Falling ill used to be bloody dangerous.
You’d feel unwell, the doctor would be called, and would invariably prescribe…………a course of leeches.
By removing enough of the “bad blood”, he was confident you would recover.
If your immune system failed to overcome the illness with this weakening agent on board, the doctor would return.
And prescribe………….another course of leeches.
Your depleted immune system, struggling to cope with the illness and now weakened by constant blood-letting, starts to fail.
The doctor is called a final time.
If at this point he prescribes another course of leeches, you’ve probably had it.
The State is like this – misdiagnosing the problem and then applying the wrong solution.
Repeatedly.
The economy stutters and the State feels it must intervene – job losses and bad times make for less votes you see.
It leeches a few billion from the taxpayer to fund the effort, fritters the money away on (if we’re lucky) useless things like gold-plated duck houses or (if we’re unlucky) things that actually make the situation worse, like delaying the failure of businesses that do stuff we don’t need doing any more.
The economy stutters further as a result of the billions that have been drained off, and the State feels it must intervene further.
More billions drained off, more pointless and harmful activity. More teenagers haplessly employed at Blockbuster.
Usually by this point, the electorate gets bored and elects a Conservative government who sigh theatrically and begin the slow and painful process of paying back all the debt and undoing all the damage.
While those who racked it up are respectfully encouraged by the BBC to snipe from the sidelines for a while until the next generation of voters see socialism on paper and decide to ignore history and give it another go.
And that’s just business as usual.
But not any more – these days we are all Keynesians.
So no matter whether you vote Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Democrat or Republican, you can be assured of one thing.
A course of leeches.
Yup, abject failure of a government program and unqualified success both lead to calls for additional funding. Don’t Kill The Job.