Silent majority or is everybody dead from the neck up?

Well here we are in February 2008, 4 months after I started this thread. Many intelligent people in the UK who I expected to comment haven't. Many others have but usually from abroad. There have been no discussions, no contra views, no animosity only agreement and disappointment.

So where does that leave this blog? Still important? I think so. Still topical,? Probably even more so. Still useful? Probably not but at least it is worth trying!

I mentioned that recession seemed to be coming in the first blog. Well now it is here and we are feeling it even in Spain. We are also seeing many more dreams of escape from Northern Europe (Yes it is not just the UK which is in trouble) being dealt bitter blows. I develop websites for many things out here and I am seeing a significant reduction in house sales on estate agents sites but a considerable rise in park home sales on their websites.

I am seeing dreams being shattered for those who have moved out here to start businesses with a massive downturn in trade to bars and restaurants. There are exceptions where the owners are good and experienced business people not just people who wanted to get out of the UK and thought running a bar would be easy! I am seeing disappointment and worry from people who came out here thinking it would be easy to rent property or run a guest house. It isn't and the market is shrinking. Again the ones who are surviving are the ones who work hard at it!

I mentioned that I develop websites, my own, www.myvicinity.co.uk is unique in that it only accepts recommended businesses to advertise which means it is small but trusted. It is also bluntly elitist, if a business isn't up to scratch it won't get on! Up until now we have had no problem getting businesses recommended to us but, as the crunch comes, standards seem to be slipping and the number of recommendations is dropping. We won't lower the standards because there is no point and it would be unfair to the businesses who have qualified to get on and stay on.

Where is all this leading? We are seeing the effects of this recession, we are seeing local authorities in the UK limiting rubbish collections to fortnightly, libraries being closed, swimming pools operating for shorter hours. We are seeing authorities like London putting extra charges on lorries for 'pollution'. A good excuse but I am sure the revenue will come in handy somewhere!

We are seeing taxes rise.....almost every day. An exaggeration? No it isn't! Take fuel as an example VAT is charged on the pump price at 17.5%, fuel duty is fixed at 47.1 per litre. If the pump price goes up by £0.02 per litre and say (for simplicity sake) one million litres (probably it is a lot more than this) are used a day the chancellor has made yet another £3500 per day in taxes. Let's face it, fuel doesn't often go down!

The government really isn't greedy it just needs more money all the time to support the infrastructure and there is only one place it can get it. I said they were not greedy I didn't say they were competent! The trouble is that it is getting harder and harder to get and the individual taxpayer burden is growing. If you want to really start worrying take a look at GDP, National debt, International debt, Imports v Exports and what is happening in the USA!

I started all this by moaning at the silent majority and I still am. I spread the word of this blog with an email. If you get the email please don't just sit there saying 'yeh I agree with that', DO SOMETHING even if it just posting a comment here. The more people that reply the more exposure, so more people read it, think about it and hopefully reply.

There is a real 'stitch up of an election coming. The current government probably won't be re-elected, interestingly that is also probably true of Spain. The choices in the UK are less than attractive and whoever gets elected is going to pick up a horrible mess for which, unjustly, they will take the blame. If the Silent Majority can become the talkative majority all the parties will have to think VERY carefully about what they offering and what they are going to do.

There is a chance take it! I really don't care if you think I am wrong, I don't care if you agree with me, I don't care if you argue with me, what I do care about is getting a reaction.