MB Civic

Good article by Max Hastings in today’s FT. The trouble with democracies is that voters don’t want to hear the truth if it is unpalatable and are unlikely to vote for leaders, who enunciate it. Thus they tend to vote for strings and mirrors. Personally I believe that the middle classes in the US and the UK would be prepared to put up with more hardship because with the rise of Asia they can see that the world is changing but social cohesion will not survive if they feel that the pain is not being fairly shared and they will get very angry. It is therefore madness to try further to reduce their meagre health and welfare entitlements while the richest 0.1% and the MIC blatantly increase their share of the cake and the US continues to spend $$$ trillions on wars. If social cohesion goes then economic theory becomes an academic problem. Roosevelt sold a hair shirt to the middle classes because they knew that in spite of an unwelcome level of discomfort he would not leave them on the street to starve or die of some curable sickness in their old age. Does America’s current leadership of either party get this?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8ca4946a-c72b-11e0-a9ef-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1V7AunXPM

Al B