Unilever has always been a fairly progressive company – although there are certainly arguments about its products and advertising strategy so I was interested to see this piece in this week’s ‘Sunday Times’: Giving hand sanitiser to the NHS is all fine and dandy but I strongly suspect Jope has no idea that this does… Read more
Category:
Economics
Economics Theory
Money isn’t ever precious – what it’s used for is
And when money is costless to produce, why do some people make things so purposely difficult for the rest of us? This is from Matthew Parris in Saturday’s ‘Times’ and suggests that the Coronavirus crisis is having interesting consequences for the Conservatism of which he used to be a member: Well, I’m sure that’s what… Read more
The Magic Money Tree used for the advantage of banks – again
These are key quotes from the British Business Bank, the bank designed to keep business running till the Coronavirus crisis passes: Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme gives the lender a government-backed guarantee for the loan repayments to encourage more lending. The borrower remains fully liable for the debt. The Big Four banks have agreed that… Read more
Making being out of work pay
The Chancellor’s welcome support for the self-employed may be comprehensive, but it is way, way too late. If it does not kick in before June that could be 9 or 10 weeks away and in the meantime all that is available is Universal Credit which, at £94 a week, offers intermittent penury as much as… Read more
The bureaucratic French
On March 17 Bruno Le Maire, French finance minister (their equivalent of Rishi Sunak) unveiled €8.5 billion state scheme to pay French employees ‘partial’ unemployment benefit so as to avoid redundancies during the Coronavirus crisis. One week on, 730,000 employees are already benefiting from this scheme (cost so far: €2.2 billion). M. Le Maire will… Read more
Danish not so blues
I was going to say Tesco (as the largest supermarket) please copy – but, I now think that is insufficient. It should now be government, please copy. The time is past for voluntary ‘commercial’ regulation. We really need to ensure that people keep their 2 metre (for me that’s actually 6ft 6ins, which is a… Read more
‘Don’t panic’ logistics..
I endured a weekend viewing of George Eustice assuring us that there was no need to panic buy as there was plenty of food in the system. Well if you are considering contemplating a fortnight’s ‘self-isolation’ you might just consider it would be good to do as far as possible, two weekly shops in one…. Read more
Surely this is basic income light…
The recent help for business is piecemeal and inadequate, but still welcome – even if days, indeed weeks late – and effectively even later than that because companies are asked to survive for a month first… Yet what about the self employed? As our (well my) favourite MP says: This is really like pulling teeth… Read more
Well there’s an idea
Buy two and get charged two and a half times as much! Problem solved. Tesco and Aldi please note…… Read more
Understanding the right wing mind -5
This from Jeremy Hunt, the new Chairman of the Health Select Committee, who never realised the harm he was doing! Words fail me, though ‘brain cells’ and ‘few’ and ‘inactive’ come to mind. What’s he been on in order to revive them ten years too late? Joking apart, it seems that few right wingers think… Read more