The Economy

When governments start to go broke banks lend them money. But then the banks start to go broke, governments lend them money and bail them out. But isn’t this the same money that they were lent by the banks in the first place? How can this be?

As an engineer, this seems to me a bit like perpetual motion which we all know is impossible. I don’t understand!

The Environment

Environmental campaigners tell us that building more roads leads to increased traffic and increased congestion. They even go as far as saying we should reduce the number of roads to reduce congenstion.

So does this mean that building more hospitals results in more sickness? Or is the converse true? Reduce the number of hospitals and the number of sick people will reduce. I don’t understand!

Farming

I live in Tenbury Wells on the Worcestershire/Herefordshire border. The countryside is beautiful. I can stand on the top of a hill, look around and see rolling green fields interspersed with the occasional brown field. A few sheep are grazing in the fields. The question I ask myself is “How do the farmers that own these fields make a living given that they’re all left to grass?” The answer must be government subsidies.

So that means we’re paying farmers not to grow food and leave fields idle whilst we import food and fly it in from abroad. I don’t understand!

Printers

I’ve just had some business cards printed. Since I rarely use business cards these days – most of my contacts are online – I decided to not to be extravagant so I used one of the online services – Vistaprint in this case. For the grand sum of £8.07, with a bonus of a voice to MP3 app thrown in, I received 250 business cards. Pretty good value I think. If I go down the road to the local printer, he will charge me over £100 for the same thing and no bonus app. What’s more I noticed that the cards from Vistaprint came from Belgium. I don’t understand!