I have started subscribing to Money statistics at ‘The Money Charity’. I rather wish I hadn’t. It is an uncomfortable realisation that a whopping 3,118 Consumer County Court Judgements were issued every day in 2017, with an average value of £1,493. Meanwhile the so called National Debt (which many might prefer to call National Savings)… Read more
Category:
Economics
Economics Theory
Picture for the side of a bus
This is from MapPorn (I know, it’s sad, I cannot manage the real stuff). It shows the actual major trading import partners of European countries. The German takeover of European trade, including those countries not in the Euro, is pretty much complete… This indicates the flimsiness of Brexiters assumption that Britain is such an important… Read more
Nasty, brutish and shorter
Thomas Hobbes’ (only slightly amended) quote seems to be the way our government thinks either that we want – or probably more likely, it wants us, to live our lives. The recent figures from the Resolution Foundation on rented housing are a case in point. Outlined in the chart below, they show that the number… Read more
Bus Reregulation?
One of the most striking aspects of the Labour Party’s new bus travel proposals to give all young people under 25 free travel, is that, interestingly, they have been costed for the entirety of the UK, even though transport is devolved, because Labour seems to think that everyone will want the same proposals. I’m sure… Read more
The Home Office, eyes wide shut
The Independent has published an interesting statistic: NHS figures show the number of stab victims in England aged 10 to 16 rose by 63 per cent between 2011-12 and 2016-17 – four times the rate of increase in the population as a whole. So this seems to leave London as an area that receives most… Read more
If only you could buy happiness?
What should politicians do? Make us happier of course. UK politicians are not doing great at this – we are only 18th in the happiness league table of OECD countries.* Maybe politicians have got their priorities wrong? As I show below, as happiness and equality are related, maybe they should be doing more about inequality… Read more
Why a Universal Basic Income might shore up Neoliberalism
I occasionally read what the ex New York Times journalist, Chris Hedges, writes as it is always well written and usually hard hitting. This piece is no exception and I was drawn to it because he is railing against the idea of a Universal Basic Income – something which, although I’d prefer it were called… Read more
The only bit of Neoliberalism that isn’t Fascism is the ‘Neo’ bit
It really does seem that the only remaining difference between Neoliberalism and Fascism is a slightly more liberal social policy outlook – although even that might be debatable in some cases. I now discover that whereas Hitler started the privatisation lark, his Fascist colleague, Benito Mussolini, started the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). Admittedly, it wasn’t… Read more
‘The End of Banking’ – is it as appealing as it sounds?
I attended a talk based around an interesting book, ‘The End of Banking’ by Jonathan McMillan (in fact a made up name from two authors – one of whom works in finance so wanted to remain anonymous). The book defines banking as “the creation of money out of credit,” which nails the unspoken truth in… Read more
What industrial strategy?
The government eventually told us after the last Steel crisis that they would be formulating an industrial strategy for Britain. This was published in late 2017, and despite arguing that, ‘It sets out how we are building a Britain fit for the future.’ – it currently remains unclear what it is, except that it seems… Read more