The Manipulation of Interest

Gordon the Moron has been appearing like a rash all over the media in his attempt to assure us ordinary mortgage-paying plebs that he really does love us and is doing his very best to look after us as interest rates rise and mortgages become ever more difficult to obtain. The truth is rather different.
Down on our little allotment in South Gloucestershire in the good old Dis-United Kingdom Nosher and I were sat on our old deckchairs in his old shed enjoying a mug of hot, but old, soup. Still, it tasted good. With frosts at night and cold winds chilling the sunshine during the day work on planting out has stopped for the time being.
'Does Gordon the Moron think we're all as stupid as he is idiotic?' asked Nosher suddenly. I made a pretence of pondering this for a moment.
'We can't know for sure what he thinks' I replied 'but it's more than obvious that he is trying to manipulate the media, and he's doing a very effective job of it, because as usual they're being very uncritical about the real issues.' Nosher raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.
'I can detect a tosser from a mile away' he said 'and Gordon the Moron's not fooling me!...So what are the real issues?'
'Well, Gordon the Moron is in large part responsible for the current problems in the mortgage market' I explained 'because for ten years as an incompetent, devious and deceitful Chancellor he wooed the City and allowed the financial markets to conceal the real extent of their bad debts, incurred through selling mortgages to people who were obviously bad risks.'
'That's all history' Nosher said 'what are the issues now?'
'Apart from his staggering hypocrisy, you mean?'
'Yes, apart from that' said Nosher patiently.
'OK' I said 'the Government have been content to let the media spin a story about how the rise in lending rates far above base rate is due to competition in the mortgage market, which is complete nonsense. The fact is that the lenders are increasing their rates to punitive levels because they know they will be lending less for the foreseeable future and at the same time they want to screw as much money out of their existing customers as possible so that their executives can continue to receive their grossly over-inflated salaries and bonuses. In other words, they make mistakes, but we pay for them. What is needed is proper regulation of the financial markets to stop this kind of thing from going on - because those of us who are careful with our money and pay our mortgages on time should not be penalised due to the greed, incompetence and ruthlessness of the banks and building societies.'
'Ah' said Nosher. He thought for a moment. 'So the Government manipulates the media, which feeds on good headlines rather than seeking out the truth, then the media feeds us the headlines and some superficial analysis masquerading as critical comment, so we all believe the media is on our side when really it's only serving its own best interests, and meanwhile the fat cats in the City are lining their pockets with more and more of our money because they're ruthlessly greedy and the current regulatory system is incompetent and ineffective? Well, why didn't you say so at the beginning?'
'Because that would have ruined a good story for my blog' I replied.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
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