Up to 10 views yesterday.  It may not seem many but from a low base of 1 (me), that's an increase of 1000% since last Tuesday.  Cheers.  That's the thing about stats from a low base improvements can sound impressive if you measure them by percentage.  On the other hand if today they go back down to 5 (and they probably will after this post) they will only have gone down by 50%.  Oh well, I know it's not great but still I've only lost 50% so that's still 950% since last Tuesday. If another one of the 5 drops off that will be another 20% leaving 980%. 

Of course discerning Goffa From The Block intelligentsia know that's bullshit but many people out there wouldn't.  They don't know their arse from their elbow when it comes to numbers so how are they expected to understand the figures and percentages that are being thrown at them on a daily basis to judge how well or badly the country is doing?

So what have we got to measure how well we are doing.  We've got the interest rate, the inflation rate, growth in GDP, factory output, structural debt, public debt, factory orders, the trade balance, the balance of payments.  That's about it, no sorry forgot about business confidence, consumer confidence, house price index, currency exchange and so on and so on.

What I'm saying here is I'm not sure if I believe what I'm being told and to be honest it's beyond me.  And if it's beyond me I'm pretty sure it's beyond a lot of people so being a bit of an investigative journalist I thought I'd try and find out so I could let you know.

Anyway, forget it, it's beyond me but I did find an explanation of how debt works.  I've lost the hyperlink but it goes something like this.

A German tourist goes into a British hotel and says he wants to rent a room for a night.  The hotel owner says he has 1 room left and tells him it will cost £100.  The tourist says he would like to have a look at the room first but as a sign of goodwill he will leave £100 on the reception desk.

As soon as he sets off to go to the room the hotel owner picks up the £100 and runs around to the butcher to pay him the £100 he owes him for the weekly meat delivery.  The butcher is very relieved because times are hard and he owes the hardware shop £100 for a new set of knives he had to buy and the owner of the hardware shop has been giving him a hard time over the debt.

So he tootles round to the hardware shop.  The hardware shop owner is very grateful because the credit crunch has driven him to drink and he has built up a debt of £100 at the local pub.  He will now be able to pay up and get the local landlord of his back.

He quickly runs round to the pub and coughs up.  The landlord is pleasantly surprised and very grateful.  Times are hard in the pub trade which has led problems with his marriage and he ended up with him using the services of the local prostitute at a cost of £100 and he still owes her the money.  Fortunately she is sat in the corner of the pub so the landlord goes over to settle up with her.

A stroke of luck really because the prostitute is broke and she owes the hotel owner £100 for the use of one of his rooms where she takes her clients.  She runs straight round to the hotel and leaves £100 on the reception desk.

Meanwhile the German tourist came back down the stairs after what seemed a long time.  He says the room is filthy and tells him "it looks like a brothel" and tells him he will find somewhere else to stay.  He picks up his £100 and leaves.

I think that's probably as good as explanation of public debt as I'm going to get.