Inflation makes balloons bigger and chocolate bars smaller

Leaving inflation aside, let us look at the short-changing on tax and government expenditure.

We are all aware of taxes we are paying, - on buying houses, paying for council services, on energy and a whole host of other things provided by central government.

What is less clear is the reduction in some services, like inflation making chocolate bars smaller. The list is very long, so mention only a few.

We have lower paid and less qualified classroom attendants and police support officers.
We have armed forces denied the equipment needed to fight the wars we became involved in.
We have seen reductions on local council services - fortnightly bin collection now in many councils, massive library closures, road and pavement surfaces which are a disgrace, swimming pools which are said to be uneconomic have closed, and so on. We now pay more towards the free medicine we thought we had paid for in our national insurance contributions, and NHS dentistry which requires contributions as high as those in private practice, except in Scotland we are having to make large contributionstowards old-age care. We now pay to park at hospitals, because they need the money, and we shall travel further.

They tell us that everything is better, education (-do you believe them, as we slip rapidly down the international league tables?) and health waiting times, and there is er,......

It's not just the extra taxes we pay to fund the vast bureaucracies, it's also the attenuation of services. Inflation makes prices higher, but sometimes it can make services smaller.