Oktober

[Sweder]

I really enjoyed hearing that phrase, famously used recently by Barrack Obama, in an unwittingly (or not) disparaging echo of increasingly rabid ‘Hockey-Mom’ Sarah Palin's early call to arms. Listening to the hubble-bubble of nonsense surrounding the US Presidential elections it seems increasingly likely that John McCain’s Big Gamble, selecting a hard-hitting, easy-on-the-eye yet little-known running mate to negate Obama’s popular appeal, will backfire. I hope so. Should the Republicans succeed the lady would be one heartbeat away from the Big Chair. It’s a sobering thought.

The phrase has more resonance for me today. As the stock market tumbles end over end in the most dramatic freefall since Icarus, putting lipstick on a pig (and the newly made-up porker still being most assuredly a pig) seems applicable to the desperate patch-up job being attempted by governments across the globe. Traders aren’t buying it, and it should really come as no surprise to anyone with half a brain when a huge chunk of the world’s economy is driven by greedy marketers looking to make a fast killing by shuffling paper faster than the human eye can fathom. The world economy is in a truly terrible state.

Last night on BBC’s Question Time, as an increasingly hysterical chairman Dimbleby attempted to shout down any sensible debate about real economics, the idea was floated that this current crisis could see the end of the radical free market we’ve ‘enjoyed’ since the late 1970’s. Counterpoints flew, from amongst others Ken Clarke, a man who looks in danger of being swallowed alive by his indulgent lifestyle, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Jabba The Hut, who eloquently argued that the alternative, communism, didn’t fare any better. Of course this is all bollocks; there’s a compromise, a middle ground where trading markets can flourish within carefully defined and regulated boundaries. The 'true' free market is doomed to failure simply because a select few cream off the profits, amassing vast personal fortunes whilst keeping the store windows suitably fogged so none of us prolls can see what they’re up to. Political donations ensure the status quo, toothless regulators hamstrung by a tissue-thin remit.

Well it’s all gone tits up this time and no mistake. Wither the Fat Cats? Instead of berating Gordon Brown, a man who seems increasingly at home in this blossoming mushroom cloud of economic manure, surely our national press and electronic media should be parading mug-shots of those large-bellied, pin-striped bastards who’ve been so busy nest-feathering they've let the whole sorry mess slide into the porcelain vortex. Never mind stocks and shares, bring back the public stocks. Roll up! Roll up! Pelt the greed-mongers with stale bread and rotten fruit! Instead they wallow, protected in their gated, guarded CCTV estates, shaking their heads as they circumcise their next Cuban, wondering where it all went wrong and pointing pink stubby fingers in all directions. Perhaps City of London bonuses of recent years (11.3 billion pounds in 2006, 7.3 billions pounds last Christmas) might help to explain the current situation.

All this flooded my feeble mind as I plodded wearily up the South Downs track this morning. Last night’s celebrations (my son turns 20 today) sat heavily on my paunch. I’d offered an interpretation of City piggery through the medium of eating, over-indulging in most sensational and unattractive style in our favourite local Chinese, the Panda Garden. The fall-out (a misnomer if ever there was one) wobbled unkindly as I hauled lard to the summit of Blackcap. It felt more like Snowdon this morning, the relief-offering Milestone appearing to recede as I struggled ever upward. Still, a plod is a plod, and if you’ll forgive yet another fiscal reference, eight hard-earned kilometres banked.

Track du jour: Big-Eyed Beings From Venus, Captain Beefheart.


[SIZE="1"]Ken Clark[/SIZE]