Hatfield is our responsibility - False economy is a killer

We all know that Britain does not know how to finance its Railways and make them safe. Lord Beeching thought he was clever by closing down that which we could not afford. What we could not afford to do, was fail to understand high finance and go short of money.

That is criminal folly.

Fining ourselves for being so idiotic is even more idiotic. High finance, at its highest point, is where wisdom is at its lowest ebb. Money is man made stuff. Keeping ourselves short of money so that we die from lack of it, is an insanity.

Global poverty from which millions of us die of disease and starvation is so ridiculously stupid, that if we think about it at all, we cringe.

We can only be short of money and run our fastest trains on rotten rails, when our IQ drops below zero on the subject of money and we confuse money with debts. When we discover the next adequate source of all our energy needs, we shall not possess the requisite money to put it into use. We shall need oodles of new money very fast.

But instead of doing the obvious, we shall decide that we have forgotten how to create new money and try to make do with credit. We shall attempt to borrow new money into existence. Our folly will be beyond belief.

Once upon a time, when we needed some new money with which to advance our civilisation, we dug some gold out of the ground and told ourselves that gold is money. For a time gold did seem to act quite well as a substitute for money. But to imagine that credit is a usable substitute for money, is to take leave of our senses.

Credit is New Speak for debt. Credit is minus money. Run our Railways on minus money and the minus grows with £13.5 million sized fines. Who is fining who?. Shots fired into the feet.

When I was a lad and fog made speed dangerous, we put explosive caps on the line to warn the driver to slow down.

There is nothing to stop us spotting a rotten rail and putting a stop to the trains until it is fixed. That is what any one of us would do, if we became responsible. We are capable of being responsible, especially if we travel by rail or a loved one travels by rail.

Everyone of us can see that it is impossible to operate a potentially dangerous enterprise such as a high speed train, purely as a means of making money. To complete the journey without mishap is so much more important than to make the journey with a crash waiting to happen.

We need to trouble ourselves with an understanding of high finance, so that we can ensure safe journeys for everyone.

False economy is a killer. Let corrupt economics become history at once.

Doctor Edward C Hamlyn MBChB

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