Dear Financial Voice Reader,
I’ve got bad news. There isn’t enough money. Not enough for the NHS, not for the trains. I’ve spent eight hours in A&E this past week and 3 hours standing on a train from Leeds. Why standing? Because yet again the previous train was cancelled.
There is not enough money to make our trains and our hospitals work. There are not enough rich people to tax. There is too much waste and incompetence. Very few people are good enough to run things and pay for things.
Basically, you’re screwed financially too. As I walked around Leeds, some of the poorest parts of where I am from, there was a time you could climb up, get a job and get a mortgage and the price of your property would elevate you out of the poverty trap.
Those days have gone. Rich people don’t like it when the poor do too well too easily and come to their social clubs.
So what’s the answer? The country need to borrow more. Waiting for the Chinese to invest in the Northern Powerhouse will take way too long. The Government can borrow at ridiculously low rates. The world is still willing for now to lend to the UK. Borrow and invest in schools and infrastructure. Invest your way out Britain.
The country needs a little money compared to its economic size in order to make a large change. But spend wisely. After all they invite students to borrow cheap to pay for their education, an investment and pay it back later. The country needs to do this.
You want to know why productivity is so low? I am writing to you standing in a first class compartment and I will be standing for another two hours. Tomorrow I will be in Oxford, first I will be at a Breakfast organised by Lord Bilimoria on Brexit – these are all reminders we need to invest to keep our spot in the world.
I don’t mind if you think more tax is the answer. But you will then definitely agree with me that more spending is for sure. Borrow to spend.
And what of for the individual. Well you may need to take loans to invest in your future – maybe skills training, maybe moving to another area – if you can get the mortgage. You see it was always borrowing that led to growth. For the individual it was mortgages.
And sadly, unless we discover oil off the UK coast, or more of it, then it will be borrowing again – but always to invest.
Alpesh B Patel
For a free online trading course visit www.alpeshpatel.com
