Boiling Frogs: The View From The Other Side Of The Pond

Everyone knows the story that if you put a frog in boiling water it will just jump out. Putting it in cool water and then raising the temperature until it is boiled seems to be the way to cook frogs. I don’t know if that story is true but it seems to fit our situation. We have a status which we may be unhappy with but then it is made slightly worse. Do we do anything about it? No. We just carry on. Then a little bit later it gets just a little bit worse again. The temperature is slowly being turned up. The best example was the fuel blockade. We screamed and shouted and then something was done. Now the fuel costs are well above the value that triggered the blockades but we all sit and do nothing.

It actually makes me wonder if we will ever reach the stage that we will be involved in riots. Maybe those that are having problems with social security payments, those that are being persecuted by the DWP and those that live in inner cities will be the only ones to riot. Mainly because their changes are coming so quickly that they are being heated too quickly to stick to the metaphor. There is little that can be done to slow that down as they are simply running out of money. In the more affluent areas and for those that are in employment then the heat is just turned up a little bit more. We won’t do anything but whine.

How long can we go along like this? There is talk about September being a key date but with the borrowing still going on with little sign of an ending and the stock exchanges reacting positively to everything that the government is doing I wonder what will be the trigger. After all there are several examples of what a crash does over the last 100 years or so and although I was expecting this one to be one of the worst I am now wondering after listing to people talking whether anything would actually motivate the people to do anything. I originally envisaged that there were plans for troops and plod in the streets but after seeing them being cut to the bone and still the screw is tightened I’m not even sure there is any joined up thinking at the top.

I’m now just seeing a large proportion of the country simply not having enough to live on and they, instead of turning on those better off, turning on their own and breaking into their neighbors and sticking to the local area. Sure there will be spillover but nobody will want to go to far until it is too late and they won’t have the strength to do so. Only the affluent that live close will be impacted as gated communities are not that secure without quick response from Plod.

I now just don’t see a mass exodus from the cities. I simply see people starving in their bed and a few, more feral types, raiding their neighbors  That will keep them going for a while until the stocks run low but they will then be too fixed in their ways and too uncertain to take the leap into searching the countryside. For one they will want to return when it gets dark and who will defend their property when they are gone?

I think we credit these people with more ability than they have although I think it is right we do so. We must not underestimate what they can do. I just don’t see it though. The more I listen to people the more I see them just getting warmer and warmer in the water.

Of course if it all blows up and there is a sudden collapse then the burst of hot water could change it all. So I’m not changing my plans. I just now think the risk has decreased slightly.