough in the market. They are more interested in the massive bonuses they can make from their jobs, than to ensure that we all profit from the way the economy is supposed to grow year in, year out.

Another thing that the media is guilty of, and here I speak about certain television channels, and that was to start this whole charade off in the first place. They alone were responsible for driving their viewers to want dreams that weren’t realistically achievable. I speak here about programmes like: A Place in the country. Location, Location, Location. Grand Designs. Houses under the hammer, along with several others. These programmes offered a dream, yes, but to any person with an ounce of common sense, they offered these dreams to those who could obviously afford it, not to those who could barely afford to make ends meet by the end of each month.

Of course, banks were also responsible for lending money that was obviously far beyond the means of the borrower in the first place. I cannot recall any other time in my life where a bank would offer you money, and then not bother to find out if you could afford to pay it back or not. Further, the eventually spiralling price of property fed these impossible dreams like there was no tomorrow. Now, we live in a period where house prices have dropped to an average price of around one-hundred and sixty thousand pounds. From the way I see it, they need to drop to the price they were at before all of this madness began. As froggy once said, a sixty-thousand pounds house is worth just that, no more.

Out of all this chaos, there are many out there, people who don’t get themselves in the news, people who made vast fortunes from this economic mess we got ourselves in. Well, it’s time we kicked back. Nobody ever got something from nothing. How many times do we hear the saying; these’s no such thing as a free lunch? It’s time to accept that this is all true. There are thousands of companies out there in the world today, companies whose future depends upon an influx of cash, your cash. If the economy is left to its own devices, then it will crash eventually and you, all of you who regularly expect to see a dividend from your shares will have lost out, and all because you couldn’t see beyond the news the media keeps on spouting at you.

I well remember a time many years ago, one when the government urged people to back Britain’s economy and buy British. I was one of those who supported this call, and to be honest the result was amazing and the country’s economy blossomed once again. People not only helped British businesses get out of a rut, but it also helped the people themselves. It’s time to consider putting this to the test again.

Well, I’ve got things to do, but one of them isn’t listening to the crap being spread by the media. Bye all…..

Bob, standing in for Froggy until he comes back.