The end of Britain!

In January 2013, the UK’s best-selling financial magazine, MoneyWeek, published the doom-laden article, ‘The End of Britain.’

After advertising their credentials thus:

“We warned investors to take their money out of Europe in 2009, to avoid buying the euro, to stay away from the big banks in 2008 and steer clear of property investments in 2007. We even helped our subscribers find opportunities to profit from the ensuing chaos by stocking up on gold and a number of other assets unpopular at the time.

To our knowledge, no other publication can match our record of correctly anticipating and predicting the financial crisis.”

MoneyWeek said:

“In all recorded history, no country has ever recovered from the financial position we find ourselves in today. No government has ever been able to reverse this trend. No emergency action has ever come close to a solution. This inescapable problem has only ever had one outcome: financial collapse…

This is the most serious warning we’ve ever made. This is not just about your money… it goes deeper than that…

Way back in 2005, when we began warning about Britain’s dangerous debt burden, very few took us seriously... Back then, most mainstream commentators, from the Financial Times to the Daily Mail, just ignored the views we published. People couldn't refute our research... but they weren't ready to accept the enormity of its conclusions either…

No one believed us six years ago when we predicted the oil ‘super spike’ months before it made its 82% climb. No one believed us five years ago, when we anticipated the slide in the pound… And no one believed us three years ago when we advised our readers to ‘SELL EUROPE’. The eurozone crisis has since devastated stock markets across the continent…

We are more certain about this looming crisis than we have been about anything else in our publication’s history… BRITAIN IS ABOUT TO BE FLATTENED BY A TIDAL WAVE OF DEBT…

Two and a half years ago, when the Coalition government formed, we were already in a huge amount of debt. In fact, the previous government had left the country sinking under £700 billion’s worth. Take a look at the following chart:

The Coalition has spent the last two years desperately and very publically trying to get our finances in order. We’ve had an 'austerity' budget. We’ve had tax hikes. We’ve had 'the cuts'. But for all that, our national debt is still growing at an incredible rate.

Despite David Cameron’s talk of 'austerity', he’s going to add an estimated £700 billion to the national debt in just five years. That’s more than Tony Blair and Gordon Brown added to the national debt in eleven years. IT’S MORE THAN EVERY BRITISH GOVERNMENT OF THE PAST 100 YEARS PUT TOGETHER. The fact is, when you look at our finances as a whole, the Coalition isn’t cutting anything. State spending is going up… our national debt is going up… and our interest payments are going up.

By the next general election in 2015, OUR NATIONAL DEBT IS ESTIMATED TO STAND AT ALMOST £1.4 TRILLION… But add in our financial, personal and private debts… and an even darker picture emerges…

Compared to the size of our economy, BRITAIN IS NOW ONE OF THE MOST HEAVILY INDEBTED COUNTRIES IN THE WESTERN WORLD. That’s official. OUR TOTAL DEBTS STAND AT MORE THAN FIVE TIMES WHAT OUR ENTIRE ECONOMY IS WORTH.

Proportionally, that’s more debt than Italy… Portugal… Spain… and almost twice as much debt as Greece. Those are four countries already in the throes of financial crisis. We’re the odd one out because we haven’t collapsed, yet. But things can’t stay that way for long…

Our debts tower above almost every other nation’s, here are the figures that prove it:

That's absolutely incredible, isn't it? Yet you’ve probably never seen this fact reported in The Telegraph or on Sky News. And the worst part is, even THAT isn’t the full story… Because when you add in all of Britain’s 'unfunded obligations', promises the Government has made on things like public sector pensions, OUR DEBTS SWELL TO 900% OF OUR ECONOMY. That’s right, WHEN YOU ADD EVERYTHING UP, WE OWE TEN TIMES WHAT OUR ENTIRE ECONOMY IS WORTH…

It’s clear to see: we’re totally broke. It doesn’t matter which set of figures you use, or which way you look at Britain’s debts. We’re merely talking about different shades of disaster here. A country can either pay back its debts or it can’t. And it is very clear to us that BRITAIN CAN’T.

But how did we get here? After all, we were once the richest and most powerful nation on earth. What happened to all of our money?

On the 1st of January, 1909, something happened for the first time in British history. The government agreed to redistribute taxes to support people in their old age. On that day, more than any other, the modern welfare state began in earnest. The rules were simple. Men aged 70 and above could claim between 2 and 5 shillings per week from the government. But for all the positive press and good feeling, the government wasn’t really making that big a financial commitment, because back then the average working man could only expect to live to 48 years of age.

That’s the equivalent of offering someone a pension today… but only when they reach the ripe old age of 115. So the idea of rewarding anyone who made it to 70 with a hand-out from the public purse seemed perfectly fair. And more importantly for the government, cheap. That first year only 500,000 men qualified for a government pension. So at the time there were 10 workers for every pensioner.

It was a perfectly workable policy, but few politicians realised that they were setting in motion a sequence of events that would inevitably lead to the crisis Britain faces now. And let’s not forget, at the beginning of the 20th century, Britain still had a booming overseas Empire. It had yet to fight in THE CRIPPLINGLY EXPENSIVE FIRST WORLD WAR.

The economy was on a seemingly permanent upward trajectory. And the idea that Britain could face any kind of decline, financial or otherwise, had not yet entered mainstream thinking. We could afford to pay for a welfare state, so why shouldn’t we implement it? But there was one problem: now the welfare state had started… no one had any idea where it would stop… or whether it could actually be stopped if it became unaffordable…

It wasn’t until the Second World War was finally over that the welfare state really began to grow… Welfare was seen as a major part of 'Winning the Peace'; keeping the forces of Socialism and Fascism at bay. Of course, politicians soon realised welfare wasn’t just a tool to win the peace. It was also incredibly effective at winning votes too.

This same scenario came to be repeated across the world, in the USA, Japan and across Europe. Seemingly limitless economic growth and prosperity allowed politicians to make an essentially unlimited promise: the government promised to look after you 'from Cradle to Grave'. This single, powerful idea gave government the licence to swell to a size unimaginable just half a century earlier.

The promises got bigger, and so did the cost. In just a few short years, the size of the welfare state grew, almost uncontrollably, in a flurry of new laws. There was The Butler Act, which reformed schooling. The Family Allowance Act. The National Insurance Act. The National Health Act. The list went on. The problem was, this all came with a nasty side effect. It was immensely expensive.

Everyone assumed we’d be able to pay for it forever. But they were wrong. Politicians found themselves totally and utterly caught in this trap. Any attempt to reduce the size of the welfare state was met with often violent resistance in the form of strikes and protests. Or the party trying to cut back, to do the sensible thing, was simply voted out of power…

Since public pensions were first introduced, average life expectancy has grown from 48 to 80 – a 67% increase. But the age at which we retire has remained essentially the same. This has resulted in an estimated £5 TRILLION WORTH OF PENSION PROMISES THE STATE HAS MADE TO ITS CITIZENS, ROUGHLY FIVE TIMES WHAT OUR ENTIRE ECONOMY IS WORTH. NO ONE HAS ANY IDEA HOW WE’LL PAY THESE. The recent attempts by the government to change the retirement age don’t go anywhere near solving the problem.

As people have lived longer, the strain on the NHS, the demand for medication, more doctors, nurses and other staff, as well as a skyrocketing cost of caring for the elderly, has pushed our finances to breaking point. In fact, as state spending has grown, so has the cost of running the welfare system itself. For instance, the state employs half a million civil servants. To put that into perspective, during the height of the British Empire, when Britain ran a quarter of the planet, the state employed just 4,000 civil servants…

With the idea of welfare being such a vote-winner, no government could take the bull by the horns and cut it back. Not in any meaningful way. They could fiddle round the edges and save a few pennies here and there, but as the population grew larger and lived longer, all they could really do was SIT BACK AND LET A FUTURE GENERATION SORT IT OUT. And now it’s come down to us.

In 2012, for example, THE GOVERNMENT WILL SPEND ROUGHLY £120 BILLION MORE THAN IT COLLECTS IN TAXES. And in a situation like this, when you spend more than you earn, there’s only one way of paying for it. By borrowing money. That alone is bad enough. But remember, we also have to service our debts, to pay interest on a pile of debt that’s mounting ever higher… debt that we’ll never pay back.

So a vicious cycle was set in motion. Politicians realised that to remain in office they needed to make bigger promises, call for bigger reforms, and ultimately BORROW MORE AND MORE MONEY.

This addiction to debt has spread into every corner of British society. Banks… businesses… the ordinary man on the street, these days they all carry a great weight of debt. Debt has become normal. Want a holiday? Pay for it on credit. Want a new crowd-pleasing cut in taxes? Fund it with debt. To put it bluntly OUR POLITICIANS, so-called educated people who are meant to be looking after our interests, ACTED LIKE TEENAGERS WITH THEIR FIRST CREDIT CARD, ALL TO WIN VOTES.

If the UK had been a business or an individual, we’d have been declared bankrupt by now. We’d have been forced to sell our business premises or our home and would have been housed in a run-down flat long ago. WE ARE BROKE. WE HAVE BEEN FOR A LONG TIME. But very soon, it will really hit home…

THE EXPLOSION OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING AND GOVERNMENT DEBT HAS MOSTLY COME IN THE PAST 30 YEARS. And during that time, it’s been easy and cheap for the government to borrow money. You see, interest rates on the government’s debt have been steadily falling for thirty years…

In 1982 Margaret Thatcher’s government had to pay 15% to borrow money for three years. This came in the form of a bond (a gilt). Anyone with money, be it a rich country or a pension fund, could invest in the bonds, and receive 15% interest in return. But over time the government’s borrowing costs have fallen, dramatically. Now, the government only has to pay 2% to borrow money over the same period. That’s seven times cheaper than in 1982. And LOW INTEREST RATES MAKE IT EASIER TO BORROW MONEY.

Debt has been getting steadily cheaper for three decades. That has allowed the government to borrow more and more money, without having to face the consequences. But these ‘good times’ are about to come to an abrupt end. The simple truth is, if interest rates were at their normal rate of 5%, instead of the extremely low 2% they’re at right now, THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO WAY BRITAIN COULD EVER REPAY ITS DEBTS. In fact, at normal rates of interest we’re already bust. Not just ‘in over our heads’ but six feet under.

It’s simple maths. If interest rates moved back towards the normal 5% level, our cost of borrowing would triple. Just to put that into context, if our current debt repayments tripled, the government would have to take drastic action, LIKE ABOLISHING THE STATE PENSION. OR PRIVATISING THE NHS…

And that’s just if interest rates move back to 'normal' levels. The fact is, when you’re in a lot of debt, interest rates are either your lifeline… or your death sentence. So long as rates stay low, you can just about keep things on track. You can service your debts… keep borrowing… and keep the wolves from your door. When rates move higher… you get squeezed… and eventually, you’re finished. All of a sudden, you have to find more and more money to cover the interest on your debt…

Debt has been getting cheaper for thirty years. Now it’s about to start getting much more expensive. We’re now facing an unprecedented crisis. As interest rates rise, our record debts will become impossible to bear… What we can say with certainty is that sooner or later interest rates WILL rise. We’re approaching the day when foreign investors realise the scale of our problems and demand higher interest rates… or stop lending to us altogether. When that day arrives, we are certain things will get nasty…

The first 'flashpoint' will be the banking system. We’ve already seen this across Europe. This is because banks hold huge amounts of government debt. When interest rates rise, the value of government debt (bonds) falls. Even a small jump in interest rates would wipe billions of capital off banks’ balance sheets. It’s impossible to say exactly which high street banks, if any, could withstand that kind of hit.

As news of the banks’ problems hits the press, and rumours of a new round of bailouts spread, the public will catch on to what’s happening. We are likely to see a run on the banks. Picture the scenes we saw at Northern Rock, as people rushed to get their savings back, but ten times worse. That’s because this time round, the government simply won’t have the money to bail the banks out again.

But the crisis will not be confined to the financial sector. The disturbing reality is that a tiny increase in the interest rates could force tens of thousands of people to miss payments and default on their mortgages. The next domino to fall will be the housing market. Most mortgages are linked to interest rates. As interest rates shoot upwards, millions of people will be pushed 'underwater' by a combination of falling housing values and rising mortgage payments.

But that isn’t all… When a financial system ceases to function, the social fabric begins to fray. We are not simply talking about shares falling or house prices dropping, which is devastating enough. We are talking about THE BREAKDOWN OF SOCIAL ORDER. The important thing to realise is that Britain IS GOING TO CHANGE VERY SIGNIFICANTLY. Things might never be the same again…

Of course, it’s hard to picture. Banks look safe until they announce they’re broke. Governments say everything’s under control, until they beg for bailouts… The Victorians thought the British Empire would last forever. Americans in the 20s thought the stock market boom would never end. And here in the UK, during the 90s and early 2000s, we thought we could keep borrowing and spending forever…

Back in the 1970s inflation ate into cash savings at a rate of 28%. Yes, 28%. It seemed like every time you turned your back, bank savings lost more of their value. Every single day, you became a little poorer. The FT30 entered the worst bear market in history, falling 73% between 1973 and 1974. Even gilts, our so-called 'safe-haven', collapsed as interest rates went sky high.

Rising interest rates buckled the financial system. But it went deeper than that. THE SPEED OF THE SOCIAL BREAKDOWN WAS FRIGHTENING… SOCIAL ORDER QUICKLY BREAKS DOWN WHEN THE MONEY STOPS FLOWING…

The general strike meant dead bodies went unburied as gravediggers joined the picket line… Stinking piles of rubbish rotted on the streets, towering inside Leicester Square… Those lucky enough to have jobs had to swallow huge wage-cuts during the infamous ‘three-day-week’. Shoppers scoured supermarket shelves by torchlight during blackouts.

In 1976, humiliated, the UK government had to be rescued by the International Monetary Fund, with Jim Callaghan going cap-in-hand to beg for a huge bailout. Humbled, he delivered what was meant to be a wake-up call for the British financial and political system:

'We used to think you could spend your way out of recession and increase employment by boosting government spending… I tell you that option no longer exists. And so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion… by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment at the next stage.’

These words are amongst the most important ever uttered in the history of modern British politics. Unfortunately, almost everyone has forgotten them. For a left wing Prime Minister to admit that too much state spending is dangerous SHOULD have marked a big turning point in our history. But of course, it didn’t…

Property and banking crises meant that, people’s lives changed dramatically for the worse: jobs were lost, family businesses closed, people had to dig deep into their savings just to make ends meet. The country was brought to its knees. So when we’re talking about financial emergencies, don’t be under any illusions. It can happen here in Britain just as it can happen anywhere, given the right conditions.

In the 1970s the spend-borrow-spend experiment should have ended. It should have been our wake-up call. But we just kept on spending. So long as interest rates kept going down, there was always a way to put off the pain… a reason to borrow more… a justification for not balancing the books. But THE DAY OF RECKONING IS APPROACHING…

When these events unfold, very few people will have any idea how to respond. Most will see the assets they have worked all their life to secure begin to lose value, rapidly. It won’t matter if you have £5,000 in the bank or £500,000. It won’t matter if you own a five bedroom house in Esher or a one bedroom flat in Croydon. THIS CRISIS WILL LAY WASTE TO THE WEALTH OF ANYONE WHO ISN’T PREPARED FOR IT…

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WILL LOSE A LOT OF WHAT THEY HAVE. AND THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO DO A THING ABOUT IT…

We believe Britain is entering a long, downward cycle. One that is likely to be punctuated by a devastating financial, and even social collapse… Britain’s huge accumulation of debt means its fate has already been sealed. We are about to pay for what we have borrowed and in the worst possible way…

In recorded economic history, every single country with debts as big as ours, every single one, has suffered a devastating economic collapse. There are NO exceptions.

For example… During the Great Depression – when thousands of ordinary people lost everything, America’s total debt hit 252% of GDP. In any circumstances, that’s bad. But things can get worse. During the Japanese economic collapse, which triggered more than two decades of deflation and a 75% drop in the stock market, Japanese total debt hit 498% of GDP. That’s twice as bad as the level of debt seen in America during the Great Depression. If Britain’s current debts were at those kinds of levels, it would be worrying. But in truth, OUR DEBTS ARE NOW MUCH WORSE THAN EITHER OF THOSE TWO EXAMPLES.

Shockingly, our debt load is now on a scale comparable with one of the most frightening economic disasters of the 20th century… We're talking about the Weimar Republic. Back then, suffering under the weight of brutal war reparations, civil unrest and shattered public finances, THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC’S TOTAL DEBT EQUALLED 913% OF ITS ECONOMY. I’m sure you know what happened next: the government printed money and hyperinflation took off. In the end, it was cheaper to decorate your home with bank notes than wallpaper. Ultimately, the country descended into a period of economic and social crisis… A CATASTROPHE THAT ENDED WITH THE RISE OF THE NAZI PARTY. And that was with debts worth 913% of the economy.

Today, BRITAIN’S TOTAL DEBT EQUALS 900% OF THE ECONOMY. When you add in our financial sector debt, government debt, personal debt and corporate debts… OUR DEBT LOAD RIVALS THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC IN SCALE… This simple fact alone proves just how inevitable Britain’s coming crisis is.

Remember, as you saw earlier the only thing delaying the crisis right now is the fact that interest rates are at historical lows. That’s what allows life to carry on 'as normal'. But things won’t be this way for long. Because the simple fact is: When interest rates rise, and they WILL rise, Britain will face the greatest crisis in generations…

There is nothing the government can do to solve the debt crisis. Better people than David Cameron and George Osborne have tried to get out of similar crises in the past and failed… As the crisis deepens, panic will take hold. In a desperate attempt to pay off the debts and try to regain control, politicians will cast around for any sources of money available, and use almost any means to seize it. Invariably, that means they’ll turn to their primary source of income: YOU. Throughout history, when countries are in financial crisis, GOVERNMENTS AUTOMATICALLY RAID THE WEALTH OF THEIR CITIZENS. It’s all they can do…

In 1933, President Roosevelt signed executive order 6102, forbidding the man on the street to hold any significant amount of gold. In the midst of the Great Depression, the government basically made it illegal for anyone but them to hoard the precious yellow metal. Refusal to comply with these demands was met with a five year prison sentence. That’s essentially how the US filled Fort Knox, BY SEIZING OTHER PEOPLE’S GOLD.

Just last year in Hungary, facing a debt crisis similar to our own, the government nationalised all pensions. In effect, they confiscated people’s savings… In times of financial panic, the government will come after the people with money and savings. If you are someone who has worked hard, been responsible, considered the future, thought about your family, planned for your old age, and built up savings and some wealth, YOU ARE THE PRIME TARGET.

The government and financial authorities will never admit this, of course. They will never announce or admit to these ‘confiscation’ policies. In fact, THEIR OFFICIAL STATEMENTS ARE DESIGNED TO CONCEAL IT. And yet, in the end, THEIR ACTIONS AND THE NEW CONTROLS THEY IMPLEMENT WILL UNDERMINE SOME OF THE CORE PRINCIPLES OF THE BRITISH WAY OF LIFE…

Considering the UK has one of the largest debt to GDP ratios on the planet, how long will it be before your money is seized by our cash-strapped government?… Unfortunately, you cannot stop the government taking this course of action…

Frankly, no one can know for sure how this crisis will develop… or what unexpected events Britain will face in the coming months. No one can know how quickly things will escalate.”

Let's look at some of the things MoneyWeek says again:

“In recorded economic history, every single country with debts as big as ours, every single one, has suffered a devastating economic collapse. There are NO exceptions… we owe TEN TIMES what our entire economy is worth…

Our politicians… acted like teenagers with their first credit card, all to win votes…

The explosion of government spending and government debt has mostly come in the past 30 years…

Throughout history, when countries are in financial crisis, governments automatically raid the wealth of their citizens. It’s all they can do… If you are someone who has worked hard, been responsible, considered the future, thought about your family, planned for your old age, and built up savings and some wealth, you are the prime target…

The government and financial authorities will never admit this, of course. They will never announce or admit to these ‘confiscation’ policies. In fact, their official statements are designed to conceal it…

Thousands of people will lose a lot of what they have. And they won’t be able to do a thing about it…

When a financial system ceases to function, the social fabric begins to fray… We are talking about the breakdown of social order… Britain is going to change very significantly…Social order quickly breaks down when the money stops flowing…

The Weimar Republic’s total debt equalled 913% of its economy… The country descended into a period of economic and social crisis… And that was with debts worth 913% of the economy. Today, Britain’s total debt equals 900% of the economy… our debt load rivals the Weimar Republic in scale…

A catastrophe that ended with the rise of the Nazi party…

The day of reckoning is approaching.”

In a booklet published in early 2007 titled, ‘Stunning Statistics’, the very first stunner told you this:

“As of September 2006, Gordon Brown, ‘the prudent Chancellor,’ had overseen the creation of a debt mountain totalling £1.34 TRILLION.”

What is MoneyWeek telling us now?

“By the next general election in 2015, OUR NATIONAL DEBT IS ESTIMATED TO STAND AT ALMOST £1.4 TRILLION.”

I published Stunning Statistics more than 18 months before the financial crisis went critical and the worldwide recession began. Very little notice was taken of me or others much better placed to offer informed comment. So, now we are where we are.

After an ’explosion of government spending and government debt’ that ‘has mostly come in the past 30 years… we owe TEN TIMES what our entire economy is worth.’
br /> Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron/Clegg were at the helm during this period. The Thatcher/Lawson ‘Big Bang’ opened us up to the financial predators, their privatisations sold off our ‘family silver’ to the same and the Blair/Brown/Mandleson combo, of ‘filthy rich’ fame, carried right on opening up and selling off to those who depradations would eventually lead to the worldwide recession and ‘a tidal wave of debt.’

Do you deserve what’s coming? Do you deserve the ‘approaching… day of reckoning?’ Well, of course you do. ‘The breakdown of social order’ will, when it comes, be down to those who trusted a corrupt and self-serving elite to do the right thing by them, when to do so was palpably nuts.

Ours is a society where politicans who act ‘like teenagers with their first credit card’ shovel barrow loads of our cash into countries with the A-Bomb and space programmes. The last time I looked our indebted enconomy was leaking £12billion annually to such needy regimes

According to the same politicians, we can afford to wage enormously costly and immoral wars upon Iraq and Afganistan as well, when very few ordinary citizens ever saw the point. We can also pour unconscionable amounts into the EU in order that unelected and unanswerable bureaucrat can impose his global writ upon us.

And then there's the social security bill. Tell me this: how much of the debt built up over the decades was doled out to immigrants on welfare? How much is being paid out now? If we sent every last diverse and enriching benefit recipient back home tomorrow, don't you think the debt would be drastically reduced?

Unfortunately, such commonsense behaviour is way beyond the remit of our 'first credit card overlords, who know so much better and see so much further than the rest of us.

They're war with us, you see. That’s what this is all about. They’re building up to a third world war. That’s the one where the trough-gobbling hogs who created all the debt in the first place go to war with those who didn’t.

They’ve got all the guns and bombs, we’ve got right on our side.

I wonder whose side you’ll be on come ‘the day of reckoning?’

A word of warning. If you choose them, you choose more of the same. You choose war without end. You choose those who put the foreigner fisrt in this country and kill him in his own. (If they’re not bunging him our billions)

You choose political correctness, mass immigration and greedy bankers. You choose the EU, the UN and the global elite. You choose the Murdoch media. You choose an African Archbishop of York, a half-Jewish oilman Archbishop of Canterbury and a foreigner governing the Bank of England. You choose dumbing-down, drugging-up, degeneracy and perversion. You choose an almighty ‘government debt’ that ‘has mostly come in the past 30 years.’

You choose Thatcher, Blair, Brown, Cameron, Clegg, the Milibands and those who own them over your own.

P.S. Moneyweek’s article tells us that the catastrophe of Weimar 'ended with the rise of the Nazi party.' According to MoneyWeek, then, the bad guys ‘ended’ it! The bad guys eradicated the decadence, degeneracy and perversion. The bad guys put the workless German masses back to work. The bad guys put a stop to the geonocide!

700,000 Germans starved to death during the Weimar years. Did you know that? Of course you didn't. Why would those who ‘created a tidal wave of debt’ similar to that the Weimar Rebublic was burdened with tell you about such things?

The 17 September 1936 edition of The Daily Express quotes the former Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, thus:

"I have now seen the famous German leader and also something of the great change he has effected. Whatever one may think of his methods, and they are certainly not those of a parliamentary country, there can be no doubt that he has achieved a marvellous transformation...

There is for the first time since the war a general sense of security. The people are more cheerful. There is a greater sense of general gaiety of spirit throughout the land. It is a happier Germany. I saw it everywhere, and Englishmen I met during my trip and who knew Germany well were very impressed with the change.

One man has accomplished this miracle. He is a born leader of men. A magnetic and dynamic personality with a single-minded purpose, as resolute will and a dauntless heart. He is not merely in name but in fact the national Leader. He has made them safe against potential enemies by whom they were surrounded.

He is also securing them against the constant dread of starvation which is one of the most poignant memories of the last years of the War and the first years of the Peace. Over 700,000 died of sheer hunger in those dark years. You can still see the effect in the physique of those who were born into that bleak world.

The fact that Hitler has rescued his country from the fear of repetition of that period of despair, penury and humiliation has given him an unchallenged authority in modern Germany. As to his popularity, especially among the youth of Germany, there can be no manner of doubt.

The old trust him; the young idolise him. It is not the admiration accorded to a popular leader. It is the worship of a national hero who has saved his country from utter despondence and degradation... This great people will work better, sacrifice more, and, if necessary, fight with greater resolution because Hitler asks them to do so...

Catholic and Protestant, Prussian and Bavarian, employer and workman, rich and poor, have been consolidated into one people. Religious, provincial and class origins no longer divide the nation...

I found everywhere a fierce and uncompromising hostility to Russian Bolshevism, coupled with a genuine admiration for the British people with a profound desire for a better and friendlier understanding of them."

Which is all a bit different to the routine anti-Nazi, Hitler-is-the-epitome-of-all-evil propaganda we're spoon-fed these days, isn't it?

I'm not saying Nazism wasn't responsible for many terrible things, it was. But there are two sides to every story and, when you only ever get told the one, you're liable to head off down the one way street those who would have you know only half the story want you to head down.

Anyway, MoneyWeek says the bad guys put a stop to the catastrophe of Weimar. Anyone out there think the present catastrophe will be resoved by the good guys who created the situation in the first place?