Why people should listen to us

Most of us feel a bit down sometimes. Those of us lucky enough to have a job and a family normally soon get over it, largely because there are things to do. Personally I might take a longish walk or some other exercise for a few days as well. And then you think about all those people who have bigger challenges than you have, and the world doesn't seem so bad, after all.

What we need is a purpose in life, and that is why people need jobs. I visited northern Vancouver Island about 15 years ago, and the aboriginal, "Indian" people there looked clinically depressed. They had a big drink problem. The state looked after them very well on their reservations and they didn't need to work much. No-doubt when they wandered the prairie in their tribes all those years before, a few people felt a bit depressed sometimes, but tomorrow they had to catch their food for their family, and the Moccasins needed to be stitched for the winter, they would have a bit of a grumble, and then they would get on with life.

Most people feel best in the long run when they are confronted with the realities of life. What governments do is take our money from us in the form of taxes and duties and give it back in a way that deadens the impact of our laziness or folly. So what we get are more lazy and foolish people, living off the state, feeling unhappy and depressed. They eventually become low level clinically depressed, a statistic in the dependency culture, and a burden on the medical support services that this country provides for people who have real problems and who must receive support. They also cost a lot of money to look after so we have to ask the taxpayer for even more money. It’s a vicious circle.

It’s not only that people become depressed. They find other ways of obscuring their hopelessness. Recreational drugs and drink become increasingly important, and they don't bother to think much about the real issues in their lives. They become politically apathetic and disinterested. It becomes hard for them to disseminate the lies and false promises that politicians make, from real arguments made by real people. Getting people to vote for a party becomes a 'political science'. Then the clever civil servants have the bland politicians for breakfast, and whatever the political party hoped to deliver, is subsumed in a soup of political correctness which makes the policies delivered by one party not much different to the other. And the politicians who succeed are the ones who say as little as possible that can be criticised, but who have never had to risk their family's interests by putting themselves on the line. They don't even know how to take the really tough decisions, and instead prefer to deceive their voters by illusions, like printing money that has not been earnt by improved productivity. Printed money that will eventually devalue the real money that prudent people laboriously accumulated in the real world, much of which ends up in the hands of financial manipulators and miners.

So what is the solution? Its private sector jobs,  jobs,  jobs. How do we get them? By facing the facts and dumping illusions. Removing barriers to employment like National Insurance, marginal rates of tax and the minimum wage, but providing an even handed safety net for everyone with the National Income. Making regulations about employment and tax simple, even handed and comprehensible. Removing barriers to enterprise like high rates of tax that discourage those who are prepared to create jobs by taking risks. Disintegrating the Vertically integrated, state dominated, regulated , virtual monopolies into truly competing companies, which give new comers a chance to push out sclerotic old impostors.

That is the way to break the spiral that is driving us into a conformist hell, of depression, dependence and  acquiescence. The big political parties are not saying this. That is why people should listen to us.