Didn’t our politicians learn recent history in school? During the 1930s the government went through the same process of cutting our armed forces for financial reasons and this led directly to World War Two. Chamberlain was forced to accept humiliating terms by the Germans which brought us a year of peace. During that year we worked like mad to try to bring our military potential up to date.

During the first months of the war our survival was on the line and I think we had more than our fair amount of luck. Born in 1925, I went through World War II, learned a lot from my father who served in World War I and over the intervening years have found out a lot more about how close we were to virtual annihilation.

The cuts that are being made to the Armed Forces are based on the false premise that we can’t afford them. The present government are, as usual, blaming the previous government for their financial predicament; how is it that they can always find plenty of cash to fund enquiries that puts millions into the pockets of the legal profession.

The cuts to the Armed Forces, the police, the fire service, the NHS and many other essential services are symptoms of a Government that has lost its way. I’m not making a political point here; I don’t believe any government knows how to find its way out of the ‘fine mess they’ve got us into’ (Oliver Hardy’s catchphrase).

Basically the monetary system has broken down and politicians all over the world should be seeking a solution instead of making the lives of ordinary people more and more difficult. So let’s have no more than the blame game.

All across Europe, the USA and other parts of the world there is a backlash against the  sudden deterioration in living standards. We are all being told that we must lower our   standards, pull in our belts, put our shoulders to the wheel and so on.

It seems that this is because we all owe a great deal of money; even those who have never been in debt in their lives.  all countries  owe trillions of pounds; the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, the USA likewise. So who do we owe all this money to?

I can only assume that it’s interest paid on vast sums of money deposited in various financial institutions around the world. This interest is  unearned and should be dealt with on that basis.

This is the sort of job that politicians should be tending to instead of lining their own pockets. Intelligent machines now do much of the backbreaking and boring  tasks that were previously done by humans. As an engineer I helped in this revolution. But instead of making life easier for many people it has made a few very rich indeed.

The divide between rich and poor is widening every day so that somebody can spend £74 million on a painting (The Scream) while others cannot afford to eat. This is not just in the Third World; this is all over the world.

If governments want to avoid civil unrest on a scale never known before they must cooperate to find ways of distributing wealth more fairly.

How has the budget affected you? If you’re a rich person you’ve done well; if you’re a very rich person you done bloody well. But if you are of average or low means you’re probably licking your wounds. Maybe the government has given you a few scraps to keep you happy or you may feel you’ve lost out.

What interests me about rich people and particularly very rich people is how they got their money in the first place and how they are getting it now. Your worth is not reckoned in what you do for the community but rather on your job title. If you are a dinner lady or a refuse collector your wage packet will be light although your absence would reflect more on the community than, say, a solicitor.

There are many rich entrepreneurs in the UK who started from humble beginnings. By working hard, taking risks and making brave decisions they are now rich people. I don’t begrudge them this; in the process they have provided work and sustenance for many families. Some are now billionaires.

What is causing the International financial crisis?

But what I am concerned about is what is happening to their money now. With no effort on their part and maybe a nudge or two from their financial advisers their money is now gaining interest at an alarming rate. You may wonder why many countries are in financial difficulties and have large debts. To whom is the money owed? To these very rich people who are amassing vast fortunes while they sleep.

So at the end of the day, who is footing the bill for this unearned interest? You are! Whether you are a plumber, a nurse, a solicitor or any other person who is working daily for a salary, you are paying. Although it may not be evident, the payment of this interest filters down from top to bottom of society and this surely can’t be right.

I don’t pretend to know how this situation can be changed; that’s for politicians to decide. But we see that the payment of these huge debts is causing problems including civil disobedience and riots in many countries. What do you think?

For most of my life I have been a design engineer, creating machines and devices for carrying heavy loads that at one time would have been manhandled. I have also worked in special-purpose machine design of machines that takeover tedious and boring jobs of manual workers.

Let me give you an example; disposable nappies or diapers. In the beginning these would have been made by hand using pre-cut shapes in plastic or rubber. Hundreds of people would sit in rows at benches glueing these together and filling with padding. I came into the industry at a late stage when automated machinery was already well advanced, but was still able to add a little. By that time five operators on a shift were able to control machines producing thousands of nappies every hour. All the operators had to do was to keep the machine supplied with huge rolls of plastic and padding using fork lift trucks. The nappies went down the conveyor belt so fast that they were just a white blur. Even the perfume is added. At the end of the machine’s the nappies were packed automatically into cardboard boxes ready for sale.

Most industries now tell a similar story; cars, foodstuffs, television sets and the like that were once made by hand are now made by robots. The people who used to make these items manually are now redundant and have therefore had to be put to work in other ways.

This change has happened gradually and, it seems to me, has not been recognised as the second industrial revolution, which it undoubtedly is. Many people who would once have worked in factories are now in service industries such as supermarkets. The working week has been drastically reduced in hours and will continue to be reduced. The struggle is on to keep full employment but in the current social climate this is proving difficult.

In my opinion the need to find work for people has led to a growth of bureaucracy and the proliferation of schemes such as “health and safety”. The amazing development of the computer and telephone systems has also helped in creating this bureaucracy.

I look forward to the time when governments recognise that we are now living in new times and find ways to adjust society to meet the new parameters.