Even the Telegraph considers this government less than optimum; “We see only a ship of fools, and a plague ship at that.” Others have suggested that it is a brains trust of the intellectually challenged. Yet Johnson in the Commons, opined that the British taxpayer has the right to expect that we will achieve maximum… Read more
Category:
Covid-19
Criminal Justice
We have all seen the peeing football fan from Essex, who had allegedly consumed 16 pints over the previous night and was, after remonstrations from his father, it seems, encouraged to offer himself up to Essex police. Of course very few public toilets are actually accessible. So how on earth do you cope after 16… Read more
Your banker has it…
David Graeber has been having a few words on the economy with Al Jazeera and expanding on his previous ideas. I agree with his view that the ‘Economy’ is a really recent invention (in large measure it was John Stewart Mill, who at least actually called it the ‘Political Economy‘). After all he says, Shakespeare… Read more
Sustainable Government Finance is not a cult
In a recent post on the Tax Research blog I quoted Richard Murphy’s* own words because he seemed to be rather distressed that progressive economists didn’t seem to support Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) calling it a cult! Perhaps it is time to notice that ProgressivePulse readers have better christened it ‘Sustainable Government Finance’ (SGF). “And… Read more
Competent government
This is an interesting 90 seconds from the New Zealand district of Canterbury: It shows that British government has done everything in almost exactly the opposite way to New Zealand. The UK had 64,000 more deaths than usual to May 29, the highest excess death rate in the world. Yet the business secretary has apparently… Read more
A Pritti Dire Home Secretary
Below is the oath of an English or Welsh Police Constable. It indicates discretion and that keeping the peace comes first – as do people before property: I, … of … do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the Queen in the office of constable, with fairness, integrity,… Read more
‘What matters’ is that equality works
We are currently told that Black Lives Matter which, like all lives, of course they do. And while we now discover that the American policeman accused of murder had had 17 complaints against him, none of which seemed to have changed anything, and, indeed there are also instances of American policemen killing white arrestees with… Read more
Prepare for waves – of redundancies for sure and in all probability Covid-19
We seem to have voted in a government that thinks its duties include the right to pillage society and its people. The may not be quite as bad as King John but everyone is definitely supposed to be aware that human worth has its market price. The people are all supposed to be prepared to… Read more
Covid-19 Is the UK Response Improving?
Introduction The previous blog Covid-19 How is the UK doing? asked the question and sadly came up with the answer that the UK, and in particular England, has had the worst response in Europe. Post-publication a new, interesting, but depressing paper has appeared: Measuring excess mortality: England is the European outlier in the Covid-19 pandemic,… Read more
Harvesting other people’s debts should not be a business model
Crises tend to reveal unacknowledged truths. In 2008, we learned that the majority of the financial wizards we had been taught to treat with awe for the previous two decades were, in fact, little more than scam artists — and rather clumsy ones, at that. The coronavirus, and resulting lockdowns, is teaching us an even… Read more