For people like the Labour supporting businessman John Mills, Brexit was mostly about getting the value of the pound down in order to increase exports. ‘This is Money’ reports that His Brexit beliefs stem from his economic outlook. For Mills, Britain has thrown away its industrial manufacturing past and needs to rebuild its status as… Read more
Category:
Society
A household is not like a state
As a society we need to be far more concerned about climate and inequality than money, however as it is almost a year since I last wrote about sectoral balances, there are another 4 quarters of data to look at, and I want to make the point again, money is not a contraint on what… 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
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
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
Non inflationary Basic Income
By putting a price on everything in terms of monetary value, we devalue the things that cannot effectively be priced. This is a rough quote from Professor Guy Standing, he of Universal Income fame, from a recent ‘Renegade Inc’ interview. So happiness is both priceless and worthless. Anyway Professor Guy Standing has produced a report… Read more
Why any job guarantee is a bit suspect
There is an excellent article on Vox reviewing David Greaber’s ideas on ‘Bullshit Jobs. “The point of an economy should be to maximize leisure in order to pursue passions, not “make work.” This is also, I’d suggest, effectively Mariana Mazzucato, who infoms that the state usually creates the origination, as it were, of most original… Read more