I came accross this simple chart to summarise the privatisation of much of the probation service which shows what a complete disaster it has been: (Note: CRCs are Community Rehabilitation Companies: NPS is the National Probation Service – the bit that is still state run; TR is Transforming Rehabilitation; MoJ is the Ministry of Justice. Double… Read more
Category:
Neoliberalism
Insights from the American Elite
Some remarkable insights were disclosed in the FT report of the Milken Institute’s annual gathering of the investment, business and political elites this week in California. I don’t know who these people are but no matter – if they are indeed the elite then they seemed to have garnered marginally more insight than our lot…… Read more
President for the Rich
There have been many recent reports of the generosity of several of France’s richest families giving to the fund that has been set up to rebuild Notre-Dame. Bernard Arnault of LVMH gave €200m and even put his own creative, architectural teams at the state’s disposal. His son, Antoine, was quoted as saying “As caretakers of… Read more
Poles
The title is purposely ambiguous because I feared this would be a rant about ‘The Poles’ as in Polish people, (one of whom particularly is a friend)! In fact I’d written to my local councillor about telegraph poles – she replied with this succinct title. I discovered that BT is actually allowed to put up… Read more
Universal Basic Services (UBS) and also UBI?
There is a very interesting article ‘Can we have UBS and UBI?’ on what appears to be a new site devoted to Universal Basic Services (UBS). UBI is of course Universal Basic Income. It says: When we think about how to transition to a 21st century future that will deliver a larger life for the… Read more
Regulatory competence
There is a notable ‘Guardian’ article by Will Hutton on the the crashes of the Boeing 737 Max 8 and the pervasive capture of the American state by corporate interests, where he highlights the bonfire of regulations (where have we heard that before?) that has led to reductions of funding of the Federal Aviation Administration to… Read more
Chickens and Hayek
I strongly recomment a listen to The Inquiry – How did we mess up antibiotics? A part of the story involves chickens. The figure below is from businessinsider. Clearly, there is something not natural going on here. Back in 1989 I went on a trek in the far north of Thailand. In the villages, chickens… Read more
An outbreak of sense?
The Guardian ran a striking headline on Thursday last: Scrap laws driving privatisation of health service, say NHS bosses . I confess I did a double-take. If this is for real then it has to be heartily welcomed. [They are] proposals which, if taken forward by ministers – who are supportive – would unwind and… Read more
MMT is perhaps gaining hold in the US as there are some very spurious arguments against it
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has received further criticsm in the US – perhaps particularly because that seems to be where it is (can we hope?) gaining a hold. Britain is still mired in the all-consuming provincial business of Brexit. This is a writer on ‘Medium’: “…the treasury can only spend by first ensuring it has… Read more
Estate ‘rent’ in New Towns
Once upon a time there was a new town to the East of Exeter called Cranbrook (not to be confused with the – now smaller – town in Kent). Here they thought they paid council tax for public services – as indeed, they do. But, watch out, they don’t cover the services still provided by… Read more