There is an interesting podcast from the American site Macro’n Cheese with the Scottish Professor Mark Blyth, who, though he long ago emigrated and has become Eastman Professor of Political Economy at Brown University in the US, he has certainly managed to hang to most of his Dundonian dialect! I have to say I usually… Read more
Category:
Economics
Economics Theory
Freeports are Brexitwash
Lizz Truss, in her inordinate wisdom, has announced some freeports which are going to be so marvellous in boosting our Brexit success. They are, as Barry Gardiner has already suggested, just a way of moving around employment. But did we know that the EU already permits them? There is a list here of all the… Read more
The cult comes first
Amid news that the pound has sunk to a 28 month low on no deal Brexit fears, I thought I should revisit an oldish report from the Institute for Policy Research, which pointed out that: The decoupling between wages and growth coincides precisely with the UK’s trade (and current account) deficit. The UK’s debts to… Read more
Black Rock calls for ‘Corporate Welfare’ shock
There is an interesting article by the usually not to be admired (I find) Merryn Somerset Webb, in the FT. Black Rock has, it seems, urged the European Central Bank to stimulate the eurozone economy by printing money and using it to buy equities. She says: Global elites have a full-on meltdown every time the… Read more
Bozo the clown is not so stupid
It is somehow fitting that there was a mass brawl on the P&O ship Britannia which occured after “patriotic” partying on deck and, allegedly, an argument over a clown. The country itself now has its own clown in charge and the current cabinet looks so unwholesome that Open Democracy has called it the government of… Read more
Making almost three quarters of UK trading more difficult
This is an interesting map showing what trade agreements the EU has around the world and those that are still in negotiation (click to enlarge): The approximate quantity of trade that Britain conducts with the EU and with EU negotiated trade agreement countries is: EU 44%, USA 13%, Switzerland 5%, Hong Kong 2%, Turkey… Read more
Both the deficit and borrowing are clearly important for the Tories
If not in the way we usually think. Just look at these counterintuitive figures: Plus we now know that the ‘debt’ has increased under Conservative governments from £759 billion to £1.7 trillion. But nobody ever mentions it – presumably because this keeps the financial sector happy. Yet the government ‘deficit’ – often referred to as… Read more
Basic Income as a Common Dividend
Having, at last, read the report by Professor Guy Standing on ‘Basic Income as Common Dividends’ for John McDonnell, I have to say it is a very impressive document and no wonder John McDonnell has said Labour would institute trials. It is a really comprehensive review of everything about a basic income (and even why… Read more
Coffee house rent extraction shock…
You might have thought that the staff serving it were the most expensive overhead but no, the graphic proves that rent extraction is really what commerce is all about: and this is for a coffee company which seems to pay tax…… Read more
Media myopia isn’t the only crime – but it is one of the worst
While all eyes are turned upon the possibility of preventing a proroguing of Parliament (the spoof twitter account ‘Not Boris Johnson’ is currently thanking the 274 MPs who voted in favour of him closing down Parliament and running a dictatorship instead, whilst ‘Our future our choice’ has, wonderfully, dubbed Johnson as Trump with a Thesaurus),… Read more