UK Cuts Sales Tax [VAT]: Heroin for Shopaholics
Source:Cut interest rates. Cut taxes, cut anything, so long as it puts money back in the pocket of the consumer.
We dutifully take our wallets out into the sparkly delights of Main Street and hand over the contents in exchange for piles Christmas tat.
Spend, spend, spend!! That seems to be the British government's rather optimistic plan for yanking the rudder on the country's economic supertanker before it glides inexorably into the jagged rocks of financial ruin.
Cut interest rates. Cut taxes, cut anything, so long as it puts money back in the pocket of the British consumer.
Then our part of the bargain is to dutifully take our wallets out into the sparkly delights of the high street and hand over the contents in exchange for piles Christmas tat.
Even the normally stoical Marks & Spencer is resorting to gimmicky "guerilla sale" tactics to drag somebody, anybody back into its stores.
So in these chastened economic times, Alistair Darling is presumably even less impressed than usual with Buy Nothing Day an annual protest against consumerism and globalisation.
Its organisers describe it thus:
"Buy Nothing Day (Saturday November 29), is a simple idea, which challenges consumer culture by asking us to switch off from shopping for a day.The campaign aims to raise awareness of the inequity of 20% of people in the rich world consuming 80% of the world's resources - and the environmental destruction that stems from that consumption."It's a global stand off from consumerism - celebrated as a holiday by some and street party for others! Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!"
And some have taken it much further than just one day out of the shops.
"The idea is to make people stop and think about what and how much they buy effects the environment and developing countries.Doing their bit to avert the "shopocalypse" next Friday with a free dance party in Union Square, New York, will be Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping (the US celebrates BND a day early).Increasingly large companies use labour in developing countries to produce goods because its cheap and there aren't the systems to protect workers like there are in the west."
The faux televangelist and gospel choir are the brainchild of The Immediate Life - a New York based arts organisation.
In the words of the rev's sermon "beatitudes of buylessness":
"Blessed are the consumers, for you shall be free from living by products. Blessed are you who stumble out of branded main streets, for you shall find lovers not downloaded and oceans not rising."Amen to that.