Economics

In the Sixties, it was the balance of payments on our foreign trade that brought governments down. In the Thatcher years money supply was the craze.

Today, balance of payments is unfashionable, though last month’s deficit was the worst on record. Money supply control?

Forget it. Call it quantitative easing and let it rip.

The latest fad is budget deficit reduction and preservation of our AAA credit rating.

The common theme in all this is unemployment – the price to be paid for whatever nonsense currently obsesses politicians.

People’s jobs are destroyed and their lives shattered in the pursuit of ideological stupidity.

The costs of unemployment are horrendous.

Work gives a person independence, self-respect and confidence. There is a structure to the day, the week and the year.

Leisure is limited and, therefore, all the more precious.

A job socialises an individual and teaches workplace skills.

The costs of these things lost through job destruction are incalculable, although it is easier to estimate the losses to the Treasury, the economy and the taxpayer in reduced output, lower tax receipts and increased benefit payments. At present rates these equate to the costs of the health service. We could double health care spending if we eradicated unemployment.

And faced by this, David Cameron’s strategy is to cut Government spending and make unemployment worse. This heartless brutality is beyond belief. That’s what the Occupy London protest at St Paul’s is all about.

Rob Meggs, Hartlepool.