Well up went around 1,000,000 hands and that means around 59,000,000 are not?

Which means that with inflation heading for 0%, bank rate heading for 0%, salary increases heading for 0% and petrol prices going down to 80p?  then so long as you are in a job the future for most of us should be looking very very bright.!

So why isn't it?

Because the media tells us that we are all heading for oblivion  through unemployment , death by debt or serious illness from not being able to borrow money.

BUT... It is not us that needs the doctor.

It is our businesses that are suffering, because the banks will not support them as they should, which means our businesses are now struggling to support us and we get worried so we ease up on our spending.

The Govenment can borrow £120 BILLION, the taxpayer (us)now own 57% of most of the UK banks and yet we are still not allowed the money to grow or run our businesses.

Why? Can somebody please explain?

Now I realize why I should have listened to my Economics teacher at school. The 2.5% reduction in VAT is meant to get us spending again but the forecast for the next couple of years is more doom and gloom, so shouldn't we be saving to get us through those lean times? The government is setting an example by borrowing huge sums of money, which saddles the UK tax payer with so much debt that we will be paying it off through the next generation and which is the same formula that the UK consumer has been practicing for the last few years by racking up huge levels of debt fuelled by 'over-generous', nay, greedy, banks lending money without due consideration of the long-term effects. Which is, I believe, the main reason we're in this mess in the first place!

So, if we follow the lead set by Mr Darling I will be going out next week and spending shed loads of money in order to make a reasonable level of savings from the VAT reduction, thereby reducing my cash reserves and the ability to meet my regular liabilities, the little things like utilities, petrol, food and clothing for the family (the latter two which don't attract VAT in the first place). But I needn't worry 

because I can always go to my bank and ask for a loan to get me through the rough times!  What do you mean the banks aren't lending any money... preposterous!

If you have ever bought a new car you will know that as soon as you leave the showroom it loses anything around 10% or more.

And then after say three years and you decide to sell the car the chances are that its value may well have dropped by 50%!

Why do we do this? Name any other really major investment we make where we are quite happy to lose up to + 50% of our money? And we often repeat it!

According to the media, property prices have dropped by 15% in the last year. Yet they have grown by at least 300% since 1991. 

So as long as you didn't buy your property in say the last two years what's the problem if you lose 15% or even more?

But if you buy a new car...........

The media once again create a fear of doom and to what end?