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Congratulations on your forward planning! No one wants to buy a car, ‘Och Aye’ means ‘Nay’ and Tibet's treasure will rule the world!
Why...
Do Western Governments think no further than the next sound bite and company executives are unable to see past their annual bonus and the specifications on their next BMW? We need to understand that long-term planning is more than just remembering to set the TiVo or Skybox to record every episode of Homeland. Former Chairman of the People's Republic of China President Chou En Lai was asked once what he thought of the 1789 French Revolution. He replied "It's too early to say." Take cars. For my generation a car was aspirational on a number of levels. Along with total independence and the sheer exhilaration of driving was added the heady mix of sex and cool. We had no mobile phone, let alone Facebook, so you had to physically visit people in your car. When you did, normally the only chance of 'hooking up' was in the back seat, so 'the cooler the wheels, the sexier the heels'. My and millions of other's youth was full of parked cars that wobbled like jello and was why Lucifer had a bumper crop of souls from 1949- 1990. We gladly traded them for four wheels. Three generations drooled at the prospect of owning a car....and behind it all stood behemoths like Ford, General Motors and Chrysler down to (then) independents like Ferrari, Maserati, Lotus and Lamborghini. All employed a zillion people in their own businesses as well as the countless ancillaries from advertising agencies, tyre companies and design studios to the local gas station and body shops. Now everyone seems taken by surprise that the current generation are not really interested in cars; sales in the developed world are plummeting and we are heading towards automotive employment Armageddon. How could this be??????? A suggestion? Maybe something to do with the fact over the past twenty years successive Governments have made motoring as appetising as a waiter sneezing over a burger? All the fun and skill of driving has been replaced by mad costs, nannying computers and insane road planning. Roadworks stretch into the horizon and traffic police spend three hours investigating a mild knock of two cars in rush hour. Insurance companies treat kids with one minor infraction on their license as being as dangerous as Kim Jong Un with a migraine. George Orwell could not have imagined the level of surveillance, nor Creusus the level of tax on fuel and the Maquis de Sade would have quivered at the endless constriction of traffic jams. SPEED KILLS is flashed everywhere. Speed never killed anyone. Stopping does. The Government (and so mass media) took sex out of cars.......and are now panicking that no one wants to buy them. Did anyone for the teensiest moment think or say... "OK, environmentally we need to tighten things up, but maybe turning one of the largest employment sectors in the world into a pariah might make Mr. Magoo's short-sightedness look like 20/20 vision?"
...and another thing
Politics. In June the UK will hold a referendum on staying in the EU or not. The margin between the two camps is narrower than Sarah Palin’s view of diplomacy. (Maybe she thinks the movie Team America was a documentary)? The swing could be settled by Scotland. If the Scottish National Party (for my overseas readers- all three of them- this is the main party now in Scotland whose goal is Scottish Independence) decide to vote to stay in or YES (Och Aye) their voters would tip the balance and ensure we all remain in the EU.
However if SNP tell to their supporters to vote NO (Nae bloody way) that would swing it for the NO camp and we would leave the EU. BREXIT. As a result of the UK leaving my Scootie brothers and sisters would get another vote for Independence as the recent vote (which the SNP narrowly lost) was based upon the UK being in Europe. This time round Independence could win. Happy days, haggis and 65% top rate income tax all round. (La Donald’s golf course would no doubt get a compulsory sale order and turned into a holiday home for political refugees. The current misunderstood President of Venezuela being top of the list).
However, a teensy problem. The Scotts benefit hugely from EU subsidies and will need a currency………. How can the SNP once free from the English sassanachs south of the border then apply for EU membership…….after wrecking it by forcing the UK out? However if the SNP are as far sighted as Chou En Lai what they will say is:
“The SNP are committed to Europe. We recommend we are part of it……..even if a NO Vote would give us a referendum and ultimately our country……”And hope the penny drops and their followers Vote NO whilst the SNP keep the fig leaf of supporting YES.
...and another thing
Perhaps our Far Eastern friends could teach us a thing or two? How about dumping quarterly reporting of public companies that really only benefit the roulette players of the City Traders and focus on long-term. Shock horror!!!! And how about bonuses geared to farsightedness that may only materialise in retirement? (Neither uncommon in Asia).
A dear friend of mine has shot several movies in China. During a shoot on a windy mountain top location he was having dinner with a former senior Chinese Defence expert (OK a General but I don’t want to get people into trouble)!
“You in the West, make us laugh,” the man said raising a glass to my friend. “You had to contort yourselves into knots trying to justify the wars in Iraq and make us believe it was not about oil. And yet us in Tibet? It’s not about religion. That is our version of your fictional WMD. We want Tibet’s water. Next century when oil’s importance will be a memory we will control the largest supply of the liquid commodity that really matters.”
And that, dear reader, is real long term planning………………Yikes! We are doomed!!
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