You read about the new South American Pope here first!

Seems that I had a good guess that it would be a South American for the next Pope. Not a young man by any sense of the imagination, but with a birthday of 17th December 1936 he is a spritely 76, four years above the average for the College of Cardinals.

It is interesting to note, that the College of Cardinals, are allowed pick someone outside of their own number, if they so wish. Never been done, can't for my life see as to why that would be.

The other thing to note, is that South America is home to 40% of the world's Catholic's, according to Michael Hirst of the BBC and more pertitently is a place where the Catholic Church is still held in some esteem. 

Interesting to think, that in South America, men are seen to be authority figures, leaders not just in the home, but at work and in society as a whole (patriarchal societies, perhaps - ed). They really don't go for that namby pamby Western Liberal, metrosexual type of man down there (are you sure? - ed), which is why they have chosen a Pope from that region. (? - ed)

So it appears that there will be no liberalism (big or little 'l' - ed) in the Catholic Church whilst he holds the position, and 

• there will be no move on woman priests  (no change there then - ed)
• no sensible talk or action on the use of contraception, remember every sperm is sacred and is a potential tithe earning Catholic sinner (ouch - ed)
• there will be no seaching enquiries into the sexual antics of numerous priests and their associated coverups (no change there then - ed0
• there will be no enquiry into the allegations of bribery and corruption at the Vatican (no change there then - ed)

The song remains the same even though the chairs have been shuffled!

Afterthought

Sorry for going on about the Pope so much recently. The post on Government Spending is proving to have a rather difficult gestation, it is taking as long as it takes, and now matter how many extra resources I throw at it, it ain't going to appear sooner than it does.

I could argue that it is there or thereabouts, and needs some very colourful graphs as the figures readily available from 'Da Goverment' (tm) are so very interesting (aha that 'interesting' word again - ed)

For those that have not realised it, no Government, not a single one (not even Mrs Thatcher's Governments - economics ed) has reduced public expenditure when denominated in simple pounds. 

Why, mainly because you have to take into account inflation and the iniquity of fiscal drag (the Government gets more money automatically as average wages go up - as the tax bands are not automatically uprated for inflation - economics ed).

Even the so called, "massive cuts", that we are having now, are cuts to planned higher levels of spending, not actual cuts, i.e they are reducing the rate of increase to less than inflation, so your next tax pound that the Government gets will buy fewer services (unless deflation kicks in - economics ed).

The crux of the matter, is that as the economy is flat lining, the tax revenues have flat lined and so there is no 'natural' year on year growth of the Governments tax revenues, so they are having to make some tough decisions.

The real question, and one that no Government has ever faced up to, is, "What is the Government for?". Now a debate on what Government should or should not do would be thinking about. 

Anyhow, this afterthought seems to have become a pre-post to the forthcoming post and I really can't let it steal the thunder.

[David stands up and moves his hands away from the keyboard. Now breathe, deep, long slow breaths, this is not the article you are looking for, move along - ed]