Page 47 - Phonebox Magazine March 2012

Money, Money, Money...
Since 2009 the Bank of England has printed a load of money. It’s called Quantitative Easing when they do it, and forgery when we do it.
In 2009 they doshed out £200 billion, then in October 2011 another £75 Billion and in February 2012 another £50 Billion. That adds up to £325 Billion. BILLION. WHERE DOES IT ALL GO! I haven’t seen a penny of it. And nor has anyone I know. I’ve asked around a bit and the best I got was from a defrocked bank manager who told me it went back into the economy but he wasn’t quite sure how.
There’s about 60 million of us in Great Britain. Sadly my pocket calculator doesn’t have enough noughts on it to work out such vast figures but we should all be good for fifty quid surely? I’d put my bit back into the economy I promise. I’d go to Ladbrokes and place a bet of £50 at 2/1 on Quantitative Easing not working. OK by the time they realised they had to pay me out, the £150 I pick up would be worth less than the bet I’d put on but as I always say, it’s the winning that counts, not the taking part.
But it occurs to me that printing money may not be quite the right way to go about things. My history isn’t up to much and I’m no economist but didn’t Germany get into a bit of trouble in the 1920’s when they just printed a load of money to get out of a financial hole? I recall photos of workers picking up their wages in wheelbarrows and not being able to buy anything with it. Doesn’t it surely devalue
the money we already have that comes through the proper channels?
If I’m wrong, and printing a load of money is the answer, then why doesn’t ‘Call Me Dave’ Cameron nip off over to these endless European summits he attends and tell the twits who joined the Euro to print some more money. Problem solved. Why doesn’t Greece just print a load of money...ah, yes...because it would end up with workers picking up their wages in wheelbarrows. I remember now. I can only assume that Dave knows less about history that me. Which is quite distressing when you think about it.
Still we do have the Olympics coming along to cheer us all up. My dad attended the last Olympics in 1948, when he and his cousin Ken decided to go one day. On the spur of the moment, they jumped on their motorbike, rode to London, parked outside the stadium and nipped in and had a fine old day. Of course since 1948 it’s become far better organised. You now book your tickets on line, pay up front, with no guarantee of getting tickets and not knowing which sport you will see. That’s progress for you. Still, Lord Coe says that it’s a fair system and well...he’s a Lord isn’t he, so it must be ok.
Anyway, my wife and her pals have their tickets to see Greco wrestling and that’s the main thing. I won’t be attending the Olympics myself as I’m busy. I’m not sure what I’m doing but I shall no doubt think of something.
I’m slightly concerned about the costs as
originally, in 2005, it was estimated at £2.37 Billion (yes - sorry - Billions again) and then a few extras came along in 2007 - I think they’d forgotten to order enough skips - putting the costs up to £9.3 Billion.
Now we’re getting closer it seems like it’s going to cost £24 Billion, as they’d forgotten the VAT and the extra generator and extension leads, but you can’t put a price on success and my friends in the betting world tell me that Great Britain is almost guaranteed a Bronze medal in the Synchronised Swimming and so I think one needs to consider the bigger picture.
A mere 24 Billion pounds is hardly going to bother this government is it? They’ll just print a bit more money, so it won’t cost anyone anything.
David Pibworth
The MK Theatre of Comedy is currently producing ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ at the Chrysalis Theatre 1st - 5th May 2012. This production is directed by David Lovesy and David Pibworth is playing the role of Jim Trott (“no, no, no, no, no, no, no...yes”)
Some of the children from the Olney Drama Club are playing the roles of the children in the show. The Olney Drama Club runs on Tuesdays at the Olney Centre from 5pm - 7pm during term times.
www.mktoc.co.uk davidpibworth@googlemail.com
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