Chris Giles is the FT’s economic correspondent and in a tweet he has said “I’ve suggested a looser fiscal framework than John McDonnell and Sajid Javid.” Perhaps he’s just listened to Alexei Sale on Radio 4 “Austerity is the idea that the global financial crash of 2008 was caused by there being too many libraries… Read more
Category:
Economics
Economics Theory
Selling by the left
I confess I am not usually a fan of Jacobin, which often seems to me, to overstate its case. However there is an interesting article here where I have some considerable sympathy. The article points out the initial joy of the Barrack Obama election success. The author starts: I came to my politics the way most… Read more
The rise of economics as a method of control
This from the Economist of 29 August reviewing an American book, “The Economists’ Hour”, by Binyamin Appelbaum, which I thought historically instructive:. Few economists worked at the Federal Reserve in the early 1950s. Those who were on the staff of America’s central bank were relegated to the basement, at a safe remove from the corridors… Read more
Unlike his fellows, empathy but no knowledge…
I am often impressed with Rory Stewart’s thinking ability, and, unlike the current Conservative Despot in Downing Street, he is a gentleman and not a ‘cad’ – or worse. So this is a video from what I consider the thinking man’s Conservative (though, for sure, some have suggested that that this very idea is an… Read more
The Divine Right of Conservative Kings
In spite of this short almost endearing, piece being from 2016, this was Mayor of London ‘power’: Yet when we know there is a joke is doing the rounds to the effect that, a sexist, a racist, and a liar walk into a pub and the barman asks simply, “What would you like Mr Johnson?”… Read more
Market based capitalism can’t compete with state sponsored capitalism
There is an interesting article here on how Trump is effectively bound to be outsmarted in his trade war with China. America suffers from the same problem as Britain – it doesn’t make much anymore. So if the currency reduces in value there is no opportunity to increase exports because it there is nothing much… Read more
Post Brexit possibilty?
For people like the Labour supporting businessman John Mills, Brexit was mostly about getting the value of the pound down in order to increase exports. ‘This is Money’ reports that His Brexit beliefs stem from his economic outlook. For Mills, Britain has thrown away its industrial manufacturing past and needs to rebuild its status as… Read more
Tax and spend? Not with Johnson…
BBC Radio Four news has tonight reported that we will be told how Johnson’s spending commitments will be paid for in due course. Isn’t this ‘real’ evidence of spend, and tax? And, if so it’s most unfortunate that Johnson got there before Labour……. Read more
The dilemma of neoliberal capitalism: whose efficiency and whose resilience?
National Grid claimed, after the recent power cut that they had been efficiently supplying electricity without fault since the last time the same thing happened eleven years ago in 2008. Now, I’m paraphrasing slightly and the chap was rather less smug than this suggests but it still poses the question: whose efficiency and what about… Read more
A household is not like a state
As a society we need to be far more concerned about climate and inequality than money, however as it is almost a year since I last wrote about sectoral balances, there are another 4 quarters of data to look at, and I want to make the point again, money is not a contraint on what… Read more