[John Whitworth]

You are right, Janice, and I am wrong. The money we only just repaid was mostly lend-lease during the war which totally screwed us. The British Labour Government wasted all the money (well wouldn't you know it). But I apologise to you about this.

However, it must be said that the Marshall Plan was better for the US than it was for anyone else. The money was for buying US goods, in that way very similar to the German method of managing Europe. There is nothing wrong with America taking care of America, indeed it is her duty to her people to do so. But America does have a tendency to say that they are doing things for moral reasons when they are doing them for economic advantage. Or I think so.

I think pretty well all foreign aid is pernicious and harms the recipient. Enoch Powell was of this opinion, though I don't suppose that cuts much ice with you. I would cancel it all. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Who said that?

[Gregory Dowling]

Polonius, of course. Not sure I'd base a country's economic policies on his advice.

[Janice D. Soderling]

No apology needed, John, of course not. Glad we got consensus on the Marshall Aid.

[John Whitworth]

Longheaded fellow, Polonius. His advice to Laertes is spot on. And he was right about Hamlet too. No good would come to Ophelia through that liaison. Nor did it.

George Osborn is doing his best to follow Polonius's advice. Good for him. The worst thing that ever happened to our economic policy was John Maynard Keynes. I even wrote a poem to say so. So it must be true.

I bet you didn't know I taught economics once. All based on a book by an English disciple of Keynes whose views I now believe to be fundamentally unsound. Lipski? Some such name.

Adam Smith is the man to follow. And David Ricardo. Two canny Scotch.

[Gregory Dowling]

Well, of course I'm no expert, John, but I don't think our current economic system could survive without borrowing or lending. That, of course, might be a very good thing...

Polonius did know how to turn a phrase, no doubt about that.

Cross-posted with your editing. No, I didn't know you had taught economics. Other poets who studied economics, if not taught it, include Vikram Seth...

[John Whitworth]

I didn't say I studied it, Gregory. I taught it, meaning I mugged it up from this Lipski fellow. Or rather Lipsey. Positive Economics. A splendidly written book.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Stayn Cambry, John. Tasmania is full of devils!

[John Whitworth]

And there are wolves in the Blean forest. They crunch the bones of bad children and howl at the moon. I can hear them now. Crunch.'. Howl.

[Ann Drysdale]

No, they're not. They're fast asleep on the forest floor and dreaming of their mothers.

[John Whitworth]

Indeed they are, Ann. Indeed they are.