Can't we all just get along?

Have you taken a look in the news lately? I mean really, really looked? Probably not is my guess.

If we aren't being swamped with celebrity bullshit, its all doom and gloom. Either way, it would seem to us that far too many of you take it all as gospel truth. Normally, this is where I'd waffle on for hours about how all the mainstream papers are owned by rich people, and they'll never be happy with a working man's party in power.. today is no different.

We already know that Gordon Brown is boring, and if you listen to the papers you'll probably believe he is incompetent too. This is wrong. Good old Gordy cleared our National Debt some years ago, the tories were up in arms about this because.. and you may not know this, they make a lot of money out of us all being in debt, its complicated and I won't bore you with the details but I assure if you know your stuff, you'll know this is true. Anywho, you may remember all the Conservatives waving their arms around declaring that the country was screwed by the upcoming recession because we hadn't saved our money.. like the frugal Australians. Maybe not, but with our debt cleared we're in a good position contrary to what you may think.

Allow us to explain.

Mathematics is an exact science, and mathematically speaking it is an almost total certainty that America is going to go spectacuarly bankrupt. There are two clear ways out at this stage;

1) Cut all federal spending to $0 for the foreseeable future
2) Raise taxes to 69%

There may be another way out devised by someone far more intelligent than me, I certainly hope there is but basically, Mr. Bush has put his empire past the point of no return and just like the Germans, the French, the Russians and us Brits, the American's are about to suffer that worst of all fates, the fall from grace.

George has pushed the capabilities of American spending power to the breaking point, fought 2 expensive wars that have yielded nearly no return and allowed everyone to wallpaper over the cracks with an impressive sense of national pride, that I'm somewhat envious of. Chris spent six months in the US last year so we know what we're talking about when we say that the Hurricane Katrina clear-up was useless, the roads are appalling and the national pride has only made things harder.

In the automotive industry for example, while European and Japanese firms pioneered new fangled suspension and found ways of getting a million horsepower from a tiny engine, the US big 3 [GM, Chrysler, Ford] have done what they have always done. Simple, poorly built behemoths.

Sure I love those cars, but theres no escaping the fact that they are, rubbish. Still, myself and many others like me love them for their character, its sold as the American way, but that isn't enough though and with a simply huge amount of the population employed directly and indirectly in a declining motor industry, it doesn't look good.

We've been here before though, and its understandable that just about every American we know cannot stand any criticism levelled at their country, but for once, we're doing it as friends. Harsh truths are just that, harsh. How can a self-styled world superpower have such lousy education, healthcare and infrastructure?

Its lucky we don't owe them any money.. see, this is going somewhere.

Remember how everyone got super pissed when we nationalised one of our banks, while the Conservatives said they should be allowed to go bust? Remember how angry you were that YOUR money was being spent on those greedy fatcats? Goddamn it Brown! How could you?

Yet, did you consider the alternative? When anyone or any institution goes bankrupt, they have to turn their assets into money to clear their debts. Northern Rocks' assets were mortgages. Can you imagine 750,000 people all getting letters saying they had a month to pay off the rest of the money they owed on their mortgages, or else they'd be homeless?

Worse still, with 750,000 extra homes on the market, yours will go down in value. Maybe badly enough to warrant your bank asking for their money back, after all, if you stopped paying and they had to sell your house, they would find it was now worth less than they lent you. The cost of renting would skyrocket and we'd all be stuck really.

Next up are the loans requested by Jaguar and Land Rover, two prestigious British firms. Sure, bad management had got them into money trouble, but what if we didn't bail them out? We aren't talking a few thousand of their employees without jobs, we're talking steel producers, windshield makers, suppliers, tyre manufacturers.. they'd all lose the big contracts that keep them afloat. This is the same as the problem for the US, just not quite as bad.

There is a positive though, Mr. Brown is borrowing and spending again. As long as dipshit Cameron stays out of the way and the papers stop slating him for the sake of a story, the country can recover. Mr. Brown is ploughing a load of money into a new super high-speed rail network and roads that will be the envy of the world.. upshot is that when this recession is all over we're geared up to start exporting goods again, and we'll be able to do it fast, cheaper and cleaner than the other guy.

Its good news for our American pals too, with Barack Obama they are in good hands and if anyone can solve thier mess, its him. He got into power on the statement "Yes, we can".. as long as he is brave and honest enough to admit "This time, for a while at least, we just can't" and America pulls together as it has always done, there is no reason there can't be a happy ending there too.

Wherever you happen to be in the world, we wish you well during these hard times, and we'll have some funny shit coming right up..