To me it seems like a slightly desperate act to lower the VAT by 2.5%, as it is reportedly expected to be in Alistair Darling the British chancellors pre-budget speech. In my mind it is just going to reinforce the idea that buying worthless crap is really the meaning of life.

But, at least this is a stimulus package that will reach the consumer directly and not have to filter through banks as cheaper lending. Which has been the case for the previous measures. However, when the Gordon Brown government now chooses to cut tax, and when the Bank of England has cut interest rate by a figure not seen for decades, and this still doesn’t work, then where can they go next?

I can only imagine one thing the government hasn’t done to stop the panic, and that is to ask the public not to panic.

In fact, it seems the government isn’t even trying to stem the constant media barrage of negativity anymore. Perhaps the next step is to tell people that things are going to be all right. Even if all the money in the world is just lying around passively turning to worthless dust, it would perhaps help if people where told that not everyone will be hit by unemployment. Not everybody is going to suffer in this economic downturn, and some might even benefit from learning not to spend half their salary on worthless upgrades of gadgets they will just have to upgrade in another six month anyway.

Which brings me back to the desperation in cutting VAT. Isn’t that going just a desperate attempt to keep the current financial system alive, in spite of a widespread belief that this current crisis might be the cue we have all been waiting for, the one that tells us that “Buying worthless crap isn’t the meaning of life”.