Bananas

Every so often I stumble across some tweet by a leftoid-economy 'expert' who knows so much about money and how it all works they can share it in less than 140 characters. Actually, I should be honest here and say these sort of tweets are linked by others, perhaps erroneously thinking they contain some wisdom we all need to know, or maybe to just say 'WTF?'

Either way, I learned the other day that we should all be given (I think, as the numbers were so staggering I may have misread it) £3000 by the state. Just like that, with presumably no questions asked. Apparently the state can afford it and it would make a difference in everyone's life. Apparently.

Interesting, as people with £3000 tend to find that while useful in the short term it isn't really a long term solution to financial hardship, which the left is convinced most of us suffer from. Not that they have the answer of course, but they do enjoy pointing out that we all haven't got much money and things in the shops are dear.

So you and me would get three thousand and we can all smile because penury is over, finally. Goodbye to Boom and Bust, pronounced Gordon Brown and now it would be joined by poverty. So farewell then, lack of money (as EJ Thribb would put it.)

Okay, I admit I am not convinced. When I was teaching I did lecture some students on money. Well, it should have been on the delights of computer architecture but trust me there was a clear need from their conversations to try and grasp this cash thingy that, other than the ill-fated EMA, was escaping them. I told the yoofs that in their working life it was entirely possible, even at today's wage levels, they could earn half-a-million before retirement. I was working this out as 50 years of toil being rewarded at ten thousand a year.

Of course, as they were all convinced their first job would pay them thirty thousand a year for just turning up and playing games on some company's computer somewhere between the hours of 9 or 10 and possibly as late as 5 in the afternoon, then they would clearly earn much more than this. Some of the little angels' eyes lit up. One and a half million for playing games? Wow, impressive.

So my 10K was admittedly peanuts, but you have too start somewhere.

I did however have to point out to them that you don't get this all at once as soon as you start work. What happens is companies and organisations pay it in handy instalments, usually weekly or monthly. By the way the phrase monthly, I had to inform them, was not quite accurate as you get a five week 'month' every so often and that is a pain. They really should vote for a 13 month calendar. Anyway, the money comes in little drips and as such you have to plan. Excellent, with all that money you can work out how many video games you can buy.

The point was however that generally, you need income. Lump sums, tempting though they are, soon spend and then you have a problem where the next lump sum is coming from. Now I doubt if this made much difference to the 28 game-players sat in front of me (or at least the ones who were awake because I did have one lad who slept with head on desk most mornings as he was up until four every morning playing "Call Of Beat 'Em Up Whack-a-Mole Theft Craft" and it was hard to keep his eyes open when I was droning on.)

I did hesitate to point out, as this may be too much information all at once, that prices would rise over time and while a bargain £400 games console could be as much as £450 in the future, I could assure them the price of bananas for example would keep going up and up even if those cheerful banana-growers could turn them out smaller in order to get more to the kilo. It would be hard for any of us to work out how much of any start-work cash bonanza you would have to set aside to pay for bananas, even assuming that they were still being grown somewhere in the world and whether they could be transported to the UK.

Icebergs in the channel would play havoc with shipping.

No doubt my old students would have welcomed £3000 to get them started, as some lefty tweeter suggested on my timeline. As some folk would spend their £3000 instantly (and maybe not all on the latest game because some Moles have been well and truly Whacked) I expect they would soon feel poor again and perhaps press for another £3000 to keep them going, aided by caring and sharing lefties: "Tweeters are standing by to help you." It then occurred to me this lump sum gift to solve poverty may as well become a regular gift from the state. All our big, friendly state has to do is print more money. Simples.

In fact, why stop at £3000? It is a bit mean, when you think about it. Why not go for four or five thousand? How about ten? Once you start printing then the numbers can just get bigger. The paper's not too expensive and ink is pretty cheap so just keep those presses rolling.

Of course the problem to anyone with a smattering of idea how money works is that with this largesse the price of bananas becomes unstable. The price of those bent yellow things would go up and up in the face of such worthless money offered as payment, and even the most generous banana growing nation in the world would eventually stop wanting to provide goods to a mindless banana republic like the UK.

No matter. I look forward to seeing more on Twitter how much the state can afford to hand out again and again.

I do love reading about bananas.