Opaque Deficit

Tons of the usual dubiously motivated financial pundits and their uninquisitive media friends on radio and TV at the moment, all telling us how the next government needs to be more transparent about how to close the massive budget deficit. Obviously by cutting our public services, pensions etc.

However reducing this to a personal finance level, as the experts and their intellectual vassals like to do, then I'd like to see some transparency about the deficit itself. Surely if it was your own money then you'd like to know who you owe what to before going onto a diet of bread and water in order to pay it back?

Let's have a proper breakdown of exactly who we owe the money to, what interest we're actually paying on it, and especially if Fractional Reserve Banking may be involved, where did the lenders get it from?

Election Strategy

My election strategy is changing all the time, but currently it looks like I'll vote for the LibDems as usual.
In Cambridge City we actually have a Trade Union & Socialist Coalition candidate, who would certainly get my vote in the real world.
But this being politics I'm thinking that it may be better to attempt to ensure a LibDem victory so that they can make some headway towards PR before the bond markets up the interest rates and bring them crashing down.
Then at the next election votes for the TUSC are likely to count for more and maybe we can start to get the country run for the people rather than for international finance.

Language Aquisition

I was intrigued recently by the story about the Croatian girl who awoke from a coma speaking fluent German.
For those too lazy to read it, she was learning German but far from fluent, then ended up in a coma, how we aren't told. When she awoke however, she couldn't speak her native Croatian at all, but spoke only fluent German.

For me this is both intriguing and annoying, because it would appear that all the German that I've seen and heard is most likely in my head somewhere, I just can't get it out. Unless I'm drunk and talking to a taxi driver anyway.
Inducing a coma seems a bit of a drastic solution though, perhaps I should get my Suzuki GSX 750 back on the road....