ARTICLE - Wildfire Economics

First there is a stack of wood, a pack of firelighters. a box of matches and some sort of fire pit. Through experience humankind learnt how to create and contain fire until we could use it to provide light, energy, warmth. Further harnessed, fire can drive engines and industry. Any fire should never be left to burn unattended lest it goes out, or worse still allowed to escape, burning out of control. Setting alight any crops or houses close by. In fact, anything that happens to fall in its path will be consumed by its flames. 

Once a fire is allowed to get out of control in this way, fire turns from something we harness for our mutual benefit, into a savage wildfire, completely beyond all reasonable human restraint. Getting it back under control can prove extremely difficult. You may in the end have to resign yourself to using a fire break, wait till it burns itself out, and then count the cost. Those who immediately count the cost, will have just lost their homes and livelihoods to the fire, and perhaps even someone they loved.  Fire, left to its own devices, is a cruel and merciless monster.

This is where our government currently appears to be, playing fast and loose with the fire of the economy. Behaving as if there were no detrimental consequences to doing nothing, to inaction, of not attending to it, and then begrudgingly envisaging a kick start to the dwindling economic fire by pouring petrol onto it. I leave open to question whether this is happening through ideological dogmatism, economic naivety, incompetence or as a deliberate strategy of arson to burn off the deadwood? Whatever the reason, they appear willing to countenance an economic wildfire. Heaven help anyone who is unable to get out of the way of the advancing conflagration.