Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Stupidity is catching


We had the same experience here, and now the Spanish are repeating it. Spain's plans to have 2,000 electric cars on the road by the end of 2010 have been dealt a blow as figures showed just 16 have been sold, says the BBC.

Well, you could blow me down with a feather. Produce a pile of high-priced, under-performing shit consumer durables and nobody will buy them. Strangely, you do not even need an economics degree to understand this. But, to believe otherwise, it seems, it helps to be a politician – or a car manufacturer chasing favours.

That the vehicles are produced by a company called "think", though, is just one of those truly delicious ironies that you could not even begin to invent ... unless you were reading an early Tom Sharpe novel. Do you remember those?

The trouble is, when they are all at it, you get the "they can't all be wrong syndrome", which means the rest then pile in. But the brutal truth is, yes they can all be wrong. Stupidity is an infectious disease, to which politicians are particularly susceptible.  It just takes one of them to get a stupid idea and, before very long, they've all got it.

And how do you know if it is a stupid idea? Well, if a lot of politicians believe in it ... it's stupid.  On the other hand, if they don't believe in it - things like democracy, self-determination, immigration control and the like - then it has a racing chance of being a good idea.

As to the cure for politicians, I am told that copper-jacketed enemas, inserted at very high speed, are probably the only effective remedy. In fact, now we are a one-party state, they are the only remedy - period. Normal politics are over.

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