The Bank and the Treasury have decided to take it out on us because they allowed inflation to go too high. The latest forecasts from The Bank suggests the growth of the  economy  will slow to zero and unemployment will  rise. Both organisations are reaching for their austerity playbooks when they should be looking to help expand capacity and offset more of the real income falls.
The government needs to wake up and tell them they are wrong. The Chancellor should stop the tax rises and explain to Treasury officials why their debt and deficit based advice is wrong and will make the deficit worse, not better.
May 6, 2022
Good morning.
Begging your pardon, Sir John but once again I have to ask. WHO IS IN GOVERNMENT RIGHT NOW ?
In the past you have made references that Central Banks are not truly independent and that both the Treasury and the OBR have made consistant mistakes with regards to their forecasts. The government, not the BoE, back in 2020 decided to lock the country down and implement measure that would most certainly cause inflation (eg Eat out to help out). We all knew this. Government expenditure has gone throught the roof. There are no signs that not one Minister is able to control their budget let a lone reduce it. So the only solution is to tax.
You are digging your own hole yet seem to think that it is the fault of others. Well I must tell you, not from where I am standing looking down.
Keep digging, because in two years time we are going to fill that hole in.
Reply Not so. I am calling on the Chancellor to disagree with Treasury orthodoxy!
May 6, 2022
Dishing is just following WEF guidance.
Same as Bozo with immigration. There is a plan only we’re not privy to it.
It looks like we have to get Lord Frost into government to create some semblance of order but Conservative Central would never allow that.
May 6, 2022
They have a cunning plan Baldrick. Pity nobody thinks it is working.
May 6, 2022
I think BOE and Treasury, like lock down scientists and EU, know a weak spineless fool in Johnson when they see one.
Worse historical records in economy- largest debt, deficit, Largest Taxation, worse disposable income, inflation, worse cost of living,
More interested in trans rights and online names than law and order, etc More interested in green crapery than cost of living, buy coal from Russia rather than produce it ourselves just for ticking a green box!
N.Ireland going to be given away to EU as people there realise Johnson abandoned them!
May 6, 2022
It looks like they have scuppered Lord Frost’s chances of standing for election.
Sneaky b***********s!
May 6, 2022
Congratulations.
You have the entirely predictable consequences of voting Leave and repeatedly Tory.
May 6, 2022
You are deluded if you think Labour or any of the main parties would be an improvement.
May 7, 2022
The real rot started in 2015.
May 6, 2022
Absolutely, you only have to look at this latest instalment in the CityAM campaign to denigrate Brexit:
https://www.cityam.com/eu-membership-vs-lost-exports-and-trade-forget-extra-nhs-cash-brexit-costs-britain-173m-per-week/
“EU membership vs lost trade: Forget extra NHS cash, Brexit costs Britain ÂŁ173m per week, or ÂŁ1m every single hour”
“Studying the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) data and comparing the UK Government’s annual contributions to the EU versus lost EU exports by examining data for 2018, the last year before pre-Brexit preparations skewed data, and comparing it with 2021 figures, it turns out that far from bringing in ÂŁ350m a week to lavish on the NHS, the UK as a whole is ÂŁ9bn out of pocket.”
Well, set on one side the recent report that UK exports to the EU recovered well from a small temporary dip:
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/uk-trade-in-the-wake-of-brexit/
we are talking about a calculated shortfall of ÂŁ9 billion compared to UK GDP of ÂŁ2198 billion in 2021, which could have been closer to ÂŁ2500 billion, about ÂŁ300 billion higher, if the UK economy had not been knocked sideways by a global pandemic, as can be seen from this chart:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/281744/gdp-of-the-united-kingdom/
Or this ONS chart, if you prefer, which shows quarterly GDP numbers with an unprecedented drop of GDP of more than 20% in the first half of 2020:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/abmi/ukea
Even the 2008 financial crisis was nowhere near that, and as for the economic impacts of the UK joining the EEC and later the establishment of the EU Single Market they are not easy to locate on the charts.
So basically somebody who is head of consumer research at an international transport firm claims to have identified a Brexit induced shortfall equivalent to 0.4% of GDP during a period when Covid caused a loss of more like 12% of GDP, and he and CityAM are prepared to tell the world with absolute conviction that Brexit has made us worse off, and the government including Jacob Rees-Mogg can’t be bothered to show up any of this constant stream of anti-Brexit tripe up for what it is.
May 7, 2022
Exactly Denis why isn’t Boris and Rees-Mogg out there clarifying this and writing pieces of truth. It’s almost as though they have agreed to fail with the overturning of checks on imports when the ports have already invested and trained people to do it. Why do you think RM did this? We are just not given proper explanations why our competitors have been handed such an advantage when they won’t make the same agreement on our exports.
May 6, 2022
You think it would have been better if we had voted Remain and Labour? The current situation in the EU and Labour history do not support your contention.
May 7, 2022
Well, the people of Northern Ireland have just spoken and I congratulate them on their good sense.
It would appear that they are rather for the parties which are pro their membership of the SM and CU, wouldn’t it?
Would that perhaps be because NI is booming relative to much of the UK?
Why do you think that this might be?
May 6, 2022
I cannot make head nor tale of what you are talking about? Your post contains double negatives, contradictions and frankly, sheer ignorance
Yes JR is a member of the governing party but he has consistently argued against their economic ‘policies’ (which are frankly incoherent). For greater self sufficiency , security of supply and economic benefit of energy production on our island and in our waters. He has argued that we have failed (pretty spectacularly so far) to reap the manifold benefits attendant upon quitting the appaling EU
He has consistently argued against government actions
May 6, 2022
The best way to get rid of the Treasury orthodoxy is to get rid of the people who think what they are doing is orthodox.
May 6, 2022
Why are you not chancellor John ? You have the background , political experience and are side lined and patronised. I agree there is some sort of plan that the public are not party to, but have stayed on a continuum for many years .
May 7, 2022
Reply to reply: Sir John, haven’t you understood yet that there is absolutely no point in “calling” on the chancellor to do anything. He doesn’t listen to you (or anyone else, for that matter)! You need to be much more AGGRESSIVE. You need to lay an EDM declaring that you have no confidence in him. That’ll make him sit up and take notice!
May 6, 2022
As you correctly say:- “The government needs to wake up and tell them they are wrong. The Chancellor should stop the tax rises and explain to Treasury officials why their debt and deficit based advice is wrong and will make the deficit worse, not better.”
But we also need u-turns on net zero, all Sunak’s very many and huge tax rises, a bonfire of red tape, HS2, Kwasi’s bonkers energy policy, the bloated size of this parasitic and inept “working” from home government, a healthcare system that works (currently it delivers appalling value and outcomes), in education we need to cull soft loans for duff degrees (as circa 75% are) and get better skills and on the job training.
We voted for Boris not that socialist, green crap, fool Carrie with her idiotic interior design extravagance.
May 6, 2022
L/L. Correct. Reports out that the Tories are losing many councillors in the local elections due to partygate. No. It’s not just that. It’s all the things you’ve listed here. It’s about time they faced facts. The present policies and in particular the whole debacle over net zero will not work for most people. We can see the looming problems but they can’t.
May 6, 2022
FUS, it has become boring to the electorate but the media just love partygate. They won’t let it drop.
May 6, 2022
LL,
No, JR and chums need to wake up. It is the lying fool in number 10! They hold the fate of Johnson not BOE.
Remainers have proved they will stop at nothing to get their way. Wake up JR and chums.
May 6, 2022
India, the world’s second largest producer & importer of coal, is looking to boost its output by 100 million tonnes in the next two years by reopening closed mines
During the year ended March 2022 India burnt over a BILLION TONNES of coal….honestly what’s the point of our net-zero which is estimated to cost the taxpayer £1.4tn (that’s trillion)
May 6, 2022
So sir John explain how would you bring inflation down. You would probably let it run ,as it effects the well of the least.
Reply Inflation will peak soon and be a lot lower next year. I have set out substantial increases in domestic capacity of items like energy and food currently pushing up prices
May 6, 2022
I think you mean ‘affects’ and ‘well off’?
May 6, 2022
Reply to reply : Inflation may or may not be lower next year, but the actual money already lost to it never comes back. It may be 2 percent sometime in the future but that will be on the 10 percent or more going on to it this year. It is money people use, not percentages or waffle about economics, and they just won’t have any come winter. Also Bank Rate at 1 percent. So what, the banks don’t care, charging up to 40 percent and just another excuse to charge more. Bank rate and banks lost touch years ago.
May 7, 2022
That’s right, Graham. And another thing. When prices do indeed go up, when the raw materials begin to go down (eg oil and gas) the prices always seem to stay higher.
May 6, 2022
@ Reply – and too the depth of the coming recession and/or some credit market damaging event means there is substantial risk of deflation. If (when) that happens in the U.S. the Federal Reserve (by then shredded of credibility) will surely abandon Q.T. and interest rates may fall. Here we will be sitting in the midst of the Sunak Slump and the record to date suggests no action will ensue.
May 6, 2022
Reply to reply, you’ve set out areas for self sufficiency but they don’t fit it with Carrie’s agenda.
Better to import and virtue net zero than provide good jobs for Britain and reduce the balance of payments.
Don’t forget we have a whole department for Business Extinction and Import Substitution.
May 6, 2022
Correct – it’s the lunacy of net-zero which is driving costs and inflation up…and it will continue its upwards drive as long as net-zero is a policy
May 6, 2022
You Keynesians can’t stop meddling in private matters. Pushing and pulling your policy levers like good little Socialists. You just cannot let it be. Always looking to intervene to shape events for political effect and party gain.
Politicians and bureaucrats who seek to politicise the private sector economy have become a threat to freedom, every freedom
May 6, 2022
+many
I was just thinking that I so wish they’d just bloody well leave me alone and stop destroying everything.
It’s the most beautiful month of the year and the cuckoo is singing her head off.
Yet the evil creeps and seeps into every nook and cranny.
May 6, 2022
Indeed. A cost of doing-business crisis as much as a cost of living crisis.
May 6, 2022
+1
May 6, 2022
I told myself I wouldn’t post here again as it is a waste of time, but it is clear that this government is not fit to govern. Sir John knows it, but he and his fellow back benchers do nothing, so Boris continues to polish his ‘wold leader halo’ at our expense.
We need more democratic power for the electorate. It is intolerable that we have to put up with this never ending damage to the country for another two years, along with the manifesto busting policies. If the party had been honest about its true intentions regarding Brexit, immigration, net zero, the economy/self sufficiency, and tax policies it would never have been elected into power. Meanwhile, the UK continues to suffer severe mismanagement.
May 6, 2022
+100 and Johnson lied about what he was going to do while doing the opposite.
May 6, 2022
Apparently other “young global leaders” pretended to be liberals in order to seize power.
They were taught to do so.
I now view Our Leader’s diary ( which goes back to 2009 at least) as proof or that. I read his words with such hope…..
May 6, 2022
+1
May 6, 2022
Shirley. Very true. Don’t stop posting. Your posts are very good.
May 7, 2022
Agreed.
May 6, 2022
SM,
Agree 100%.
May 7, 2022
Shirley
I find Sir John’s site / diary cathartic. A little island of Consevative sanity surrounded by a sea of madness.
Keep posting.
May 6, 2022
The Treasury and BoE did the damage to the economy from 2008 to 2021 with massive money printing and zero interest rate policies. These gave us huge asset price inflation and allowed zombie companies to keep going.
Scary stat of the day: 50% of the US Dollars ever printed were issued in the last 2 years. I suspect the figure for the GB Pound is similar. You cannot pump that much money into the system without consequences.
Whatever action is taken now there will be pain ahead.
May 6, 2022
“Conspiracy theorists” are saying that here and in the US food supplies are being shut down, killing livestock ( using a virus as an excuse), not planting etc.
Trouble is, “conspiracy theorists” have been proven correct too often.
Purposeful ( against all reason) destruction of the economy must signal an agenda.
The govt is wiping the slate clean for The Great Reset.
May 6, 2022
Perhaps the BoE is simply responding to the dire prospects for our economy created by the government’s policies. Especially Johnson’s policy of encouraging conflict in a part of the world crucial for global energy and food supplies. Not to mention the policy he adopted of printing money like there was no tomorrow, to bribe the country into accepting lockdowns.
As you sow…
May 6, 2022
Interesting report yesterday re Johnson’s recent visit to Kiev:Ukrainska Pravda reports,using sources close to Zelensky,that Johnson “who appeared in the capital almost without warning brought a simple message that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin,the west is not.”
Nikkei-Asia is reporting that US weapons ordered (and already paid for) by Taiwan have been diverted to Ukraine.
A report earlier this week from a French journalist on the front line suggests that the Ukrainian army is close to collapse but is being urged to hold on until consent can be manufactured for wider NATO involvement in the conflict.And reports from Ukrainian deserters also suggest that some of their colleagues have been shot by their own side while trying to surrender.
May 6, 2022
Oh, Pravda, well, that’s that then.
May 7, 2022
Ukrainska Pravda is a patriotic Ukrainian newspaper putting out anti-Russian reports on the war. The French journalist works for the mainstream media.
Do try to keep up with what’s going on, lad, outside your little world of the BBC and the Guardian.
May 6, 2022
+1
May 6, 2022
Think we can all see a recession ahead if there is no significant change by the Chancellor.
Yes I know that World events are not helping, but the Conservatives have now been in charge for a decade.
On another point, I see the Rwanda policy is now unwinding big time, with a suggested ÂŁ100 million cost for 300 so called illegals, plus we take some of their failures into the UK, so that’s at least half a ÂŁmillion cost for each illegal being spent, goodness knows how much for each one sent here.
So no need to track all across Europe now, Claim asylum in Rwanda, get refused, and with luck you may even be flown to the UK.
What a bloody farce.
Not sure about Parties, but P… up in a Brewery springs to mind !
May 7, 2022
The solution I aver is simple.
Allow those in France to apply for asylum in the UK on the understanding that, if refused, they would automatically be registered for asylum in France.
Those who do not and cross the Channel should be detained and relocated to a Scottish Island.
Demand that the French place a ban on the sale of craft capable of crossing the channel without a license. This would discourage traffikers.
A lot cheaper and probably more effective.
May 7, 2022
Mark B
A more simple solution, automatically send them to the refugee camp in Lebanon which we are funding to the tune of ÂŁ1 Billion a year, to join the queue to make an application, they are after all refugees aren’t they !
Scotland would be too cold for them, weather in Lebanon much better suited
May 6, 2022
As a metaphor for Boris HMG has been spinning it will resolve NI protocol, I guess to try and rescue their elections. Brandon Lewis has once again rowed back from there being anything in the queens speech. Your government has the strength of wet lettuce. It is finished.
May 6, 2022
Mrs. T went to war 40 years ago to recover British Sovereign territory. Today our PM can’t be bothered, or is too frighterned, to invoke Article 16 and upset a few Europeans.
The man is pathetic.
May 6, 2022
Mark B
Just about sums it up !
Looks like he may eventually lose Northern Ireland because of it as well if recent polling is anything to go by.!
May 6, 2022
Fiat money, being an extension of the bartering system, needs to retain confidence in order to retain value.
Using a bartering system, you can not just make up some milk, cows or paid for time to barter. You must provide something in return for your trade. It follows therefore that if you make up money by printing it, or if you do not charge enough to borrow money, it will lose value.
I agree that increasing taxes is not a good way to help this matter, but inflation is stoked by government policy of low interest rates and printing money. As inflation is cyclical, it can only have peaked if wage demands remain below the prevailing rate. The public sector unions have not yet started striking for more pay but they will. Then the private sector will also need to be compensated.
Stop the presses (including banks creating money to loan) and price loans properly (in the 3-5% range)
May 6, 2022
The other government policy which is hugely contributing to overall inflation is its child-like obsession with net-zero.
Just wrong!
May 6, 2022
The inflexibility is surely because Messrs Johnson and Sunak are planning their next jobs. If Nick Clegg can get highly paid work on California surely they will get something similar. Patriotism has no interest for them.
May 6, 2022
+1
May 6, 2022
highly paid? – do you mean ÂŁmulti-millions per annum?
May 6, 2022
Nick Clegg – just another politician with a green card
May 6, 2022
It is a nightmare which will become reality. Given past behaviour (eg rigged ridiculous modelling and projections), I have a dreadful fear that the Treasury out to trash the economy – and people’s lives – to “show” that Brexit doesn’t work. It will be critically important to see Treasury records – internal emails, work-related Whatsapp messages.
May 6, 2022
+100 Alison – no doubt about it. The UK is being deliberately damaged. The CONS think they are ‘safe’ because the other main parties are just as bad, and this may well be true. How shameful can they get?
May 6, 2022
Boris has betrayed NI again. He will continue to support Brexit surrender and NI will soon be taken from the UK in full and Boris will be happy with that. I’m sure he wants it to go.
He’s promised the NI MPs in the Commons dozens of times he will support them but betrays over and over again. Tory mps keep supporting his deceit.
May 6, 2022
Off topic but related tot he net-zero doctrine which is driving inflation- pleased to see that even after the electoral pact that saw the Lib Dems not standing in Hillingdon, the Greens were not deemed to be a worthy protest vote and gained no councillors. There were only four parties on the ballot paper and yet the Greens could not mobilise support.
I do hope those at the heart of government and its ridiculous energy policies read something into this
May 6, 2022
Excuse me, Narrow Shoulders, are you suggesting ‘those at the heart of government’ have the slightest regard for ordinary people’s views?! I think they are far more likely to be paying attention to the directives they get from higher up. The UN and the WEF have just signed an agreement to ‘jointly accelerate the implementation’ of the 2030 agenda. The WEF Davos meeting rescheduled to later this month will no doubt provide further details as to how the accelerated agenda will be pursued. That is surely what Johnson and his missus will have their eyes on, not local election results.
May 6, 2022
NS..There’s no need to vote Green. They are aleast in power. They’re called the Tories.
May 6, 2022
Yeap
May 6, 2022
Alas same too with my local elections. So I created one and filled it in at the bottom – None of the above !
May 6, 2022
Off topic once more – Could London have a referendum on whether to have a mayor too? How did Bristol get this?
May 6, 2022
What’s the point, NS. The result will be ignored anyway. The EU wanted to split the UK into regions, via mayors, and the EU’s wishes come first so they can haul us back in with little change involved.
May 6, 2022
Agree. I thought this too. Get rid of Khan.
May 6, 2022
Wouldn’t every region vote to remove their ‘regional mayor’….I would
May 6, 2022
Off topic, of course the Irish Times has a view on Boris Johnson chickening out over the NI protocol:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-irish-times-view-on-the-ni-protocol-post-the-election-lowering-the-temperature-1.4870642
Which includes the fantasy that the Queen might refuse to go along with a proposed Parliamentary measure to restore and protect the full integrity of her United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland:
“Whether the decision to pull the pledge from the speech reflects a pragmatic turn on the part of the British government, or an unwillingness on the monarch’s part to be seen to endorse a blatant breach of the UK’s post-Brexit legal obligations, matters little.”
A bit like that silly notion that if we left the EU without a trade deal then the diabetic Theresa May would have to order our customs officers to block imports of the insulin upon which she herself depends.
May 6, 2022
If a Chancellor has to explain to his advisers that their advice is wrong, he should have appointed better quality advisers at the outset.
Evidence shows that the Chancellor is low quality and we need someone better.
May 6, 2022
Our banking sector has lost over 10% of their share value in the past week….not a good trend for this governments management nor economic confidence
https://www.lse.co.uk/share-prices/sectors/banking/
May 6, 2022
On Sky when asked how he felt about inflation at a predicted
5 times the target of 2% the BoE governor replied “very uncomfortable” – blaming world conditions and nothing about abject failure. Also failed to acknowledge that in certain conditions people with debts can benefit. The governor with the catchphrase “not me guv”.
ÂŁ is also down quite a bit lately so that will not be helpful.
May 6, 2022
Sir
As merely one individual ….. may I offer an apology, to you, personally. I could have voted yesterday, but I did not. My membership of the Conservative Party will not be renewed. I accept this is symbolic rather than having any financial significance.
Good luck for the future.
May 6, 2022
“The Bank and the Treasury have decided to take it out on us because they allowed inflation to go too high.”
So the elected government/Parliament are not in control?
The best news I have seen in a long time is that the voters of Bristol have voted in a referendum to remove the office of mayor for the city.
This shows a way forward to either remove the fifth column communists from our civil service, quangos and institutions or at least stop their deliberate economy and social cohesion destroying policies such as Net Zero and large scale immigration.
May 6, 2022
I hope you will allow this post John as it does relate to UK finances.
I noticed Turbo’s late post yesterday where he suggested sending illegals to the Falklands. What a great idea. They are British owned and in the middle of nowhere to unlikely to be able to abscond and we wouldn’t have to pay Rwanda or take their vulnerable over here. Win win.
May 6, 2022
Sadly we’re not sending them to the Falklands, or to Rwanda, or returning them back to France or back to their home country….they’re going straight to that four*hotel for a free hot meal, mobile phone and money
May 6, 2022
Well, they simply are not listening to you or anyone remotely sensible. Under too much pressure from WEF, EU, CS? The interests of this country and its people are plainly irrelevant.
Incontinent money printing and spending on an unprecedented scale, foolish, ill conceived lock downs, rediculous sums spent on T&T, eat out to help out, furlough. And how much has been spent on ‘vaccines’? How many billions, or is that hundreds of billions? For products that have failed?
No wonder we have inflation but I am most relieved to see that you think it will go down next year. We will however still have net zero and the energy crisis!
May 6, 2022
Sir John in light of the results coming in over yesterdays elections and today’s entry regarding the economy I would ask if you would please allow the late posting I put in last night to be reproduced today, I along ith many voters believe that the migrant problem has got to be addressed very quickly. The last thing we need is to be still in a situation where nothing has changed in the lead up to the next General Election
Off Topic
As the government seems unable to come to the relocating of economic migrants as being their Achilles heel that is going to destroy them as a party here is an option:
The last time I checked the Falkland Island are still British. Send all the illegals to the Falklands to do their immigration processes and vetting.
It would create a new industry for the island and if they don’t like it they will have to find a way to get onto the South American Continent.. There can be no longer any legal cases against sending them as the Islands are British.
May 7, 2022
There is no need to send them that far, not when we have so many sparsly populated islands to the west of Scotland. Much cheaper. But if you want to send them to the South Atlantic, then I suggest we send them to South Georgia. Either place is far safer than Rwanda and we do not have to take other peoples refugees in return.
May 7, 2022
If you’ve got the bottle just send them back from whence they came FRANCE, and there’s isn’t any dispute or argument that they came from France
May 7, 2022
Not fair to the Falkland islanders and they would soon be outnumbered by hostiles.
May 6, 2022
I believe inflation will reach 1970’s level as oil prices will increase and Opec will not increase supply.
Opec will keep output low to recover loses due to covid. Opec will also support Russia by not increasing output. Europe will add to the problem by trying to source oil from other market’s. Will Saudi Arabia step up to the plate and increase oil output, maybe not because governments have been critical of their human right.
It’s pay back time for Opec,Saudi Arabia and even Russia and the world has no quick solution to this problem
May 7, 2022
The upshot of increased cost and low supply is that makes drilling for North Sea oil and gas all the more profitable. Trouble is, look who we have in government – The Green Party in Tory drag.
May 7, 2022
The oil gas & coal price will continue to rise in direct proportion to the number of years remaining until net-zero target of banning the car & gas boiler is realised 2030
May 6, 2022
I never thought that I would write this but I’m delighted to hear of the conservative losses at the local elections
A very shifty looking Bunter making excuses on the TV at the moment, hoorah
May 6, 2022
One thing the pandemic has taught a lot of workers is that they no longer have to be located in an office and can work from home. That home doesn’t even have to be in the UK. Many countries are now offering digital nomad visas so the UK will be losing tax revenue from many highly paid workers. If this government doesn’t start to play fair with tax rates then there will be a brain drain like we had in the 1970s. High taxes, waste, and incompetence are not attractive qualities and will lose you the next general election.
May 6, 2022
Let’s do some simple arithmetic to determine how much inflation we should have expected. UK GDP is about ÂŁ2.2 trillion. Two percent real growth is therefore ÂŁ44 billion. If that amount is ‘borrowed’ by the Government, in the form of money printing, then we would expect non-inflationary growth. However, in two successive financial years we have ‘borrowed’ first ÂŁ300 billion then ÂŁ150 billion, a total of ÂŁ450 billion, about five times the non-inflationary borrowing of ÂŁ88 billion. So we should expect the excess borrowing to generate about 10% inflation over time. It looks like that’s coming true.
May 7, 2022
Good post.
Government offloading its debt onto the general public. Only if people could understand what is being done to them ?