How Johnson can realistically hold that chucking a statue of Edward Colston into the water is thuggery I really do not know – and he was, after all, supposed to know a bit about thuggery himself. If he’d pointed out that the South West England especially, had for centuries, been subject to kidnapping and slavery… Read more
Category:
RentierCapitalism
Harvesting other people’s debts should not be a business model
Crises tend to reveal unacknowledged truths. In 2008, we learned that the majority of the financial wizards we had been taught to treat with awe for the previous two decades were, in fact, little more than scam artists — and rather clumsy ones, at that. The coronavirus, and resulting lockdowns, is teaching us an even… Read more
Future government austerity unlikeley
There is much anxiety on Tax Research UK about how austerity may be just around the corner and will be used by the Conservatives as a means for ‘payment’ of the current significant bail-outs to pretty much everyone. They just have it ingrained in them. Yes they probably do – even though Johnson has said… 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
Rent to prosper – or not?
There was an interesting item buried in the ‘Next’ retailer’s annual report (click to read it!) It expresses some optimism on their shop rents. Their leases run on average for only six years (which actually seems short to me) but at a 25% reduction on their current costed basis. That is very good news for… Read more
Surely the ‘Banking Age’ must be nearly over?
History suggests that any society that holds on to its original ideas for ever is surely bound to fail. If we, as we seem to be, are part of the Banking Age is not finance itself the reason for the failure? We have been operating a financial system based broadly on ideas from the seventeenth… Read more
A wonderful Tweet from Russ in Cheshire
Who I don’t know, but I really sympathise with. I cannot vouch for all of the detail – but I’m pretty certain that some of the statistics are ONS compliant. It rather effectively adds to the tale of woe that Charles has just posted here. Russ in Cheshire: Social Justice Catering Corps. Designer, data-analyst. Once… Read more
The UK: A divided country
Something that I knew, but it still shocks me, is illustrated in this data from The Economist. Exhibit 1 In terms of regional inequality, the UK is more divided than the US. The situation in the UK is extreme. It is as if a great crime has been committed on large parts of the UK… Read more
Central Banks – the Overmighty Citizens
There is an interesting book review in the FT (occasional paywall) on “Unelected Power -The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State”, by one, Paul Tucker, previous Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, no less. It comes in at 656 pages so I’m glad the FT has read it so that… Read more
Président Macron’s government to sell Paris’s airports
I was most impressed with a journalist’s summation on France 2 of the proposal by Président Macron’s government to sell Paris’s airports. They are currently owned by just a shade more than 50% by the state.. The Prime Minister has said it is not part of the government’s purpose to extract dividends from infrastructure. Though… Read more