Why I'm Marching

WARNING! POLITICAL! IF YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT (AND I KNOW A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T), THEN THIS IS A HEAD'S UP.


Today in London, there's going to be a big rally against austerity (the economic policies of the Tories, basically), and I'm going to be there. I figured just before I walk out the door, I should say why.

The basic jist is that austerity is based on two founding lies. The first is that government overspending was the cause of the financial crash of 2008. This lie was a brave one, but they seem to have convinced a lot of people that it's the case, as most of the newspapers are on their side (barring the Guardian and the Mirror), but anyone with any real memory of what was going on in the news would see it for what it is.

The fact is that the economic crash of 2008 was caused by the selling of mortgage debt between banks breaking down because a significant number of people in America defaulted on their mortgages around the same time. Some banks had so much tied up in this debt market that they completely collapsed - think Lehman Brothers or Northern Rock. It's the fault of the banks for lying about the security of what they were selling, and for knowingly giving loans to people they know are incapable of paying back for the sake of profit. Knowing this, the lie that government overspending had anything to do with the credit crunch is absolutely laughable, and the fact that they're still peddling this as if it's an absolute obvious truth is an out n out statement from the Tories that they think we're bloody stupid.

The second is that investment is a more significant driver of an economy than consumer spending - or "trickle down economics". This idea is popular in a lot of countries at the moment, and basically goes that when investors use their money to set up a business, the money they pour into it reaches the people that they're paying to do it all for them, and those people now have the money to go out and spend. The idea being that everyone has money because investors invested in the businesses they work for. So given that money trickles down from the top, it makes sense to make conditions economically favourable to investors and to put more money in their pockets.

However, any business that goes without a sufficient level of customers - regardless of how much investment you pour in - is not going to last. And it's pretty obvious that consumer spending is at least as big a drive of economic growth, if not bigger. 

Let's look at a case study: Back in the early days of MLP, when the brony fandom was still exploding across the internet, Hasbro released bundles of episodes on DVD instead of full season box sets. It was cheaper for them to produce than proper box sets, so they brought them to market. Now, everyone was clamouring for a full season box set, a box set that Hasbro had no intention of producing - until the episode bundles flew off the shelves. It was only when they saw people spending on the episode bundles that they decided to go the whole hog and commission full season box sets from Shout Factory. The consumption habits of bronies drove the investment money of Hasbro, not the other way around.

This pattern is seen across the economy - products only come to market or become prevalent because consumers demonstrate a demand for it. Therefore, it would be better to make economic conditions favourable to consumers, not investors, as investors would benefit from the increased revenue and profit in the end anyway.

So given that these two easily disproved lies are at the heart of government policy at the moment, it's easy to see how our track doesn't lead to prosperity for all, but luxury for a few and poverty for the rest. There has to be resistance. They have to know that we know they're lying to us. They have to know that we won't let this go on in silence. 

That's why I'm going to London today.