We were in yet another Government created boom-bust cycle long before the pandemic and war occurred and, like any household, business or country already laden with debt, were found wanting. 

These boom-bust cycles, which have taken place since the 1970s, are tantamount to state-sponsored Ponzi schemes where the vulnerable ‘have-nots’ in society find themselves even further behind the ‘haves’ when the music eventually stops. Governments sow the seeds of inflation when they over stimulate the housing market with lower Interest rates, Help to Buy schemes and Stamp Duty reductions, culminating in rapidly rising house prices. Buoyed by this, consumers are then enticed into a spending frenzy, often beyond their income, fuelling inflation in the process.

This, in turn, leads to the inevitable raising of interest rates, triggering a falling housing market with the rest of the Economy not far behind it which of course leads to the lowering of Interest rates, placing us straight back on this financially suicidal merry-go-round. Like musical chairs, you can only restart the music so many times. We need to get off this ride once and for all, stop using the housing market as the engine room of the Economy, and produce more.

Sadly I feel that the Government’s response to our looming stalling economy will be another dose of the same old medicine with the same old results. With the peaks getting higher and the troughs getting deeper, surely they must realise that these policies are not sustainable.

It is never right that future generations are saddled with these eye-watering levels of debt in order that we can carry on living beyond our means. Somebody once wrote “If voting changed anything they would probably make it illegal”.

Derek Grayson,
Christchurch Road,
St Cross,
Winchester

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