Flogging off the family silver

So Brown's big idea to save the nation from drowning in a sea of debt is to sell off some government assets. Unfortunately, for Gordon, most of the decent stuff was sold off to foreigners a long time ago so all that's left are a few relatively worthless bits which nobody is really keen on. It's a bit like a family struggling to meet the demands of a loan shark, but having sold off the family silver a long time ago, resorting to selling any old tat they can find at the local car boot sale.

Add on the fact that any money raised will be eaten up by the ravenous public sector within months and it all seems pretty pointless and smacks of desperation - which is what it is. And, of course, it is a buyers market - meaning that the price received for any assets they do flog off will be well below what they could have expected to fetch when the market was buoyant.

I've often remarked that a nation and its budget is just like a family and their budget - just on a much larger scale. You can tell an awful lot about the real state of a family at any time by looking at the state of their finances. They might have a big house, a flashy car on the drive and appear to be well off, but when you find out that everything is funded by huge debt you realise that things aren't what they seem.

When you see that they are flogging off every last bit of tat with any value at all, that is when you realise that reality has started to bite.