Government to Borrow Money to Get Out of Debt

But money could possibly grow on trees after all

Pictured:the highest mountain in Britain is made entirely of IOUs

by Steve Cook

With the General Election only days away and the nation reeling from the bleak prospect of five more years of government, we are witnessing a phenomenon rare, if not unheard of, in British politics.

Politicians across the political spectrum have demonstrated an unprecedented consensus on the hitherto contentious subject of the economy with today's announcement that they are all “completely stumped” and at a loss to explain how the nation ended up with twice as much debt as there is actual money in existence.

The Prime Minister has been accused of taking political advantage of a development that is in fact everybody's responsibility by claiming that,

"Borrowing more money than exists is a fine example of the Tory Party's ability to do the impossible."

Labour have countered this with a promise to do something even more impossible: replace all the money in existence with debt.

When reminded that this has in effect already been done, Labour quickly drew up proposals to plant a trillion trees by September 2020 and then replace the current pounds-and-pennies money system with leaves as the new currency. Under the new system, one Oak or Ash leaf will be worth £1 and leaves from the Sycamore and Birch £0.01.

Explaining this revolutionary new idea at this morning's press conference, a breathless Jeremy Corbyn said,

"In this way we can incentivize much-needed tree planting, harnessing the power of the tree to not only save the planet but make us all rich. This lays to rest the Tory lie that money doesn't grow on trees because we are saying it certainly can."

Meanwhile, a spokescretin, for the Treasury, John Borrows, was quick to point out that this particular cloud in the overcast heavens does have a silver lining in that Great Britain is in fact doing a lot better than the United States, which has around three times as much debt as actual money.

“It is something about which everyone in these Sceptic Isles can feel justifiably smug.” he said.

These revelations have prompted the major parties (Raving Loony) and even some of the fringe parties (Con, Lab) to launch new initiatives for tackling Britain’s mountain of debt. 

The various initiatives have the virtue of being almost identical (apart from the tree thing mentioned above, which cannot be introduced until it has been tested and proven not to work), thus saving the citizenry the hassle of it making any significant difference whom they elect. The revolutionary plans for saving the economy follow the revolutionary plans of every country in Europe and are centred on the cunning ploy of “borrowing lots more money” so as to get the nation out of debt.

Everybody is optimistic that this strategy, unlike the other 142 exact same times it has been tried before, will probably work so long as the natural laws of the universe are suspended for a while.

Politicians are uniformly keen on this new concept and advocating an orgy of borrowing. The exception to this is the Sensible Party whose manifesto proposes,

"Instead of having banks create money out of nothing on their computers and then lending it out and raking in easy profits from the interest, how about we have the government print the money that fuels the economy instead, as a not-for-profit service to the community? Sounds wild, we know, but it might just work."

The other parties have treated this proposal with scorn, with the Tories dismissing it as,

"Communism, pure and simple. The sort of thing that Stalin or Hitler or Vlad the Impailer might have done."

The Labour Party weighed in with, 

"This is a typical Sensible proposal designed to deny our friends in the banking Oligarchy their basic human right to rake in money hand-over-fist without doing anything to earn it and then use it to buy countries at knock-down prices."

So the consensus remains that the best way out of trouble, proven beyond common sense, is to borrow loads more money.

But just in case it doesn’t work (or as some experts put it: certainly won’t) contingency plans will be put in place. Central to these plans is the revolutionary new idea of persuading America to have another war to stimulate commerce and then helping her out by playing a key supporting role such as doing as we are told, making the sandwiches and so forth.

While this won’t work either and will undoubtedly have the opposite effect of getting us deeper into debt, it does have the virtue of keeping millions of people’s minds off the inevitable bankruptcy proceedings and the arrival of bankers to confiscate the national infrastructure.

_________________________________________________

The Cutter Files: a novel by Steve Cook: Features some attempted probing and quite a lot of running away. Available in paperback and ebook. Find out more now.

_____________________________________________________________