Hopeless, incompetant and useless.

Over the past couple of years I have watched in amazement as our politicians and leaders have lurched from one crises to another. As you may have realised the world is staring at a very dangerous economic situation and unfortunately for all of us those in charge don't really know what to do.

What I have realised over the years is that so many of those who reach the pinnacle of power do so because of how they look, whose palm they have greased and what they say and how they say it. They do not get there through ability and competence, if they did I think we would have a totally different looking government.

How I have come to this conclusion is very simple, I just look at the decisions many of our politicians make and weigh it up against good old fashioned common sense and I have found that they are somewhat wanting. I have mentioned Gordon Brown in the past and looked at many of his decisions he made whilst Chancellor and Prime Minister and a lot of what he did was down right stupid. Here are some examples of his stupidity (and I don't choose these with the benefit of hindsight, I thought they were stupid at the time).

1. Selling 395 tonnes of gold at its lowest price for twenty years; that same amount of gold sold at today's prices would be have raised approximately an extra £13 billion.

2. Taking away the dividend tax relief on private pensions, thus destroying one of the best private pension systems in the world.

3. At a time of massive economic growth instead of paying off the national debt and putting some aside for a rainy day he spent and spent and spent.

4. Handing billions of pounds in benefits to the poor, thus creating an underclass that didn't need to work so they didn't.

There's four quick examples, I am sure if I spent more time I could come up with a lot more. But let's not be too harsh on poor old Gordon he did at least do one good thing and that was to keep us out of the euro, I have to thank him for that. Unfortunately for Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland their politicians didn't do the same. The simple fact is these countries are in a mess of immense proportions and their politicians and those running the EU will not admit that the only option for these countries is to leave the euro zone and devalue their currency. But those in charge of the nut house (or EU) are more concerned with carrying on with their dream of total political union and they are damned if they will let these countries leave the euro.

The reason I believe our politicians don't know what to do is because I believe many don't have a clue, this is because most have only ever lived in the political world and have never done any other type of work. Many leave school, go to college then to university and then they work for some political organisation and then become an MP or MEP. They have never spent anytime working with normal people so they have no understanding of what the reality is like for you and me.

You only have to look at the 3 main leaders of the 3 main parties, then look at those who sit at the top of these parties and it doesn't take long to realise that most have come from very privileged backgrounds. Now don't get me wrong I have nothing against people from privileged backgrounds doing well but I believe that we have an imbalance. I also believe that many who run the EU are doing so for themselves rather than for the people of Europe, this is borne out by the euro crises. If any of these europhiles had any intelligence or compassion they would allow the southern European countries to leave the euro, but they won't. They would rather the people of Europe suffer massive unemployment and economic stagnation than admit that maybe they have got it wrong.

They will blame everyone else but themselves, they will make excuses, they will bluster and even say that those who state the blindingly obvious, that the euro in its present form is dead in the water are 'anti-European'. And this is the problem, these are the people making the decisions and I have said it before and I will say it again 'THEY DO NOT CARE'.

So how do we get out of this mess? I could sit here and state my opinion, but it is such a mess it is very difficult to know what to do. I don't think closer political integration, as some are calling for is the answer, this would give to much power to Germany to dictate the direction of those within the euro zone. This would mean a death of democracy, and if you take the ability of the people to set their own destiny we will see the rise of extreme nationalism and that can only lead to war.

I believe there has to be a fundamental change within the leadership of these countries, too many of those in charge are not willing to listen to the people and unfortunately because of this we will continue to drift towards economic oblivion. I have stated before what I think should be done and if you want to see what I think click on this link http://evanheasley-powertothepeople.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-fix-our-economy.html

I don't want to sound arrogant and I don't think I have all the answers, but I believe that our politicians, economists, bankers and so called financial experts have made an immense cock up of things surely I couldn't do any worse.