Youtube comments of Curious Crow (@CuriousCrow-mp4cx).
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If Zelenskyy plays the CRM/CRE card wisely, Ukraine isn't just securing weapons or funding—it’s integrating itself into the long-term strategic interests of the West. That’s a far more powerful and irreversible position than simply relying on foreign aid or military assistance.
Trump, with his "deal-making" mindset, likely didn't account for this possibility—he assumed the U.S. was Ukraine's only viable option. But if Ukraine diversifies its strategic partnerships through resource diplomacy, Trump is left out in the cold, watching Europe and other allies deepen their stakes in Ukraine's security.
This all means that Zelenskyy wasn’t in a position where he had to take whatever Trump was offering—he could afford to push back. If Trump had recognized this, he might have adjusted his approach, but instead, he overplayed his hand, assuming Ukraine would cave to his demands.
So, in essence, Trump walked into the negotiation thinking he had all the cards when, in reality, Ukraine wasn’t even at the same table—Zelenskyy was already playing a different game.
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And why not, when the banks are still not investing in the real economy? They're Debt-farming for speculation instead of productive investment,pretendinh everything's fine now despite passing on the burden onto taxpayers for their bailout, and impoverishing everyone but themselves? The global financial system was broken in 2008 because the banks and the securitisation industry were too greedy and too corrupt. And the whole global economy has been stagnating and more subject to crashes and volatility ever since, because speculation is quicker and easier, even though it does little for the real economy. And the pandemic just put the frosting on that cake. The only thing that has grown are asset bubbles. So the global economy is a basket case, because the financial sector is far too big, and too unstable to be effective, and it's producing wealth disparities that are undermining national economirs. A little history of finance would tell you how this ends. It doesn't end well. It never has. The irony is we are experiencing the same failures that contributed to the end of the Greek and Roman empires, and for the same reasons. And their financial systems were run in the same way as ours, the only difference being is technology allowed a global financial system to emerge to be rotten from the inside instead of regional ones.
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@ruaraidhmorrison5879 Because the British economy looks more risky than other countries, because of its poor performance. Indeed, at one time other than Greece, Italy was seen to be more risky than the UK, but now that's no longer the case. That why the interest rate for the UK is higher than Italy. And it's not Labour's fault. 2008 with 14 years of austerity, vampirised the British economy. Brexit cut another vein open, and the pandemic QE just threw money at the problem without thinking how to recover it was the just the final straw. And who in the end ended up with that money? The asset wealthy, who the bottom 50% spent that money with. And they don't spend it. They buy assets with it, and get even more wealthy. In a sense, we've given away too much, and the asset wealthy have the upper hand. There is no money unless they either do more austerity or tax the wealthy more, as they promised not to tax workers more.
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You as a pilot are not the norm. The vast majority of people have no idea of Crew Resource Management. yes, I watch Mentour Pilot's videos as well, so I know that certain personalities increase the risk of accidents and deaths in the workplace. Most professionals in risk critical professions would know that, because their professions have learned from the tragic lessons of the airline industry. But most of your passengers don't have a scooby doo. Culturally, socially, and psychologically, they have no idea of the active effort needed to keep them safe. That's why certain passengers are rude, get drunk, are aggressive, complain about having to wear seat belts, and still attempt to smoke in the toilets, all while in a thin metal tube in the sky... They don't realise what could go wrong until it does, because they don't see the effort, or look under the hood until things go wrong. Government is another thin metal tube in a different context. Effective government should work to keep things working so that everyone else can live effective and productive lives. And we don't pay attention to that until it doesn't. Now, that also applies to people who think they know better, or are impatient with checks and balances, or just want what they want, and to hell with the consequences. And when you let the lunatics take over the asylum, you get chaos. You get destruction. Reality is a harsh mistress. Bury your head in the sand for whatever reason and she'll kick what's above ground until you pay attention to her. And the temptation is always there, and becomes acute when things don't work as they should. And nobody is immune to this, because it's the way our brains evolved. Taking shortcuts, limiting input, and biases all save limited processing power. The best of us learn to think and pay attention, and not rely solely on our fears and anxieties to solve problems, but to think their way through important issues. But it's hard to pay attention to the issues of 300 million people, so we delegate that tho state and federal government, and if they're distracted by perverse incentives, flattery, or folly, the Swiss Cheese Model explains what happens because of poor communication, neglect, or folly. When things start to go wrong, there's always going to be some bright spark to game the system, or to abuse it, especially where there's money to be made. And deals are done, and life goes on. Until it doesn't. Everything now in the Trump administration is designed to distract or deflect from the real task of Trump and his acolytes, which is to raid the cookie jar. And Trump is only the gateway drug to that. We are living in a dark experiment where our millionaires and billionaires have taken over the plane and are pushing the envelope of how much they can squeeze our of it. And they're wearing parachutes, but everyone else is not so lucky. And, there will be others after Trump, who will try harder to break the system for their own gain. Until we pull our heads out of the sand, and take democracy seriously again. It's like a garden. You might employ contractors to look after it, but you have to get professionals in and refuse to hire cowboys. Stop voting for people you wouldn't lend money to, or let them give your pretty daughter a lift home. Stop settling for less. Demand the best, or get the worst.
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@TheGalifrey Respectfully, you are incorrect. The EU is our biggest trading partner. Spending it on shared projects means technology and resource sharing, which makes up for the loss of capacity and expertise caused by nearly 2 decades of Austerity. If we go it alone, it takes longer, costs more, and keeps us away from technological R & D we could get access to, which is counter-productive, as well as earnings. It would stop the rot of austerity turning to an incurable cancer, limiting growth in our economy forever, because it would allow is to rebuild capacity in production and R & D quickly. We haven't got the time to be precious about it. Everyday we mess about, the fundamental factors that can improve the welfare of our our people are being eroded by the folly of Brexit, and our inability to curb human greed. We don't have time to be precious.
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Absolutely correct. The best economists I have discovered are poor kids who had the talent, and the luck to make it, but didn't forget where they came from. Gary Stevenson, Michael Hudson, and Mark Blyth have all focused on wealth inequality, because they realised that people like them were no longer coming through the system. And they all have a strong sense of economic history being a series of struggles between the asset wealthy and the state for control of the economy, and the people suffering the collateral damage of that struggle. And as technology advanced, it became harder for the state to control the asset wealthy over time. It's been a constant tug of war since antiquity. And the asset wealthy feel they have won the battle. That's why they are undermining democracy. This was only extended to the masses by the state, as a tool to counterbalance the power of the asset wealthy. But, the asset wealthy have broken the power of the state, persuading the masses that they should look to the asset wealthy for protection. That's like cattle looking to the cattle farmer, the abattoir owner, and the supermarket for protection. That protection is only ever contingent on how the asset wealthy can benefit from it. We saw that through Covid, and looking back through British economic history, the same indifference together with indoctrination runs through. And the social darwinism. We're at a tipping point, because of the harm done by capitalism to the planet we depend on for survival. And unless we start taking a wider view, a more collective view, we're in danger of leaving nothing for our descendants - no money, no property, no future. It's that simple.
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The fact that a closed economy heavily based on exports is buying USD and liquidating their UST holdings when their economic production is not just stagnating but declining, is a clear indication that China is suffering a USD shortage. Why? Because when their economy was growing strongly, they were being paid in USD, and had enough surplus USD to buy USTs. Now they don't. And why? They making far less USD on as their exports fall as the global economy slows, and that also pulls down the value of their internal currency...
It's a simple accounting equation, that any country who isn't the USA in the globalised financial system will have to negotiate, because USD is the major form of international money. And if you're a sovereign nation who needs liquidity - and China needs liquidity because most of its savings are locked up in illiquid assets like real estate and high-risk loans to keep their economic engine going - you have to turn to external sources of liquidity, and that means USD. So liquidating their own UST holdings to get more USD is their only option to get more liquidity.
We know they're is a liquidity shortage from just looking at what statistics it does report, and the news coming out of China. If you ignore all the geopolical-driven sensitivities, and turn to math, it all becomes obvious. China wants to grow economic capacity within, to reduce its reliance on exports, but it still needs imports. And to pay for those they still need to provide USD.
No drama required.
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@Brian_Equator That's only in theory. In practice, cartelisation and monopolisation are more common than you suppose. Just a little test from the School of Economics by Walking About. Just check how many companies dominate consumer goods manufacturing. Washing powder for instance? Airlines? All the big industries have major players that are 5 or less in number who control the majority of the market. So much for competition. Then there is crony capitalism, where a certain sector dominated by a discrete group. In theory, competition is supposed to drive efficiency. But in practice, competition tends to be avoided, because direct competition means death. Corporations don't like dying, just like the people that make up these organisations. Instead, they seek market power in order to build moats around their businesses and prevent competition. It's why we have trade wars at the moment. It's the desperation of big fat cats corporations with schlerotic and uninnovative enterprises trying to protect their gravy train, by shutting out competition. And even when they have a big moat, like Boeing, the squeeze every last penny out for the shareholders mentality, throws the gravy train off the rails. I mean, going bust to build yet another Airforce 1? You couldn't make it up. This is why neoliberal economics was and is a busted flush. It's a cultural and economic failure, as can be seen by the desperate drive to deregulate everything as though you can't make money by providing what people need or want. Or, your business can't survive unless it's labour costs are subsidised by the tax payer. Or, it's easier to make money ripping of your customers, or engaging in stock market pump and dump schemes. And instead of holding up their hands and admitting their parasitic behaviour is breaking the social contract and destroying economies from the inside, they want to double down with the assistance of technology. No; in reality corporations do not want competition, they do not welcome it, and they spend time and money crushing it, and getting government to help them. And we suffer the consequences.
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You have it. It's known as the Welfare State. There's no ongoing legacy from that which compares to the 12 million slaves transported in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 15% which were murdered on route for insurance, or quelling onboard uprisings. Then the cruelty - psychological, material, physical, familial and sexual abuse inherent in the trade and ownership of slaves has resulted in an intergenerational and economic legacy that still exists in the fact that the descendants largely cannot pull up their bootstraps today, because many of the states and the families are enjoying that wealth created by the suffering caused by slavery. And through their economic power that has lasted to this day, are still standing on the bootstraps of the descendants of the slaves they once owned. Poorhouses in contrast only used to control destitution, and if those people escaped destitution and debt, they could freely leave those places. Not so slaves. Even though a lucky few managed to were allowed to raise money to buy their freedom, that was only possible if their owner agreed to it. If they didnt, they and their children remained chattels of their owners. Poorhouse inhabitants weren't slaves. They were a social problem that the British state, with the agreement of its citizens, chose to solve by confinement in the poorhouses in each parish. There was no democratic mandate from slaves.
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It's a good start, but we the people have to change too. Voltaire said "People will cease to commit atrocities only when they cease to believe absurdities." And over nearly the last 5 decades we have committed several atrocities on ourselves and others, because our priorities - individually and collectively - are misplaced. All priorities bring problems, but if you end up resenting dealing with those problems your priorities bought with them, that's a sign you've got the wrong priorities. And resentment driving our politics now. And that resentment leads us to cling to blame, which changes nothing, instead of being accountable. Not only should our politicians be accountable to us, but we need to be accountable for how we contributed to our issues. We're more divided and isolated from each other and the world around us because we haven't been honest with ourselves. Yes the plutocrats and their bought politicians deceived us, but we wanted to be deceived. We wanted not to think about the consequences of policies executed by politicians we voted for that were not only counter-productive, but corrosive, harmful, and pointlessly cruel. People stood by as different groups wet made scapegoat of the week, not realising that was a beast that would eventually consume them. The poor, the sick, and the disabled, and the elderly were thrown under the bus. Then the working class, and now the middle class are now going under, all because plutocrats want more assets, and their banks and corporations they own want more profits. And they resent anyone who stands in their way of those goals. Time to be honest with ourselves, or nothing can get better. Time to accept that the plutocrats see everyone but themselves as a means to an end. And if we keep on pretending that isn't true, things will only get worse. If we want to keep the pros of capitalism, we have to take responsibility for its cons, and it's conmen that come with it. They depend on Society being organised and well-run enough to clean up after the messes they leave as they make their wealth. Well, There's a price for that and that is taxation, entailing redistribution of wealth when capitalism and its markets fail to adequately distribute assets, services, and commodities that are needed by everyone. We need to stop running our economies as if they were branches of Red Lobster, where the plutocrats consume numerous portions of fare, and leave little for the needs of those making it possible for them to eat as much as they can.
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If the Irish were building houses in Palestine, etc., you might have a point. But, all Ireland is doing for these countries is political support, amounting to international legal action, and voting in international associations. None of these would even one brick on another in Ireland. It's neoliberal economics that limits state intervention to deal with market failures like asset bubbles in land and houses. Yet at the same time, derelict farms are up for sale for renovation for those who can afford it. So what we have is too many economic resources concentrated in the capital, whilst other areas are withering on the vine. The market doesn't think in a the long term. That's something government can and should be doing, and if they used the tax system to do that, and increased investment in infrastructure outside Dublin, like transport links, broadband, etc., and gave tax breaks for firms setting up in other regions things would be different. Dublin is making the same mistake London is, and that will cause political friction to rise. The left behinds of course are being manipulated to believe it's the immigrants fault. Well, the problem is much, much higher up the income distribution. Always ask "qui Bono?" Who benefits from the situation as it is. And in this situation, follow the money.
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With respect, Royal Mail was sold to British Oligarchs first at a huge discount by the Coalition Government when Vince Cable was business secretary. Those British oligarchs made a huge profit, but then loaded up the business with debt, as well as liquidating the properties that Royal Mail owned. They renamed the business and they spent some money on IP, but essentially they couldn't meet the Universal Service Obligation and make a profit. So make no mistake. It was British oligarchs who set that up. And the Czech billionaire is picking up what's left. He's getting the leftovers.
So forget about the nationality of the asset wealthy people whom British politicians court and listen to. Just remember British politicians need to prioritise the long term welfare and needs of the British asset-limited and assetless voters. Why? You have people working full time needing to use food banks. It wasn't Foreign politicians who did that to British workers, it was probably politicians you or people you know voted for. And if you do vote for Tories, or Reform, who are Tories, or Red Tories, if you don't think outside your box, you, you children, and their children will be served up to the needs of the asset wealthy. Peace. Out.
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I think you need to look at the trade-offs section. Remember that the vacancies for NHS and Social Care are still in their tens of thousands. A nurse takes 3 years to train. A Doctor takes 7. What do we do in the meantime? Where are the British people willing to spend 3 years training as a nurse with 12 hour shifts, and low pay. What do we do in the meantime? Let's be honest here. All those wonderful tax cuts we had to be paid for by cutting back public spending, which includes the NHS. The UK workforce is shrinking because it is ageing, and the birth rate has been below replacement rate for decades. It is actually too late to be particular where your health and social care staff come from, as they are needed now. Not in 3 years and not in 7, but now. That's why private sector contractors are waiting for the NHS and social care to collapse, whilst they are bleeding it dry. They want it broken enough so people will pay health insurance. You can cut immigration all you like, but it's too late to stop the rot. It's gone on too long. You see, all the problems we have have been created to make wealthy people even more money. That means they want a weaker state, with little or no public services, and to pay little or no tax. And we fell for that. We shortsighted lay agreed to tax cuts, not thinking it would literally come back to bite us. It has. Child poverty has returned with a vengeance. Young people are finding it impossible to start a family in a home of there own without the Bank of Mum and Dad. And intergenerational wealth is shrinking too. So, we need immigration just to clean up the mess left behind by the direction our society took over 4 decades ago. And it will take decades to repair it if we have the luck to do so. And we will need it. And it might mean that we will have to look at our priorities as a society, because our problems in the present come from those priorities we set in the past. And if we don't like dealing with these current problems, we need to take an honest and realistic look at the priorities that created them. The problems were created by immigration. Immigration needs are a symptom, not the cause. The cause is that we believed stuff that wasn't true. Tax cuts were free money. No, they weren't. Every tax cut meant a cut in public services each and every time. And Austerity just accelerated that decline. Now there's a quiet crisis going on because we're being gaslighted each and every day. It's saddening to see how much it's hurting us. We gone backwards in life expectancy. Diseases of deprivation have returned, and medicine and treatment is being rationed. People are having trouble getting their prescriptions filled. And the elderly... With undetmanned social care, there suffering too. We've messed up, by allowing it to happen. And really, we need to decide who we are and what kind of country we want to be. We've got to be honest about it, because there is no perfect solution, and we can't have everything at the same time.
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Unfortunately, it's not the students you need to convince, but the rest of society. Snobbery is a thing, and even though it's true "where there's muck there's brass," not everyone wants to do a trade or even has a talent for one. Also, trades requiring apprenticeships, means often subsisting on relatively low pay for several years. Until society, or more specifically, those who run society restructure the world of work as a social hierarchy, there are no guarantees. Trades suffer barriers to entry too. Trade colleges and apprenticeships often replicate social hierarchies like nepotism, racism, etc. So this video oversimplifies in its conclusions. Capitalism has competition it's heart but it's suffers the same gaming of the system as the rest of society. Hamsters on a wheel not of our own making? What if we stepped off and carfefully examined the probabilities?
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The UK may be here but it's role in global affairs is very much diminished. The only really influential artefact of that empire is the pervasive influence of English. What we have left is a remnant of what was before. Even as late as post-world War I, the writing was on the wall, as the Americans put a massive hole in the British Economy. That after Britain's rivals catching up industrially, was the beginning of the end of Britain's global hegemony.
Wevre here, but not in the driving seat as before. And with many problems that we have no influence on. After all, the Americans dominated the global economy, and set its agenda. We could only adapt to that shift in influence, and arguably we're still working on that. And as our economy shifted away from manufacturing to a service economy with less security and pay for workers, and embraced neoliberalism and financialisation, that made us especially vulnerable to 2008. And we've seen people get angry about globalisation, a process which we helped to begin by having an empire. But it's always hard to deal with such a change. It's just the boot is on the other foot now, and making the best of that is all we can do. And that means not sitting on our laurels, and being prepared to start afresh without taking anything for granted.
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You obviously have no grounding in the history of economic thought. The vast number of economists working in financial institutions are not ideologues. They are econometrists, wedded to the needs of Finance, rather than social economics, or political economy. It's the lack of attention to those disciplines, that has ignored human nature. And we are paying the price of that. Market ideology was touted as a self organising system that could regulate it itself, without paying attention to the fact that markets are made up of people, who are tend to be more subjective than objective, and who can be captured by vice as well as virtue. Economic History is punctuated with conflicts between greed and wisdom. It is we who have not learned from the errors of our ancestors. Just because we have more tools, it does not remove the duty to use them wisely. And a short skip through economic thought just over the last hundred years illustrates that. Human folly never goes away. It must be constantly kept in the forefront of our minds, especially as the tool we use - capitalism - is double edged. It can kill as well as cure. And no-one in it is immune from folly. We all have our biases, but they are no substitute for thinking.
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But the efforts to reduce labour costs is driven by financialisation. And who gets wealthy from that? Shareholders and the banks. And who owns most of the stock market? Already wealthy asset owners. And who owns most of the debt? Banks and wealthy asset owners? Financialisation came about to finance globalisation. And look how that's worked out. Banks no longer want to finance industry and innovation. They prefer selling mortgages and speculating. That leaves the real economy starved of investment, thus powering a downwards spiral in industry and manufacturing in America. This is forcing firms to reduce costs to stay alive, and AI is supposedly the magic bullet. Less humans to employ, right? But nobody is talking about what are we going to do with these spare humans? How are we going to keep up our margins, when the market is actually shrinking. As very few of those jobs potentially lost to AI, will be replaced with jobs paying the same or more. Most people won't be getting pay increases for a long time, because of how much government debt needs to be serviced. And inflation is here to stay possibly for the next decade, because of spending to allieviate climate change is already creeping up. Right now the corporate sector is fitting on piles of cash, courtesy of the covid bailouts, and they know nobody is really prepared for AI. It's like we're blundering into a future, still believing markets know anything about keeping a society together, and working effectively. They obviously don't. Things will have to change, and when Warren Buffett and his son, start talking about "Degrowth" and tempering profit expectations, guess who will have to pay for that? Anybody but them. Do, unless you can persuade the financial whales to stop killing the golden goose, expect little help from them.
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You understand more than you know. After all, which American history student is going to get far studying their homeland's hist{y of economic imperialism and colonialism? Not when it's going to take you 20 years to pay off your student loan if you do. So most of the ways and means former economic hegemons became powerful gets buried. This is why it was refreshing to hear a Vietnamese citizen remind us in striking terms how the West got rich, and left a lot of people either dead or poor in the process. In brief, the same tools that was used to expropriate wealth abroad have been turned on the folks back home.
Why? Well, almost everywhere that could be screwed over has been already done. So, no more nice things for the assetless poor or the asset-limited workers, like a living wage, affordable Healthcare, a home you own, and education in the West. No, sir! You will own nothing and be happy, is no longer irony. That's the plan, so the Asset Wealthy won't be asked to pay for the mitigations climate change will need. That why rich folks are no longer building on the beach, but kicking the poor folks out of the hills, and moving up there instead. That's why they want you to treat the homeless as invisible and disposable. And that's why they love the fact that poor white folks are happy to pretend they're better than poor black folks, even when they're both sitting on the same dungheap the asset wealthy have allowed them to sit on.
Eventually, one day, enough people will join up the dots, and actually do something about it, but until then, enjoy the show as desperate billionaires deny, deflect, and depose any evidence that they're to blame for this and the future messes coming down the line, which they are. They thought that the postwar bump to American fortunes was invincible and would last for ever. And they did nothing to maintain it at home. And of course, it couldn't last unless they did. And they didn't. So, look after yourselves, because the asset wealthy have no intention of doing that. Good Luck.
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Some people think that they need a relationship to be complete. And they may be so arrogant to think they can change you into the person they really want. Hormones, and societal pressure are pretty powerful. We live in a society where if you are a woman and not hooked up to a man, you are seen as abnormal. Some people are convinced they need another person to complete them. As the poet said, "people quietly live lives of desperation." And many young women might actually fear that. So to them, every man is a lifesaver, a means to an end, rather than someone to be loved for their own sake. That's why you really need to get to know them well and get to know yourself well too. If you can't have serious conversations, about money, life, and understand what motivates them, move on.
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AI as it is at the moment is no more than an amped up search engine, with tools for processing that information. So, it won't work for replacing jobs where context and judgment are important. Even now, the AI both coming to take customer service jobs, can't exclude humans altogether, as the builders state that a human needs to be in the workflow to deal with complex queries that flummox the AI. And, even Chat GPT has a bias for producing answers with less emphasis on knowing whether those answers are correct or appropriate. So, I suspect more like 10 years. The corporations pushing that narrative, want companies to buy into it, but realistically, AI is anywhere close, especially as prompts have to be carefully engineered to get it to do exactly what you want it to do, without it tending to do other things as well. I found that when asking Chat GPT to check and correct YouTube plain text transcripts for spelling, capitalisation, punctuation, and paragraphing, it would rewrite parts of the text that "did not flow well." Only when I added the word 'only' to the prompt, did it stop trying to improve the text. So... Come back in 10 years, and then we'll see.
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You're not taking into account the problem of tarrifs being an imprecise tool.
Firstly, 60% tarrifs on China, will not hurt them, because they will just cut prices and increase exports elsewhere, whilst issuing retaliatory tarrifs against the US. And that will undercut US export prices elsewhere in the World.
Secondly, global supply chains are heterogeneous - people buy components from where it's cheapest everywhere, and then manufacture finished products, and export those. These may be multipart components, and how is anyone going to tell how much of a component is Chinese? So, global supply chains are directly and indirectly dependent on Chinese manufacturing, from beginning to end. Direct imports from China thst are 100% Chinese are easy to identify, but those that aren't are not. And a blanket 10% tarrifs for non-Chinese imports will not escape retaliation either, hurting US exports. for anyone country not to retaliate would be political suicide for their governments. So there will be a backlash which will cost US exporters dear.
Thirdly, by causing inflation, the cost of substituting those goods that are tarriffed will hurt US consumers who don't even buy Chinese goods, as the cost of their borrowing will increase alongside their spending because the Fed will impose blunt force trauma by hiking interest rates. That's a doom loop in the making.
If tarrifs are used selectively, US manufacturers may still offshore to anywhere but China. The US cannot compete on Labour costs, and tarrifs will create greater cost differentials, forcing more offshoring.
Nobody negotiates with a gun to their head. Tarrifs create Trade Wars and black markets. This isn't the 19th century when the US was a developing economy. It's the 21st century, and the US is a developed economy. And Tarrifs right now, are going to hurt the US more than it's going to heal it. It's an expensive face saving exercise.
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No. You don't understand. Money is two things. 1. A measure of value, and 2. A commodity. The government can never run out of money, because it is literally as someone else before says like a carpenter running out of inches or centimetres. What changes is not the unit of measuring value, but the perception of the value being measured. Why? Ask yourself why since 1971, bus fares that were £0.02p then, have now inflated to £2.00 for the same journey? What has shrunk is not the measure - 2p is still 2p, but the prevailing belief of the value of what is being measured. This goes back to how money is now mostly credit - from the Latin "credo" meaning "belief" rather than just "currency" i.e. a medium of exchange. You can see that nearly 95% of all money in circulation is now bank credit, with the remainder being physical cash, or central bank reserve credits. So, one cannot run out money. Rather, we can run out of belief it is worth anything.
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Nationalisation will not help an industry that fails to innovate and falls behind it's rivals. And whose capitalists gave up and offshored jobs instead of competing.
Sadly, we live in an era where profit is the priority instead of people, and your economy has been shaped by that thinking, which is unsystemic and short-termist. America had a unique advantage after World War 2, but had conflicting priorities. The Pax Americana had to become an economic global empire. In spreading the reach of the US Dollar, it also created the opportunity for rivals to recover and eventually compete with it. That was something they didn't foresee. They had to make USD King, because everyone would need USD, and imports would be cheaper, but that also had a price. To provide all the USD the world needed, America had to increase it's foreign imports. Cheap imports meant that domestic firms couldn't compete and stopped innovating. Instead they began focusing on cutting costs, and cutting capital investment, and executives were rewarded for paying dividends, rather than expanding their capital investment. This would become a downward driver of America industry. So it was the conflicting goals and short-termist thinking of those who ran the American economy which created the shift from a mixed economy, to one dominated by services rather than manufacturing.
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Have you tried to live on £12,000 pa? You can't. So your example is not so useful. Rather look at two single people, with no children, both working 40 hrs a week. One is on the minimum wage - that's £11.44 an hour; the other is earning £57.20 an hour - 5 times the person on minimum wage in 2024. After tax, NI, pension deductions, and a student loan repayment, Person 1 will take home just over £18,748 per year or £360.55 a week. Person 2 will will take home under the same deductions as person 1 £57791.46 or £1111. 37 per week. Person 2 still takes home just over 3× the amount that person 1 does. And as far as benefits are concerned, even with benefits, which are of course tapered downwards if you do get it. If person 1 was supporting even 1 child on that money, he'd still be broke, as childcare is incredibly expensive, and benefits are limited as well. There's a lot of working full time families having to use food and getting universal credit and housing benefit. And they're the lucky ones. And the low pay problem is much more widespread than anyone imagines. All most people want is what the previous generation had. 1 job that could keep them and a family with a roof over their head, and that's becoming nigh impossible due to real wages having fallen so far behind inflation since 2008.
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If the question was, "what is the good of accounting", it would be reasonable to grant you some leeway, but, no in the areas you are straying into.
It's time to get real.
Capitalism see Labour as a resource. Full stop. Personal fulfilment and your need for status means very little in the scheme of things. Why? You're only employed to solve their problem really. And as soon as they find a more cheaper, and/or efficient means of solving the problem you're employed you to do, you will lose that job. That's what they call progress. All that stuff about looking after their workers is only to attract the very best candidates from the labour pool. And even they will be discarded at the will of the God of Profit. Thus our economic ideology at the present is almost bad Social Darwinism. It's a meat grinder, as the Pink Floyd album 'The Wall' correctly identified. And the question is will you be inside it or turning the handle? If all the AI hype is to believed your job is on the chopping block. Most white collar jobs will be on the chopping block. Thus, Economic Darwinism suggests that you transition to i) another profession, ii) UBI, or iii) Soylent Green. That's it. The rest - university, school, etc., it's all salad dressing on a system designed to produce economic active workers. When they can no longer be economically active, which AI threatens to do, nobody is willing to commit openly to some form of option iii). But you'll hear Warren Buffet and his son talk about "Degrowth", and they are trying to get the Masses to accept that one way or another the current economic model is on its way out. Thus, human ingenuity is now being directed to unwinding it. The question is how many people do we need?
In that context, what one learns in university is learn how to learn in a limited specialisation, which we might not really need anymore within this, or the next century, due to advances in technology. So we might turn to space to find places to expand into. Or, we might not. Nobody's sure.
But, the lesson to take from this is, don't take your self-esteem from your job. Rather, take it from your ability to adapt and your resilience. Take nothing for granted, and be grateful for what you have. Happy travels.
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Oh boy, could the Bank of England make life better. By reconsidering the cost to the economy of paying interest on Bank Reserves, which is more than £40bn a year that is being paid to banks to do something that they have to do by law already. Together with cuts to corporation tax pushes up the money being transferred to the banks by the state closer to £50bn a year, which is about 33% more than was being spent on Education (£37bn).
It's simply unsustainable. We have children living poverty going up year on year, but the State is financing bankers' bonuses, perhaps in an industry that is socially and perhaps economically dysfunctional. Why can't the banks stand in their own feet, and operate without subsidy? They used before 2006, and we never heard of bankers children suffering from diseases of deprivation then or now.
This policy began in 2006, and now nearly 20 years on, there is no sign of this stopping, but it's Unaffordable. Is this a protection racket? Or What?
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If the rational part of the human brain is a duvet cover protecting a larger mass of emotions, memories, and survival instincts, the mere existence of the cover is not enough to keep the duvet underneath from getting twisted up. Thus Alexis de Tocqueville argued that people feel more than they think. If the brain was a set of siblings, the prefrontal cortex is the baby of the family, and easily overridden by the older siblings in evolutionary terms. That's how it goes. So we need a cultural change in how we manage that.
We need to go slower, not faster. We have to accept that facts are not always objective, and that things that can't be measured matter too. We have to educate people for life and not just work, and teach them not only how their brain works, but it's shortcomings too; how to reason, and how to manage their emotions.
We've been so busy striving to get rich, that we did not know we were impoverishing ourselves at the same time. If people were taught the power of an experimental mindset, we would be less prone to being deceived by our biases, and we would be better off and happier too. Of course, this is a ideal wishlist. Nobody in power is going to adopt that. But there is nothing stopping the bottom up doing for themselves, because peace of mind in the midst of uncertainty, is true wealth. But at the same time accountability must be at the centre of our collective systems. We are, after all, stewards for thise that will come after us. We can satisfy our needs and wants in the present, but not at the expense of the future. So, we must see and think of ourselves differently. Because if we don't, they're are those like Musk, Thiel, and Trump etc., that want to do the thinking for us. And the fruit of that tree is bitter.
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Absolutely. The human brain evolved in stages, and the survival and the relationship building sectors are the oldest parts of the brain. The irony is that the prefrontal cortex, which we tend to lionise so much, is the youngest evolution, and the weakest, it because it's arguably not essential as the older part for our evolutionary task, which is to survive long enough to produce and raise young. The prefrontal cortex increases the odds, but it's not essential per se. In this respect, if you imagine that the older parts of the brain are a duvet, and the prefrontal cortex is a duvet cover, you can see what the relationship is between them. The duvet is essential. And the duvet cover enables it to perform better at its job, but is of itself, no substitute for the Duvet. But it keeps it cleaner, and stops the duvet from getting twisted up or lumpy, which reduces its effectiveness.
Elon doesn't know what empathy means or really does. And know the very little I've heard from his parents and about his upbringing, I suspect I know why he doesn't know what that is. He was born at a time where autism wasn't as understood as it is now. And his parents did the best they knew how, but he needed more than they could give them. And we see the results in his behaviours. And the joke is, if the world did not feel compassion for him, he wouldn't be where he is now. He doesn't want to acknowledge that. And that's sad.
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You say irrational gluttony, I say human nature being biased towards believing more is automatically better than less in everything. Yet as hairless apes, we can be captured by unquestioned assumptions, leading to negative consequences. One big question mainstream economics fails to consider is the distribution of resources. And it is a multidimensional issue that should have been at the heart of the discipline, but instead the Protestant Work Ethic veiled issues of fairness and desert, and escaped deep analysis. We know this because the original name of the discipline was Political Economy, and questions of distribution was, and still is, central to this perspective. Instead, the drive for Economics to be accepted as a natural science, basically avoided questioning distribution as a key function of an economy.
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@CommonPurpose1 That was your experience, which can't be generalised. And to be honest, I'm probably older than you, and I was old enough to see Thatcher in, and see what happened to my town. Deindustrialisation started after the great inflation during the 1970s. Britain had become the Sick Man of Europe. The economic growth of the 1980s was built on bankrupting the state, and wasting gains from north sea oil. Our elites thought Asian competition would undercut British industry, so they let it die. From energy to the car industry, it all was starved of investment, as the banks were making more money from stock market speculation, selling off publics services, and selling mortgages. By selling off social housing, central government destroyed local government's ability to alleviate the effects of the job losses.
British firms were sold off, and the jobs weren't replaced. Unless you were educated and literate, you didn't have much chance in the new knowledge economy.
When the Labour Party came in, the British economy had just got over the hit of crashing out of the ERM, when interest rates went up to 15%. Some people lost their homes, but GDP went up for 16 years after that. The State still had some capacity, and so they tried to use neoliberalism tools to repair the damage to public services. Children weren't going hungry, or suffering from diseases of deprivation then. There were no food banks, and the economy grew enough to finish paying off the debt of World War II owed to the Americans. But Thatcher's revolution meant there was no money to build new hospitals, and so they borrowed on usurous terms to invest in public services. That was welcomed by the financial sector which had replaced industrial production as the largest sector in the British economy. Their mistake was not to understand how unsustainable the financial revolution started by Thatcher was.
Neoliberal economics crashed and burned in 2008, and we've been subsidising the banks ever since. Whatever British manufacturing was left after the early 1980s, gradually eroded.
The loss of a mixed economy which could provide jobs for people of all abilities, is the biggest legacy of the transition to an economy dominated by finance and technology. And a 2 term Labour government and a misled public couldn't change that.
The market-driven ideology led revolution thought markets could solve everything, but it ignored the fact that the humans in them suffer from things like greed and selfishness, and weakened the only real safeguard against it. The state. Britain isn't alone in this folly. Most governments, are reaping the rewards of being owned by the wealthy, and run by the wealthy, for the wealthy. That's why most of them are technically bankrupt, including the UK. We're literally back to where we were in 1945 in terms of the National Debt. That's all down to the greatest wealth transfer in history, and it's not finished yet. In a generation or two, only the kith and kin of the asset wealthy will own homes, and the state will just be an empty shell for corporations kleptocrats, and family landlords to control the population. Unless people listen to voices like Gary Stevenson and wake up to the facts. And not just look to their own circumstances to understand the world they live in. Simply, if you rely on a job for a living, you are vulnerable. And what they do to the least valuable people in society, they will do to you.
Thatcherism made us all frogs in a pot on the stove over low heat over the last 4 decades, and the water is getting warm as the asset wealthy try to gaslight us that everything is ok. It's not. And it won't be for those who follow us unless we get our priorities straight.
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Do you know the definition of "full" employment?
If you think that it is 100%, you'd be wrong. Why? Because a) people change jobs all the time, and this churn in the labour market, means employment is volatile; and b) it is believed that a "tight" labour market - one where there is actually close to full employment increases the risk of Inflation climbing because of a Wage-Price Spiral. This is where the demand for workers outstrips supply, so employers are forced to increase wages to attract staff, by increasing prices. And inflation needs to be kept low, right?
Well, right now, the Unemployment Rate in the UK is only 4.6%. Basically, we have virtually full employment already. And wages are still growing, albeit much, much slower than before. How come? Well, after the 2008 recession hit, the DWP published in December 2009, a paper entitled "Building Britain’s Recovery: Achieving Full Employment". In that paper, Yvette Cooper, then Minister for Work and Pensions, stated:
"This White Paper reiterates our ambition for full employment that eight out of every ten people of working age should be in employment."
That's 80%, which was enough after the greatest recession in history. When the unemployment rate was 7.8%
So... What's going in here?
As for economically inactive people, that includes people who've retired from work before the State Retirement Age, students, stay at home wives of working people, and the independently wealthy, who don't need to work. It also includes people who are off sick on NHS waiting lists of several years in length.
So what's going on here?
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Sir, I have lived to see the price of a one-way bus ride into my city centre go up from 2p to £2.50, and for my sins I have lived through the time you speak of. And until the 1970s things were better than they are now. You could go to the shop with a green £1 note and come back with bread, milk and marg from the local shop and still have change. Now, you would be pushed to buy a decent newspaper with that. Yes, there were bad times, but as I found out when I studied British Economic History and then went on to look at British Political Economy and studied finance, I realised that I could not see at the time what really was going on. It would be quite easy for the uninformed me to see things as you did. But the data does not lie. Looking at the economic data, Neoliberalism's greatest achievement was to entrench the largest transfer of wealth to the already asset wealthy from the working class. They totally moved from a mixed economy where there were a greater variety of jobs for all abilities, to an economy dominated by financial services and the service industry which makes up around 85% of GDP. Great when times are good, but utterly useless when the whole global economy is based on absurd ideas, leading atrocious policies, and even more corruption. Hence the atrocities being committed on the sick, the poor, and the unlucky. And then the working man, and the family are going in the samr direction. Neoliberalism is a busted flush, because the financialisation of everything empoverishes everyone except the asset wealthy. Now our young people are being cheated out of a decent future. Because of that folly, the economy is being hollowed out. And AI will be the next coffin nail in the workers of this country. We're going backwards with diseases of poverty resurgent, our children are less well fed, and life expectancy has stalled. I walked up 13 floors in the dark during the power cuts due to the 3 day week, but I was more secure then, than I am now. That's why people are rioting. They are fearful, angry, and resentful because they are more insecure than their parents. And until Neoliberalism's cult leaders finally wake up to the fact that their ideas were unsustainable, things will not improve. So, would I go back then? Yeah. I'm not richer now. But I would have had a better quality of life then than now.
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Are they? How do you know that? You do not know how old some of these government bonds are, and you obviously don't understand percentages. We still have bonds from the Napoleonic War period still being serviced today. The coupon rate on these are like 2% or 3% on a £100 bond. So the annual cost is still £2 or £3 per year. In the early 19th century that would have been a huge sum. Now, in the 21st century, you can't even buy a sandwich for that amount of money. Check for yourself. There are inflation calculators online for the UK, based on the Bank of England's database. Mine which calculates from 1800-2023, tells me that £2 in 1800 would have the purchasing power of £218.70 today, but the UK government still pay 2% on a £100 bond from the 1800s, as the coupon is a percentage of the original bond. They are not inflation protected. This is simple liability management. So Starmer isaking a political choice, and not an economic or financial one. Governments are the only institutions who can borrow on this basis, but Starmer has misreperesented the reasons why he is against privatisation. Starmer hasn't taken the King's Shilling: he's taken his donors' shilling. Corporations and plutocrats court whosoever is in place to be in government, and Starmer isn't politically canny enough to play the game to his advantage. He's using the state to keep his donors happy, and not the electorate. But tbh, he's no different to anyone else in doing so. Read "The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics (2022 expanded edition)" by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. It should put you straight about political imperative.
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MMT is a description of "what is."
The Job Guarantee is something that some people think that Government "ought" to do. Therefore, they are two different things. Just because some of those who accept the description MMT offers, then go on to argue that Government "should" use its money creation function to give jobs to everyone who wants one, is nothing more than a policy recommendation based on the beliefs of the people who are promoting it. It's remains nothing more than a belief that other might find attractive or be threatened by.
Although it is often very hard to do, we need to be careful not to conflate "oughts" with "what is." That sort of approach leads off the certain road of facts, into the less certain road of beliefs, and ultimately ideologically driven debates. We see this now with the tendency for the footballification of ideas. Ideas are supposedly binary, when as we know that that they tend to run along a spectrum. So the Job Guarantee debate is about whether one is a necessity, and if it is, how one should be funded. This bleeds into the debates about what the role governments "should" have in the economy. And of course, the current illusory binary is "small" vs "big" government, and that debate goes away whenever there is a crisis, doesn't it?
Follow the solid path of established facts, and then on policy, inform your opinion by analysing the arguments.
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Really? How can they, as they have to pay £3100 a year NHS surcharge? And all migrants aren't poor or dependent on social services. The ones that are usually face discrimination, and get low paid, and sporadic work. That's why your government wants to dump zero hours contracts. Many immigrants now must past health and English checks, and now would be skilled, to fill the tens of thousands of nursing and other vacancies that the UK can't fill itself. An important factor which you ignore. The people on the waiting lists for treatment needs those people. What do you expect them to do, as your objections to immigration would leave them languishing and suffering on the waiting lists? All the people complaining on this don't seem very bothered that British trained doctors, nurses, and other health profession are or have considered migrating from the UK. Perhaps dealing with why they want to leave might be a more constructive step? Likewise, making your country good for families and working parents, would stem your falling birthrate and aging workforce issues too in about 2 decades, but what do you do it until then? You rely on immigration. That's what you do. The majority of British born children go on to university,and want well paid jobs. They are not interested in low paid, arduous and insecure work. So the 500,000 Brits emigrating annually since 2021 have their reasons for leaving. Try fixing those and you wouldn't need much immigration. But, let's be honest, it's easier to scapegoat migrants, than fix that, right?
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With the greatest respect you are mistaken. Back in the 2010s solicitors were given rights of audience in the courts on the same level as barristers. But, the difficulty is that barrister do not do the first level casework, as their job is to plead the case. So very few solicitors plead cases. This change was meant to reduce costs and increase the number of lawyers available to take cases to the higher courts. It didn't work out that way because solicitors do the on call work for the criminal cases, and then call on barristers if the case goes to crown court or above. But, legal aid suffered from repeated erosion, and if you remember, barristers are self-employed, and legal aid has been gradually restricted. And if you realise that Cherie Blair made a lot of money as a QC doing legal aid cases, and that was the norm amongst the top rank of barristers, it's not surprising that Legal Aid would be targeted for cuts, because of the costs and because our Tory governments didn't like the poors getting justice. It's a mess, and that it was so bad that barristers went on strike, for the first time in my lifetime says it all really. It suits a certain cadre in our elites to reduce access to the law, and so significants injustices are ever present, because claimants can't pay for representation.
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Global Economic History tells a different story. Both gold and silver prices collapsed in Europe because of Supply exceeding demand. Musa Musa collapse the value of gold when he went on pilgrimage to Mecca. He spent or gave away so much gold as he travelled there, it's price fell. Likewise when the Spanish started selling the silver mined in their new Colonies in the Americas in Europe, it collapsed the price of silver. Finance and monetary economics are related, but they are different. Yet, they inform each other, and in this case, economics understanding that supply and demand shifts price applies to currencies based on precious metals as much as fiat currencies. Indeed, why did the reintroduction of the Gold Standard in Britain create an economic crisis in the early 1920's? Why? Because the value of Sterling was set too high against gold, and it did not have enough gold in its reserves to pay for imports, having used it to settle its war debts to the US. This is the reason why that Gold is untenable as the sole form of international money. Nobody wants a world where one has to compete for a limited supply of gold or silver in order to trade for imports. That's was a basis for global wars, and it still would be now. And the idea that precious metals are immune to price changes, which of course, is what inflation and deflation are, is untrue simply because of the effect of demand and supply is impossible to avoid when anything is traded.
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Peron was a fan of Franco, so he was no Marxist. And our universities are not breeding radicals on both left and right, our failing economic system is. And, it's imperfections are known. But, it's the failure of its winners to ameliorate them that is at fault. Humans are imperfect creatures, and what we create has flaws as a consequence of our limitations. But that isn't a problem if those shortcomings are addressed promptly. The fact that we're still discussing Marx's critique in the 21st century, speaks volumes. Our sloth in addressing those shortcomings Marx highlighted, reflects our short-sightedness. Solutions are possible, but currently ignored or kicked down the road, leaving room for the radicals to spring up like weeds. Wealth inequality is Capitalism's kryptonite. Fix that, and the radicals will disappear.
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Because they can't use their currency to buy US Dollars, and they have no liquid assets to sell for US Dollars.
One thing people don't realise is that having access to US Dollars is essential as it is the currency that all commodities are denominated in. So you have to pay in US dollars. If you don't, you have to pay more to cover the cost of exchanging your currency for USD. In this sense, the US dollar is "International Money" as it is accepted everywhere at its nominal value. This has been the case since the end of World War II. In the decade after World War II, the US had capital controls, where US Dollars leaving the country was strictly limited. Europe including the UK found it difficult as the only USD in Europe was the balances left from the Marshall Aid programme, and these weren't enough for a continent rebuilding after the war. This meant difficulties in buying food, energy, and goods. And the US arguably used their control of the supply of USD to drive forward it's foreign policy. The UK and France would run into that problem when they conspired with Israel to invade Suez, which the Egyptians had nationalised. The US used the shortage to apply pressure on UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden and France to quit Suez, or face a Sterling crisis. He had to agree, and it cost him his job.
Accordingly, in Europe including London, a trade built up between the private banks holding deposits of USD and countries and multinational companies needing USD to buy commodities. It was so profitable, that it became the basis of global money creation being outsourced to Banks rather than governments. But that's another story for another time. Hope this helps.
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Lol. Models are maps, not the territory. Don't confuse the two. We are neither the US nor Denmark. And thinking we can borrow models devised for other economies has brought us to the situation we are now in.
Neoliberalism was devised in America, but it hasn't even worked there. And unfortunately for us, we dived into copying the Americans and ended up with a busted flush. All we got was a huge transfer of wealth to the already asset-wealthy, and a crumbling system brought down by savage underinvestment in education and industry and underfunding of public services. British workers work the longest hours in Europe, but are paid the least to the extent that Polish and Slovenian workers will earn more than the workers of the sixth richest economy in the world, leading to increasing income and wealth inequality. They say one's problems come from one's priorities, and if one doesn't like cleaning up the mess caused by one's problems, then one needs to take a hard look at the priorities that put them there. We've made rich people richer at our own expense. That is not just folly on the part of our short-termist politicians. We've played our part in electing them. So we too are responsible for losing our own way. It is our priorities that are skewed away from reality. Until we look at the truth of who we are without rosy glasses and unicorns, and commit to making the changes needed, we're not going anywhere, because we have to change before it will. We need to stop looking for easy answers to tough problems and commit to change. Because being Denmark is not a quick fix. It is literally changing not just our minds but the way we do things. And not just moaning at governments, scapegoating, and blaming. None of which achieves anything. But getting more involved in how our country is run. Our errors are rooted in how we see the world and ourselves in it. That distorts our relationship to reality. Nice things cost time, effort, and money to produce. Denmark didn't get nice things by thinking their national economy is run like a household. And even though they encourage people to grow wealth, they are not shy in taxing it to pay for the things that make it possible to have nice things. We don't subsidise wealth creation to make a few people rich and nothing else. We do it to ensure that everyone's boat can float to the extent that everyone is able to contribute to making wealth for the country as a whole. We have spectacularly failed for nearly half a century to do what we did after World War Two, when we were 100% worse off than we are now. Why? We followed the American overoptimistic model, and it's hurt us badly. We are now reaping the rewards of that folly. We can do better, but we are too complacent and are deceiving ourselves. We have found out that we need to change. We sat by as whole communities fell to the neoliberal attrition. And then no one can understand why they can't build themselves up, as the whole weight of the Big Con is standing on them.
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Please just go and watch Gary's speech at the Cambridge Student Union. Read his blog. And the issue is that Economics says nothing about Distribution. It is silent on the matter, and that is a choice. Ask yourself why is that the case, when the discipline claims to be about efficient distribution of resources. Also, economics is the least scientific of the social sciences, in that it hasn't followed the scientific method. It's a model, in a world where all models are wrong, but some are useful. That's orthodox economics. Luckily, heterodox economists are starting to make economics more of a science and less of an ideology. Also, don't conflate Finance with Economics. Finance is all about money, whereas monetary economics has things to say about money, but it's more political than applied.
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Talking about Marxism and Socialism is identifying the sneeze as the problem, instead of the cold one has. Economics falls into the same trap by focusing on wealth maximisation without considering how it is to distributed amongst those that created the conditions for it to be achieved. By ignoring the fact that such a question exists, economics as predominantly practised, runs out of road as a guiding framework. It's impotence allows room for radical ideologies to take root on both the right and the left. Marxism, communism, socialism on the left, and Fascism on the right, are responses to the now-glaring contradictions and inadequacies of capitalism as practised, which are increasing, as wealth inequality - the failure of adequate distribution of income across the income distribution increases over time. Distribution is the bit of the real world economy modern Economics swerves, leaving populist politics to pick up the ball. That where we are right now. Marc's critique of capitalism is still relevant because it describes its problems. Whether or not Marx's perscriptions for addresing them are helpful, is not the biggest problem. It's whether his critique is valid or not, and that is a moral question. Wealth is fetishized, whilst children go to bed hungry in the wealthiest countries in the world in the 21st century. People are homeless, whilst being employed full-time, and the S & P goes to all time highs. And the more the winners try to persuade everyone everything is fine, the more they give space for radical ideologies. The book "Angrynomics" by Mark Blyth and Eric Lonegan describes the deficit and prescribes solutions that would head off at the pass the growing radicalisation. It's worth a read.
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The Temptation of "The Plumb Pudding" is still the same, whether it is served at the end of the 18th century, or the start of the 21st century. It is most tempting as fast food, for regimes too lazy, inept, or arrogant to create economies that work for everyone in them, for both rich and poor, thus driving their economies into stagnation, or mere despots' envy. And they try everything bit doing the right thing. In either case, until some semblance of sanity reasserts itself, we are where we are.
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The UK's debt to GDP ratio has fluctuated over the years, with some notable milestones including:
1948: The all-time high of 210.70%
1990: The record low of 21.60%
2023: 97.60%
July 2024: 99.4% of GDP, or 91.9% when excluding the Bank of England's debt
Back in 1945, we had to spend on rebuilding the economic capacity of the country, and was facing a manpower shortage due to death or disability. The UK chose to deal with that by immigration. Cabinet papers at that time showed that the government envisaged that white people from the Settler Dominions and Ireland would make up the majority of people coming in. However, that was not the case, as The Windrush showed. The response by the government was embarrassment, and then resignation because the labour was needed. They helped in that effort to rebuild the economy to reduce the huge debt owed mostly to the USA after World War II. That debt was finally repaid by Gordon Brown. But several years later, the UK bailed out its banking sector during the Great Financial Crisis. Since then, along with the global economy, the UK has been stagnating. And like most developed economies, they have had to cope with demographic issues such as low birth rates and an ageing workforce. Successive governments could be seen as suffering from short-termism. And have resorted to further immigration to cope with the consequences of negative social policies followed decades beforehand. All this also happened within the context of globalisation which was pursued as a positive ideal. However, the UK’s feverent adherence to neoliberal policies left it particulsrly vulnerable to the GFC, and asset bubbles in the Housing market. And as long as GDP was going up, they could ignore the growing inequality becoming entrenched in its wake. Sadly, that seems it will not be addressed any time soon. And arguably that is a choice. The UK economy is geared up to be a rentier economy, rather than a mixed economy. That means it will be geared up to allow suit extraction of wealth rather than the investment of wealth. And tbh, none of the political parties in parliament seem to have understood the importance of that. As Rohin says, there are things the current government could do, but they are more worried about following a very questionable set of fiscal rules, rather that really looking hard at how best to productively use the money we do have. Austerity has never worked anywhere to grow an economy. You have to spend money on investments that grow wealth and improve productivity. And no-one in Parliament seems to have grasped that.
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They didn't run away when the Debt-To-GDP ratio was 270%,and the top rate of tax was 90%. It took until the 1960's,with the expansion of the tax haven network, before we had that. Tax is needed to maintain the infrastructure upon which business relies, and the theft and grift we have been allowing is not helping. So, no more free lunches. No more socialism for the asset wealthy and unfettered capitalism for everyone else. It's about paying their fair share. Yes, they can bugger off to Singapore, or Abu Dhabi, but why go to those places? It's not just the tax, because they are taxed on their consumption, and the state owns everything, and ensures every citizen has a roof over their heads, and has decent Healthcare. It's not free either. But this what you don't get. You are being reductionist and short-sighted. You don't look under the hood of those places. They can only exist if those who live their permanently are content. That the bit about Singapore on Thames BS ignored. Why? Because it was the fantasy of wannabe rich kids who've never even run a tuck shop in their lives, thinking they could run a country like Jeeves and Wooster, who then were seduced by the wads of cash of foreigners who don't care about this country. The people are this country too. They have needs and they were being failed. (And if you saw how the poor native Singaporeans live, you wouldn't be so impressed. They don't even have places to hang their washing except out of the windows of the tower blocks they live in.) Britain could be like London if it's elites had more imagination, and actually care about anyone else but their kith and kin. The one thing a former empire should never do is bring back the norms of the colonies to the home country. And the Chumocracy are so out of touch with the real world, they tried to do that, and took a bullet. Just a thought.
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The definition of Inflation is the rate of price increases in a defined period, expressed as a percentage. Inflation is a complex phenomenon that can be caused by internal monetary policy, or external supply shocks, or both at the same time. Normally measured in the aggregate by policymakers, the individual experience of inflation will vary according to what goods and services one buys. However, certain goods and services are non-discretionary, and their price inflation is felt directly or indirectly by everyone.
Disinflation is the inability of producers to increase prices because of a persistent decline in consumer demand. Why producers may want to increase prices is either fear or greed. The reason consumer demand can fall is fear.
Deflation is the percentage rate of inflation falling to zero or becoming negative. Deflation only comes when consumers restrict themselves only to necessary non-discretionary spending, and expect prices to fall for discretionary products and services. This normally happens after a period of Disinflation. Accordingly, this reduces margins for producers, who then pursue cost-cutting to survive. As labour is the largest expense for producers, both Deflation and Disinflation increase unemployment.
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Professor, are you familiar with Vlad Vexler? Vlad asserts that what Putin is trying to do is to make Western countries ungovernable, and to run the narrative that Democracy - especially the Anglo-saxon model is fake. Although Vlad has not to my knowledge talked about NF etc.,he was keen to point out that Western leaders have to do do as you argue. Not only the real economic causes of the Far Right rioters extremism must be addressed in meaningful and credible ways, but the threat from Russia destabilisation project is that not it can truly damage us, but it will overshadow the very real discontent amongst the working class, who have taken the brunt of the wealth transfer that has taken place since 2008. Much like a 3-handed team of oxen, both thesegoals have to be addressed together in ways that are responsive, effective, and credible. But now that Wagner operatives are operating in the UK, as well as turning their disinformation programme on Europe up a notch. By fomenting discontent and destabilising us, he wants us to stop support Ukraine. We cannot do that either. Yes, it has been ineptly to the extent that we were almost playing hokey-jokey. But perhaps it's time to realise that we need to work attentively and seriously on several fronts. We're being tested, and we need to face that reality.
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So you didn't take note of the job data? Employers in the productive economy comprising of sectors like manufacturing and construction aren't hiring. Not only that, but the Gig Economy is acting as a soak for those laid-off or who have had their hours cut. People are getting 2 or 3 Gig Economy jobs instead of one full time job, which explains the exponential growth in part-time jobs. And furthermore, the growth in new jobs is still within the public sector, and those jobs are being paid for by the remaining Covid reserves, and it's predicted that money will run out in the new year. And remember, those coming across the border are destined for the jobs Americans don't want to do. They're mostly not competing for white collar jobs, or decent paying blue collar jobs. They're accessing the bottom of the ladder. So, isn't it time to acknowledge what large caps corporations said during their first quarter earnings call, when they announced beside their earning that they were planning lay-offs? If they're trimming their workforces, what do you think is happening on the lower rings of the ladder? Hint: hiring freezing, employee hoarding, hours cuts, and the less scrupulous employers are attempting into increase attrition of their workers by cancelling hybrid working arrangements. This is why until recently all the labour market indicators suggested the economy was hot, whilst consumer spending was shrinking fast. If workers who are being laid off, or having their hours cut, they're going to hustle for extra money from the Gig Economy. Or claim unemployment as a last resort, because finding full time work is difficult right now. Hence the contradictory signals of a 'hot' economy with disinflation and swan diving consumer spending at the same time. It's not so much that the Jolts data is misleading. Rather it's reflecting employers are fishing for the best candidates, but not taking the on immediately if at all. And it's the biggest companies doing this. Its very much like t
fine hairline cracks appearing in the economy as a signal worse is to follow. Probably sometime after the election. Things are bad for consumer spending right now, and winter is yet to arrive. Good luck everyone. We're gonna need it.
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In my experience, the skills involved in writing a personal statement weren't really taught to me in school, or in further education. I got no help or direction in even formulating what was to be said. I think it should have been the norm that pupils and students should maintain a private daily self-reflective journal during their education, where they can explore their progress and their goals. A 10 minute quick entry isn't onerous, and the habit gives benefits far beyond just keeping track. Not only can refer back to it as a record, but it's a wonderful way to learn relatively painlessly to write succinctly and clearly. Moreover, it's really good for one's mental health throughout one's life. If that had been the case, then the UCAS statement might have been worthwhile to some degree. But modern education is more like a sausage factory, where the efficiency and homogeneity of the process interferes with the quality of the output. That reflects the struggle between seeing education as mostly preparation for work, or as in forming capable, creative, and critically thinking people. That fight is still ongoing.
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If only money was the problem. Europe could step up their defence production in the short term within a year. But...
- Hungary and Italy are chummy with Putin;
not all Europe countries are as committed to perceiving Putin as much as an existential threat as those on Russia's door step;
- the role of NATO vs the EU's is not a settle matter, as the EU has no distinct defence policy, and some favour NATO taking the lead rather than the EU;
- there are political hurdles to overcome because the difficulty of not sacrificing social spending for defence spending, as well as liberal democratic parties being anti-war.
The only way to tie all these threads together into a usable rope is for Europe to quickly develop a vision for Ukraine's future which also has to offer some security guarantees to Ukraine. Why? Putin doesn't really want to negotiate, and will use any ceasefire to refresh and reset his forces, to get the rest later. So, there must be credible consequences to Putin's regime if he attacks again. Wagging a finger won't cut it.
And Europe has to accept that:
- there can be no rapprochement with Russia, but must completely transition away from Russian oil and gas, and develop alternative sources of energy generation.
- Europe must also start a fully fledged defence industry, not just to supply arms and offensive vehicles, and air craft but also start a up a defensive cyber industry of its own.
- Finally, it must strengthen it's own and Ukraine's democracy, and assist in its reconstruction, and industrial and agricultural policy, because the prospect of losing control of Eastern Ukraine will damage agricultural production, and alternative supply chain routes for Ukrainian exports must be found through other routes by land, rail and sea. Failure to do will impact World prices for wheat and cooking oil, and other commodities Ukraine supplies, and Putin wants.
All this cannot be done next week. A lot of serious thinking has to be done, and faily quickly. Money is not the problem. It's the perception of the threat which is not shared, and which in the context of an epidemic of economic contraction, and the subsequent rise of populism, plays into Putin's hand. He doesn't believe in ideology. He's a might makes right guy. But we in the West are very idealistic and perhaps too ideological and technocratic about things. Our current leaders have zero experience of how the 20th century was destined to be an hiatus rather than a paradigm shift, and they think they can talk Putin down and they can go back to getting rich. Not anymore. Welcome to the end if an empire, whose passing leaves gaps that must be filled, or something most undesirable will take their place
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Finding between £6000 to over £9000 upfront to complete an offshore spousal visa application is a policy decision that won't impact non-dom. That's for sure. He has his own family to prioritise, and with his qualifications, and honed language skills, he could find work in the Private Security or intergovernmental field as an analyst in Italy. Good luck to him. Until the UK faces upto some home truths, immigration is going to be an itch that turns into an abscess, ably assisted by political entrepreneurs. You want to stop immigration? Then get real about what that means to an aging workforce who expect to get a state pension and a sustainable income in retirement. What will that mean for the birth rate in the UK, that's below replacement level now? Partially as a result of policies - economic, political, and cultural that surpress the desire and ability to have children, who would grow up to pay the taxes to support you in retirement? What happens because of the shortfall? A declining population, higher labour costs to business which will pass them onto the consumer. Yes, they will be some innovation, but a declining population means a shrinking market for goods and services. So profits will fall. Add to that increasing wealth inequality, immigration is the only response to deeply embedded short-sighted and short-termist policies, based on Ideological and logical fallacies that bring undesirable consequences like a falling birth rate. And we're not helping ourselves by clinging on to them. That's why our junior doctors were leaving the NHS and migrating aboard. In total, since 2021, over 500,000 British people have migrated from the UK. And the real debate is why? Why are they leaving? We need them, especially now, as the consequences if the failed experiments of the last 5 decades come home to roost. Why don't people want to start families? What is it about our country that makes living here an effective contraceptive for workers of child-bearing age. What are we doing wrong? And until we're willing to look hard at our priorities regarding family life in Britain, we won't stop immigration.
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It's less, about language than intent. The European Coal and Steel Community which morphed into the EEC, and the EU was about Economics. What people don't acknowledge is that the movement led by Jean Monnet was allegedly secretly supported by the CIA. Why? The Americans want there to be no more wars in Europe, and arguably strongly "encouraged" a Britain which was no longer front of the pack economically to join. And it seems Britain was resigned to doing for economic reasons. They had little choice, because having had to relinquish much of their empire, they were very much motivated to building and maintaining trade ties to allow Britain to make up for their loss. They had even considered the possibility of forming a Commonwealth trade bloc, which would have been bigger than the EEC. But geopolitics, andvarguably the inability divest itself of Imperialist priorities scuppered that plan on the racist reef of Rhodesia.
Britain broke it's promise to its African members to guarantee black majority rule in each of the black majority States at independence. Harold Wilson at the Lagos Commonwealth Office refused to send British troops to reimpised British rule after Rhodesia White minority government unilaterally declared independence, and excluded it's black citizens from politics. Wilson decided only to apply political pressure, which was of course toothless. This decision was a frost bomb in relations between the African States and Britain. So having to give up on the Commonwealth trade bloc, Britain focused on joining ECSC for its economic benefits. Yes, they appreciated the other motivations, but it was the economic ones which motivated them. And DeGalle in his own analysis thought that economically and politically Britain would be a poor fit, and so he vetoed the applications made by Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson over nearly a decade. And it was the economic benefits which were touted to the British people, because it's a truism in politics that "its the economy, stupid." It took nearly 20 years and Charles DeGaule leaving politics, for Britain to join the EEC. By that time the 1957 Treaty of Rome was a dusty document at the UN, and the EEC was predominantly economic in its focus. So your assertion about the Treaty is just not what was done in practice in the 1970s. It was only later, with the Social Charter that the EEC started evolved to become more aspirationally political, and seek to become more federal in its behaviour internally and externally. I would even argue that until the European Parliament had had its role expanded to be a fully fledged decision making body, rather than a talking shop, that the shift to being more political had been made.
So even in politics, what is written may not become a priority until decades later. And this progression could only occur when the EEC/EU was confident enough to do so. It would only then move to have it's own currency and focus more on internal and external politics as an entity. So when you hear British people argue that the EU was about trade and it's regulation, they have a point, because for quite a few decades it was mostly all about that despite the 1957 Treaty. And, it's arguable that others might wish it was still only about that. But now it's not because it's role in globalisation and global finance has geopolitical consequences since it's expansion. Where the EU will go next is hard to say. Whatever the 1957 Treaty of Rome says, none of the EU's goals can be achieved without effective economics within its borders. But now achieving that is now encompassing geopolical barriers because of the EU striving to grow its economic and political heft by it's expansion.
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Well it seems that's only true for Bank Credit, which is not to deny its critical importance. But, as Jeff states, the Shadow Banks lend to regulated banks, who then either lend it onwards, or engage in trades, like the Carry Trade, but it's a opaque process, which amplifies the danger involved to the global financial system. As is, collateral and dollar shortages are endemic, so this in turn raises the risk of a systemic failure. The Money Markets are unregulated lenders, and so the risk cannot be quantified by regulators. The regulated banks have been reined in so far, but to date the NBFIs remain free of capital requirements or insurance to cover potential losses. This is why the Yen Carry Trade unwinding sent tremors through the bond market last year. And Repo failures have been increasing in Q3 and Q4 in 2024. No-one knows where or when this UXB will blow. And that would probably finish the current iteration of the global intermediation network, which was patched up but not fixed in 2008. For regulators, the complete repair is regulation of the Non-Bank Financial Institutions like Money Markets. And that might not happen in the current context.
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You don't understand how inflation works. Inflation reduces purchasing power, and to discover how much inflation has eroded valuations, you compare relative valuations over time less inflation. Just 40 years ago, one could buy a sliced loaf, a pint of milk, and a tub of marg for £1. You can't do that today. That's down to inflation. Likewise, house prices can't avoid the same process. Inflation as measured by CPI is arguably lowballing the impact as well. If RPI was used, the slump in real prices would be even deeper. And it's a Cantillon effect, where the closer one is to the process of money creation, the wealthier one is. Houses don't create money. Lending money to people to buy houses does. So so whoever owns debt in the economy is getting wealthier, but not the debtors.
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Pushback is to be expected from those interested in keeping people ignoring the inevitable effects of not distributing wealth fairly enough to keep those mostly producing it just surviving, nevermind thriving.
What people don't really understand is that this is nothing new.
I was reading a piece by Gore Vidal from July 1961 about the willingness of the "Conservatives" in the USA to embrace the ideas of Ayn Rand, who argued that altruism and justice were immoral, and that the Cult of "I" should replace Christianity, and other religions, and values.
Then I watched Philiosphy Tube's latest video that described how the powerful encourage those they need to keep compliant and cooperative in keeping their gravy train running, to see those harmed by their hoarding and exploitation as not worthy of being cared about. The people, lives, and livelihoods ruined and being cut short by wealth inequality are to be ignored. Or not grieved over.
In that, Boris' Johnson's attitudes towards the deaths in Covid were not an aberration. His response to the real damage done by Brexit to business and people's, was not the ramblings of a functional alcoholic - the only personal characteristic he shared with Churchill - but his real belief.
They want us to stop feeling that injustice is wrong.
That wealth inequality to that extent means that the damaged caused is swept under the carpet, devalued, or seen as not worthy of being grieved at it is destroying the capacity of people and their families to survive, is not inevitable, natural, or virtuous, but a deliberate and calculated harvesting and hoarding of asset wealth to benefit the few. It is the world of "Soylent Green". (Google it.) Where those worthy of consideration as determined by the needs of the powerful are treated are seen as worthy of our consideration, and are granted privilege, whilst those who aren't, are marginalised, seen as inconvenient problems, and their suffering is ignored.
This is nothing new. Class and Caste define who gets looked after. And who ends up rioting. And who is blamed and scapegoated.
The current form comes from the failure of Neoliberal economics to maintain the postwar economic settlement in the West, and to ignore the social, cultural, economic, and political dislocations and insecurities caused by it, occurring everywhere, and all at once in this present time. People everywhere, except the winners in this rigged game, are pissed at the outcome, and rightfully so. But the wealthy winners, are largely are using their profits to prevent the pitchforks coming for them. They know their fantasy has crashed to earth, to the extent it has created more instability and more frictions. To the extent the fallout is capable of damaging the earth. But, like any addict, they're not ready to give up. So they will not admit their failure, but instead, will double down. Hence, there's more political polarisation, because when people are busy hating each other, they don't notice their pockets being picked.
It doesn't have to be that way. Capitalism can work in ways that focus on efficient and effective distribution of asset wealth and resources, instead of beggar thy neighbour. It can work in ways that are safer, cleaner, and that can keep the planet in habitable for humans. But we have to do capitalism differently.
Capitalism has to prioritise the basic needs of people and communities before profit. Simply, profit returns to being the means rather than the ends.
Capitalism has to pay its way. Simply, the costs of doing business have to be borne by those doing business. Socialism for the rich, and unmitigated capitalism for everyone else is no longer acceptable or desirable. The rich should clean up their own messes, such as pollution, and societal and cultural impacts of their activities.
If Capitalism did only those two things, wealth inequality would eventually disappear. Wealth would not disappear. On the contrary, it might even grow in size, with more people being able to access the means of building it. It just would be hoarded by a minority.
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All contemplation is an autopsy., but even scientists have biases and beliefs. And self-knowledge is a life long pursuit. Or more lyrically, a string of episodes that can only be fully appreciated as we evolve to better understand it. And your comment reminds me of the observation of a writer known as Ramsey Dukes, who uploaded a series of short talks on Polarisation in society. And his third talk was about Objective vs Subjective, and he argues that the only difference between the two is whether society applauds your efforts in a formal way. In short, objective vs Subjective is a false dichotomy. Even when studying say, bacteria in a petri dish, your initial observations cannot help but be mostly subjective. Say back in 1931,when a veterinary pathologist first discovered the sars virus amongst turkeys in a poultry farm. You would have had to publish your findings in an a academic paper acoording to the norms of your profession. In that way, peer review of your meyhods found them acceptable, you would be published and be recognised by your profession. But what if you had written your findings in a personal diary, and you had said, "I looked at this virus I had never seen before, and I could feel my heart skip a beat with excitement. I think I may have found what was killing the birds. Hooray!" What if he had submitted this and other observations in a similar vein to an academic journal? Not only would it be rejected, but news might get out into his professional community that he was at least 'eccentric', if not crazy, and his reputation would suffer. Why? Because societal norms define what is objective and subjective, and both are highly contextual. But as in this example both presentations are true, but the subjective truth suffers when it is approached in an objective way. And the irony is, that the subjective was the foundation of the objective truth that was peer reviewed and published in a scientific journal. In academia we are taught to lionise the objective, and disparage the subjective. But in reality, objective truth is subjective truth but repackaged and edited.
Dukes recommrnds that we should engage with our subjective truths in ways that reflect their personal meaning to oneself. The examined life should be approached in the same way, because it is the act of trying to understand it that creates meaning. This is why great literature like "Madame Bovary" and Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" exemplify the power of the subjective and ways to engage with it which gives it meaning, and ourselves self-knowledge, and wisdom too. This is why the best literature is antithetical to human complacency. Philosophy as taught seems to ignore the subjective, but only because so often it isn't examined or tested against reality. In truth, we're all in Plato's Cave with regard to ourselves. We have to acquire the habit of honest self-reflection throughout our lives to know ourselves, and see the light.
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Today, I had the idea that one could have a cartoon I two frames where Rachel Reeves could be like Nelson looking down the wrong of the telescope, and claiming not to see the 3 ships "Inequality", "Sustainability", and "Well-being".
Our economy is poorly structured, with an overdependence on the Financial Sector. 99% of UK businesses are small businesses. Not the big ones, or the hedge funds. Our infrastructure is demanding investment as much as the NHS, and we don't only have a Labour shortage, we have skill shortages, where people cannot afford to borrow to retrain. We need a reset after 14 years of wealthy asset owners getting socialism, while workers and the assetless got unlimited neoliberalism. More of the same it isn't going to fix it.
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Bears do poop in the woods because they know how, where, and when to get a good meal. In the Stock market? Not really, because the lemmings are buying stocks that are pumped up. Bears go to the options market, and buy puts once they know which firms are swimming naked. This is why the Stock market is the Small Casino and the Options Market is the Big Casino. and lemmings can't afford to go there. And it's the place to make money on the downside, which as the US economy is consumption driven and consumers are being tortured on the rack, there is plenty. I mean, why do you think Trump actually won? Because Harris did not address the elephants in the room, and he exploited voter's discontent. But if he ignores the fact that the cost of his proposed tarrifs would fall on American consumers already anorexic wallets, then the Horseshoe will come flying off, as the GOP will sit back and let him do it. Interesting times.
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Unfortunately, Richard I'm not sure the import of your message has really hit home looking at the bottery in the comment section. The message that you are trying to get across is that economic deprivation fosters mental ill health in neoliberal economies. Remove the economic deprivation - which is the result of the misallocation and ineffective and inefficient distribution of resources within neoliberal economies - and societally-wide mental ill health will signifucantly decrease. Humans love stories, but their no substitution for the truth. Myths dominate our thinking and are relentlessly and neoliberalism's biggest myth is that money is wealth, and that those who do not have money, who are poor are to blame for their poverty. This myth is built on another myth - that being wealthy is a sign of virtue or talent. And the people who push this myth are often the asset wealthy, who spend their money buying media outlets to push these lies. The truth is that both cream and sewage float to the top. Luck as inherited asset wealth is the reality, and how deeply embedded this myth is in our culture, is reflected in our obsession with class, and other ways to "divide and rule". There are hard working, talented people who never get asset wealthy, or even enough money to live. I'm thinking of Robert Tressell, the author of the novel "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists." Tressel was an Irish migrant working as a decorator, who wrote his novel at the kitchen table at night. Poverty ensured he never lived to see his novel published, as he died of Tuberculosis, a disease of deprivation, before his daughter got it published. This all happened at the beginning of the 20th century, and yet in the 21st century we're repeating the same myths and the same mistakes as were perpetrated in the early 20th century. And the world is in some ways even more malevolent than the 1910s. We have forgotten the lessons people in this country at that time learned, because the problems they were dealing with, are still being fought with in the 21st century. And in many ways, we are in danger of going backwards. That's what people don't realise, that we've been here before, where the asset wealthy were unperturbed by the loss of the poor and deprived. Qui Bono? Who benefits from that? It may have taken two world wars and a global financial crisis to persuade people to look at things differently, but at least they walked around and examined the elephant in the room, and decided to clean up the growing pile of poop. We're not even really looking. Intergenerational forgetting? Probably, and we're self-harming the fabric of our society as a result. And increasing mental ill health is a symptom of our neglect of the basic realities of running an effective economy. For it to be effective, capital - social and economic - can't be hoarded by a minority, at the detriment of the majority, because it's unsustainable in the long run. That's why we are endangering ourselves. And a those suffering from depression and anxiety are exhibiting a sane response to an insane world, where the winners spend money to gaslight everyone else. Reality can't be ignored, because that way madness lies. I hope we wake up and start resisting the myths and the lies, because it's not only damaging the economy, it's damaging us as people.
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You really don't understand the discussion at all. It's not about Kenysianism, MMT, or such labels. It's about how governments actually use the money they themselves create, and questioning what they do with it. MMT is not a prescriptive model. It's a descriptive one, and so is limited to describing how governments via central banks create money. That's it. What they do with that money, and should they being doing that with it, is a question MMT has never addressed. Conflating what is, with what ought to be is a logical error. So, forget about MMT. Rather ask yourself whether the State should be investing in its own economy, and then explain your answer. Then you can contribute something to the debate, instead of parroting someone else's undigested ideology.
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May I ask you, when was the last time you ate fish intestines? Or fish heads, bones, the fins or the scales? Definitely in the West, eating fish heads is extremely rare. So when you eat fish, you only eat the fillet. So if you eat fish, you happily ignore what is put back into the sea. And if you do not eat fish, what you think happens to the fish that die naturally? They get eaten by the bottom feeders species, who feed on other species.
Fish, if taken care of, is as sustainable as plant foods, because nothing is wasted, because what is discarded go back into the ecological cycle of the sea immediately. Not like plant food waste, which mostly doesn't get composted, but ends up landfill.
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I'm sorry, but if you actually understood the scientific method, you would realise that this statement doesn't reflect it in full. The scientific method relies on proof - not hearsay - but tested hypotheses. Common sense relies on allegedly tested hypothesis, and probabilities to boot. The scientific method therefore has no truck with rumours, hearsay, or gossip. It relies on testing hypotheses. Those that fail are not true. And even what more ironic you citing some unknown sage, is that science has identified what you are doing as confirmation bias and a call to authority - both are logical fallacies. You are trying to bolster your opinion, instead of keeping to the known facts. But if you did keep to the known facts, you would have so much to say, would you? Perhaps if we all kept to the known facts, and stayed away from assumptions, the people of Southport might not feel it necessary to say certain public figures are not welcome to visit them. Using the facts you have, when they are untested and invalidated is folly. The universe can be more defined by what we don't know rather than what we do. Why? The very way our brains evolved. We have the same brain as our early ancestors, but the world is no longer full of sabre-toothed tigers, but the eldest parts of our brain don't deal with intellect or analysis. They deal with fear and desire. These helped us evade the sabre-toothed tigers, but when faced with a world full of data, and the lack of knowledge and sometimes wisdom, to sift the dross from the gold. That's why the professor argues that we need to be trained to use social media and the Internet from an early age. And he's right. The guys making a living using the Internet know how it can be abused, and the search engines unwittingly programmed to mislead. So no, one cannot blithely use the facts one has got if you don't know that they are actually facts. You have to prove what they assert is true or discard them. Why? It's very easy to provoke people into violence, especially if they have been primed by exposure to content that stimulates the fear and desire centres of their brain. And people are making money just doing that. So, unless you know for sure what is true, you stop and check your facts. And that means not relying solely on social media, or sany random on the Internet. But the temptation was too great for those thugs in Southport. I'm sure they thought they were heroes, but they're not. The only good thing to come from their actions is that the people of Southport, of all creeds are united more than ever before against those people who hijacked their time of mourning. There's Christians and Muslims helping each other, and working together to clear up and repair the damage. And I say, that's the real England right there.
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After being told for decades, There Was No Alternative to giving away our assets, we might just begin to realise There Was Always An Alternative. There was an alternative in 1945, when people after World War II said "We had Enough of lower living standards, poor health, poverty, and lack of opportunity" through the ballot box. And less than a hundred years later, we're facing the same problems, for the very same reasons. We've been told the same lies for nearly 50 years, that our were told in the 20th century. It's taken nearly 50 years of lies and neglect to working peoplepush people to say, yet again, "We want to take back control. We want to do things differently." it isn't going to be easy, because as happened in the interwar years, there were asset wealthy people trying to warp and misdirect our desire for change. Do not give up. They are already planning to use their asset wealth to extract more and to further strengthen their control over your country. If you really want to take back control, you have to tax the passive income of the asset wealth of multimillionaires and billionaires, and redistribute it . Then, and only, then will you have any meaningful sense of control over your own country. It took our ancestors time, blood, sweat, and tears to get what we had in the 20th century. But we did get it. Time to really put the effort into getting that back from those who want to own our assets, and pay us far less than that privilege is worth. And when we get it, we need to keep it this time. And we have to work together to do that, and stop the economic clock going backwards.
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Justice is complicated, because it's a man made thing. It doesn't exist in nature, and relies in people who have blindspots in their thinking to attempt to get it. For instance, do you remember that female lawyer who was found guilty of murdering her two baby sons? She was found guilty because the expert the prosecution chose to use misled the jury, and the public in order to support his belief that most cot deaths were infanticides. Moreover, the police, and the Home Office pathologist were of the same opinion. If the accused had not had money and a loving husband, we would have not discovered that the expert was biased, and that the pathologist had tailored his report to fit his prejudice too. It took years of fighting to release her, but she was exonerated. Unfortunately, the experience broke her. She died several years later of alcoholism.
And you say justice is easy?
What about the guy found guilty of rape, without any forensic trace evidence to link him to the crime? Spent years in prision, until they tested her underwear and found trace evidence of another man. He still hasn't received compensation.
And you say justice is easy?
Grenfell Tower?
Steven Lawrence?
Hugh Grant?
"Justice is easy" is absolute nonsense.
Human beings get things wrong, especially when they think with the back of the brain, with emotion, instead of the front, where the intellect is.
People who think like you are why we have the rights we do to try to stop injustice. Thank goodness they exist, because that's protecting us from people who think like this.
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You obviously don't understand global supply chains. I'd buy a huge bag of popcorn to watch the consequences if Blackrock could do that. They can't, but even if they could, American consumers would feel the bite, because there are very few products in the world that are 100% comprised of parts from one place. You buy a toaster. The elents may come from one place. The thermostat from another, and the mechanicals from another, and the body from another and they all get assembled in Mexico, Canada, or China. So doing tariffs on that basis would make iPhone hella more expensive than they are now, and American consumers would have to pay for that. IPhones are expensive already, and there are cheaper alternatives. Indeed, US consumers will have to start buying less often, because they pay the tariffs. So be careful what you wish for, especially if you're a republican member, because your writing your death poem with tarrifs.
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But what you miss is that the word God is commonly used to mean "sky daddy", and as atheism is a direct challenge to established religion, i.e., an institution claiming an overriding cultural and social hierarchical exercise of power, it imperative to acknowledge this existing tension. For me, being a potterer through this landscape, I begin with the question who or what is God? If I cannot find an answer to that, then it makes it difficult to proceed further. Peterson avoids that question, and thus misrepresents atheism in an honest way. Atheism is all about the "Sky Daddy". It denies that the Sky Daddy is real, but to deny the Sky Daddy is not to say the moral values in the Bible has no import. Indeed, rejecting the Sky Daddy leaves the Bible to stand or fall on its own ideas and moral lessons. And that's leaves it stronger IMO.
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I read the new book "Money" by David McWilliams, and he says that monocultures in nature are fragile, and by having financial services dominating our economy, we have an economic monoculture where there is less productive investment than speculation and rentierism, both which put nothing into the real economy. All it does is run the economy on debt, and transfer wealth away from workers and the asset limited, and give to the already asset wealthy. All the increases in GDP have gone to asset owners, and everyone else has been exposed to increasing wealth and income inequality over time, as they turn to debt to maintain their living standards, or to put a roof over their heads. The banking sector just lives to create more debt, and that's drive out productive spending. Unless we actually address that lack of productive investment, things can only get worse.
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Redistribution is the only answer because there are perverse incentives at work. And tax incentives together with using taxation for productive investment would do that. The State can do it when the private sector won't or can't. If we tax speculation more and provide tax credits for productive investment, we would find asset bubbles would recede. Indeed, there is a tenable argument that tge financial sector is too big. When you look at which sectors contribute most GDP, it's not the ones that provide the most jobs. Financial Services is the largest sector, but it's making only a minority wealthier. Manufacturing employs more people, but provides less GDP than Financial Services. This is why we need a different economic framework to work with. One that looks at productive and speculative input and output differently, instead of being misled by the aggregate. Indeed, we are told we are the 6th richest country in the world by GDP value. But by GDP per head we are 29th richest. And the Labour Share of GDP - the share of GDP paid to workers - has been falling in size for years. But nobody noticed because they had new toys to play with like more consumer credit, credit cards, cheap white goods that were so cheap because the countries making yhem were being exploited. Now it's very different, because as Richard noted the winners from that period, who got wealthy don't even invest here. So, we need to look at things differently and less opaquely, so people better understand what's really going on.
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Anyone who thinks you're a communist knows less about communism than they think they do. Moreover, they haven't paid attention to what you have said over and over about yourself being a capitalist. In short, you believe that capitalism is necessary, but not sufficient of itself to ensure fair, efficient, and adequate distribution of the resources needed for survival by all. Why? Because capitalism by itself seeks to harness individual human desires, without acknowledging the necessity of disciplining and regulating them to protect the welfare of all humanity. It is not about destroying capitalism, it's about controlling it's downsides that derive from human shortcomings like greed, short-sightedness, and other follies. Taxation is a necessary tool for doing that, as economic history shows us. Taxation became necessary to protect capitalism itself. And there's there is every justification to use it to protect societies from capitalism when it's overgrowth results in harming them. The justification is obvious, but it is how we use taxation that is the conflict. And governments, like markets, are comprised by people who are not perfect or efficient out of the gate. Everything is an ongoing experiment that risks failure. And capitalism is failing the societies it is meant to serve by ineffectively distributing the resources needed for its survival. Fair, targeted, and effective taxation is the only tool to fix that. The status quo isn't working.
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Is it? Then shouldn't the markets be charging Germany a higher amount of interest than the UK? Right?
Well, not really. The “collapsing“ Germany interest rate for their sovereign debt is lower than the UK's and their credit rating is AAA, the highest rating. Why?
Perhaps the fact that their Debt to GDP ratio is in the 50th percentile, while the UK's is in the 90th. And the UK's credit rating has been lower than Germany's since Brexit, and has budged since. So, Germany isn't collapsing, unless the whole global financial system is collapsing too, because it's an interconnected system. It's been broken since since 2007, and it's been on life support ever since.
Germany's weakness is that it was to reliant on exporting to economies that are now entering the lowest point of the business cycle, like the US and China. And there are no other economies big enough to replace that shortfall. Until the rot in the system is excused out, and the structural problems in the largest economies are resolved, the whole global economy will limp on.
As for the US, USD will be superceded, but when and what will replace it, who knows? Gold is not an option for efficient global trade. And as nobody trusts each other, there is a chance that we might move away from having any national currency acting as international money as Keynes suggested all the way back at Bretton Woods. Rather we should have a specific international currency for global trade, that is controlled and can be manipulated by no-one. But the world grown up enough to do that? Well, that remains to been seen, doesn't it?
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I hear you professor, and you are right in all what you say. It's nothing unsurprising that both the BBC and Barclay's might not respond well in a crisis. Both organisations are cost-focussed, and accordingly have shed manpower to the bone to save money. Accordingly, they may not access to staff to respond in a time of crisis. Not only are the management out of touch, but neither organisation has a coherent crisis management plan, which is surprising, as Barclay's should have designated officers and a action plan to cope with It failires. If this is a Cyber Atrack, according to Data Protection rules, they should be making efforts to protect their customers' data as well as their own business reputation. They should have ensured that they were communicating frequently with the public and providing accurate information when they do. But, I think the hollowing out of manpower in the Banking Sector might mean that they may have shed first and reorganised responsibilities later. Same with the BBC. Fact checking things before you publish is Journalism 101. Now both organisations both lose public confidence as a result of poor organisation. It's just not good enough. And Barclay's share price might fall, and the BBC has yet another own goal.
Is there anything good in the situation? Well, you've got us to commiserate with you and show you some solidarity.
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Lol. The Central Bank does not control markets. The markets control central banks, and the economics is dogma to justify favouring a form of Capitalism that uses finance to facilitate asset wealth transfers from the assetless poor and the asset-limited workers. The economics used was bollocks, because it took zero account of human greed, nor the structural inequalities that prevent the majority being subject to those with market power. Instead of the market being Democratic-adjacent institution, it has become an engine of oppression and inequality which is making very few people more money they could spend in a lifetime, whilst impoverishing everyone else over time. Human nature drives the market, and as well as useful and constructive traits, there are also traits that have to monitored and controlled for the safety of every society.
So, no; the economics was naively dangerous. Hayek et al. were ideological ldealists of the most naive kind. They hadn't even read economic or financial history, or they would have realised that their framework was old wine in new bottles which would turn sour, as it did centuries beforehand in Rome, Greece, and elsewhere, repeated the very same fundamental mistakes. Now Capitalism has turned to a new feudalism, with a new feudal class preferring to speculate and grift, rather than invest productively. And they have neutered the state, and thus, it will need a huge concerted effort to pull their claws. But, the pushback will come.
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I think you are obsessed with it, because you're ignoring a very simple fact, that the wealth of the middle class is disappearrung, because the value of their wages and their home is being encoded by how neoliberalism works. It's a parasite, whose mode of survival is to transfer wealth to those who control the financial system. And the middle class no longer do that, and the assets they do own are in real purchasing power being devalued. Most of them have only their jobs, their houses, and their pensions, to counterbalance the puke of debt they took on to pay for it, and the hope they can repay all that debt is disappearing everyday. Why do you thing social mobility is disappearing even for the middle classes? And AI will drive that reality home, because it's the white collar jobs that the aspirational middle classes want that will be targeted by it. So, your confirmation bias is blinding you to the reality of the economic apartheid that is a feature of Neoliberalism and not a bug. The wealth illusion for the middle classes is going to be a painful wake-up call, because it is. The only assets growing in real terms are debt-based assets. And it is the owners of debt who are the real winners, and not the middle class who will lose what they have as much as the working class has already. When AI kicks in within the next generation, if neoliberalism hasn't been moved away from, they will be poorer too. That's the irony. There will be even less social mobility. And what if the middle classes then?
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It's understandable to feel unsettled right now, as the reality of our current system may differ significantly from what we once assumed. If we take the excitement surrounding AI at face value, there's a real concern that many white-collar jobs could be eliminated under capitalism. So, what can we do about this? It's crucial that we encourage our children to work to live, rather than live to work. They should learn to think strategically for themselves, rather than relying on external sources for what they cannot provide. The opportunities that existed in the 1970s are fundamentally different from what we see in the 2020s, and this economy is unlikely to return to those times. Therefore, we need to prepare our children to be adaptable and independent thinkers rather than trying to force them into rigid roles that no longer fit. If their sole focus is on securing employment, it’s important to note that self-employment stands as the only truly guaranteed path to lifelong work. However, the journey of self-employment is not without its challenges; it demands self-discipline, foresight, curiosity, and courage. While success or wealth isn’t guaranteed, the foundation of employment is still there for many. With the right priorities in place, a fulfilling life is indeed within reach, as it is these priorities that enrich our very existence. What is more significant than the external chaos is what brings meaning to our lives. This journey also encompasses taking responsibility for yourself and your loved ones. Although a job may offer less responsibility, we must acknowledge that true security is becoming increasingly rare, as capital continues to replace human roles with automation. The jobs that remain may be those beyond the reach of AI or robots, and there are valid concerns about whether they will provide a living wage. Thus, even within this context, we ought to approach our circumstances with an open mind; harbouring resentment over these changes can often be a futile exercise. Until humanity finds a way to either reform or replace capitalism with a more sustainable alternative that meets our material and other needs, we must learn to adapt to the pressures of the current system.
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Why do you think MMT and taxation is somehow incompatible? Remember MMT is not a prescriptive or ideological framework. It describes the reality of what governments can do. It is not an ideological position that is prescriptive. In other words, those arguing to use it are not arguing that you can do it, that you should. Indeed governments have used the MMT framework to do QE, and have been doing so since the GFC, and did more to finance their strategies during the pandemic. So call it MMT or QE, it's the same thing. But I think the observation by a famous British statistician that, "All models, are wrong, but some are useful." By this he meant that models and frameworks are maps of reality that cannot capture both what is known and what is unknown, and by being a abstraction of reality, they highlight some factors why ignoring or playing down others. The model of MMT/QE in your mind is incomplete, because you think taxation has nothing to do with MMT. And it's arguable that if MMT/QE together with temporary increased taxation - which is a tool to take money out of the money supply - QE would not have fuelled the inflation that it created. Why? MMT/QE was a permanent transfer of money far in excess to the financial sector and corporations, rather than to households. Taxing the gains from that injection of money would prevented inflation. But Taxation, for ideological capital, is rarely acknowledged as a tool to fight inflation. Just a thought.
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This speech was mostly directed toward Veep Vance's base, and therefore does not accurately reflect nor serve the interests and the welfare of anyone else. However, despite Vance's hypocrisy, we must accept that Democracy can only die not from the actions of external actors alone, but with the complicity and neglect of those within. That means it has to be actively maintained as events happen in and around democratic communities. And each community must decide for itself what are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats it must adapt to, and how. Values have to evolve to meet the challenges change always presents, but the decision cannot be forced in one direction or another. It must be consented to, and that consent must be proactive. It cannot rely on passive consent or apathy for legitimacy. And it cannot be forced by flooding the zone, and obscuring reality either, as that is exploitation.
Veep Vance has a huge burden, as his speech shows. Carrying around that huge beam in his eye is bound to cower his stature toward complicity with the corporate exploitation of his base. And our elites too cannot stand straight exactly either. Both sides of the Atlantic are suffering from myopia, as their elites struggle to square eroding the social contract with the people for personal and political gain. In this, the beams in their eyes bang into each other, creaking like great trees bending in the wind as corporations and plutocrats push to assert their will on the people. That is the pressure democracy is under most, from those who neglect democracy because it's hard to be patient and responsive when it's inconvenient and you're impatient. So, let us strive to remove the beams in our eyes, and clean our own Augean Stables. There's plenty of work to go round. The work never stops in a place that is home.
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That's how dialectism works: Thesis>Antithesis>Synthesis and back to Thesis. It's the evolutionary and dynamic path of ideas. There are no absolute settled, universal truths, because we are limited in our capacity to perceive or interact with reality completely. This is why we we devised technologies that expanded our capacity. This is why Marx saw Capital as a dynamic and constantly evolving concept, that evolved through ideas and beliefs being constantly questioned. That's how Capitalism has survived and it's discontent too. Capitalism sees the intellect as a commodity and continuously strives to develop it and extract value from it. How? By encouraging it to be questioned and challenged. And the discontents find new ways to challenge capital's hegemony too. So all Ideas are dynamic and dialectical, and are the means by which we evolve our interactions with everything. But it's not challenging ideas for ideas sake. It's literally ensuring our survival. If we hadn't innovated over time, we would not have been as a successful species as we are. Indeed, where we are failing to innovate is where we are experiencing crises. For example, climate change is more a conflict of ideas, whilst the material impacts progress. Capital is driven by the Profit Motive, and Shareholder Primacy ensures capital has the means to impose its will, but it is still being challenged by scientists, and the increasing consciousness of the public that Climate Change is real. There will be a tipping point, but when depends on the public literally disabusing themselves of that notion that their current existence is settled and safe. Dialectics again. And the wisest of us knows that Change is the only constant. And when we submit to thar reality we increase our chances of survival individually and collectively. Why? Being challenged by change is how we evolve. And in my opinion, Marx wanted us to be far more open to such possibility.
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The same ones pulling Rishi's and Nigel's. No time of space to go into detail, but the British establishment'S priorities got them into the mess they are in. And until they take a long hard look at those priorities, the more likely things are to stagnate, and elude their envisaged "Managed decline/renaissance"? Instead, it will be a death spiral economically and socially. It didn't have to be this way, and if they do change course, it will still take years to repair the damage of the last 50 years or so. We need to stop producing people like Liz Truss and the other BSCs, and giving them power. We're too easily impressed by bored boors like Boris Johnson, et al., and bored wannabes like Sunak, who haven't got a clue. They've never existed outside in the real world for 5 minutes, but they think they're qualified to lead a country, they couldn't a dog down the road sucessfully. Lord help us.
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And that has nothing to do with it really. It's whether that opinion is informed or not. No wonder Louis CK said, "opinions are like assholes: everyone's got one and few are worth looking into unless one is a vet or a proctologist." The only ones worthwhile are informed ones. Not the disinformation merchants, or the the professionals flying outside their specific skill set. "Geopolitics is a poker game where everybody's lying about the cards they're holding." And much in life is the same. People lie all the time. Employers are delugued with CV's full of lies. British comedy in the 1990s was characterised by "Does my bum look good in this?" type running jokes. And when you want a favour from your boss, you'll smile at them until you get it. Socially-mediated lying is the norm, as trust cannot be given out willy-nilly. Most people, including yourself are liars, and truth is not merely an opinion, even in its most subjective variety. It's got to be evidence based, and whether you trust Starmer or not, is neither here nor there. It whether his lies harm you or not. And when you look into British political history, people were happy to vote for proven liars, so...opinions aren't truth alone, and neither is our judgment perfect either. Plato knew that when he used his Allegory of The Cave to illustrate our sometimes tenuous relationship as a species with reality. Nothing much as changed since.
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Timothy Snyder noted in his substack post that the way things played out in Munich, there were only 3 options:
- First, the Americans sincerely want peace but are just stunningly incompetent.
- Second, the incompetence is by design; the game is rigged to generate an agreement between Russia and the U.S. that is unacceptable to Ukraine.
- Third, Putin and Trump have already worked out common plans for the colonial domination of Ukraine, and the talks just provide cover.
Well, Littlefinger's most memorable quote in Game of Thrones was "Chaos is A Ladder", but I would add one had better watch out for the grease on the rungs. I mean JR in Dallas was a much more entertaining and often effective transactional villain than Trump. It's as almost as if somebody's pulling his strings, because the way things have been set up there can be no peace deal. And we then must proceed to wonder what are the real motivations of Trump? What's driving this car crash? Greed, Folly, or something else? Perhaps we'll find out soon. But, all Ukraine can do is just keep fighting for now, and the Europeans can supply them the best they can. Like a carbuncle, the festering will pop, and the truth will emerge.
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Not really, it's not economic. It's financially correct, and stopping land becoming a speculative asset, or a financial instrument is better for farmers and for consumers in the long run. Truth be told, the idea that we can import from everywhere across the planet cheaply is becoming untenable. Would you rather your money went to British gamers or the shipping companies that are hiking their transportation costs? Simply, food is going to cost more due to a. Climate change, b. Geopolitical tensions, c. Globalisation failing. So, we need food production to increase, and not land being used as tax avoidance schemes. So, getting the asset wealthy to stop buying land and forcing up prices, would be a bet benefit.
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Get real. It has been implemented under WTO rules. It's just that nobody voted on a credible plan, just on a idea. An idea cannot be frustrated, but your belief Tunnels can easily be frustrated. That's why you won't look at the reality as it is, because it would mean facing up to your errors. So you have a choice, just as when you voted for a idea, instead of a credible plan. You can continue to cling to your false victimhood, or you can accept that you played into the hands of people with a very dufferent agenda, which was not for your benefit. What you imagined what Brexit meant was never going to be possible, because this is not the 1960s. The world has moved on from that relationship with Britain. There is no dependency by countries on Britain, like the Sterling Area, or the Imperial Market system. Britain is in competition with everyone else since they left the world's second biggest economic market. And nobody is doing any favours. Inside the EU you had protection inside it. And as your partners and neighbours they protected you. All those benefits that you didn't realise you had are gone. Britain is just another country. And your economy is no longer AAA rated any more. Your credit rating fell after Brexit, so you have to pay more for your borrowing, because Brexit increased the risk of borrowing to the UK. And you can't change your geography. It will always cost more to trade with distant countries, and China was the last big nation to stop giving away their exports cheaply. They're not so cheap, as Sterling got devalued by 13% after Brexit, but that doesn't make the UK more competitive because it costs too much to trade with the UK as countries did in the past. Look at the Aston University report. And the sad thing is that UK services doesn't provide as many jobs for British workers, and those it provides are not that well paid. British workers in manufacturing were better off that they are in service jobs. Small and Medium Enterprises have been hit the hardest. And inward investment is falling too. That's reality. And the damage is enough to prevent long-term investment... Need I go on. Even forming a Customs Union would alieviate our difficulties. Turkey is in a customs union with the EU, but is not a member. We need that to reduce the costs of survival. It's that simple.
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These are not on the books because they aren't the national debt. These are private debts. Someone's debt - including the government's - is someone else's savings. The important thing is who owns that debt. If it's your pension fund that owns that debt - and pension funds in the UK are the biggest purchasers of government debt by buying UK Gilts as a way to structure their long term liabilities to pay pensions - would you be happy for them to have less assets to pay your pension from? I would guess not. Indeed, workplace pensions tend to be the only asset almost every worker has, even when they have nothing else. So, don't let confirmation bias mislead you in your critique. The Economy is complicated, because it's made of of people making choices, and people are complicated. So, if your standard of living is going down, it's not because of the "National Debt", it's because of a number of factors that impact your purchasing power, and the national debt isn't one of them. Brexit unfortunately reduced our earning capacity, and depreciated the value of Stirling, as well. It's more expensive since Covid to import from further afield in the world, and we have imposed trade barriers on ourselves. By reducing our earning capacity, the cost of servicing our sovereign debt has increased, because investors view our economy to be more risky now than before Brexit. Plus being very reliant on financial services means we're very exposed to issues in the global financial system, and moving from wage growth to debt to fund living standards, has meant wealth inequality is now embedded, and our children are less well off than we were. And all these major issues create cascading problems on their own, but demography and misinvestment in speculative rather than productive assets that increase real economic growth, i.e. produce Capital, rather than hoarded wealth, means our growth is stagnant. Not only that, but we don't invest in the UK as much as in the US, because returns have been consistently better by doing so. So, UK living standards are unlikely to rise because of these and other issues. And I expect Trump is going to throw shade our way too. He's likely to put tarrifs on UK goods as well, simply because it plays well with his base.
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Prof Wilson is right. Entrepreneurs are making money and gaining power from outrage that they deliberately provoke in groups susceptible to being manipulated. It's not stupidity or a lack of intelligence that makes them susceptible. Everyone has a trigger, because the oldest and most automatic parts of our brain are those that focus on fear, anxiety, and safety. That where the biases come from, and they can override the intellect through emotion. Put people under pressure, and their defence mechanisms kick-in far more easily, which override and dominate their intellect. It's not about intelligence, or who is "smart" or "stupid". It's the way our brains have evolved. Everyone is susceptible to falling back on their biases, when put under pressure. When emotions like anxiety, fear, greed, or desire flow in, thought and reason tend to be pushed out. And we react, and act out based on those emotions rather than reason
It's an age old problem, because we evolved to be like this in a time when sabre-toothed tigers roamed the earth. Those reactions made it more likely we could identify dangers and escape, but this tendency has become more problematic the larger and more complex our environment has become. We don't come equipped with the knowledge and skills to deal with media or people wanting to provoke us and capture our attention for money or power on an industrial scale. We may not know when we are being led by our nose. So, perhaps we need to think more before we react. Perhaps we need to ask Cicero's question of "Qui bono?" "Who benefits? " when we read, watch, or listen to media that seems designed to evoke strongly negative emotions in us? That isn't something easy to do, but we need to question more before we commit to investing on, or identifying with any particular point of view based on information you aren't personally familiar with. The professor is right, and the Internet companies know he's right too, because there are teams outside this ckuntry competing to manipulate you. If you have the time, look up online articles about media literacy. There's also free resources for children and adults, about how to use the Internet safely. Finland do this in schools because they have been the target of certain political ambitions. We need to do that here too. And we need to give every one access to the knowledge and tools how to use the Internet safely.
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There are two types of theories:
1. Theories that describe what is as factual maps of reality (facts) and
2. Theories that prescribe what should be as ideological arguments in frameworks (beliefs).
MMT is a descriptive theory and not a prescriptive theory like Keynesian Monetary Economics.
MMT and Keynesian Monetary Theory share only the description of how the government can issue its own currency at will, and how the level of taxation relative to government spending is a policy tool that regulates unemployment and inflation. After that, they disagree on how these powers should be used.
Keynesian Monetary Theory argues that government money creation should only be used as a temporary fix to address acute unemployment and underinvestment in infrastructure, and predicts that there will be inflation problems if carried on for too long.
In contrast, MMT argues that Keynesian Monetary Theory ignores the role taxation plays in controlling the money supply and curtailing inflation. Therefore, government money creation can be used for acute and chronic underinvestment in the economy as long as taxation is employed to remove excess money from the economy when inflation occurs.
In short, Keynesian Monetary Theory ignores taxation as a monetary policy tool, while MMT does not, and argues that it can be used in a targeted manner to control the money supply and prevent chronic inflation.
So, your critique ignores the following:
a. MMT ≠ Keynesian Monetary Theory
b. MMT is more accurate in its descriptive map of what monetary tools are available to the government than Keynesian Monetary Theory.
c. Describing What is ≠ arguments about what should be.
d. We already have empirical evidence of the impact of government money creation during times of underinvestment, and the impact of taxation. We have:
- historical accounts of how the UK handled the financing of wars and pandemics, what tools were used, and the results.
- data from other countries since the post-WWII period of economic performance regarding GDP per capita, inflation, and levels of taxation.
All these are available online, and the data reveals that MMT, as a framework, may have a point. High taxation does not correlate with economic underperformance as expressed by GDP per capita. Indeed, to give a complete picture, it is essential to look beyond simplistic "straw man" arguments and consider the data. And even more importantly, we must have the courage to embrace nuances. Like underinvestment in infrastructure is economic failure, which can lead to unemployment and inflation because of the consequences that follow on from market failure. That more, isn't necessarily better. And excessive speculation, and rentierism has negative consequences for economies, because they divert investment away from the production of goods and services that are needed to maintain a functioning economy that can provude materiall growth for more than a few.
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It's not zero inflation at all. You can't have zero inflation because of two things: Fear and Greed. Yes, producers set prices, but their motivation is not to provide a charity, but to produce profit. And people like getting wealthy. But not even producers can control events. Everything was OK until globalisation broke down because of Fear and Greed in 2008. That greed led to the Eurodollar Offshore Capital Market getting bent out of shape, and becoming really risk adverse. The truth is Fear of being ripped off again means liquidity needs to pumped in to persuade Eurodollar lenders to lend. The trust is gone, and when ygat happens their a premium to pay, and the only people that can find that money to stop the global financial system seizing up is the US government. But who are they subsidising? U.S. Banks. Back in the 2000's it was expected that profits from banking would decline, and there would be some rationalisation, because the banking sector is too big. You have too many banks all chasing the same money, and what's worse is that the banks stopped investing in the real economy. They've moved over to speculation, asset bubbles, the Stock Market, and derivatives. And the non-bank financial institutions are going down the same route. Hoarding money kills economies, but... People like getting wealthy. Wealthy enough to buy the politicians, the media, and everything else that's supposed to protect the masses. And the Fed ireal mandate is to deflect attention from the things that are rotting the global financial system - Increasing wealth inequality, economic colonialism, and climate change. And what's worse is that the big kajhunas running the show know the way things are is not sustainable, but they won't admit it that. The Fed can't fix global supply chains, or geopolitical tensions, or climate change, and all of those are drivers of inflation external to the US. Elites will never admit they screwed us up good because of their own fear and greed. So the Fed has to be seen to tidying up the whoopsies left on the carpet. S OK unemployment has to go up, and inflation has to burn through, because there is less opportunity to fiddle the currency value to offset it, because the global economy is interlinked, and liquidity is in low supply. Frank Baum was right about the Fed being the Wizard of Oz, or as Jeff calls it, the Janitor.
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Jeff is speaking as a big perspective macreconomist. From that perspective, it's churn. But as a human being, he understands your question really well, but as his knowledge is his only asset, and as he can't rewrite the rules of the game, he's sticking to that. And I can't blame him for that. I dunno if you watched Succession, but there's a quote from Season 1 that has stayed with me. And it's something like, "America was created as a factory to turn suffering into gold." Historically, that is absolutely correct for the 16th Century, where Europe began colonising the world. And the American Dream was erected over bones of who suffered to create its foundation. But despite everything, the suffering of new people and new generations over time, always seeped into its fabric. The Dream was just that. A dream, not a guarantee, or a social contract. And that's a bitter pill to swallow. But it might be good medicine nevertheless. Why? Perhaps a stakeholder democracy might be better than one based on a failing meritocracy. One where we ensure everyone has the basics and if you make more you can keep as much as is possible. We support each other and we try not to be divided. We look after our communities, where we live and work, and we don't tolerate throwing each other under the bus,and we take money out of politics. But hey, that just might be a dream itself. But we don't know until we try.
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I suggest your information doesn't reflect the reality of the teaching profession in the US. So many teachers there are leaving the profession, for pretty much the same reasons as British ones. And wages vary by state, so $80,000 in California might just be chicken feed, especially when there are reports of people earning $100,000 pa and living paycheck to paycheck in the US. Should big doesn't it. But when breakfast in a diner in LA costs you $20, you can eat there every day. That's why takeaway food firms, and other discretionary spending products are reporting losses because US consumers are tightening their belts. Hell, even Louis Vuitton (LMVH) is reporting lower profits as their sales are significantly down. And teachers do work outside the classroom and at home, and often end up doing 60 hour weeks. That's why both US and UK teaching professions are haemorraghing talent. It's not just giving the lessons. It's the lesson plans, the marking, writing reports, pastoral care, as well as dealing with children who might have special needs or personal problems, such as poverty, hunger, or behavioural problems, nevermind the parents. Classes are too big, and under-and malinvestment over decades in education is reaping the whirlwind. To be honest, in the Anglo-sphere, our brand of economics is selling families short. And teachers get the brunt of that. You can tell? Why? In the UK, the dropout rate for teacher training alone was about 75%. So 3 out of every 4 graduates drop out before they get their PGCE. And of the those that get through the training, almost all are leaving the profession within 5 years. That's the reality of teaching. It's a vocation, more than a job, because it is personally and professionally demanding, as well as being poorly paid for doing what you're are expected to do. They're underfunded and so are the other staff, and so are the schools. That's why we're selling families short. And no wonder some kids fall off the rails. We need to wake up to what we're sleepwalking our society into.
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That wasn't from the middle. There are always outliers in any group. That's why the Bell Curve is shaped like a bell. The majority is in the centre, and not to the extremes. If it was, the plutocrats funding this effort wouldn't have to spend so much money trying to create the conditions where they can take over power. In fact, this is nothing knew. The same thing happened when Liberal economics failed in the first half of the 20th century. And we realised then, as we will pretty soon realise again in the near future, that being skilled at making money, doesn't mean you are qualified to run a community or a nation. And we will not turn to extremists at either end to clean up the mess, but very much closer to the centre. When you govern a nation, you have to represent everyone. If you don't, and sow hate and division, you won't hold on to power for very long.
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Nigel Farage is a symptom, not the cause. He's a representative of a class of people that want to install a compliant government who are opportunistically exploiting the valid concerns of UK voters. He proves most of all that anger, fear, and resentment can neuter commonsense if ignored and allowed to fester and grow over decades, as it has been.
Richard J. Murphy argues much as Professor does that Top-down technocrats are divorced from the realities of the citizens at the bottom. And unless they can meet together in the middle - by the top down relinquishing their isolation, detachment, arrogance, and listening to and learning from, and acting on the valid issues of people the bottom - then they are making room for the Farages of the world and their powerful donors to take this country over and hollow it out even more. The "growth" desired by the well-meaning is being needed out by the long disease of nothing working effectively or efficiently for people at the bottom. Not only are they impoverished and sometimes hungry and homeless, they are verging on the desperate in many cases as they struggle to get the real help they need. The people in control of this country are clueless to the extent they know a lot of information, but don't know or have the wisdom understand when they are failing everyone else but themselves. And their complacency then shifts into incompetence. That why Farage is steamrolling the two main parties. He is filling the credibility gap left by the unimaginative, the incurious, and the complacent. "Growth" is not what ordinary people are talking about at their kitchen tables. "Growth" doesn't pay their bills, or stops them from spending hours in A+E, or having someone to care for a relative while they have to work, or deal with impenetrable bureaucracy. By insisting on "growth" as being the issue you are not actively listening to the people at the bottom, or addressing their immediate concerns, and they know it. They are not being heard or treated with respect. They are being talked down to. They are being stereotyped, scapegoated, and being policed, but not being dealt with as people. And if you think Nigel Farage is bad, you haven't seen the people behind him, and who will come after. If you don't fill in that credibility gap, they will come and hollow out this country even further than it is already.
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You obviously know nothing about politics and finance anywhere, neither now or in the past. Perhaps if certain people had watched Britain's Second Empire, they might be better informed. We know why certain interests chose London, and I suggest that if you truly understood the emergence of the Eurocurrency Market in the 20th century, the turning away of everyone's eyes was politically and financially convenient. That is no longer the case as greed and corruption has led to turf wars between the greedy and corrupt, involving innocent people. You see it in the failure of certain interests to resist the need for discretion, and succumb to their own paranoid and fragile delusions of grandeur and grandiosity. And ultimately, they control nothing but a growing pile of bones. They're only human after all. They only live once, and truly own nothing but their bones, until nature takes her course,and they too are forgotten. The History of Finance tells us money and power are intimately connected. And authentic history is honest and open about that. To imagine that isn't the case is disingenuous or less informed than they think. But what maintains the functioning political state cannot be so easily bought from so few, when it impacts so many. Not everything is for sale.
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One day a farmer had to go out into the pasture to check on his dairy cattle on his way enjoying the lovely view, he stepped right into a fresh, juicy cowpat. Hygiene is important in dairy, and as he was a bit away from water and disinfectant, there was nothing to do but scrape off the bulk of it, do his task, and then head for the cleaning station...
The ship of state doesn't turn on a sixpence, and the wealthy interests who pulled this bait and switch aren't going to give up trying to convince everyone that fresh cowpat smell is really Chanel No. 5. Cows aren't going to stop dropping cowpats anytime soon either. So what to do? Pretend you can jump in your poop loaded wellies to the cleaning station? Put nappies on cows? Agree manure smells like Chanel No 5 as the flies get high? or patiently do your job and clean your boots ASAP? Anyone claiming other than the last choice is not a competent or credible person, because they lack basic common sense. Any anyone expecting the farmer to do anything else is mistaken. The more fantasy farmers we listen to, the less well the farm is run, and everyone and everything stays covered in poop.
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Not really. The Economy isn't a machine, but the collective decisions of the people within it, and therefore subject to the whims of human psychology. The bits that are structured, only evolve to be so. For example, the process of money creation evolved into its current form because it was the right idea at the right time. But, because the only constant is change, people's goals, methods, and tools change too because are subject to changing motivations. And Economists may not understand money very well, but financiers understand it very well because their goal is to accumulate more of it. That's not the motivation of Economists in general. Their job is to how to manage scarcity, and even then Economics has some huge missing holes in its framework. Like it doesn't say a lot about distribution of resources, and that's a big hole as we're living through the biggest transfer of wealth in human history, and the gains have been skewed toward increasing asset wealth of a relative minority at the expense of everyone else. And arguably, this time round, there's insufficient institutional strength to prevent serious dangers arising in domestic as well as global markets. And this guy running this channel understands the nuances of the dominant financialised version of capitalism, and it's effects fairly well. He doesn't go into the deep detail, simply because most of those mechanisms are poorly understood by the public, and relies on a sound knowledge of financial and economic history to track. I mean, the best book so far to do that is David McWilliams "Money" published in 2024. It's a great narrative exploration about how money evolved and how it works today. Read that if you really want to begin to understand how money works in a meaningful and informed way. Michael Hudson's books on financial history are worth a read, especially if you're interested in the primacy of debt. And there's more on YT too, but not much is pitched at absolute beginners. Eurodollar University channel helped in explaining why finance is in the driving seat of the global economy, and why American Finance is the way it is now, and how policy is directed by trying to keep a broken system working. But if you are really curious, let your curiosity pull back the curtain and reveal how money works.
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GIGO. You've have a house and your windows are rotten but you won't repair the damage because you don't care. You're a landlord renting it out. So, the landlord is taken to court and is fined. He sells the house to someone who wants to repair the house, but the previous owner didn't tell him about the damage. Who would you blame? The new owner or the landlord seller? Iwe follow your logic, we would blame the buyer and not the seller, and that doesn't make any sense. Labour are just cleaning up after the Conservatives screwed this country over. They've weakened the economy to the extent it cannot grow. They created an economic monoculture based on debt, which is driving out productive investment that creates real jobs and productivity rather than debt farming and speculation. Monocultures in nature are fragile, because diversity makes it harder for pathogens to do damage to the whole system. . We see that in the Cocoa Industry right now, and our economy dominated by debt farming, asset bubbles, and speculation, is simply too weak to grow. There is simply too much debt, and too little productive investment. And the government of only 7 months cannot undo the harm done of nearly 5 decades. And it may already be too late to do anything, because there's another financial crisis brewing in the synchronised and highly interconnected global financial system. Global trade volumes are down, and the government doesnt have the money to invest to kickatart economic growth.the Conservatives the country loaded up with debt, and spent it on their donors, friends, and families. And you can see the growth of that debt even before the pandemic put the cherry on the cake the Tories were eating. They're asset wealthy, and they don't care. So if you want to complain, at least put the blame where it rightly belongs on the people who made the mess, and not the poor sod trying to clean up after them. And just for the record, Reform. Uk are Tories in Sheep's clothing, and they would make even a bigger mess. So please, there is no Wizard of Oz who can wave his wand and make this better it took 50 years nearly to get here, and because of that it can't be fixed in 5 years, or even 10, because the only money that is available is tax and savings. and until it becomes obvious that there is no way to avoid these, that we can no longer afford to subsidise asset owners gains that allow them to debt farm, speculate and strangle productive investment, just to make them richer, things will only get worse.
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I'm sorry but your prejudices are showing. You are blaming a cog in the machine instead of the bright sparks who changed it's design. HR unsurprisingly are employees who are there to protect those who are running the business. They do not get to decide how that that should be done. They are told what their priorities should be, and will lose their job if they do anything else. HR does not get to define anything operational or what priorities should be pursued. Consequently, you know get a lot of employers bending the rules to get what they want, not what is the right and fair thing to do. Rather, poop always run down hill. HR is just trying to keep their job just like any other department. Fail to do as they are told, and they too will be unemployed. So expecting anything more from them is naive. It is the people who have the power to set the priorities of that organisation who are to blame, and they are as much enculturated by a set of incentives that do not put customers as the highest priority. Rather it is profit, and shareholder primacy which together are the demons that are possessing the minds of those people running enterprises. Since the Neoliberal world view has become preeminent, we now promote the creation of inefficiency to ensure everyone one but the employees and Middle and lower management gets their cut, and in turn, nobody challenges the follies being perpetrated. Corporatism is the handmaiden of Neoliberalism, and in short, it's a scam. It's a squeeze, where customers and society at large become resources to be exploited rather than be maintained or served. Is it inevitable? No; but as long as we tolerate it this parasitical relationship between corporations and society, things will only get worse. In extracting as much profit from the process, corporations are becoming more parasites, than protectors and maintainers of society. Indeed, the UK is being run more like a extraction colony of some unseen empire everyday for the last 50 years. Consequently, living standards for the majority have stagnated or collapsed, and productivity has declined relative to our rivals. But we've got more fat cats more than ever. Go figure.
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You are confusing two different things. When they inflation is down, they are talking in aggregate terms that the pace of price increases has fallen. Because it's being seen in the aggregate, prices for individual goods and services will vary in how they respond. You don't buy a car daily, so you won't notice if those prices aren't rising as fast, or are even falling. But, you will notice it in your grocery shopping and your insurance costs. And depending on what you buy, your personal inflation might not be slowing or falling. So, your mileage will vary, and so will everyone else's. Inflation are like rats and mice. You may not see them, but you know when and where they're in your house. Suppliers set prices, and perhaps only two things force them to raise prices and that's Fear or Greed. And when it shifts from greed to fear, and the fear gets strong enough that's when unemployment starts creeping up. Shrinkflation - smaller package sizes for the same price - is a strategy used by suppliers when they know the consumer can't pay higher prices. So... Fear has been getting stronger for a while. Don't expect to see net price falls in consumer non-discretionary spending until things get really dire. Before that prices for discretionary spending will come down in price as demand for them shrinks. So car sales are down, luxury spending is down, takeout food spending is down, along with air travel and holiday spending. It's starting to hit the well-heeled, so the signs are there, but don't expect too many bargains right now.
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With the greatest of respect, I think your knowledge of British Economic History is scanty, and thus your opinion isn't based on fact. Indeed, if you were familiar with commentary about the UK Economy today, you would realise that our current debt-to-GDP ratio of around 100% isn't as bad as that after World War II, which was 240%. We had rationing as a consequence until the end of the 1950s, but we still managed to rebuild our war-damaged economy. We rebuilt our productive capacity, including the beginnings of the global Eurocurrency Market. We rebuilt our housing stock, and built a welfare state that tackled problems from the previous time austerity was tried in the Interwar years,because it failed then too. And we succeeded, despite difficulties from having to make do with less. And we did it without Austerity. And we repaid all our war debt in the early 2000s. You see, austerity isn't a new idea. And the Economist Mark Blyth wrote the key text about it's history entitled "Austerity: the history of a bad idea." Where in this door stopper 9f a text he relates the the evidence that Austerity is a bad idea, because it has failed to do what people argue it should do, each and every time it has been tried in history, which is grow the economies subjected to it. And sadly, the homespun narrative that a national economy can be run like a household has been debunked time and time again. But the uninformed still pretend its true. Even when there's evidence in the present day that Austerity is like putting an economy on hunger strike, but expecting it to be both heavier and fitter after a prolonged time on starvation rations, ideologues like yourself still trot it out like a dead zombie. Not only are you not informed on the subject, but you deign to patronise a trained economist who has written text books on economics, when you demonstrate by your comment you are blithely ignorant of the subject. You are unfamiliar with the subject, yet you presume to teach a teacher? You are not a serious person. All you have demonstrated in your comment is how very little you do know about Austerity and it's effects. And how little critical thinking you use. Perhaps you did not mean to come across as being patronising, but you really need to temper your own enthusiasm for your own ideas, because people get stiff wrong, especially when they fall for confirmation biases based on ideology. You have to look at the evidence, and judge that. Put aside what you want to believe, and approach serious arguments seriously, looking for the truth. It's people's lives and livelihoods that are in question. It's not a game. People die because of austerity, and families are food insecure. There's nothing to sneer at in this subject.
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Amen. The Left-Right political spectrum is just a trope put to use mostly by those who wish to Divide and Rule. But as a famous British Statistician said, "All models are wrong, but some are useful." Why? Humans have a bias towards categotisation and heuristic information processing. In simpler terms, we tend to pigeonhole phenomena, including ourselves, in an attempt to remove complexity to save mental processing effort. The Evolutionary perspective in psychology, explored by Bruner, an influential thinker in both Law, who explained this bias as a result of the way our brains process data from our environment. His chunking theory is this tendency applied to perception and memory. Everything we perceive as data is labelled and stored in chunks of information. They become information by being categorised and interlinked, to established categories for storage in our memory. This bias/tendency has the consequence of reductive categotisation. And bias is fundamental to how we think about the world and ourselves. Our best thinkers are aware of bias, and seek to explore complexity to provide nuance and deeper understanding than avoid it. But as a tendency, we are not all the same. And our brains are limited in the energy and effort they can spare to different areas. Thus, as an extension to our survival tools, our intellectual capacity can be subverted by our emotions and lack of energy to devote to thinking. Thus no-one is immune to the dangers of bias, oversimplification, and tribalism. And it takes time, effort and resources to counter it. In a more complex world, those commodities are in limited supply. And those who wish to influence us, are willing to use our biases to do so. So, the author is correct. We need to resist the traps of our own minds by taking time and effort to think about what links us rather than what separates us, and to respect our common humanity, even while we disagree. That does not mean we do not defend ourselves against dangers, but we don't proceed to short-circuit the need for accuracy, nor give into mere prejudice or fear, without reasoning things through. It's only when we short-circut that process, that we can mislead ourselves, and sleepwalk into disaster. Or hunker down in conceptual tunnels that give us a false sense of security.
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Dear Professor Tim, I think the Labour Party's advisors are leading them astray, as they are ignoring the immediate concerns of the electorate as a whole. I don't think they have a coherent understanding of how different economic factors are interlinked, and how focusing on the cart - growth - rather than the horse pulling it - an anorexic economy, starved of underinvestment - means they will struggle to convince anyone that Rachel Reeves has a firm grip on the reins of the economy. Their perceived conservatism in economic policies gives a perception of the wrong people having the ear of the Chancellor, and a Prime Minister, who as First Lord of The Treasury could order Ms Reeves to get a grip, or put her out to pasture, is more resistant to facing up to the missteps made, that getting things right. It's time Ms Reeves had a serious performance appraisal interview, because the perception she is giving is of being the wrong person for the job.
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Actually, that's your bias, and not reality. If the Republicans wanted to help tax payers, they would make the Tax System simpler, use AI to automate it, and remove the need to use tax specialists. That alone would reduce costs to taxpayers and the government, which would reduce the need to increase taxes in the first place. Funny that no-one suggests doing that. Instead, they're leaving the labyrinthine tax rules in place, which help wealthy corporations pay less taxes, and dumping more of the Tax Burden on the assetless, and the asset-limited. That's going to work out well, isn't it? Just like the Portrait of Dorian Gray. What was stuck up in the attic of the American historical consciousness - that it was designed as a factory to turn suffering into gold - is now out and proud in its nastiness, because there's nothing left outside the attic except the American people to reenslave. The economic and political norms of Imperialism and colonialism are coming home to the American people. And it's going to get ugly over the next decade or so.
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I think you are mistaken. Leasehold is the problematic land tenure, not Freehold, which is held free of any charges to a landlord and can only override by The Crown. Not knowing that is strange, as anyone buying a home would know the difference. And it leasehold is not a tax, but rent for the right to occupy and use land for a limited time. It's a form of subletting a freehold owned by a landlord. Is it a scam? Not really, if the costs are fair. But the lack of mechanisms to challenge assessments and to ensure that the landlord fufils his obligations under the contract creates the possibility for extortion. Also, the sums demanded to extend or renew leaseholds when close to the end of their duration can be onerous, and are not open to challenge either. But should leasehold be dispensed with, or should it be reformed or replaced? These are reasonable questions, and they have yet to be tackled. Property rights are a tough nut to crack, because it is potentially amending principles of ownership of land, the most protected form of property everywhere. Good luck with that.
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Utterly unrealistic. Going to work costs money. And doing that many hours also costs you more, financially, physically and mentally. In my former trade, those who tried that had to leave their money behind, because they usually ended up dying early, living on booze or speed, and being pretty useless parents. The name of the game is simple - choose your priorities carefully, and work smarter not harder, for yourself. Decide how much money you actually want, and then decide what you're going to do with it once you get it. Forget about consumerism. Live simply and quietly, and keep a low profile. Then execute your plan.
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They can't fall because the value of the debt propping up the value of the asset wealthy's portfolios would fall. And we can't have that can we? BTW, the Bank of England does not control Interest Rates. Markets do. And they're not going to settle for less returns, thank you very much. They don't care that you can't afford to buy anything. Even when we are subsidising bank at a cost of £40bn a year to do something they have to do by law anyway. Thats how broken the UK economy is. Perverse incentives go unchecked, and more wealth is transferred from those who depend on a wage to those who survive on the profit from their assets. Unless those perverse incentives and the negative consequences are addressed, by being removed or significantly reduced, this economy will continue being unable to grow. An economy that hoards wealth and speculates instead of making productive investments, loses the ability to grow. We gone past the point where clamoring for the status quo of the past is credible or tenable. We not building a country, we're building economic apartheid, where the few vampirise the lives of the many. It's a cancer. Until people realise that things will not improve if left as they are, we'll keep having these conversations, and nothing will change. The economy is being allowed to bleed out by underinvestment, greed, and folly. And until we start taxing assets at the same rate as wages, and shift tax subsidies from speculative investments to productive ones, and rebuild the things that allow the economy to grow, like infrastructure, housing, and uoskilling workers, the standard of living will fall. The allure of the normal is pretty pointless when things are abnormal, and have been so for decades.
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You're absolutely correct Professor. As the private sector can't or won't address the failings of the Housing Market, there is only the State left that can marshal the resources needed to tackle the root cause, which is lack of supply. But unfortunately, the choice to act only as a powerless referee on the sidelines is creating more problems on the sidelines. It's as if they are totally ignoring the power they have. If that had been done at the end of World War II, the economy would have never recovered. As long as you need people to be economically active to grow the economy, they're basic needs must be met. And housing is a basic need for people. The nations we defeated after WWII, had little time or patience with market failures, and created public housing and a housing rental regime that worked both for tenants and landlords in economies hollowed out by war and repatriations. But our economy has money far in excess of that, and our governments fudge the issue, and nothing improves. The State has power for a reason, and should use it in all it's dimensions, or it will sign its own democratic death warrant. This is an intolerable state of affairs. People must be housed or this economy will never grow in any meaningful sense. I know Angela Rayner wanted to make a positive difference, but this legislation is only rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
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I'm sorry, but you really are making a critical error: not everyone is like you. They may need or want direction, and they may not be able to afford a ketogenic diet, as animal proteins are expensive. So, really it's not about you. It's about everyone, and the state serves everyone, whether they need it or not. And Digital exclusion is a thing. And few don't in some way or another. I mean, you remind of the state of affairs in London before 1666. Then, people who could afford to pay would buy the services of a private fire brigade, to guard their properties from burning down. Only the houses carrying the plaque of a Insurance Company were protect. But unfortunately, that was only a minority of properties who could or did access those services. So when the Great Fire of London took hold, the uninsured houses helped the fire spread, which in many places, overwhelmed the private firefighters, and burnt down those insured properties too... Huge swathes of London were destroyed and people died, because of the lack of communal services, or joined up thinking. Everyone was, as they thought, was protecting themselves, with no thought of how their choices could impact others. So, arguably no Freedom comes without Responsibility. And waiting until a post-mortem after a disaster happens is pretty late to learn that a community response is sometimes far more effective than an individual or familial one. Good Luck with your weight loss.
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Unsolicited Advice from a stranger: don't confuse the map with the territory. Always compare the map with your experience on your journey. Maps, categories, frameworks, or descriptive theories, are abstractions of reality, designed to be useful within certain contexts, no more, no less. A famous British Statistician said: "All models are wrong, but some are useful." A very astute observation, because abstraction deliberately includes and excludes information. They are analytic tools, but limited because they are designed to be so. Before you subscribe to any typology, framework, or model, always put it through a SWOT analysis - investigate its Strengths, it's Weaknesses, the opportunities it provides to who and where, and its Threats or shortcomings - what it doesn't tell you. Then you'll be able to decide how useful any such framework really is. Humans have a fondness for pigeonholing, simply because our brains evolved to cognitively organise things to make them easier to remember. Yet, one should never forget that the only constant is change.
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I think the Economic History from 1914 onwards is on part a history of the US using its financial power to hobble it's rivals. The Special Relationship myth obscured the hard-nosed truth about Geopolitics and financial and economic Imperialism of that period. Let's not be shy about it. Both world wars were opportunities used to elbow its rivals - mainly France and Britain - into complying with its plan to dominate the world economically and financially as its rivals had done before. "Geopolitics is a poker game where all the players are lying," and nothing has changed that truth. Perhaps if we were more willing ourselves to confront our own history of Imperialism, weight be better equipped to recognise its appeal to others. But our elites don't want to open that can of worms, because they're still involved in it many ways. Hence, the hypocrisy and avoidance of confronting our complicity in many ways in the present. In avoiding facing up to it, we in turn become victims of it, because no empire, figuratively or literally, lasts forever. History practically is the best tool to reveal this truth. Knowing our economic and financial history, and linking it to political and geopolitical changes would have warned us much earlier of people like Trump, being the consequence of when one global economic hegemony is coming to its end of its potential for growth. The declining power turns to economic and political aggression to stave off its decline. It starts to try and find new sources of wealth for money to throw at the problem. That's what we did with our empire, and that's what the US is doing now, and they are so desperate that they turn on their allies and attempt to shake them down and bend them to their will. It's the imperialistic form of looking for change down the back of the sofa, when the prepayment meter is running out. So much for the heavies, turning to protectionism and intimidation of those they deem weaker.
It's not the first time our country has been subject to such treatment, and it won't be the last. Our domestic politics is literally a scramble for change down the back of the sofa, because winter has come, because our oligarchs deceived themselves, and deceived us in turn about the harsh truth. What to do? Put aside the delusions, because they will not help. Trump is trying to rattle us, because he perceives us as weak and clueless. And in some ways, we've been naive. We should stop lying to ourselves about what is being done in our name. We should stop appeasing the asset wealthy, because they're aren't focussed on solving our problems, but satisfying their obsession with having more at any cost. They shaped the narrative to suit their goals, and if we let them, they will impoverish us further and damage our economic potential permanently. And they need to give up their untenable obsession with infinite wealth on a finite planet. We are at a tipping point in history, and the only way to not damage ourselves further is not to pretend that there is no alternative, as we falsely keep being told. We need to push back on that.
Richard's 14 Questions need to be asked not only of Keir Starmer or Labour, but of every politician wanting to govern us. Indeed, the American people should be asking this of their leaders too. Because, we need to face up to the fact that what they are proposing can't work. Business as usual isn't going to work to rebuild economies whose foundations have been neglected and need attention to survive, and are weakening our social fabric. There's nowhere to hide from this. There's no ladder to pull up, as the latter itself is rotting. So we need to look at things more differently and more honestly if we are to come out the other side permanently diminished economically and socially.
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The commodificatiin of education has created a tendentious link between economic value and the subjects studied. Only if you believe that the dominant ideology of the wealthy and powerful should determine everything, including how to understand reality, would you take this seriously. If you want to do that, you should critically examine the academic disciplines that the asset owners favour, and then consider the reality that the world that they have consciously create is one where no-one is guaranteed a job, or a. livelihood. There's a channel called "How Money Works" and they uploaded a video on "Manufactured Uncertainty" that discusses that point. Moreover, it's ironic also that these same people are interested in academic disciplines that claim to understand why and how society produces too many educated people, which in turn creates problems in society... I can't remember the name of this niche area of study, but it's big amongst the Big Wigs in the US, so that thinking will in time trickle down to the wannabes in the UK... Oh yes, that's why this nonsense has popped up now on the agenda... Culture Wars... Thank God for my time in the Social Sciences, because it's made it easier to see where such the diversion of the politics of envy is leading us, and it's into another manufactured moral panic, which is quickly becoming irrelevant if the Big Wigs get their way. They've already shifted the goal posts, because they can, and it's not for our benefit. One could repackaged education and training as the Germans did, where vocational education and academic education were given equivalence far, far earlier in the United Kingdom, to the extent one could take vocational education and study it upto undergraduate levels and beyond. It was less socially divisive. And probably explains why their productivity has far better than ours. We're still trying to pigeonhole people and control them, instead of building on their potential. And in the attempt creating more disappointment and alienation in the process.
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That is not THE problem. It's a symptom of how myopic and unfair the tax system is. It's not the cause. And, once the people who really run this country realise that has to change, and put their mind to it, then that will have to change. And it's not only the asset wealthy who have to change. The asset limited who rely on a wage, and the assetess, have to wake up the reality of their gradual demise, and stop supporting politicians who do not serve their interests. And let's be honest, the indoctrination is going to be as hard as giving up the worst addictive drug. Fear and Greed are more powerful. And until we stop believing things that can't be true, we will keep falling victim to them. Why? Because we don't understand what's really happening, and the asset wealthy class, especially the ones at the very top, are investing in ways to make you not believe reality. Why do you think Musk, Trump, Bezos, etc spend billions buying access to your attention? Why do you think the best selling newspapers in the UK are kept in business although they are in the red, losing millions every year? Why do think Google have screwed over small businesses SEO strategy to insert their least useful AI on your android phones? Or Apple are now getting their users to work for nothing to train their own AI? No such thing as a free lunch. That's why Twitter wasn't banned here in the UK, when they arguably endangered the lives of innocent people and wrecked communities in the UK by spreading disinformation?
We live in a world that's addicted to wealth, and it's slowing killing us, and will continue to do so, until we wake up to the reality that we cannot win a game that is designed to make a very small percentage win. 1% win. 99% lose. And don't think they will stop willingly. They won't until it costs them more to continue than to stop. Capitalism was invented to harness human fear and greed in a controlled manner, but the addiction is stronger than the controls. Until we wake up to that, we are walking into a disaster that will only protect those who own all the assets.
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I think you're being gentle here, Richard. It's not only the US domestic economy which has skin in the game, but the global economy too, because USD is the global reserve currency, and in effect and practice, the Fed is Lender of Last Resort to the global banking system. Like all central banks since 2008, the Fed already has a credibility issue when it insists that it directly controls interest rates, but in reality are more like the Wizard of Oz, reliant on perception than concrete power. Mainly because the perception of risk differs somewhat in the financial markets to that of the Fed. It's not the first time in history this has happened, as Frank L. Baum's satire attests. So the Pull Me, Push You between Powell and Trump is going to be political theatre all over again. Trump thinks he's the Good Guy, and Powell is the Heel, so Trump's going to win this bout? Not really. I think the Bulge Bracket Banks will tag-team with Powell and defeat Trump, whose approval rating is heading where our blood pressure should be - lower.
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Farage is the poundshop entrepreneurial politician, from whom truth is not the stock in trade that he's trying to sell. He's not a statesman, he's a petty peddlar Who will most likely wreak havoc, but then one day, will bugger off into the sunset leaving bitterness and disappointment behind him. Why? Some people can only learn from experience, because they lack the imagination to do otherwise. That's not a lack of intelligence, or cupidity. It just they are a product of a lack of enrichment and stimulation. And sadly, they want everyone else to enjoy their meagre outlook. That is unsustainable, because if you restrict yourself in that way, you miss out on the richness and depth of what life has to offer. It's like living on Grosvenor Pie. You can live on it for a while, but thriving on it is unlikely. So why choose it?
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Are you familiar with the ONS? Then look up the Labour Share of GDP since 1980. Immigration is not your problem. Nobody from abroad told you to have too few children to support your economic model. You listened to your meal mouthed elites, your betters, who took every cookie jar your ancestors put away since 1945, and shared them with their kith and kin, and rewarded their donors with it. And you voted for that. And now you spout the same mealy mouthed scapegoating of those who robbed you? You are too easily manipulated. You are not in charge of your economy. Your mealy mouthed tubthimpers are, and how they shaped that economy wasn't for the benefit of anyone earning a wage. It was for the ones who own most of this country's assets. All they want you and the migrants to do is get them the money to buy more assets for themselves. And to keep you distracted, they give you migrants to blame for the worries you and your biases allow to take root. They gave you single mothers, the sick and the poor as well to throw under the bus.
What you don't realise that it will be your turn next. They have their plans for you to keep on making them richer, and you and your descendants might just end up under the bus as well. Freeports were only to be the beginning. Open working prisons, with no workers rights, legally outside the law. Let's hope Starmer doesn't have to let those schemes go through, because the only way he's going to avoid it, is by doing as Gary asks.
It's funny that, but you read Gary's book? He was a working class kid in a mixed race area. His neighbours was Asian, and you know a funny thing. He was friends with the eldest boy, and his mum befriended him, and encouraged him to settle down in school, and to work hard, as she was doing with her son. And he listened. His mum and dad upstanding people, god-fearing too. But they didn't get through to him. Not his teachers, not his other mates. That Asian woman did.. She understood him, and saw him not as just kid. She swa his potential. That's the Britain I like. Not the fearful, anxious, petty, mean-spirited Britain, where you can fulfil your potential and put something back, even if it's a kind word. She could have seen him as a rival to her son, and not taken an interest in him. She wasn't vowed by her poverty. She wasn't vowed by fear, or false pride, or envy. She was truly strong enough to be kind. That's what's been buried for so long in this country. And I hope we rediscover that spirit again.
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@Nine1215 sorry, but the UK constitution exists, but not in one document. Have a look at Britmonkey's 4-part series on the UK constitution. It is the most accessible introduction to it, and how it works in practice. And you're mixing terms too. Yes we have a constitutional monarch as the head of State, because their role and powers are outlined in documents that make up the constitution. However, the have no political role in the Executive, deliberative, legislative, or judicial arms of government. The leader of the party with the majority of seats in the House of Commons is the Head of the Executive Branch of Government. Only if all members of the legislative and executive branches of government are wiped out completely such as in a nuclear explosion, can the monarch as Head of State, take on executive powers during such time of emergency. But Britmonkey's series covers all the bases.
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How can you have absolute truth in an existence where the only constant is change, and we, poor hairless apes, are limited in scope and what tools we can employ? Thus, the constant inconstancy tests us, a species who evolved a drive to pigeohole everything, and who gets stressed when we can't. In this light, the production of knowledge is an ongoing pursuit, and we must learn to live with uncertainty. Accordingly, the idea that we must hold onto our ideas lightly, and be prepared to discard them as soon as new evidence comes in, is our struggle. We don't like uncertainty, so a truth cannot be absolute as our desire to discern absolute truth is an illusion. This is why doubt is so useful. It stops us being so arrogant to presume we know everything, when we do not. Imagine, according to my astronomical calendar a twin star a gas giant and a small red star are moving around each other, with the small star pulling the hydrogen gas off the gas giant, and when that reaches a critical mass, it will explode, and all we will see is a flash. How long has that been happening without our ability to see it? It didn't exist until we developed the tools to see it. So what is absolute truth?
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I disagree. Capitalism and democracy can reinforce each other, but tensions arise when economic power overshadows political equality. The balance depends on regulations, civic engagement, and institutional safeguards. But capitalism does not need democracy to exist, and vice versa. Democracy existed for over a thousand years before Capitalism.
We see this in authoritarian regimes. And the UK is a democratic society, but it's democracy is undeveloped in practice, which is not abnormal. It literally is the longest running political experiment on our history. And that is the same for every society that claims to be democratic. The model is being refined across history. Show me a perfect democracy, and you will have found heaven on earth. But you can't as it is a work in progress. It's another evolution in human societal organisation, and its the best scheme, when allowed to be fully developed. But it exists of course in a state of tension, because it is less dynamic and responsive than it should be. But our democracy can be reformed to perform better, but it needs to be protected from those who would wish to undermine it. Including those, who for their own reasons, are sceptical about democracy.
Too much water can drown us, but we need water to drink and quench our thirst. We have to find an optimal balance. That we try means we can improve if we promote democratic values. The alternatives are not healthy.
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Professor, I like Taoist philosophy because it accepts that nothing that is dynamic is purely one thing. It always has the seeds of its opposite within it and vice versa. Accordingly, frustration with bureaucracy is symptomatic of something else, and to judge Felon Musk's efforts as purely one thing or another is unhelpful. I would say, judge it by it's fruits. Likewise, when dealing with private or public bureaucracy, our fetishisation of efficiency is itself inefficient, because often outsourcing essential services to the private sector, is driven by cost cutting, which in turn often doesn't the total costs that come from cost cutting. Needs and wants don't disappear, they just get deprioritised in order to seem do more with less. But the results tell a different story. CEOs and buresucrats just do enough to meet the targets they are given. If they can't do it, they will try to survive, or leave. So I would say that despite nearly a century of organisational theory, organisations still cannot change their cultures easily or quickly. And that's down to human nature. And I bet even in Musk's own fleet of enterprises there are latencies, because he is one himself. So, unless we really start to take the human element seriously in the world of work, nothing will change. Motivations are key, and unless those are tackled, there will be no real change happening. What we have now is Political Theatre, where we can't see what's happening backstage. Enjoy the show, because it is theatre, and wait and see.
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Perhaps you shouldha'e bought an ETF that you didn't understand the underlying asset. A clue is in the name of the ETF - iShares 20+ treasuries. Do you understand how long-term treasuries provide a profit and to whom? Certainly not retail buyers, because they trade over the short-term and at most the medium term. Long-term treasuries - those whose maturity is 10 years or more - is for institutional lenders who use them to structure their long-term liabilities, like insurance companies, pension funds, and mutual funds, or long maturity trust funds. You as a retail investor, have shown in all your posts in this channel no knowledge of this. That's why $61bn went into TLT just last week. And it's not retail buyers going into TLT. And you show no knowledge of that. So, I suspect your client is at fault. You know nothing about the asset. You don't even understand the trading patterns, which are for an asset that will payoff over years down the line. That's why you're claiming fraud, when you, a mere pawn in the middle, are just following orders, right? Mr Van Metre's business has only one complaint, and an investigation takes 6 months, and he's still trading. No-one has shut his business down to date. I suggest you tell your client to wait until the decision has been made on their claim. If he has proof, and it's credible, then he will get his compensation. Until then, he innocent until proven guilty. Happy Holidays!
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Why is Finance and Economics conflated together. They are related disciplines with different focuses and goals. Accordingly, there is a lot of misunderstanding about them both. Furthermore, mainstream economic thinking, perhaps driven by its sharp focus on wealth production, ignores issues of wealth distribution. Like why real wage growth - wage net of inflation - stopped going up and moved downwards, or why are developed economies all have housing bubbles when their population growth are mostly declining? That blind spot about wealth distribution is shared by both Finance and mainstream economics. Neither has an answer why wealthy asset owners keep on receiving more than more of the gains produced by their employees over time. So much more that inflation - a normal tendency of prices to move upwards in response to shortages - can destabilise economies, especially when economics says they should fall with there are surpluses. And inflation is normal in strongly growing economies allegedly? For example, the historic rate of return on investment has been around 4%. Accordingly, inflation and interest rates should be slightly above that. But no-one is thinking or talking about why ordinary people have become unable to tolerate these these expected rises. In fact, anyone with few or no assets, are in a world of pain right now, as their wages aren't keeping up with inflation and interest rates trending close to the historical norm. And, that is the case with governments also being less wealthy now in real terms than they were in the 20th century. Both the people and their governments are now in debt to the asset wealthy. Why? Until we start picking apart the assumptions we're making about the economy and finance, we're not seeing what's really happening. And missing what is creating our K-shaped economy, where an economic and financial apartheid has become entrenched, with non and limited asset owners are losing their assets as their real incomes decline.
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Why do facts dont suddenly don't matter? You have a leaking pipe leaking enough to rot your house slowly from the inside, and your solution is to make the leak bigger by sticking a crude, flat headed tool, like a screwdriver into the hole, making it bigger.
Magical thinking about reality is a road to hell.
Instead of fixing income and wealth being extracted to to the already asset wealthy, Flat taxes, would accelerate that process, because far more speculation than productive investment is going on in the economy. What you ignore is that the asset wealthy don't deserve the tax breaks they are given, because they aren't investing it to help the economy create more jobs, build more infrastructure, or to increase the quality of services so that the economy can grow sustainably, they are effectively extracting it, hoarding it, and speculating with it. That's why the economy is tanking, because there is no money being spent on keeping the economy stable and sustainable. Taxes on the wealthy are the only tool to prevent the whole economy sinking further into dysfunction. FYI we have a debt based economy, and the asset wealthy own all of that debt, and by debt farming, they're actually preventing the economy from being stable and secure. That's why asset bubbles instead of productive investment dominate our economy, and why more people are getting poorer. And the only tool to stop this madness is to tax those profits, and distribute them away from asset bubbles and asset stripping into the real, productive economy. Cause and effect cannot simply be wished away, and the effects of misininvestment are what you see. And it's not good to accelerate that through demonstrably bad policies like flat taxes.
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No: Look at Gross Domestic Income (GDI), which is the money actually earned for the stuff produced in GDP. Its that what is available to pay wages, and returns for investors. GDP is an accounting estimated value of economic output; GDI is the money that is actually got for the goods and setvices. GDP should equal GDI, but as an estimate ahead of being paid, it often doesn't. GDI measures what's actually in the till to spend. Hence all the revisions of GDP, because it takes longer to get the GDI figure. Likewise, look up the Labor Share of GDP, which again is an estimate of how much economic output value is spent on paying workers. The US IRS doesnt have a real time payroll tracker yet, and relies on surveys so payroll data eventually has to revise this figure further down the line. And you might notice the slice of GDP paid to Labor as a percentage has been shrinking for decades. These statistics explain why America can grow Billionaires, faster than wages. And why Consumerism and financialisation may have to die as as ways to sustainably develop economies. Along with the old model and the expectations it created, there is a change coming, as American oligarchs try to deal with the mistakes they made over several decades. And its ordinary people who is footing the bill for that.
Magical Market Thinking - the real MMT you should be worried about - of the last 5 decades or so has had unforeseen consequences. Certain chickens are coming home to roost, because the US being the global Lender of Last Resort to keep the US dollar King of The Hill is becoming unsustainable for the US, mainly because it entails issuing debt. And they can't afford to do so anymore, because there is more competition, and financial institutions aren't immune to greed or folly. Why? Because they're made up of people. And rich people aren't public intellectuals or philosopher kings. They're people who are good at making money and hoarding it, but not much else. And that has economic, political, and social consequences for everyone else on the planet. Things are changing because of these. Like having toothache, there are only two ways to treat it - with anaesthetic or without. But it's still going to hurt some, because of correcting the greedy and the foolish amongst us. Such is Life.
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This country can't escape economic gravity, and what it doesn't realise there are no friends or special relationships in geopolitics. There are only interests, and invariably those interests are defined by the powerful and the wealthy. We aren't that important anymore. With the advent of the Digital Revolution, the UK outside the EU is a lame duck, because it gave away what really made it attractive - being part of a market sized at nearly 500m people. 70m doesn't compare in importance. Plus our previous Competitive Advantages that mostly are in mature industries that are coming to the end of their profitable lives, or which are often done better and/or cheaper elsewhere. And our services-based economy, mostly dominated by Financial Services, makes us vulnerable in the context of a global financial system that has been broken since 2007. We are like the intensive cocoa farmers who thought they knew better than the indigenous cocoa farmers how to grow the crop. These farmers grew their cocoa trees with native plants growing between. Not the intensive farmers. They just planted rows of cocoa trees in big orchards, and then watched as their trees were ravaged by pests and diseases, while the indigenous farmers' crops weren't. They didn't realise that homogenous crops are more liable to infestation and disease because they evolve faster to be more effective at feeding on the cocoa tree. When the crop is heterogeneous it's harder for cocoa-specialised pathogens to evolve. Likewise, our economy is particularly vulnerable because we are not diversified enough to ride out the business cycle to keep people wealthy enough to spend. Right now we're so busy throwing money at plutocrats and bankers, that we are actually qualifying for an economic Darwin Award by letting them own or run everything, often very badly. And these powerful groups now own our politics too. And having a Chancellor, who while being anbitious, hasn't a clue how the economy works can only accelerate our progress to nowhere. Brexit was a knee jerk reaction to a complex problem that people still don't understand. It has bought us into a place where we cannot go back, and neither can we go forward on our own. And our ecinimic stagnation is the reward for the folly of Brexit. It will rank with the Interregnum, as one of the most damaging incidents in British History. And Putin is laughing at us. He sees us not as Blackadder, but as Baldrick, and perhaps deservedly so. He's played us for fools, and complacent ones at that. Nobody could tell you the truth, because they could never be elected if they did. But if you want a look at the real causes of your distress, I suggest you watch the video by Georg Rockwall-Schmidt entitled "Election 2024 Hope vs Truth" here on YouTube. And every time he says America or American just interpose Britain or British. For every president's name, just put in the matching British Prime Minister. The British Goldman Sachs goons, you can look up yourself. But every other word is applicable to the UK and the US.
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Not true. Human rights law has zero to do with trade. I mean, you wanted a hard Brexit, and you got it, and harder, they'd be doing a live aid for us and that is controlled by WTO rules, of which the ECHR has nothing to do with. You wanted WTO rules and you got them, straight, no chaser. But what you weren't told by the grifters you listen to is that WTO rules - Hard Brexit rules - were designed to punish states that imposed trade friction, like tarrifs and red tape. The ECHR holds no dangers for anyone in Britain. The problem isn't migrants or human rights, it's that you don't own your own problems. You don't think you were complicit in your own failure to understand the downsides. So pkease, Botarovich, so bleating about inconsequential matters like the ECHR, as if that will stop your bosses. It's jus BS to misdirect the hoi polloi into ignoring the people actually holding the leash around their necks. In time, people will figure it out. And then, what will happen? Who knows, but the truth will be undeniable, and if there's anything left to save, then the people can save it then.
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I disagree. On the basis of the trends in the Popular Vote - which partirs individual voters actually voted for - since 1945, the country has always been more left wing than First Past The Post allows in seats in Parliament. That's the problem. A rigged system that negates one's vote is arguably democratic in name only. It arguably smug that the country that gave PR to West Germany after World War II to prevent another rise of Nazism, never thought to give that to its own population. Yes, British lawyers drafted West Germany's constitution. Yet that same country's leaders ignored the warnings of Lord Hailsham only a generation later about the emergence of an elected dictatorship which was intent on hoarding power to itself. Really smug, and we are suffering the consequences of that. So no real reform can take place without constitutional reform, beginning with PR and evolving more power away from Westminster to the Regions. England needs devolution, and local authorities needed to act not as Aunt Sallys, with decreasing power to respond to their local problems, but as real local governments with the power to deal with their problems. That with economic reform, will provide not only more responsive government, but a more responsive and growing economy that doesn't ignore market failures, but actively works to avoid them.
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Based in these economic policies, Reform UK are economically illiterate. Anyone who wants to investigate the Gold Standard Crisis in the 1920s, read "England's Cross of Gold" by James Ashley Morrison published in 2020. The Reform UK party are economically and politically blind to sell out Great Britain to the highest bidder by replicating mistakes of the past. We should not let them. They don't have the best interests of the asset limited, Income-limited people reliant on wages at heart. Not by a long chalk. They imagine themselves to be the new nobility of a completely privatised state cometely dominated billionaires and trillionaires. Not democratic control, but corporate control of every dimension of life, because the plutocrats will own and control it all, and democracy will be surplus to requirements,along with humanist values like rights for those who are not asset wealthy. They are not nationalists, because power will be wielded only by the plutoctrats who will run the state like regional corporations like the city states in medieval Italy. And we know how that worked out for the Italians. Don't trust them. If you think what we have now cannot get worse, you haven't seen the worse, or understand that this has been tried before. Remember, their wet dream is to rule not with human interventions, but with machines. Thus they will allow excess humans, surplus to need to die, or be killed in the turf wars that will follow as a consequence of them taking power. Don't give in to them.
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If Trump does that, Taiwan is next, and that means the next proposed engine American dominance is dead in the water. What you and he with your limited and over specific focus ignore is, that if that happens, the USA is done as global hegemon. If China invades Taiwan and wins, it's over for you.
Ukraine is the testing ground for you. Fail the test, and there will be consequences, that end up on your door step.
It's a game of chicken, and you're in danger of faking out. That's the unsavoury truth. You need technology and you rely on the rare earths and you don't have an indendepent supply, nor a complete lock on the technology. That's the truth, and throw away the key, and you throw away your future gains. It's that simple. Just man up, or put up.
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What use is blame when you don't take accountability for the absurdities you are choosing to believe and the atrocities you, and others commit on yourself and other people as a consequence? When will you stop, shed your shoulds, and come to terms with what is? Why do people come to a channel that is teaching how the global financial system has been arranged since the Post-World War II, looking for advice trading on the stock market? Then complain - often violently and resentfully - when they don't get that advice? How absurd can that misguided sense of entitlement be? Instead, of admitting they are in the wrong place, and that they don't know what they really need, they keep on looking for a one stop shop or a panacea to solve a problem so complex that it impacts everyone on the planet. And what's worse, a solution unsuited for their needs? As the solution is far beyond just trading in the stockmarket or any market to solve. Markets are not taps that if you jusr turn them in the right way, assets will flow into your bucket. Markets are human institutions that reflect the nature of humans, for both good or ill. They are complex, often operating with other institutions in contradictory ways, and produce results that are contradictory and has negative effects. Markets are not playgrounds. They are more like Roman Ampitheatres, where blood letting is the means to stave off social disorder, whilst sacrificing those who can't afford to be in the audience but end up in the circus. Jeff is describing the machinery behind the process, which if you can't afford his courses, is a pretty strong indicator it's not a tool you can use. . Instead, you could be looking elsewhere. And listening to advice people like Warren Buffet gave for engaging in the stock market, which was, K. I. S. S., by buying index funds, and start early, because the rug pulls won't give you carpet burns. You could be developing alternative streams of income and assets, because the value of a 9-to-5 job is being eroded over time, and you have to have skills people want to pay for, and those with the money to buy them becoming more restricted as time goes on. You also have to be honest with yourself about your priorities, because they always come with problems. If you aren't happy to deal those problems, you have to change your priorities. You have to be prepared to adapt and keep on adapting. Don't play in the water unless you are prepare to learn to swim, and to find the right people to teach you. Stop expecting to be rescued when you don't.
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You're comment suggests that you can't see the wood for the trees. Economics was created by people, and it's about people, and what people do. But - like any academic discipline - it's a framework, or a model, or a lens through which we examine human activity. Rather than be dehumanised, it is all too human, in that it is shaped and directed by the powerful in society. It reflects their proclivities and concerns more than others. The fact that we study it at all is a culmination of choices made by those who can influence it the most. But like a famous British statistician said: "All models are wrong. But some are useful." You see, academic disciplines are technologies of knowledge. They are tools, that are designed to make up for our deficiencies as humans. But as we are imperfect very often so are our tools. We craft them to achieve certain outcomes that we think might help us achieve some goal. But as always what goal we pursue has to be analysed and tested against the reality of it's pros and cons. And we can't ask the tool to do something it was not designed to do. The designer or the user, or both may be at fault. Indeed, if you read Adam Smith's the "Wealth of Nations", you might not recognise it as the discipline we have today, because certain concerns of Smith are not the focus of the discipline today. And that's because human inquiry is subject to human attitudes, biases, and beliefs. Being human is... not straightforward or simple. And neither are our choices. If you want the tool to be updated, one might remember that the Map is not the Territory. Therefore, it has to be updated as things change, and as we change. Just a thought.
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Really? You do know that the list of personalities in the Panama Papers is online? That people can check the veracity of what you say? I mean, look how many Russians were on the list:
- Yuri Kovalchuk, Russian shareholder in Bank Rossiya[85]
- Victor Fedotov, Russian oil tycoon
- Semyon Vainshtok, CEO of Transneft[108]
- Mikhail Gutseriev, Russian oligarch
- Suleyman Kerimov, Russian oligarch
- Lubov Chernukhin, Russian-born British banker and major donor to the British Conservative Party
- Petr Kolbin, businessman and close friend of President Vladimir Putin
- Gennady Timchenko, billionaire Russian oligarch and close friend of President Vladimir Putin
- Svetlana Krivonogikh, associate and alleged former lover of Russian president Vladimir Putin
- Konstantin Ernst, CEO of Channel One Russia
- Vitaly Zhogin, former board member of Interprombank
There were only 2 Ukrainians on it - a lot lot less than the Brits or the Russians btw
And guess what? Zelenskyy wasn't on the list.
Your grade: F
Sorry, but no cigar.
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Richard, have you read the book entitled "The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics (2022 expanded edition)" by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith? I think you may find your answers there as to why this Labour government is turning out the way it is. And most likely anyone else who might succeed them. If what de Mesquita and Smith argue is true, solving the very real problems of the electorate and the economy cannot be the first priorities. The electorate are interchangeable, as they vote purely in what they imagine is their best interests. Therefore, the concerns of the masses are to be met with slogans aimed at whom the government thinks will need to vote for them so they can stay in power. Likewise, the influential in our polity are next up the ladder, and they will only play ball if they can at least hold onto their wealth, and better still make more. And finally, there's the winning coalition who must also rewarded for their loyalty, and continue to benefit. To pay for all these handouts, they need money, and borrowing more to fund these dispensation is unpopular with those who want such borrowing to be done via the private sector, and not via an overdraft from the BoE. So, to keep the interchangeable voters happy, they have to throw them some red meat, whilst pretending they can draw blood from a stone. Or, that low pay still isn't embedded in our economy, and with the advent of AI, a service economy such as ours will be hollowed out within the next decade. So many people have died during both austerity and the mismanaged pandemic response, and perhaps more are to come. Meanwhile, I hope we can find a way not to inflict another disaster on ourselves. You see, even if NF or a Tory becomes PM, the same game will play out. There's a political cartoon in from The Guardian where 2 dogs are playing Tug of War with a bone. the 2 dogs were the two wings of the Conservative Party, and the bone was the party itself. Likewise, the interchangeables, are the bone our First Past the Post system will tear at to win power at all costs. When they, the politicians, run out of scapegoats, they will have to find new ones of course. Pastor Niemöller understood that all too well.
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Right now I think that History, especially Economic History in this age, are disciplines that are *not Mickey Mouse degrees. The ability to research and analyse evidence, and communicate one's findings verbally or in writing are essential life skills. Notwithstanding the difficulties with evidence, and the temptation to retell history according to agendas, when done honestly and thoroughly, there is nothing else that can help up from repeating the errors of the past. Intergenerational forgetting is something all communities and societies tend to do, and it's the reason why history doesn't repeat but it does rhyme. Where we are now as a nation, corresponds very closely to other critical times in the 20th century and earlier. And if we looked closely at the factors that triggered those crises, we might really identify what we might understand better why we're here where we are now. History is a discipline we should cherish, not just to celebrate our successes, but to tell the truth about ourselves. Sometimes that will be comfortable, but sometime it won't. But altogether, it will be more rewarding and useful to know who we really are, instead of the image we want to present. Unless we truly accept that, we will lead ourselves astray.
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The complexities involved in taxation can be answer by such a broad question definitively. Key to the effectiveness and fairness of taxation is highly dependent upon who is taxed and how. Moreover, as Tejvan pointed out the returns from taxation depend on the economic returns on spending that revenue. What we need to emphasise is that taxation is supposed to bring economic and social improvements to the infrastructure that supports everyone, as everyone has to pay taxation, so everyone should see and should be able to understand how they benefit. Unfortunately, that isn't often the case, as sometimes it isn't obvious. Indeed, political ideology that focuses on individuals and families alone, barely acknowledges the importance of public spending to support them to be able to have a better quality of life. That's why the consequences of policies like austerity were ill understood both by those who advocated it and the electorate in the context of the UK's particular circumstances. That meant in many cases whilst we saved a penny, it cost us pounds further down the line. Our short-term political focus doesn't help either. So taxation is necessary, but also the need for wise, detailed, and careful consideration of tax policy is sorely needed. Our tax system evolves over time, so isn't always clear what Unintended consequences will follow. It is a balancing act, and ideological thinking, and economic experiments based on it, should be avoided. We need to be sceptical about easy answers to tough and complex questions, or we're likely to store up problems for ourselves. Luckily, people like Tejvan are gently reminding us of that fact.
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I think you are bring too generous. The truth is always somewhere in the middle. Royal Mail was for tears a cash cow for successive governments, and relative to private logistic firms, it suffered from under investment. But even when investment was made available, it wasn't always successful. Royal Mail, if it had had the management that wanted to it to successfully transition from a largely letter driven driven business to one focused on parcel delivery it would not have been burdened with subsidising it's competition. Don't forget, Royal Mail was a natural monopoly, and expect to easily complete it's transformation whilst basically losing income to its parachuted in rivals while RM delivered their letters was absurd. And the model they proposed for this transformation was to turn its workforce into an extension of the Gig economy. Now, if you're an ex postie, you would have realised that was a bad idea. Yes, processing of letters was virtually mechanised, but still needed manual sortation of small and large packets. And even large letters and magazines require manual sortation, because RM customers can't always send mails that can be mechanically sorted or aren't addressed in UPO format. But the private sector didn't want to touch those low-margin mails did they? They only wanted the nice, standardised corporate mailshots, for which they paid RM less than the economic value to deliver. So as you can probably guess where I'm coming from by now. Royal Mail did not create its structural problems, or it's uneven management. Neither did they create it's customer-focused, deliver at all costs, community ethos either, despite relatively low basic pay and physically demanding workloads and long hours. The organisation wasn't allow to adapt early enough to the changing world around it. This laid up problems for the future, which we are experiencing. For RM to fully succeed in making it's transition seamlesslessly, and truly compete on its own terms with the private sector, it would have had to have different management and different political masters, who truly wanted it to succeed. But the process was more ideological rather than pragmatic, and we get what we have now. A company with a lot of potential, but with a lot of barriers to success. Yes, things could be done differently, but RM was never like DHL etc., who could build state of the art almost fully automated parcel processing plants and have processes that could move work in and out seamlessly. DHL would never have to potentially deliver and pick up mail from 31 million addresses, and handle mails that couldn't be mechanised. But RM has to, and giving that away I feel is a mistake. Allowing it to be sold into foreign ownership just doesn't feel right.
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No; activism is not about agreeing. It about participation in the democratic process. It's about actually committing time, enetgy, and cost to participating in democracy. I mean, how much time have you spent observing how your local council debates or cases within the magistrates and Crown courts? How much time have you spent communicating with your MP? How much reading or research into how Parliament actually works? How many local activist groups regarding local issues do you join? It's not just about joining a political party. It's about local knowledge and effort to improve things locally. So when Jess Phillips emphasises that the real question should be "What are we going to do about it?" That is what she meant. We need people to engage more with the democratic process, and we need MP who are willing to engage with us. I mean, my MP has always written to me, if I have contact them, but that isn't always the case. Just reading more books about British politics and Parliament specifically would make us better informed voters. The newspapers have lost that educational focus. So we are actually in the age of the Internet in danger of being worse informed. If anything, have a varied input of sources that aren't just peddling outrage or angst. Now, here's a pointer. Jihn Bercow the former Speaker wrote a book called "Unspeakable" about his time in Parliament, and there's Chapter 10 entitled "What Makes a Good MP". Start there. Love him loathe him, Bercow can write in detail about what makes an MP or a minister good at there job. Now it may be an insider POV, but it will inform about what MP do more than just the newspapers say. You don't have to love it or loathe it. You may approve, or you may be disappointed, but at least you'll know more of how that part works. It will help you decide what you want, and how you might get it by engaging with Parliament. Pull aside the curtain, and look. It's a world we are still not largely familiar with. You can watch channels like BritMonkey who did a 5-part series on the British Constitution, which was great at explaining how it works. So any MP writing about politics. Reading Private Eye and Byline News. There is so much more you can do to be one better informed and more empowered to make democracy work better. There is a bit of truth in the saying that "each nation gets the government it deserves" because the state of democratic government government reflects our willingness to engage with democracy. The more we know about it, the better we can work to make it work better for us.
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Once British Steel was sold, their fate was sealed. Brexit occurred years before that happened, and arguably selling it to Tata just drove the coffin nails home. The problem is demand for steel in the UK was not enough to support production at Port Talbot. That isn't surprising as industry accounts for far, far less GDP than Services in the UK. And the Tories had no interest in industrial policy. Moreover, it's hard to justify as the Chinese are flooding markets with their product. So Port Talbot works was doomed. There's no turning the clock back. But what we do need to return to is a more mixed economy where we have more industry. But, the problem is that government is cash strapped, and the political will to do it is AWOL. If we can't even keep our public services going, how can we find money to subsidise industry? We need to return to an economy less dependent on extracting value, to one where investing in industry is far greater than it is now. So we can vote for Tories or Reform, and we have to educate our leaders not to listen only to multimillionaires. Yep, it's going to be a long and hard journey. Right now we need a defence industry resurgence, but the money has to come from somewhere.
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What gets me is that the remaining rump of the Tory Party *hasn't* got anyone with a functioning, pragmatic political *brain cell* left. It's just full of entitled wannabes with no original thinkers among them, utterly lacking in self-awareness or strategy. They are the British elite *malaise incarnate**, filling a void in our politics that exists because of the decline in **institutional* trust.
Kemi Badenoch is nothing but a *war hammer in search of any war* to remain relevant. She is not a pragmatic *politician**, and her ideology is **suspiciously convenient**, suiting the ends of those who employed her as a wrecking tool. But after you've knocked down everything there is to be knocked down, **what use are you?* Kemi Badenoch is *clueless* about what should actually replace her targets. She is *clueless* about solutions to address the immediate political and economic problems that the majority of voters *prioritize**—not the minority who **fantasize about being* Bane or The Joker, destroying Gotham City for its sins, yet who *fail to grasp* the realities beyond comic book metaphors.
She's pretty good at knocking things down, but seems to have no interest in *fixing* them, repairing, or rebuilding the damage. While she might *see herself* as a virtuous destroyer, she lacks the capacity to *envision* or communicate a meaningful future for the country.
(In that, Kemi and Keir are in *the* same boat—*neither steering it themselves, but instead following a course set by others* who have no long-term vision that the British people as a whole can get behind. That is not the plan. The plan is to drive forward their own political and economic agenda. And consent for that has to be manufactured. And Kemi and Keir are tools to do that. Indeed, between Keir and Kemi, there is only a choice of **soft or hard technocracy**. Britain is not being led—it's being managed, and the inequality driving institutional distrust among the public is being left relatively undisturbed.)
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What you heard and what is true, are two different things. The US did not produce weapons for Ukraine. They emptied their stockpiles of equipment and weapons near the end of their effective life. The money allocated was savings from not having to decommission the weapons they sent to Ukraine. Also, the money allocated went straight to US Defence Manufacturers to replace what was sent, then produce spares, plus training for maintenance crews. Ukraine did not wind down its own capability on independence, and so it has been innovating low cost but effective alternatives such as drone tech. Now, the meat and potatoes artillery that's keeping Russia's artillery backed off, is where Ukraine has to innovate again. So Europe can empty its stockpiles, supply civilian aid, and build up its own production capabilities to bring weapons to the fore. Accordingly, the war is going to continue for the foreseeable future.
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@m0o0n0i0r Not quite true. QE pumped billions of pounds into the economy. And guess where most of it ended up? In the hands of corporations and banks, who were run by people already asset wealthy. Not only do the rich minority not spend enough to drive the economy, they actually hoard their money by buying assets and living off the economic rent. Inflation hits the poorest hardest, but the little they got of QE was spent paying bills to - again the asset wealthy. The banks gratefully took that money and financed asset bubbles and speculation. Accordingly, very little was put into productive investment such as infrastructure or production. Real wage growth was stymied quite deliberately by a combination of factors, and contributed to the inability of the UK Economy to grow, because it relies on consumption for growth. Post-covid because of QE, created another massive wealth transfer to the usual suspects, whose spending Post-pandemic exacerbated the reopening supply shock, driving up inflation. The recovery was a K-shaped recovery where QE was used, and the weakness across the highly integrated global economy is appearing in economies that barely recovered after Covid. The rush to return to normal actually set us up for the abnormal. Pandemics don't just stop; they slowly recede in their effects on economies over years. The loss of workers due to death or disability, the fragility of businesses unable to recover from the disruption, and Nature's gift of viruses that migrate between animals and humans, causing food to increase in price - all that would have happened without Brexit, but Brexit made us even more vulnerable to such a pandemic. And it's the same thing everywhere. Neoliberal economic thought was found wanting, and it's in its death throes. It won't be quick or kind in it's passing. But it's a busted flush.
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Legitimacy and wealth are not one and the same. Legitimacy opens far more doors than wealth alone. That's why Musk had to buy legitimacy, but there is no money back guarantee on such a deal, because that legitimacy isn't in the hands of the market. It's in the minds of the people that makes up the market. Rich or poor, they can still think as they like, and show their displeasure by spending their money elsewhere. Hayek would be pleased, (even though his dream of the market replacing democracy is flawed for many, many reasons.) And Musk's sense of entitlement is one of those reasons incarnate. Any political economy which ignores greed is doomed to failure. And it's the failures of neoliberalism that Musk, Trump, and those riding their coattails embody. The cult of the wealthy as wealth for wealth's sake, must die, because money is not wealth. It's just a token. It is what good it is put to that makes it wealth. Indeed, the self Indulgence of middle aged teenagers like Musk, can only impoverish figuratively and literally them and everyone impacted by them in the long run.
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Not really. Universities are not just factories for stuffing facts into people's heads, it's also a network. University makes finding talent more efficient, because it locates what is needed all in one place, and provides relatively easy access to it. How any subject is taught in universities is efficient, including the contacts you make going into the field. And sadly, fame and talent aren't always together. Talent is a fuzzy concept at the best of times, because especially in the creative arts, talent might not be recognised until after you're dead. Even worse, those called talented and get recognised as such while alive may fall out of fashion. So talent is fine, but university is more about keeping the practice of creative expression alive and functioning within a capitalist society. Capitalism destroys what it considers useless. So quality isn't a driving motivation under capitalism, but what return one can get. That's precarious for something that is more about creative quality than quantity of wealth it produces. Talent doesn't guarantee a living sadly. Luck does play a part. I mean, the talents of someone like Pablo Escobar and Al Capone didn't need university to flourish, but imagine if they hadn't really needed to embark on a life of crime to get access to wealth, power, and influence? These people were talented, but their talents were misplaced. (In fact, the idea that evil is a force, energy, and expression misplaced is one that has intrigued me. The existence talented people doing bad things is very human.) in human societies a lot of things float to the top. Whether those things are good or bad, is a matter of their legacy, and impact in their field. I mean, poop floats to the top, but gold does not. Who's really to say?
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@Sam-sv4yy Look, Geopolitics is like a poker game - everybody is lying about the hand they are playing. Mother Teresa never got into Geopolitics and even she was not 100% wholesome. So the Germans want to extract maximum benefit? Everyone at the table does. Even Ukraine does, because their stakes are the highest. So, let's get real. Resource diplomacy is the strongest weapon in Zelenskyy's arsenal, and he'll be offering all the Western nations, or more acutely, anyone willing to secure Ukraine's future, time limited extraction and processing rights for Rare Earths and Raw Materials. And that's the language they all understand. So for the next 20 to 25 years Ukraine can repair, refresh, and strengthen themselves against all comers. The Ukrainians have proved they are no pushovers, and God Willing they can survive and protect themselves, against all economic imperialists, from which ever direction.
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But it hasn't been determined to be safe, has it? It's not even a half-truth, it's absolute BS. And it's no wonder people stopped taking us seriously. Britain will quietly kiss that money goodbye, because it was a BS scheme. Why?
If you wanted to run a scheme like that, you could have arranged a 99 year lease of land, built the facilities, and run them. Instead, the British tax payer has just inflated the Rwandan Housing Bubble, for zero return.
At this rate, if we hadn't got rid of the Tories, the Moron Premium would become a permanent line in the UK National Accounts.
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If you are British, you are exceedingly poorly educated in your own English language. Language is a dynamic and living thing that is a consequence of history. The Norman Conquest established French and well as Latin as part of the languages spoken in England. Education was not available to all, but to be educated one had to know French, Latin, and Greek, and the influence of these languages is part of the English language. The Oxford English dictionary has traced its entrance into published English language sources from the 18th Century. To say that nuance is a foreign word when it has been part of our language for almost 3 centuries is clearly absurd. It has stayed because it has proven it's usefulness in transmitting meaning. Indeed, French has words accepted by it's Academie Francaise that are not French in origin. French became important to know within Europe because it was one of the largest trading and colonial nations. That's why there are two diplomatic languages in global organisations, and they are English and French.
More worryingly is that you don't seem to know the relationship between nuance and truth. Truth without nuance is not truth; it is a semblance of truth. It's impartial, incomplete, and limited in its usefulness for negotiating reality. And reality is complex, and intractable. It is what it is. However, the Evolution of cognition in humans, and their ability to reason is only recent in our development. The frontal lobes are the latest evolution in humans, and the older defence and desire mechanisms that operate on emotions like fear, anxiety, and desire can override reason.
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All that need be said is that you are people as well, and are prone to error as anyone else. And your comment demonstrates errors that are easily fixed. So, in not fixing them, and reaching for the whole truth, you prove to be as reliable as those you critique. Sovereignty is a word that only those familiar with international law can define it comprehensively so that it's context and nuances, in other words, the truth about it, is not sacrificed to an agenda. You know less than you think you know. And that is not a criticism, it's an observation. Your premise is flawed, because you are comparing chalk and cheese. And it's disappointing you have gone into battle with a blunt weapon. Careful, you've cut yourself, by your own narrative. You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
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Biden or Trump the outcome is the same. 2019 the recession was on its way before the pandemic, which was just yet another crash due to the instability caused by 2008. And because the global financial system broke then, any supply shock would hurt everybody. It doesn't matter who is in the White House in November, they're not writing the agenda. They're just the front an for a more powerful force influencing outcomes leading from the fact that greed, fear, and folly are driving the economy. The experiment started in the 1980s has failed, and the job of government is to clean up the mess left by the financiers and the corporations, which entails stopping anything that would harm the status quo. Biden is just doing his job. Yellen's on the clock, and so is Powell. Blame is pointless, because unwittingly we've been complicit in bringing on the problems. When real wage growth stalled, the unions were neutered and their place at the table was removed. And workers borrowed to maintain their lifestyles. That left only the government and the money men in charge. And Blue and Red work for the money men. Almost all money they're spending goes to them directly and indirectly, whilst the employees just get more debt. They resgaped your economy to serve their interests, not yours. And they're trying to hold onto their power and get more wealth so they can keep score. It's a small club and ordinary Americans ain't in it. They and their descendants will just have settle the bill.for the folly of their wealthy asset owners.
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Actually, as a proportion of their income, people on benefits pay a larger proportion of their income on taxes. Why? Nearly 30% of working households are in receipts of benefits. So at least for 30% of households, work doesn't pay. Secondly, the disabled and long-term sick receive benefits. The elderly receive benefits on top of their state pension. They all have to buy goods on which taxes are levied: energy, food, clothing, books, stationary, postage, mobile phone credits, and public transport,childrens clothing and nappies. So, working people pay income tax, national insurance, council tax and so people on benefits. If you can live on less than 400 gbp per month, and not pay tax, you could not function in society, because almost everything is taxed. Energy, for example is taxed at 5% VAT. Spend 60 gbp on electricity and £3.00 goes on tax. Buy children's clothing that VAT at 20%. Get on a bus, thats 20%. Post a letter, or buy something from ebay that you can get locally, 20%. So people on benefits pay more as a percentage of what income they get on taxes. So it's actually false to suppose those on benefits are living it large. Indeed, they are not. Hence the rise in shoplifting, the modern day equivalent of the Spiv on the corner selling black market goods. So your belief is false. If it's still open to the public, look up the Local Authority Association database, which contains economic data collected by Local Authorities. Their figures are upto date. There are many things wrong with our country, including it's economic ideas that got us into this mess, and that's nothing new. Work can only be a panacea when you get paid enough to function on Society. Cutting benefits isn't economically sane. Because unemployment is going up. And to look for work, and to be available for work, one needs a mobile number. You need Internet access, and you need money to travel to interviews. And you need to look presentable to get hired. All that costs money. So, go ahead and cuts benefits, keep child poverty, malnutrition, and deprivation going up. No; bring back the poorhouse. We got rid of things like that for good reason. Work needs to pay, or all it does is sow the seeds of further problems. And bad judgments made without recourse to facts or reality.
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With the greatest of respect, the operators taking the calls have very little control over the process. They are human beings tied to KPIs such as call length, and the limited knowledge and control over a multinational conglomerate bank. They don't make the rules and neither do they draft them. There are companies that provide sterling customer service because they think holistically and think of excellent customer service as the key to making and keeping customers. So they train they representatives properly, and ensure quality control by monitoring performance. They also let them do other things rather than just sit on the phone, having calls force fed to them one after another. The industry has a high turnover of staff, because too many companies get the formula wrong. And that, and job cuts, stress, unsocial hours, and relatively low pay. Now HSBC is recruiting in the UK for call centre staff, but the scope of the job is no longer being a telephonist, as you must take an accredited banking customer service qualification to complete your probation. So, things are changing. Probably as the Call Centre staff will have an expanded role including more admin, so they will have to know about regulations and how things are done, because they are replacing branch staff as point of contacts for customers, so they will have to be trained correctly and have far more sophisticated training and tools/software to use. Good luck to them.
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It the argument of a wrecking ball mindset. What they are trying to wreck is the combination of a constitutional Republic of the United States of America, which uses representational democracy to elect the representatives the People employ to exercise their political power on their behalf. The wrecking balls don't really understand constitutional republics need some way to express who has the political power within them. They are silent on the matter, because then they would have to justify removing representational democracy from the people and replacing it with no choice of who exercises power within their constitutional republic.
What's worse is the people pushing this political framing agenda, are pushing it are those who imagine themselves to be better than YOU The People in choosing who should wield political power in the constitutional Republic of the USA. Indeed, there is a fondness of the types of republic in history under which Machiavelli's The Prince is set. Instead of princes, we have the wonderfully anodyne but deceptive term of Sovereign Individuals, ruling over designated territories, who are elected at best elected but only by an Oligarchy. Or, even more distinctly, not elected at all. The people have no voice, as they become not citizens, but subjects, powerless, and subjected to the power of an elite, with no influence power. Just look around you in the world and you will find that authoritarian states as described, are as Machiavelli himself predicted, poorer and less efficient than democracies. So why should Americans put democracy aside? They shouldn't. They should reform it to give The People even more power. Instead of just two parties, have proportional representation, teach civics in every school, so children learn about their constitution and the pros and cons of democracy. And create citizen assemblies, where at a state and local level, citizens can sit for 6 weeks in local councils debating and learning how their districts are run. The more people know they've got skin in the game, the more seriously they can engage with or in politics. And you might even making voting compulsory too. Anything to embed engagement with the democratic process. Why? Because the alternatives are worse. Demonstrably so, by history. Fascism is colonialism for developed countries, and by denying democracy, they imagine they want to be colonised. How foolish can one be?
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After watching Conclave, I am finally convinced of the transformative power of Art. It's exploration of matters of faith, in the forms of certainty and doubt, was a relevation in understanding the mystery that is central to faith, but also a challenge to it because it challenges us. The human tendency to tidy things into pigeonholes, to stereotype, and to order things is a human defence mechanism but on an existential scale. Not because it needs to be ordered, but because it's how our brain evolved to work. Anything outside some framework or hierarchy demand more processing time and resources, so we resort to heuristics as shortcuts to more efficiently and effectively manage the flow of data through our senses and into our brains. We live through models. But, I am minded that as a famous British statistician said, that all models are wrong but, some are useful. That is the case because we as humans are limited in our capacities, so certainty can never be abdolute, and there is always mystery, uncertainty, and doubt. A person of faith knows this. To be a person of faith, is to have it tested by the sheer experience of living in an existence where the only constant is change. Like the muscles in your legs are challenged, but grow stronger, and contribute more to your overall health, one's faith must be stress-tested and be dynamic and responsive to grow stronger. Otherwise, our faith, captured in a prison of certainty, atrophies, weakens, and withers away. We should not succumb to fear. We should not fear doubt, because that shows that our faith is a living faith, that is geared to being open to the lessons that can be learned by living fully, and contemplate the mysteries of being human. Yes, the Church's policy is to hasten slowly, and to leave the door open to new knowledge. Thus, there will be eager debate between the shepherds and the managers, between the spiritual and the worldly within the Church. What is definitely certain is, that the Church will find its own way, in its own time, as everyone must, to find a useful model to shape its way forward.
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Professor, the UK Home Office’s inefficiencies stem from deep-rooted administrative, bureaucratic, and policy failures. Realistically, meaningful reform would require structural, procedural, and cultural changes. But, it seems there is little political will to grasp the nettle. Not even now. So, unless our politicians wake up to the long term damage to the financial and political costs, along with the loss of trust in government, the public will be the loser in the long run.
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Professor, I think any school should be meeting both the personal and professional goals of their pupils, and to be fair neither state maintained or Academy Schools have a consistent record of meeting either. And further complicating the position is the opinions of stakeholders, some who have more influence and money to influence outcomes. Perhaps again, the answer is somewhere in the middle, because neither model of itself is perfect. All the problems and failings in the state sector happen in academies too, because they are reflections of the problems in our society. Pretending that isn't the case serves no child well. Money, if course, is a large factor, with underinvestment in education for decades leading to poor outcomes for children of all abilities. But, if the academy sector wants money from the state it must be prepared to accept some level of oversight from the State, as there have been problems funds being misappropriated. But there are things that alone should not have access to, and that is involvement with, if not direct sponsorship from, universities and the private sector. This can help pupils by improving their professional knowledge and experience in the world of work through opportunities such internships and schemes. It would also help employers to enhance their recruitment, as well as build up meaningful relationships with the communities they serve, as well as providing input on curriculum development. However, the debate barely tickles at the edges of an even greater one, which is what is education for. What do we want our children to have once they have finished their education? Until we have a real and honest debate about that, the state vs academy debate is a sideshow.
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Patrick Boyle has done a video on this, and has more information that provides a more nuanced perspective. Soros is a trader in a capitalist system, and the mythos around him ignores a lot of his skill in interpreting information. Soros didn't just wake up one morning, and decide to make the trade. Stanley Druckenmiller, who was one of his portfolio managers, spotted the opportunity did the research and presented it to Soros as a potential trade. Information and analysis was key to discovering opportunity. If John Major and Norman Lamont hadn't been so optimistic about the effect of the ERM, they wouldn't have set the entry exchange rate for sterling so high.
And perhaps, they hadn't been familiar with a similar error made by Winston Churchill in the 1920s, when he entered Sterling into the Gold Standard at an unsustainable exchange rate. That time it took, if my memory serves me, 5 years of economic turmoil, very similar to that on Black Wednesday, and for similar reasons, before Sterling crashed out of the Gold Standard.
Soros understood that how people think and what they believe creates market conditions. And prices are information to be interrogated and tested against reality. Human psychology is important to understand markets.
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You need to check your facts. The Horizon Scandal began *before privatisation which separated Post Office Ltd from Royal Mail plc. nobody wanted to buy POL, because it was operating at a huge loss, and the subpostmaster contracts were, and still are onerous, and City insiders probably heard on the grapevine about the Horizon problems. That's why POL is still in public ownership since privatisation of Royal Mail in 2012. So the taxpayer will foot the bill. Privatisation was never meant to be a panacea for enterprises with structural problems. Why should it be? Private enterprises fail or are badly run as much as government enterprises are. And for the same very human reasons. So... Privatisation has failed in its goals, because we pay much more for services that are definitely not world beating or on par with the best in the world. If they really wanted to make Royal Mail fit for the 21st century they should have sold it to their workers. Why? Because they know the ins and out of the business better than the management and directors. But the British Establishmrnt believe in managerialism, but don't train them well, and still rely on cronyism. That's the main reason British productivity has behind it's peers. And these numpties still don't understand why countries that they bombed to smithereens in World War II rose like phoenixes and outproduce Britain industrially. That lack of faith in their workers is central to our problems, and the idea that AI won't decimate them is absurd. Even more problems are building up because financiers know about finance, but not much else. All their efforts over nearly 50 years, have resulted in no more intelligent answer to industrial and economic policy than "privatise it." And we are where we are. No wonder people are, at best skeptical, and at worst either apathetic or resentful and cynical. And sadly, they didn't begin to cotton on until the damage started to park up on the lawn of the middle classes. A house divided against itself cannot stand. It is crumbling, like our infrastructure. And the damage is extensive to the extent we are less fit for the 21st century than before.
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With the greatest of respect, nothing last forever, and the folly of nostalgia is that one cannot look forward, when one's always facing backwards. Indeed, we should be grateful for the past. But we should not fail to appreciate what we have in the present, and live there with gratitude, because it's all we every really have or need. I lived through the passing of Camp Comedy, and nostalgia obscures why that humour was so powerful. It was powerful because it was traversing boundaries with wit and intelligence born out of dealing with a harsh world in a life affirming way. And it catered to the prejudices of its audience, who more naive and less well-informed and accepting than they are now. Take the best of it, and leave rest in the past where it belongs. Failure to do that is now why in every age those who wallow in nostalgia are missing the point. What is useful in any age will survive as long as it is a positive. And debating what is of value in the present in an honest and empathetic way is healthy. And we should embrace change if it is a positive for those who will follow us. We are only caretakers, not owners. And we should be discerning about what we keep as well as what we let go of. And to make that decision one needs empathy. And remember that only the truly strong can be gentle. Have a good day.
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Then you don't understand the nuances that make a difference. Buffet didn't go into that. But really briefly, it's about 1) the index chosen, and 2) whether the fund actually owns the stocks, or instead, uses various investment strategies to approximate returns from that particular index. Right now the plain vanilla S & P index is over weighted towards market cap weighting, so the AI tech hype is distorting it's returns. So, when this answer was given, that wasn't happening.
You could choose instead an Index ETF based on the Equal weighted S & P 500 Index, or one that focuses on value stocks listed in the S & P. Moreover, if the fund you choose owns the stocks it tracks in the S & P 500, it's returns should match it's performance. A fund that doesn't might fail to match it's performance. And finally, you need a well diversified portfolio prevent all your eggs being in any one basket. Because everything that goes up, can go down and does. So Caveat Emptor. Do your homework and due diligence before you buy any ETF.
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Not necessarily. Inflation can be purely down to too much money in the system, but as most of it is Bank credit provided by banks making loans, and the banks aren't very many new loans, and are dumping loans off their books, where's the money coming from? There is not much credit to be had. So this is less about monetary policy, and more about supply issues due to offshore supply lines being more expensive, Services becoming more expensive due to demand and firms like insurers passing on increased costs to consumers. (climate change is real, bird flu killed poultry flocks that have to be replaced, and Healthcare costs can't shrink, sorry.) Interest rate hikes are performative, because they can't do anything about supply shocks, and hardly any of the "money printing" went directly to consumers. Most of it when to firms, and if that money had been lent to firms instead of being gifted, or taxed effectively, there wouldn't have been much inflation to think about.
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Very briefly Steve Baker did have a point. A lot of ultra cheap US dollar-denominated credit was provided by the Offshore capital market, which then funded the creation of multiple housing bubbles across the developed world. it evolved in the City of London to deal with US capital controls Post-World War II and the US dollar shortage those created. It's totally owned by the bank association that runs it. And it's unregulated, and based in offshore jurisdictions, beyond government control. It survived so long, because being unregulated other banks, nations, multinational corporations, and other financial institutions could borrow US Dollars needed for international trade at a far lower cost than in their home countries. So Steve Baker has a problem with something our financial sector created in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and which has been implicated in global financial crises throughout its history. 2008 broke that system. The trust went out of it, as the American domestic mortgage sector got greedy and corrupt. And QE has been governments desperately throwing taxpayers' money at the global banking system to repair it, as every country is dependent on a source of US Dollars to trade. But unfortunately for us, the City of London was up to its neck in that market. And it, amongst others were the largest donors to the Tories. It is highly probable that it was the City of London who in pushed for and financed Brexit. As they couldn't stop the EU creating their Anti-Tax Evasion Directive, which would have hurt the City of London's Tax Haven business, which is more than 50% of the global trade, and is the backbone of the global Offshore Capital Market. Brexit for them was supposed to be their Get Out of Jail Card, and they had their support in Parliament. It was the Squareile taking back control, not ordinary working people. Londongrad didn't want it's gravy train to hit the buffers. So they pushed for Brexit, ably encouraged by people who feared the EU's increasing Assertiveness. Also, the Offshore Capital Market was led by British and American banks, but it must be said Uncle Sam tolerated this market as long as it helped their agenda, but when they found out that Interest rate in the Offshore Market - the LIBOR rate - was secretly being influenced by British politicians, it is highly probable the US encouraged Brexit too, knowing the EU would as a consequence take the Euro Derivative and Euro transaction clearing business away from London, worth billions. Arguably, our financial establishment had got themselves into a lot of trouble, and upset people, and saw Brexit as a get out of jail card. But it was a trap, a nasty painful trap, that hurt not only the City, but the UK as well. Now the Offshore Capital Base rate is now set by the US Federal Reserve, and the City has had to renegotiate it's access to the EU, and the UK financial sector is making a lot less money than before, and that hurts everyone else in the UK because our Financial Sector was over 80% of the UK Economy. And it seems it has permanently lost ground. No more commissions from Russian oligarchs throwing money around, buying British assets, and suing each other in British courts. No more commissions from Euro trading, and now Subsidiaries in the EU have to be funded, with erodes their profits further. That's why Canary Wharf is slowly shrinking. That's why major firms from the financial sector have moved out of London to cut costs, and why Brexit needs to addressed. The folly and complacency that to this breach wasn't that of the ordinary people. That was the folly of our establishment, who would not acknowledge the risks they were taking. And they did it for themselves. The Financial establishment whilst getting very wealthy, let the working and middle classes be their lab rats for some really stupid economic experiments, all which have failed.
I think Steve Baker likely meant well, but he was out of his depth in trying to slay that particular dragon. If he knew British Financial and Economic History better, he wouldn't have gone near Brexit with a bargepole. But he's an idealist, who likely now realises he had the wrong ideals. The acquisition of wealth and power has shaped British History, in many ways that we don't acknowledge. One particular perspective would see that many of the good things for the British working and middle classes only happened because they were instrumental to the goals of the asset wealthy. And once those goals were less reliant on them, first the Working class, then the middle classes got thrown under the bus. This is just another episode of that. And nothing happened until the middle classes became grist to the mill. Nobody knows for sure what will happen in the future, but I hope we find a way back to being one nation again someday. We're at a turning point, and I hope we find a way back to being united, fair, and caring once again.
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You used the word moron. Nobody else did. And that says much more about your limitations than anything else. Let's get straight one thing. Intelligence is a range of skills. Just because you shine in one dimension, doesn't give you automatic skill in the others. And Rishi Sunak was promoted beyond his competence. And his failures were a combination of arrogance, petulance, callousness, inauthenticity, and a lack of self-awareness. It's not completely his fault. His life experience was, and still is very narrow. but he did not help himself sometimes. And that shows his lack of experience and naivete. That undermined his effectiveness as a politician. It's probably too late now, as he's married, with children, and probably won't go out now and mix with ordinary people. He's a hot house flower. Take him out of that rarified environment, and he founders. And his ruthless ambition blinded him to the impact he was making. He didn't have very good advisors at the end either. So, that's the tragedy. He ended up alienating people. That isn't very bright.
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Money is not a proxy. It is money. A share is a proxy for money which you buy with money. But it is not a one-to-one equivalent. Try buying a coffee in Starbucks with a share certificate.
A government is not a corporation. Corporations can't issue their own money that can be used by everyone. So your a ology is misleading. I understand that you are trying to look at the situation in terms of *credo*, or credit as faith or belief, which is the basis of money. But market sentiment is about profit that is denominated in money. And you are right, in that if people lose faith in money, the less people will use it. But, as a shareholder, I am very unlikely to try and buy anything with my share certificate, because I will fail. Money is not a share. And corporations never tax their shares. Governments do tax what extra money you get from your shares. And the credibility of a Governments money is its value that others will use it as a medium of exchange for goods and services. The difference lies in the power behind the currency. Taxation is a tool to control the amount of money in circulation, that isn't being productively used. But speculators don't like that. And the battle between governments and speculators about taxation has its own black propaganda about taxation. Because for speculators it's a numbers game. Bigger number in their bank account is everything. The government can't afford to see everything that way, because the consequences on the welfare of everyone and not just the rentierists, is their priority. It's not just about individuals. Human nature can be a danger to humanity, because it can be blind to consequences in pursuit of a goal. And none more so in matters of power and wealth. In americal, ever since 1917, the Debt Ceiling has climbed in real terms. And now the new administration wants to increase it. And to cut taxes. And implement more tariffs, and these are by nature, are inflationary policies. But are you worried about the value of USD? If not, why not? I answering that question, you'll have to look at money as money, and why price inflation is important. Corporations worry about that as it could kill their business. But price inflation doesn't kill governments. it kills those who don't have enough money. Governments have as much money as the people controlling them want. That's why the debt ceiling is not a ceiling; it's an elevator.
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It quite true. Sterling is still a reserve currency, mainly because it owns so many tax havens, whose clients rely on Gilts to fund their financing, along with US Treasuries, and German Bunds. It wasn't the fear of inflation. It was that she didn't tell them beforehand. Truss was paranoid, and it destroyed her credibility, especially as the Tories under Johnson was so much of a circus. Most policies are are quietly outlined to the people that need to support it beforehand. But Truss did not insert herself into such groups not did she share any information with them. It didn't matter that the people who nixed her plan, were the people who would have benefitted from it the most. They had to teach her who's boss. Why? no rules along. Truss didn't understand that key to power. So, by making a god almighty fuss, they killed one to warn a thousand. She was shredded because she didn't understand the rules. Whether we like to believe or not, no budget is a total surprise to the City. Donors don't give their money people they don't trust to deliver, and the City of London were the largest donors to the Tories by industrial sector. But Truss, naively sidelined them, and got rid of people the City liked, because they weren't yes men. The relationship between the Square Mile and the British Government is incestuous. No other chartered corporation has one of their number sit in the chamber in the House of Commons not in the Guest Gallery, but in a seat placed behind the chair of the Speaker. That right is written in the Royal Charter of the Corporation of the City of London. Moreover, the Foreign Office runs the Mayor of the City of London's calender. He goes off on many trips abroad to fly the flag for the City and the UK. Again, no other Royal Chartered Corporation gets that service from the government. And really, the Tory Party choosing Truss over Sunak would have irritated the City as well, as Sunak was a City insider, and an alumni of RBS and JP Morgan. She gave them the bullet with her name in it, by ignoring them. So, they ensured she would fail, by overreacting to her "unfunded expenditure", even though almost all government expenditure is unfunded, especially after Brexit.
Second, Milton Friedman assertion that Inflation "is, and everywhere, a monetary phenomenon" isn't borne out by the evidence. Two things: Wage Price Spirals and the Kenyan Random-controlled Trial of helicopter money prove that not only did Friedman overgeneralised his axiom, but that wage Price spirals are rare, and are not persistent. Money & Macro channel reported the findings of the ongoing helicopter money trial that there was zero inflation in the first 2.5 years after the money - $10 million - was given to households chosen at random in a North Kenyan county. And the economic impact was tracked individually as well as regionally. Then, the IMF staff wrote up desk research study on Wage Price Spirals in 2022,where their evidences-based conclusion was that Wage Price Sprials were significant, but short-lived in their impact on the greater economy. Both these studies are a available online, and Money & Macro talks specifically to the reasons why Inflation did not appear. So, the orthodox models you relate are not to be consumed unquestioningly, because the evidence isn't there to support Friedman and no-one has contradicted the IMF paper punished in November 2021.
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No, it doesnt. It never has worked well in two party systems. People cannot be corralled into two choices. If individualism has any worth at all, then corralling people into a binary choice is actually anti-democratic. And, you not realising that is very weird. Doing that denies choice. And democracy is about having a meaningful choice about what happens in your community. Majoritarian politics is a convention, and a binary choice leaves many people politically alienated. That's the irony. So much propaganda about parliamentary democracy being the only solution is itself incompatible with individual choice. And we don't talk about that enough. We don't talk about the issues with party politics. We don't talk about the problem of the power hungry incompetent gaining power. There's a lot we don't talk about. Modern life is itself a compromise on behalf of maintaining the status quo. It's not a natural thing. It is an artifice. And as long it met the need of the people, it was OK. But, now that the Age of AI plans to destroy the economic order, our compromises are wearing thin. And the chancers and crackpots both rich and poor, are striving to climb to the top of the greasy pole. Neoliberal economics is failing us, and so, everything is beginning to be questioned. Our delegated democracy form of politics is being questioned because whom we delegated it to are failing to deliver. I mean, in the 21st century, we've had a long time to fix poverty, to prevent economic hardship and apartheid arising. But those in charge were too busy enriching themselves. Oops. Human nature put a spanner in the works. Who would have thought that so much BS was the glue holding things together. Hence the attraction of Behavioural Science and Misinformation to manipulate the plebs. Now the BS is failing, things are being questioned,and the efforts to patch up the leaking ship are becoming more extreme. And opportunist will take advantage of that. If you want to scotch that tendency, it would mean actually giving power to the people, instead of delegating to rich and powerful chancers and crackpots who are totally in ignorance of and cut off from how the ordinary masses live in the system they control. And the Pandemic was a magnifying lens that concentrated the heat to show how unsatisfying things really were. How dumb ideas permeated our world to our detriment. We haven't yet evolved to dismantle the rot. Future generations may do it, but for now, it's all melting, like wax under a flame, as the impossibility of the current economic system succeeding for anyone but the very asset wealthy minority is being laid bare.
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This reminds me of those sad villains who need to be acknowledged as such. No self-awareness of the fact that he was an utterly bad judge of character to choose a windbag spiv like Johnson whose shortcomings were so obvious to undermine any hope of political longevity or stability as most time was spent putting out the fires he so casually kept lighting, instead of being focussed even on his and Cummings' supposed shared goals. It was a clown show where Cummings was the straight guy. But unlike Morecambe and Wise, or any other great double acts, there was no shared sense of duty. Just ambition and self-indulgence. And as for his dream of revolutionising government, we'll a broken clock can be right twice a day, but be useless otherwise. Cummings intelligence is like a crevasse - a very deep niche body of knowledge in a very narrow area, that becomes hazardous for others to negotiate because it has no regard for anything but itself. A nerdy teenager without restraints, and a too narrow focus create hubris. He could have done some good if he had aligned himself with good. But he didn't. And surprised pickachu face, he failed. Whether you are an eminence gris puppet master in the shadows or a great man wannabe leader, your your competence is determined by your knowledge of human nature and your judgment about people. Why? No ruler rules alone. To get anything important in life done you have to do it with the help of other people. And you have to pick the right people for the job. Unless you can do that, your hopes and dreams will collapse like a house of cards. Cummings is naive, and not in a good way, because his ambition far outweighs his strategic capacity, and patience to find the right people to work with, so he could build a legacy worth building. Instead, what has he got? More "consulting" for people who want to run countries like businesses, with them as the CEOs. Clueless, inflexible, unempathetic, and unethical people, who best achievement is to underline the risks we run tolerating capitalism, and how important it is for democracy to be strengthened, and government needing stronger guiderails to neuter rich people with too much time on their hands.
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You forget that the majority that voted for Brexit were ably assisted by:
- British oligarchs, who took funding from Dark Money to fund the Leave Campaign, set up opaque think ranks who all supported Brexit, and included media owners, and useful idiots inserted in influential media institutions like the BBC and Sky TV, either friends and or former employees of News International owned by Murdoch who own Fox in the US and Australia:
; and the entrepreneurial politicians in Parliament on the Right; and British PR firms involved in a very similar scandal in South Africa.
- Russian Money from Russian Oligarchs and indirectly at least, Putin;
- American oligarchs who funded and facilitated Steve Bannon's Flood The Zone roadtrip around the Far Right in Europe; Mark Zuckerberg breaking EU privacy laws to give Data to Cambridge Analytica, to support targeted ads for Brexit.
The British People trusted institutions and influential people that weren't telling them the objective truth, and dissenting voices were downplayed.
Why did this happen? The failure of the TTIP treaty negotiations in the EU. That's why? All the right wing lies about the EU being undemocratic are utter guff. Why? The conservatives did a backdoor deal to support the TTIP treaty between the EU and the US. Inside that treaty were terms which would have opened all public services to privatisation, and other rather undemocratic practices within the EU, under the cover of a trade and regulatory deal. What stopped it? The sharp intellect of one of the EU bodies in Belgium, who had to ratify it to become EU law, actually read the treaty before ratifying it, and started questioning the terms of the treaty. News got out into the public sphere and eventually an anti-TTIP campaign in mainland Europe started up, forcing the EU parliament to reject the treaty. Now the inside facilitator was the UK, and when the scandal was blowing up in Europe, there was hardly anything said in the British media about the scandal. Basically the US was pulling the kind of one-sided trade deal, that you'd have to be brain-dead to sign, with the help of the British Conservative Government, and the Conservative right in the EU parliament. And it got found out, and the treaty failed to be ratifyed. The US was upset and resentful, and the British cons were embarrassed. So the American oligarchs hatched this treaty to weaken the EU regulatory power over US goods and services. And a grass roots campaign killed that treaty. And that failure did not stop them. Hence the bunch of American oligarchs blowing smoke up the bums of our establishment. They wanted the EU weakened ie broken, and they realised that if Britain left the EU, it might collapse like a house of cards. Putin wanted the EU gone for offering more than he could in the form of EU membership and bilateral deals. And who's fault is that? Russia to blame. Look at it this way. More than 30 years on and Russia relies on resource exports and nothing much else to grow it's own economy. This is why the flattening of oil exports, as a by-product of renewables taking over from oil and gas, was catastrophic for Russia. So, it's economy beyond resource exports is pretty limited. If they lost oil and gas, well the Russian Slikovi and Putin would actually have to invest in their own country more, instead of getting obscenely rich. So they want the EU to disappear too...
So Brexit was hatched and the rest is our reality. Trump in 2025 does not care to hide the Rise of the International Oligarchy, who thinks that they are best fit to rule the world, and 'might makes it right.' At least that's what they want us to believe, but thep
Problem is that Climate Change doesn't care about rich idiots playing kings. It's coming anyway. And the failure of Techno-neoliberals to deal with its consequences will define our future in the next 30 years. There's stories of protests following Trump and Vance around over the weekend, because people are figuring out what Trump and Vance are, and they don't like it.
And the UK is going to do what the UK is going to do. Until it accepts that the old normal is dead, the sooner it can be open to alternative solutions, that can provide better outcomes.
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But, all humans have incentives. If you don't want people with incentives, you'd have to employ robots, except those who programme them would have incentives too. Incentives are part of human emotion. Like the ones that get you out of bed to go to work. To eat when you're hungry, and drink when you are thirsty. Knowing that I'd part of emotional intelligence, and knowing one's own incentives is a cornerstone of wisdom. So, with that out of the way, motivations as incentives are either helpful or unhelpful, and often that depends more on context than some shady conspiracy. Office politics is driven by motivations, and yet for good or ill, the organisational culture is far more deterministic of outcomes. And governments are organisations who need good leadership. And because of their own motivations, often the electorate choose who governs us more in hope than knowledge of whom will be good at leading the country. And no-one is immune from folly. And believing that stuff that goes wrong is down purely to unhelpful motivations is unhelpful in itself. Yes, trust has to be earned, and politics is messy, but we chose the people who mess up. Perhaps then we the voters need to become better leaders ourselves, and develop wisdom ourselves, because in this sense, we do get the politicians we deserve.
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The whole of life is here in these comments... To not commit atrocities against yourself or others, you have to stop believing absurdities. You don't have to drink the Kool Aid, or even like that it exists. You just have to accept what is. Give up blame and embrace accountability for doing the best you can. Nothing stays the same forever, and you might not be around when it does change. But that's OK. In the meantime, the present, the only time you really ever have, decide what *your priorities are are, and aim for them. Not the priorities of others but what you really need to be content, and accept that will bring it's own problems and challeges too, but you won't mind those if those priorities are truly yours, and not just what someone says you should prioritise. The only path you can follow is the path you walk. And you don't know what opportunities you might find on it, especially if it's a road less travelled. Forget about the American Dream, and dream your own dream. Then use your imagination and be observant. Opportunities exist if you're willing to look for for them. Fortune not only favours the brave, but the observant too. Enjoy your journey.
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Hopium is the hidden drug when uncertainty rears it's ugly head. People hope that what goes round doesn't come around. And reality carries on regardless. One reality is that the American economy in growth is shaped like a K. Those at the top have enough to say, "Crisis? What crisis?" And the ones at the bottom can smell the smoke as their hopes get crisp in the heat. Economics by walking about - actually looking hard at the realities around you - will tell you more about the real state of your economy. Add that to any economists' analysis - which is an overview anyway - and you'll know what's happening. The fact that consumer confidence is still tanking, and unemployment is set to rise, that more workers are falling out of the unemployment stats than are finding new jobs, and that hiring is in ice, is Economist talk for "buckle up boys, it's going to be a bumpy ride for those needing jobs to get by" is a red flag. But it's not the same economy for those who live off the value of assets. The asset rich got a severe pinch last, but hell, there's nearly 5 years to go yet. Them getting pinched, when there's little value outside tech, means there's only Hopium between the reality of those who need a job, and those that don't.
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There is a different perspective. Democracy can only die not from an external threat, but from internal neglect. And the neglect emerges from a malaise that affects both the top-down technocrats and the bottom-up citizenry. It is at its heart a lack of attention to reality. Perception trumps reality everytime, and reality then kicks us until we pay attention to it.
And the fish rots from the head, as they are supposedly the more intelligent and perceptive, right?
The truth is that we keep getting bruised because we refuse to look at reality. Instead, we are like Dorian Grey staring into a picture that flatters us, but instead is showing our ugly side, that has been cultivated for years for power and profit. You'd think we'd have figured it out that our head is being filled by nonsense, but because it's flattering nonsense, it sticks like poop to a shoe. It's less about just or unjust desserts. It's just human nature being leveraged for profit. And it's not so much a stretch when you consider Divide and Rule is a political strategem with an ancient colonial pedigree. Our malaise is being encouraged to grow, so that certain people might profit from it. So, scapegoat after scapegoat will be wheeled out to deny and deflect from the reality we should be embracing. Because you can't fix a problem until you accept it exists. And until both those at the top and those at the bottom do that, they will not meet in the middle and start actually tackling the real causes of their worries. In fact, it's not until Reality takes a running kick at our collective bum, hard enough to shock us in to actually looking outside the cave and into the world beyond, will we get over our delusions. It will happen, but if we stopped gamifying everything, and just did what actually needed to be done, we might forestall of what's coming down the line, that we can't defeat or mitigate inside our heads, homes, or bubbles, but only deal with collectively with a shared vision of the future. That's what we lack, because the future we trying to live is unsustainable, but no spoonful of sugar can disguise that. So we throw scapegoats under the bus. All to ignore our complicity in the mess.
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They're not cutting the Winter Fuel Allowance from all pensioners. Just those not on Pension Credit. Facts matter, especially the fact that the Tories left a £20bn hole on the books, which gave her no choice. And if you think that's bad, you'll probably find out between now and the Mini Budget day in October more fiscal dead bodies buried in No 11 Downing Street. The only problem with Reeve's decision is that she did not place as much emphasis on getting eligible pensioners to claim Pension Credit. Not all do. That will take sone of the sting away. But, if Cameron hadn't told so many seemingly credible lies about Labour's alledged fiscal incompetence, perhaps Reeves would have to play tough. Labour paid off the final debt after World War II, and if it wasn't 2008,which wasn't caused by Labour, or anyone in the UK, there record would have been as good as any One Nation Tory government. But then again, if the public knew the ins and out about how 2008 affected almost every country in the world, they might have been M more understanding. But we have a tradition of scapegoating first and asking questions later, and we are ill-served by it. The only things Labour got wrong were that New Labour did not critique globalisation, and they were happy to embrace neoliberal economics. They only tried to put a smiling face on the vampirisation of our economy. The truth is all the wealth was being transferred away from workers to capital, and Blair made sure he got his share. Brown? Only 1 questionable move, and 1 unforced error. Selling the UK's gold reserves, and talking into a live Mike. But, oupoliticaclazs as a whole is not inspiring confidence TBH. It's the realisation that the people that are supposed to be our betters, are sadly lacking the qualifications to back that up.
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Home is where the heart, is but their hearts are not with you. Their heart sare elsewhere. And I think you might not realise that they do think about you, I, or us in the same way we think about them. And we're encouraged to do so, because it maintains the status quo. So we cannot rely on them to do what needs to be done by their own volition. The people must stand up together and demand real change. and that can begin by remembering Tony Benn's words - protecting our interests is an eternal duty of self care of those who are not rich. And the only way to do it, is to stop asking anything of those who can't or won't help us do that. And to be heard we must act in solidarity again. We've forgotten that lesson of what it was like before 1945, and it took less than 100 years to do so. Now it's time to start rebuilding that machinery again, based on local people working together and creating ways to help ourselves and our communities flourish. That means making our wants and needs clear to those seeking our votes, and be compassionately sceptical while doing it. No big honchos parachuting into our communities and disappearing to Westminster. We want people who know us, care about us, and who will work with us to represent us, and we should pursue democratic goals like English devolution, strengthening of local government, and citizen participation in policy making. Proportional representation, and reform of cfebtrak government. Britain needs to stop morphing into a company town, and be a country, a home again for all its people.
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FPTP is a voting method that doesn't rely on the popular vote for legitimacy. It relies on the belief that the method is fair. It never has been strictly fair, because every vote does not count. It never has. History shows this. And the off centre parties are now bleating about it, because they think they can gain power under some form of PR. But, the truth is that if we really wanted to be fair, we would use Sortition instead, and discard both PR and FPTP. That would kill the influence of party politics stone dead. Is that likely to happen? Not in my lifetime, if ever. Why? It would neuter completely the influence of political entrepreneurs, who rely on manipulating and control of the masses. But, it's the only truly democratic method. Every citizen has a chance to get into power, and exercise it to serve the interest of their community even for a brief time. But human nature has not yet evolved to be that courageous. Imagine everyone gets a chance to serve as an MP for a year. For Sortition to work. We would need a wider and more delegated exercise of power in politics. Such a short term service means the end of the parliamentary system, and the introduction of delegated power to the communities, being as important and as powerful a central parliament. Politics would then become a form of National Service, and the party system would be powerless. Something for ordinary people to think about. Political Scientists have been thinking about it for sure.
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Meritocracy is a myth, an offshoot of the Protestant Work Ethic, which is even more misleading. Any society that rations the pathways to opportunity, doesn't believe in merit deep down. And the person who coined the term in his book in 1958, a British author whose name escapes me, admitted he was being satirical. So Louis CK's observation that the powerful are a very small club, and most of us will never be in it is quite true. For a really good book, recommended by the YT channel The Market Exit, get a copy of "The Inner Level" by Richard Wilkinson. Chapter 6 specifically deals with Meritocracy. For me this book really spoke to me about it, and explained far better than I could how "merit" is an cul de sac that leads to leaving barriers in place. Inequality of opportunity is a more fruitful place to start, because it points to the fact that still too many never get to put their foot near the ladder, nevermind putting their foot on the bottom rung, because it keeps getting kicked away by those who are already on top. And doing so is a very common human trait, that has life changing consequences that the in the aggregate, actually weakens our society and economic potential. The Inner Level is a sequel to the more academically rigorous book, The Spirit Level, which discusses a huge study done by Wilkerson on inequality. Check out The Market Exit's video on Inequality too.
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You obviously don't recognise that Economics is a Social Science, but you like good economies, right? Or history? Or psychology?
Prejudices are no proxy for real knowledge or wisdom. They run contrary to the dictum of the Delphic Oracle "Know Thyself", which is the the Dictum of the Social Sciences. Why? In anyone's life, there is only ever one person who is always present: oneself. By understanding better who we are as humans, and what shapes our collective and individual action, we are nothing but Bulls in a China Shop, or hairless apes. We are the source of civilisation and studying it and analysing how we are as a species and as societies is the key to the lock of our true potential. Not understanding ourselves fully has bought us to yet another Bull in A China episode in human history. The paralells are clear. We have bern here before, and we'll probably wreck the joint yet again until we all acknowledge that we are still hairless apes who haven't evolved that much, and perhaps should pay attention to the limitations that imposes on us indivudualky abd collectively. That knowledge and hopefulky wisdom is our true legacy to those whi might follow us, if we can stop being cadidates for a Darwin Award. Have a nice day.
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I'm sorry but that's not quite true. GDP is not something you can spend. It's an estimate of the value of goods and services produced. You can't buy anything with GDP. It's nothing more than a comparative measure. You can buy something with GDI, which is the Gross Dimestic Income of a nation, but because of austerity and other policy failures, GDI is less than GDP in recent years, when it's supposed to be equal. So, your point doesn't make sense when tested against reality. Having higher immigration doesn't necessarily lead to greater GDP or GDI. Only increased economic output does. And there's no guarantee of that when the gaps are mostly in low paid, low skilled jobs. In fact,as one commenter on another video states, "What are you going to do when you realise that your problems don't come from immigration?" Your problems come from bad policy decisions and the wrong priorities in government over decades. These have literally resulted in the erosion of economic capacity in the UK. The loss of a mixed economy, replaced by one dependent mostly on services, together with falling labour protections and public services, is literally destroying economic capacity. And the Pandemic speeded it up.
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Yeah, right... And Poundland MP NF isn't establishment? Stockbroker, public school, worked in the City, wealthy, but not wealthy enough for Coutts - you know, there's a branch on every high street-not. Has three homes. When he has a problem, he just snaps his fingers and the Prime Minister has a problem. Is that really anti-establishment?
Get real. If you thought that the establishment is split between One Nation and New Money Spivs, you'd be closer to the truth.
Never in a month of Sunday's is NF anti-establishment. He's wannabee with a chip on his shoulder. He wants to be establishment, and he's using people you to get there. And as soon as he does, he'll open up shop to the highest bidder, as you struggle on to pay your bills.
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Not really. You assume that the BOE is allowing the securities they bought to mature, right? Nope. They're selling them off at a discount to bond dealers, which just reduces the BOE's balance sheet, and nothing more. And the biggest purchasers of Bonds are? The Asset Wealthy who got the stimulus money in the first place, and not ordinary people. So the asset wealthy are getting a final bung from their buddies at the BoE. That is why asset prices have not collapsed by any significant amount, and inflation is sticky, even as energy prices are deflating due to the global depression. That is why the Yield Curve is still inverted, and why GDP is the most deceptive economic indicator devised by economists. Remember £800 billion was pumped into the UK economy, and the BOE is ripping the UK taxpayers off by selling back the bonds into the money supply at a discount. And that's the false impression people if QT, but their wallets know the truth, as their purchasing power disappears faster than the toothpaste in an open tube stood on by an elephant. It's the Cantillon Effect caused by being sustained by the BOE own actions. Hence the K-shaped recovery, where the incomes of the asset wealthy continue to go to the moon, and the ALICEs - Asset-Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed continue to have their purchasing power eroded.
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Interesting argument, because the messiness of geopolitics makes everything associated with it messy too. Yet, there is another perspective and it is a pragmatic one. Another commenter argued that justice and peace are mutually exclusive in the context of war. You can't have both at the same time. To bring peace, it may be impossible to give justice in any meaningful sense. To bring justice to Ukraine, no amount of money will make up for what has been lost, even if Russia returns to its 1991 boundaries. And Justice doesn't matter to Russia, because "might is right", right? Since that is the case, the money is a sunk cost in a venture that needs no reward. A gamble, which was lost.
But we should be aware that certain Russian elites won't stop gambling with money they didn't earn, or with lives they do not value, until it costs them a price which they themselves must pay.
In this context, Mother Russia, or any motherland is mostly in danger from its elites, if they exist within bubbles, cut off from realities, that they ignore, or make no effort to understand.
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No, it's not the worse case scenario right now. Unemployment hasn't even hit 6%. That's the time the Fed goes into panic mode. Right now their butt cheeks are clenched because it's a presidential election year. If it wasn't, they and most mainstream economists would be chilling, because they thought they had done something worthwhile. But... As the inflation we were hit with was mostly a supply shock, nothing the Fed could do could fix that. And this is the problem. The Fed itself doesn't understand inflation fully. Inflation isn't always a monetary phenomenon. Supply shocks due to exogenous factors like supply shocks aren't influenced by interest rates. Why interest rates had to be hiked was that QE was pursued at too high a level for too long. That was the monetary bit of the problem. and then the pandemic supply shock once lockdowns were done ramped up inflation on top of that even further. But, the problem is that consumers didn't most of that QE money. The big winners were the owners and shareholders of the businesses in which that household QE money was very quickly spent during the pandemic. Moreover, those businesses also got nice handouts from the State too. So the asset wealthy got a huge wealth boost because of QE and stimulus money. Far more than consumers did. So when those profits began to be spent, what were they being spent on? Luxury goods and services and assets. Hence the stock market boom, house prices climbing and not experiencing falls, and the sales boost in overseas travel and luxury vehicles. When the Fed finally woke up to the hike in inflation, they went hard on hikes that hit those who hadn't caused the inflation. Interest rate increases benefitted who? The asset wealthy. The Fed is clueless.
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The style and personality of the teaching plays a huge part in how well what you been exposed to sticks. Communication is a skill, and to combine that with pedagogy, is an assault course for the instructor too, because your students are an audience too. They often are there because they have to be, but the best instructors can make them want to be there, and want to learn deeply, and not just pass the exam. For example, I remember my Equity and Trusts lecturer with a smile, because Law is a very dry, fact-driven subject, but she bought the stories behind the legal principles to life by dint of her personality. She was enthusiastic, and I respond well to that. And I remember her decades later. How something is taught is as important as what is taught IMO.
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Please do read some British economic history. It will teach you far better than reading some silly newspaper. Deficits are breathing spaces so that government doesn't have to raid your bank account when it needs money. It's not a mortgage, it's an overdraft. And not that big. What matters is Debt to GDP ratio, the commonsense of your lenders, and the ability for your economy to grow.
We can't take anything for granted, but neither should be pursue policies that destroy our capacity to grow the economy. Which, most developed countries are worrying about, because what they persuaded themselves was true wasn't. You can't get growth out of a consumption-dependent economy if the income and wealth of your consumers is shrinking in real terms. But those who have been benefitting from this regrettable assumption still believe that they can persuade heavily indebted and skint consumers to spend more by borrowing more. Why? Because the loons who own the debt want more debt to make their wealth grow... Madness! But until they own upto their mistake, we have the shambles of a government unwilling to slap some sense into these fools.
The government is under the illusion that everyone wants them to succeed. Not true. "Chaos is a ladder," and when the people who want to replace you are the ones holding it, you're not going to get a helping hand. And it's terribly naive to believe otherwise. Just understanding how power and finance are intertwined in Britain, makes things so much clearer. But unfortunately, the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are in the dark, and voluntarily so. There are conversations to be had between government and the interested parties. Negotiations if you will, and perhaps those need to begin. After all, our fat cat lenders don't want a bankrupted borrower who might have to stop paying things like the £221.37 billion by 2033, in interest to banks for just parking their reserves at the Bank of England would they? So, there's room to negotiate, and call off the client media dogs too.
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I think Lord Rose is invested in Commercial Property, which like everywhere is upto its neck in debt because of how the mortgages for the buildings are structured. And the businesses that are dependent on the commuting workers are losing trade. And I get it, but is commuting 90 minutes each way, 5 days a week, without pay, setting up workers to succeed in the office? Of course not. One size does not suit everyone. And with labour shortages, and women with families needed to create "growth" - at least statistically - employers need to up their game to attract and retain talent. I have to agree with the professor, because I too have done the commuting and working in offices, and it's overrated frankly, for productivity, and for quality of life. Employers need to start thinking outside the box, and value the contribution and productivity of remote workers. We have a productivity crisis of decades long in the UK. So possibly, office work may not be all it's cracked up to be. Why? Underinvestment in skills and technology, and office cultures that actually impede productive working. And the statistics don't lie. France and other European countries work less hours but are more productive and better paid than Britain. Perhaps British employers need to take that on board too.
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I think it needs to be said, that the transfer of wealth to the asset wealthy from everyone else is a feature of Neoliberalism and not a bug. And it's time that our class-obsessed society realised that. Any economy that chooses debt to drive the economy increases wealth inequality every year. The emergence of populism is the response to that fact, and once people wake up to the reality that there are no political parties in the UK that have realised that neoliberalism is no longer economically tenable - and that includes Reform UK - the UK economy will continue to impoverish everyone who isn't asset wealthy. And that includes homeowners too, who are trapped in the illusion of nominally increasing house prices making them think they are building real savings, when their spending power is being eroded by the purchasing power of their money being eroded. The fact that their are anti-MMT bots on this channel, is proof that the wealthy are scared that people will wake up to that reality. The truth is that every 50 or 60 years or so, the economic system reaches its structural limits, and this is happening now. The bots are proof that the rich who fund them are running scared. And they should be, because the political horses they have backed so far will accelerate the break-up with neoliberalism within the next generation. They hope this dysfunctional economy can continue, but it can't. And not letting it evolve to a fairer and more sustainable model will cause more damage. And that will be true, even if Reform UK - who is yet another neoliberal mouthpiece - get into power. The economic model doesn't work anymore and is economically unsustainable. Until that nettle is grasped, the pain will continue.
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You didn't listen did you? Speaking out of turn, without all the facts to hand is as she clearly said is "shit". Shit for those involved, and the those investigating the incidents to find out what happened and why. We don't need grandstanding morons shit-stirring for attention and clicks, thank you very much. Let people do their job, and if they don't find out the truth, that's the time to probe directed and specific questions. Not before, as it can prevent successful prosecutions. Now do you understand? It's the Magna Carta right to a Fair Trial, and prejudicing the jury, who might be locals, can get a case thrown out. So no, you let the police do their job, and then question. If you are British, you should know that.
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It's not the same world your parents bought you into. And that you think that way suggests you don't have the personal finance knowledge you need. Sorry, but you can't step into the same river twice. The economy is very, very different, and lifetime employment is no longer a given. You need to have a realistic plan, and understand the direct and indirect costs of your ambition. That means making a financial plan based on present and future spending for saving and investing. You can't wing it now, because graduates getting paid minimum wage is a thing. And there are no guarantees. You have to organised. Learn how about, savings and investing in a tax efficient way. And the costs if buying a home and the costs of maintaining. For example, Tejvan's told us he had decided to extend the duration if his mortgage, because mortgage costs were accelerating ahead of his earnings. Instead of finishing paying in 30 years, he's looking at 40 years. Another thing, when Boris Johnson was prime minister he was discussing with the mirtgage industry the introduction of intergenerational mortgages, where the outstanding debt that remains is passed into your inheritors after your death. Google it, and just think why that was being discussed in government. The world is changing, and will still change faster than you know. You need to learn about how to make your money work as hard as it can, and protect yourself as well. You cannot afford to be complacent. You need to know how to do that. I hope you are checking out decent UK personal finance channels and people like Martin Lewis, and researching what you need to do, because you'll need to be ahead of the curve. If you can afford ut, subscribe to Which? Money magazine published by the Consumer Association. A sub gets you not only the magazine that is full of savings, investment, and personal finance advice, but gives you access to advice services as a perk. Good Luck I hope your dreams come true. With luck, the right knowledge, and the right help you can do it. 👍
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Yeah, ask Boeing, and numerous other failing companies about that. I mean your body isn't lean. I sure you could sustain similar treatment without any pain at all. Lol. Shareholder Primacy is hollowing out many businesses because it encourages "lean" as in anorexic management. We have less customer satisfaction with "lean" customer service that is so lean it serves no customers. We have such "lean" manufacturing that both in quality and content, we seem to sell fake food, with low nutritional content, but with a huge margin. Or, instead of supplying our people with clean safe water, we poison then instead, and being so lean it goes on for years. Need more be said? And let's not fool ourselves, these oligarchs are there to find out how to secure a chunk of that nice tax revenue. They couldn't give a damn about waste, especially when it's paid to them.
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Er... Not really, sweetheart. Right after lock downs ended, everyone expected China to lead the world in the global recovery, but it couldn't. And the US couldn't do it either. But China's situation went downhill from there. Basically, China is channeling a swan - seemingly serene above the water, but below the waterline, it's legs are going 10 to the dozen. Bazookas and bond sales can't help when the fundamentals don't add up. And that was the illusion of wealth with the collapsing Housing Bubble, defaulting belt and road loans, the withdrawal of informal subsidies, and the reshoring trend, are problems that bring worsening conditions for China. The only comfort is that China is not alone.
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There's no point saying everything is fiddled if you don't know what the definitions are for the stats so you can judge their validity. Moreover, economics itself is less concerned with distributional effects, being content with aggregate measures. But... Humans aren't purely objective in their thinking, and social media and news outlets have their biases too. So what to do? Well, look at your local economy. How well are your neighbours doing? How many people at your workplace are fighting for overtime every week or every month? Are your local shops full of diverse small businesses that are flourishing? Or is your high street full of only pawnshops, pounshops, charity shops, takeaways, corner shops, and betting shops? Your eyes can tell you a lot that statistics won't. Economics by walking about tells you a lot of things that the statistics don't. So, by all means be sceptical, but be grounded in your critique. And allow for uncertainty.
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The facts as you present them are 100% accurate and true. But when people are fearful, anxious, or resentful, they no longer use reason to make their decisions. It's not that they are stupid, but their emotions are stronger than their reason. Add to that, a technocratic, abstract, and distant style of communicating, together with a string tendency to pay attention to the views of asset wealthy business owners, financiers, and billionaires who donate to them, and a reductive view of the electorate, adds to people feeling that their concerns aren't be listened to. So they act from how that makes them feel. And don't consider cause and effect. Like Google blew up with people researching tariffs after they had already voted for Trump, and it was too late.
Sadly, if Trump gets his way, the same lessons learnt earlier in history will have to learnt again. And the consumer who isn't asset wealthy will bear the costs. But that's the way it goes.
But what isn't okay is that jobs aren't paying a living wage to workers. Distribution of the wealth gained what the US does is skewed completely to the benefit of those at the top. And help is needed to direct and reskill the workforce, to work in high tech industries. That's what's missing. So those at the bottom are getting left behind, and it's not their problem. It's everyone's problem, simply because the economy relies on consumer spending to grow. And as work is cukturally favoured over UBI, all developed nations need to have a discussion about how we address this problem. Nobody's talking about this. Even though in the next decade or so, AI is threatening to shed jobs.
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It depends what you mean by "investment advice." You can't give investment advice on YouTube. Only accredited financial advisors can do that legally. So, this information on this channel isn't really for someone dropping a hundred dollars a month into the stock market. This is for people who have enough money to invest in global capital markets. So, it might just be above your pay grade tbh. A minimum deposit into the Eurodollar market is about $1 million. So... perhaps this information isn't for you. But, it still has its uses because it's about the whole global financial system and how it really works, and how it impacts the value of the dollar, and how governments and central banks are passengers and not driving the bus. Offshore Capital is where the real wealth is, out of the reach of the tax man, and away from public scrutiny. And the Eurodollar markets are the interface between that space and the rest of the global economy. National governments and Central banks are struggling to reduce its impact on whst we call the real economy. So yes, the Eurodollar market may seem irrelevant, but it makes the stock market look like a kindergarten. And your tax dollars are going into it to service your government's debt. So if the stock market is the weather, the Eurodollar market dictates the economic climate by its sheer size alone. It where people who need dollars get them. It creates most of the dollars in the world by providing USD-denominated credit to us and foreign banks and non-bank financial institutions like hedge funds, pension funds, and insurance companies. More USD is created and destroyed in the Eurodollar market every year than what exists in the US domestic economy. And it's controlled by the banking sector, and not governments or the Fed. So this is a macroeconomic channel. It's not about personal finance or small scale investing. This is about who runs the world.
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That's not going to happen, because that's only a symptom and not the cause of the problem. The real cause of the problem is that USD is valued too high for the productivity of its economy, and that wealth inequality - the disparate distribution of asset wealth - is reducing the ability to cushion the blow of inflation hikes. You have a fantasy economy where it's supposed to be driven by consumers, but nobody wants to pay those employees in real terms so that they can actually save money. Real wage growth has fallen behind inflation for the last 4 decades, and to maintain their living standards those workers took out debt. So the great GDP figures are phooey. First the Assetless Income Constrained Working class Employees, got deep sixed, and now it's the turn of the middle classes to suffer while the Asset Wealthy hoover up most of the money, and spend very little on consumption. Rather, they keep buying more and more assets. It's the low or no asset owners who are seeing both their purchasing power and Net value being eroded, mainly because politicians listen to financiers, bankers, and other wealthy assets owners, rather than those who depend on a wage for survival. Accordingly, the economic system has been unwittingly arranged for the Asset Owners to get even more wealthier and everyone else to get priced out of asset markets. Inflation was the tide going out, so everyone could see who was swimming naked because of the absurd logic underlying Neoliberal economics for nearly the last 5 decades. And the chickens are coming home to roost. And it's was written about by an 18th century Economist called Richard Cantillon. And the problem is that nobody wants the gravy train to stop. But the impoverishment of both limited and non-asset owners and their government will not stop, until the wealthy asset owning junkies and are forced to go cold Turkey, and consumption is no longer driven by mostly consumer debt. Until employees wages match inflation, and the overgenerous flow of assets to the already asset wealthy the pandemic is recouped by taxing ithem, nothing will change, and your descendants will get poorer.
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I think your bias is showing. If you examine all the split of the popular vote when the Tories were elected, they hardly ever won the popular vote. Time and time again, they won the majority of seats, but not votes. Context matters, and looking at the facts as they are reveals that really, under FPTP the popular vote is a side issue. Moreover, FPTP is a relic now. The franchise has expanded so much since FPTP was introduced, that we should be seriously considering going over to some form of PR. Under PR, the votes would count, in deciding who took the seat. But whilst we gave Germany PR after World War II, we thought we would never need to consider it. Well, the last 30 years have proved that assumption complacent.
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Sorry, but you're wrong. Who got all the millions of QE before during and after during Covid? It wasn't migrants. It was corporations and plutocrats, your employers. And they didn't put up your wages. But the prices of houses went up as people with cash from their investments bought houses and competing with each other pushed the prices up and up and up, and priced you out of the market. Why can't you get well paying jobs is that companies make more money by speculating on the stock market by manipulating their stock prices, rather than investing. Why do you thing the stock market is going up and up while your wages aren't? They don't need more people except in the jobs you are unlikely to do. And Technology as well. Just look at the job market. And the economy? What's the biggest sector in the UK economy? Financial Services, which is so profitable that they can invest in algorithmic investment programmes, and other computing that removes jobs. They only need people to program those. They don't need backroom clerks, they don't need counter clerks, they don't need branches. They don't need big HQs in Canary Wharf, because the computer can do it all. They don't need as many workers any more to make their money. And it's the same in almost all service industries. Clerical workers are a dying breed and the starting wage is beginning to be minimum wage. Most of the work is computerised, and 1 person can do the work 9f 3 people. Where are those jobs? Falling off a cliff, or being paid lower. Migrants didn't pay that. And the joke is a loof the profits being made don't stay here, because a lot of foreign investment send those profits back home. Blue collar manufacturing jobs are another dying breed. Not only is manufacturing a tiny part of the economy - only 15%, and those jobs are disappearing. And guess what? Brexit accelerated that decline because instead of pitching at the high margin low hanging fruit in Europe, we're trying to compete with economies that are able to undercut us in labour costs. That, and their countries have plenty of cheaper workers because they had more children. And they got those because we wanted cheaper goods. Migrants think their going to come here and get rich. Nope. They're suffering as much, and sometimes, even worse than you. as you. They have 2 or 3 jobs. Even the Uber drivers are using 2 and 3 apps at the same time to get fares. The UK economy for workers is shrinking. Not for investors and the asset wealthy. Migrants aren't to blame. And if and when you get rid of them, watch how worse things will get. Technology is coming for your job, and employers very rarely train people anymore. Only certain sectors still offer apprenticeships, and you can't live on that money independently, because legally they can pay apprentices below minimum wage. Even today, a training firm is offering apprenticeships for classroom assistants, who normally get paid minimum wage any way. And the pressures are so bad in schools not only are they having difficulty attracting and retaining classroom assistants they're having the same trouble with teachers in the state sector. They're leaving to work at Aldi. So, honestly, it's a lie that migrants are coming here for your jobs. The only sectors expected to grow in the UK is computing and social care. The first is academic, and the second is providing personal care to elderly people. Not working class jobs. And not white collar jobs either. So, it's bad for miggrants. It's bad for you in the same way. For the Sam e reason. So by all means blame migrants, and when they're gone, who are you going to blame then? The poor, the sick, and the elderly? And when they're gone, who then?. Gary's 100% right.
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That's the problem with our political class. Their inability to be responsive to the economic failures of the last 5 decades, created the space for institutional distrust to grow, and politician entrepreneurs who want to take advantage of that to fill the gap. The British Establishment, and establishments in developed countries, have lost the means to force the beneficiaries to stop being parasites, and prefer to spend the money to manufacture consent for them having even more power. Why? When people realise that it's not the Scapegoats of The Week who are breaking the Social Contract and normalising increasing poverty, increasing wealth and income inequality, and removing all safety nets over time and the infrastructure needed to be a functioning member of society, who is healthy, secure and stable, their will be political and economic disruption. And they want to neuter that by denying that the problems, deflecting from who's benefitting from these failures, and divesting the public ability to protest against that. Sooner or later, people will figure this out, and they'll realise that all that's on offer is hard or soft technocracy. They want you to believe that There Is No Alternstive, when there are. We can do things differently if we we want to.
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Why do you mention Tony Blair? He didn't introduce Neoliberalism to the UK. Margaret Thatcher did, and because she bribed the electorate by liquidating publicly owned assets, they went along with that, and slowly but surely, neoliberal economics began to fail. And the Conservatives held into power for so long, it was entrenched, and the Overton Window swung hard right. So even labour had to become socialist lite, it still dance to the Neoliberal Tune, as did every prime minister after Thatcher. And when you study the period, you realise how damaging Thatcherism was as the British form of Neoliberalism. And Starmer, has to play the hand he has been dealt. We talk of 14 years, but Labour only served 2 terms in power since Thatcherism took hold. Blair was a child of Thatcher, and Starr likewise has no magic wand to wave and neutralise the opposition to admitting the status quo is toxic. Brexit was a coup. A very British coup by the money men in the City resentful that the EU would dare endanger the over 50% of the global tax haven business the UK controls. The Offshore Capital Market was run by the City until the Americans caught on that British politicians were manipulating LIBOR. That made borrowing more expensive for currencies other than Stirling. And the Americans weren't happy. Brexit was the UK financial sector's desperate attempt to retain control of that gravy train. And they failed. The City is due to shrink, and the Offshore Capital Market, which is the engine of financial globalisation no longer works. It was wrecked by greed, and slowly the US is reasserting it's control over offshore USD-denominated capital transactions. London lost out big time. And it was to float all boats, right? Wealth inequality is creating economic apartheid, whilst selling off everything but the kitchen sink. And it's because of an economic system we embraced willingly, which has failed us and is failing everywhere.
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Warren Buffet reads the newspapers as analysis for assessing investments, and Wall Street Traders read newspapers as another source of analysis. And that's assessing activity with open economies. So why not with China? There's nothing wrong with reading newspapers if you choose the right newspapers and magazines, especially when traditional sources are either scarce or manipulated. (That's why certain regimes keep journalists away from their conflicts, because they want to control the narrative.) And I finance credibility is important. The Latin root of the word Credit, is Latin for Trust or belief, and if the financial data coming out is rigged or absent, you act like a rodent and find information where you can. Even more so, when your audience aren't experts on the subject, and need accessible onboarding to understand why a particular foreign economy is worth paying attention to. Especially, where the goal is to make money when times are good or bad. Of course, the humble newspaper is only a starting point, but you have to start somewhere, right?
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Sorry, but that's simply not true. John Major thought that joining the ERM at that high exchange rate was the right thing to do. It wasn't, it was too high. And British traders made millions on the back of that. Why don't you hate them? Why don't you hate John Major or Norman Lamont? Why don't you hate Winston Churchill who did the same thing in the 1920s with the Gold Standard? That created nearly a decade of economic suffering and turmoil, which didn't stop until Britain crashed out of the Gold Standard in 1931. And the collective memory of that period probably contributed to his defeat in the 1945 election, despite his war service.
If you have the time and inclination, read "England's Cross of Gold" by James Ashley Morrison published in 2020 about Churchill's error. . There's an interview with Morrison here on YouTube with Mark Blyth, where they talk about the book, and the parallels with Black Wednesday and Brexit.
How people think about the economy, shapes their decisions. Rich or poor, our decisions reflect our priorities. Priorities define problems and the solutions we choose to pursue.
In this context, John Major's priorities determined his choice of solution, and it wasn't realistic or sustainable. Thatcher was skeptical, but as she had destroyed her political capital, she agreed to it. And that didn't save her, even though she was right to be skeptical. John Major and Norman Lamont were fearful if they didn't join the ERM, the UK economy would enter death spiral, as the ERM was attracting foreign inward investment to the member countries. So it was do or die, but both Major's and Lamont's thinking, they thought Sterling's exchange rate should be high so as to attract some of that investment. They set it too high. They did not understand how the money markets saw the British economy.
By setting the exchange right too high, they set themselves up for failure. Buyers and sellers only want to pay the fair price, or a price below that for anything. By setting the price of Sterling in the ERM too high, they provided the opportunity for traders to short it. And every trader that could did so, all over the planet. And fear opened the door.
The problem is that Britain’s economic policy was more driven by belief than facts. Thatcherism and it's children were stages in a social and economic experiment, shaped more by ideology than proven fact. And it failed - under Thatcher, Major and all the rest in its purported ability to float all economic boats. They exacerbated economic and social inequalities, and embedded a parasitical financial sector, that has made asset owners very rich, and allowed them over decades to gradually acquire the assets of the middle classes, at the expense of the real economy that could provide security and a decent standard of living. You're a winner right now, but those who will follow you, will be worse off than you. Our priorities has created problems so entrenched, that our state is captured by corporations and businesses, and poverty with deprivation, and cruelty, runs rampant. That's why Divide and Rule as Culture wars define our politics. In all that, Soros is a distraction away from the reality that our own leaders have royally screwed us over to cement their position.
Soros did what every trader does. And we are being bought and sold too. Hate is pointless. Thinking differently is required. We need to look to our own priorities and understand the price we are paying to pursue them, and consider if that is what we really want to do. Why? Because the game plan is to disenfranchise over time anyone who isn't asset wealthy. And that means your descendants will be poorer and own nothing if we keep on doing the same things and expecting different results. If we do, we'll discussing in the future how the economy is this and that, and how we're all worse off. That's the price of not thinking differently.
Go to Garyseconomics channel here on YouTube, and run through his videos. They will explain much more than this.
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Starmer's weakness is that he doesn't appreciate that sloganeering is not effective policy making. The ignorant will be misled, and the informed will be sceptical. If he really wants to impress develop a measured and grounded overarching narrative that identifies accurately the changes needed, and explains why. If he carries on in his current vein, he'll end up alienating everyone, as everyone is tired of empty soundbites. Everyone wants stability and measured policy making. I hope he oblige us, or he'll be building up the sense that he hasn't a firm enough grip on the realities to realise that he counfuusing the map with the territory. I mean, Aswath Damodaran, a professor of Finance at NYU Stern, noted in his blog and YT channel about the current events in anti-trust policy in the US, that law schools globally are pretty useless in teaching their students about business. So when they become regulators, they don't always understand what businesses do that can or should be regulated. And Starmer is a criminal lawyer, so regulation is naturally out of his wheelhouse. I suspect his advisers are inexperienced too. Or he wouldn't be doing what he's doing. All politicians in government learn on the job, but they need to have the right people around them who will not lead them astray. I'm not convinced his team of advisers are match-ready.
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1) £30 billion spent to save the UK pension industry from the margin call doom loop she created.
2) The cost of servicing the UK National Debt went up as the yields on gilts went to the moon as the market started dumping both Gilts and Stirling immediately after the mini budhet. (The Moron Premium as it was named in the Financial Times).
3) The costs to the Mortgage industry in lost turnover due to interest rates spiking up to save Stirling and Gilts. More than over 100 different mortgages had to be withdrawn from the market leaving buyers without mortgages they had agreed.
4) The cost of serving existing UK mortgages went up often by 50%, leaving mortgagees freaking out, as the UK market only fixes rates for at most 5 years. So a vast amount of home owners were facing defaulting on mortgages which they could not walk away from, through no fault of their own.
It is said that for any Revolution to get off the ground, the Middle class must be angry. And boy, were they angry, and with good reason. Truss lost the confidence of the markets before the mini Budget, when she sacked a well-respected Treasury advisor. The Mini Budget policies weren't shown to the City beforehand, so it's unsurprising that £43 billion of unfunded tax cuts freaked out the Stirling bond and currency markets. Truss was obviously out of her depth. The Tufton Street mob had persuaded her to do something that was unsustainable, and it's probable her treasury advisor had told her that it was foolish. She had endangered a huge segment of the financial services industry, and they were the Tories' largest donors. She was on Death Watch from that time.
If you want the full story, Google "The Moron Premium", and you should find a link to the Financial Times story.
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That simply is not the case. There is no such thing as can't. No Parliament can be bound by it's predecessor. And if a future government is given the mandate to become a full member of the EU in the future, so be it. And frankly, it's more likely than not, because WTO lite, which we have now is not working for us. And there are sound, realistic reasons why it isn't. If you think that Brexit would give us control in the sense you mean, you are sorely mistaken. Of it was all about control, ask yourself this question: why was Johnson's negotiation with the United States for a trade deal made a state secret? That is, the Public were excluded from knowing the details. Why? How can we the public have control over something we are prevented from knowing about? Because we could only find out after it was signed and a done deal where we would have had no say at all. You talk of control, but you don't understand the realities of control. Size and economic gravity, as being able to influence the economies we do deals with matters. Call it clout. And who do you think has more clout between the EU, the US, and the UK? It certainly isn't us, simply because our economy is smaller, and we are, by necessity, a net importer of goods. So who needs who more? Why were we having to send people to Washington to ask for a trade deal? Why did Boris bury the terms he was offering to the US, and what they wanted? Because the reality of control versus the rhetoric means we are not in the driving seat. The US could walk away, and did because they didn't get what they wanted. And you can bet your bottom dollar it was the NHS privatised completely, and an alternative dispute adjudication court manned by adjudicators chosen by the Americans, and in secret. How I know? Look up the terms of the trade deals the US has done with Mexico and Canada. Ask yourself why they backed out of the Asia Pacific Trade Partnership. The Americans take no prisoners. So, in that context, where is the control you're looking for? That's why Kemi Badenoch can't dig a trade deal worth it's name that isn't a cut and paste job from the deals done while we were in the EU. That's the sad irony. We literally have less control, less influence, and less credibility because of Brexit as a trade partner. It wasn't the EU's fault that we deindustrialised and were frankly inept at replacing those jobs with ones worth the name. And whole communities were left to wither on the vine. It's not the EU's fault that our governments were ideologues who believed stupid things like Austerity could grown an economy. Or that a pandemic was the perfect opportunity to raid the public purse, and let the taxpayer foot the bill. Etc, etc. Or that everything the EU did, the UK was at the table and influencing them to do it. Read Phillip Hammond's entry into the Brexit Witness Archive where he described how Teresa May talked herself into a corner, because there was no consensus about what Brexit meant or what it should look like. But she talked to the wrong people and threw away any chance of a rational Brexit by pushing ahead when she should have held a royal commission or a public inquiry to inform and identify what the best form of Brexit could be. We could have then debated it, and put that to another referendum. But she lacked imagination, and followed her ambition instead. And it blew up in her face, in Boris' face, in Truss' face, and in Sunak's face. Why? Because what they promised could not be delivered, and they did not own up to that. And if Farage ever came near to leading this country, it would blow up in his face too, because reality is a harsh mistress when you don't pay attention to her. And our establishment hasn't for quite some while. The truth is uncomfortable, but necessary. So, it will be future generations which will decide. Not us. We've blown it. All we can do is clean up the mess. That's the least we can do, but we have to deal with reality, and that nothing to do with our worth, or who we think we are. Good politics is the art of the possible, and if our current and future leaders do tell us what is really possible, we going to stay in the Slough of Despond we've dug ourselves into.
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You make it sound like it's so easy to leave. You wouldn't say that if you knew why they wanted to be in a long-term relationship in the first place. Not just because they say they love you. What about loneliness, security, boredom, fear, social status, etc. Etc? Women have feet in two worlds - liberation or tradition. They get mixed messages about their worth, and still face misogyny. So think have a man will complete them. Some want children more than anything. Some want the wedding, but have no clue what they want after that. Get to know your prospective partners really well, and you will find out very much who they really are. Don't let the limerence or sexual desire mislead you. Take the time to get to know who they really are, and what they really want. Then get to know yourself too. Then nobody can be misled by not knowing what the deal really is. If anything, if they're not the right one, at least you should be good friends. Good luck.
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It's always been that way, and in the most ironic way possible. Did you know a big idea in the postwar period was for the Commonwealth to become a trade bloc? If it had happened, then the Commonwealth would have been the biggest trade bloc on the planet, and Britain would have been even richer. Why? The African states were sitting on reserves of rare earths needed for the Electronic Revolution. Do you know what killed that idea?
Britain made a promise to the former African Colonies that once they got independence Black majority rule would be introduced. But Rhodesia majority White government supported by South Africa, didn't want that. NIMBY or what? And Harold Wilson was in a quandary, as the British Economy wasn't revving in all cylinders, as its rivals had caught up with it, and the Americans insisted on Britain relinquishing it's protectionist Imperial Markets system aka The Sterling Area. Sadly Churchill had to agree because it was necessary to get the Americans into WWII. Britain therefore had to relinquish much of its empire, which with the war debt owed to the Americans, put pressure on the economy. Global inflation was rising, and Sterling having lost global reserve currency status turned the screw even tighter.
Wilson wanted not only to keep the Africans onside, but also wanted to develop and strengthen trade links with them. But Wilson also did not not want to send British troops to quell the rebellion, because he feared they would not want to fight white Rhodesias. The Commonwealth was divided on the matter, arguably on racial lines, because the White-ruled dominions didn't want to force Rhodesia to comply. But the African States were insistent and everyone else was sympathetic to their perspective. The dominions managed to convince Wilson to break the promise. He was only prepared to apply political pressure. The Lagos conference broke up in conflict. The African States were upset with Wilson's decision, and left in a huff. Relationships between Britain and the black African ruled states went downhill fast, and the dream of a Commonwealth trade bloc died at that time.
Wilson had no choice but to pursue the alternative: joining the European Coal and Steel Community, which would become the European Economic Community (EEC). Like Macmillan before him, Wilson knew it would not be easy. DeGualle had rebuffed the entreaties of Supermac, and Wilson felt the pressure, because Britain would be in a worse state if it didn't join.
Why? At that time the Americans were anxious to secure a secure peace in Europe, to the extent of the CIA secretly funding Jean Monnet's campaign to create a political and economic union in Europe. And, TBH the Americans applied subtle pressure on Britain to join. Once, the Commonwealth idea had been stillborn, Wilson has no choice but to keep trying, even though I think he knew that doing so would weaken Britain's relationship with the Commonwealth further. After all, the GATT rules were evolving to promoting free trade, and the EEC's rules would be based on GATT, so Britain would be forced to turn aside, at a time where it's economy needed global rather than just continental trade links.
An even greater irony was that British special forces went secretly went to Rhodesia to fight the Africa nationalist forces, and Britain would not be able to join the EEC until DeGaulle left power in France. His successor, President Mitterand would agree to Britain's application. And after a decade long bloody civil war, Rhodesia'S white majority government would agree to Black majority rule.
So, even the Commonwealth cannot trump national interest and the beliefs of the leaders involved. Arguably, it is a co-dependent relationship that is maintained to serve geopolitical and economic needs, rather than some lovey-dovey relationship. Britain historically through its offshore tax haven trade, which is the largest stake in that industry, has used its influence with the Commonwealth to promote its own political and economic agendas. And it's the economic which is the most problematic. GATT (now the WTO) endured that the developed nations of the north maintained control of the global economy, and international trade, along with globalisation and financialisation driven by the Anglosphere school of thought subsequently maintained that economic control by creating rules that favoured countries that made trade agreements with the, but punished those who did not. And the global South had good reason to attempt to loosen the chokehold held by the IMF, the World Bank, and the Eurocurrency International Offshore Financial Markets around their necks. Moreover, with Climate Chabge, the affected nations must strive to find exoertise, money, and resources not to face a dire future. I think it's this latter issue that has bought Reparations back on the table. They need funding to survive what's coming down the line, and not much help is forthcoming, even though it's needed. So, at the very least they may be looking for debt relief, if not handouts. I wish them well.
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Sorry, but we're not the laziest or unproductive workers in Europe. We're the least invested in workers in Europe. From the cuts in education where we are turning out the wrong types of workers for the jobs needed, from corporations expecting never to train their employees, and Government expecting the magic private sector to take care of manpower planning in the economy, and you get the omnishambles of UK plc, where we are ever more dependent on importing talent ratther than growing it. You get the buzzwords like "lifelong learning" but no funding to provide it. And we do not pay apprentices a living wage, even though they are learning in the job. They don't even get enough to pay their bus fare to go into their apprenticeship. We have unpaid internships, which are exploitative, and there is no guarantee, any longer of security for workers. Indeed if those at the top are only doing the bare minimum, why do you thing anyone else will do more than that? When I hear people say British workers are lazy, I just say "it's monkey see, monkey do." It's time certain corporate leaders led by example, and stopped bitching about how lazy everyone else is but they are. They are many who are lazy, short-sighted, and irresponsible with the power society gives them. I know, I worked for many of them. To the extent, I wish I hadn't. The jobs I loved gave me control over how I did my job, and helped me to do it well. And I turned out results to the best of my ability. That is not the norm. We have to be honest with ourselves as a country, and admit that our problems reflect our priorities, and if we don't like dealing with those problems, we need to look hard at our priorities. Blaming and scapegoating does nothing useful. If you cannot motivate your workers, then that is your problem. Not there's. Even if what you said was true about British workers being lazy - which it isn't; British workers work longer hours than anyone else in Europe - they weren't born that way. They were made that way because their leaders are that way. Look at what Prime Ministers we are creating, and that should give you pause, because if they are the best this country has to offer as leadership, you shouldn't be surprised that others just might be either following their examples, or being apathetic.
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Not when investing in the S & P 500, over a long length of time. Behaving like a whale when you're a minnow lose you money. Index investing is not the choice for those born asset or cash wealthy, who can rustle up a lump sum easily. Those people can afford to lose money by investing lump sums into index funds. ordinary peoplne who rely on a job for a living can't afford such risks. They have a marathon to run, not a quick hike in the part for fun. So, you should check returns for ordinary people who do as you recommend. And remember, ordinary people can save a lump sum only by depositing small sums regularly. And returns for doing that are far lower outside the stock market. Just check the interest on offer for savings accounts. So, if an ordinary person followed your advice, they would be losing money, as their return until they got a lump sum would be far, far less that putting it into the stock market, and less tax efficient to boot. Right now one can buy ETFs based on the S & P 500 that have very low fees (0.04% p.a., and offer returns of over 9% p. a., that won't be taxed until you cash them out, prerably years ahead, for just over $50 each. If you buy one of those each month, you can get 9% p.a. returns straight away. If instead, you save up until in a savings or money market account for a year, until you have saved $600, your returns will be for a Savings account, and a money market account will be capped at 6.08%, and you'll be taxed on that interest even when you don't cash out. So, what would you do? Remember, you need to understand the context in which something happens to understand why it does. And if you read John C. Bogle's "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns" you'll realise why lump sum investing doesn't work for ordinary people.
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But your answer is not answering the question. And as for costs rising. I've lived long enough to see a 2p bus journey now cost £2.50. And benefits have not kept up with that rate of increase. But working people who are paid a true living wage can afford to pay that fare. And isn't that the real issue? Britain is a low paid economy relative to its peers, and that occurred over the last 5 decades of mostly Conservative "small state" policy and privatisation. Whereas real GDP has gone up like a ski slope, the Labour share of Real GDP has plateaued, and it has been left to the Welfare State to make up the difference. That is not the case with our peers. And that is on us. We have allowed a huge transfer of wealth to the mostly already asset wealthy, and have not invested in our workforce skills and health, to the extent that our productivity is far below that of our peers. The short-sighted "small statists" policies have left us with an over large financial service sector dominating the whole economy, and not providing well-paid jobs. We need to invest and return to a mixed economy, instead of one vampirised by wealth extractors. That means the asset wealthy should not be favoured more than those relying on a wage for a living, and that the welfare state should be geared to keeping people healthy enough to work to to the best of their ability, and to be able to afford their basic needs without the need for their wages to be subsidised. Yes we have the most vulnerable in society, and they should be looked after, because everyone potentially will suffer sickness or ill-health, or old age. How we treat them is the minimum level of civilisation we have. Cut that down any further in favour of the asset wealthy, and we will have more diseases of poverty and more people not working because of illness. Our problems reflect our priorities. If we don't like managing our problems, we neeto look at our priorities that put them in our lives. We better priorities than making a few people even richer.
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"This is the irony. Once the powerful ran out of foreign lands to colonise, they had to return home and colonise new frontiers there, the space beyond consent and complicity, to complete domination of the collective project of reality.
Thus, the bubble in which the powerful existed, they wished for the whole population to share. Thus a new Tower of Babble was formed through this herding.
And Reality pulled on its boots, and did some jumping jacks to warm up for the kicking it would give to the Bubble. The bruising would be freeing"
We've been here before. And perhaps, will be there again, because the immutability of how we interact with the environment creates a dichotomy between the individual and the collective, where we are constantly shifting between the two. When it becomes too much, we shut off any conflicts, and pretend the tensions don't exist. And thus save time and effort thinking them through. And yet this, carefully created bubble leaves us in the dark to the wondrous complexity in which we can grow. Like a womb, the cave pulls us in.
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Not really. That was only the case after the pandemic and the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Now it's a different story, because household spending is falling, and unemployment is moving upwards. Retail has been hit hard, and the big names are cost cutting. Moreover new orders, as we move into the busiest time of the year - Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas is declining. Also, loan defaults are still climbing. So the economy is not slowing for a lack of goods, but the absence of people who can afford to buy them. Money printing can't solve that directly, but the malinvestment and speculation that is siphoning money out of the productive, job-creating economy can be addressed by removing the incentives to malinvest and hoard money.
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Go to the top of the class. It worse because the mechanism for producing that USD is broken. The Economist Mark Blyth described the International financial system like computer hardware for moving capital around the world. How well it works depends on the quality of the code written to program it. And like any computer, GIGO applies. And human frailties like greed, ambition, and desire can influence that code. To coin a phrase: "What man proposes, his predelictions disposes." The crash of 2008 was devastating it proved that ignoring human folly - as the Neoliberal economists optimistically did - proved that self-regulation of markets was unrealistic. The leash was too loose, and a lot of people got badly bitten. And despite the efforts of central bankers everywhere, confidence in capital markets is weaker, because nobody trusts anybody anymore. In relying on the US to provide an unlimited flow of liquidity/collateral, it is creating instability. Without trust, the risk aversion makes capital more expensive, and during down profits. And in requiring financial institutions to load up their balance sheets with assets they can't make a profit on, it's putting more pressure on the whole global financial system. It no longer works as smoothly efficiently. That's costing everyone.
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Is this comment helping? Not really? It's really missing the issue that Vlad Vexker and other academics have noticed, which is that the economic and social experimentation the UK has been subjected to over the last few decades has unforeseen consequences. Britain is not alone in that. Any country subscribing to neoliberal economics and politics have gone through the same issues. And it is rooted in a struggle to cope with the failures, that have impacted the world. In developed countries like are own, we subscribed to beliefs that facilitated those experiments, but provided no safety margins. And the consequences have been a massive transfer of asset wealth away from both the masses and the state to corporations, banks and plutocrats. And they don't want to pay their fair share of the clean up costs. Indeed, they are so wealthy that they can capture governments, but funding politicians. Because they are now influenced by wealthy plutocrats, they have stopped listening to the people. That's why authors like Mark Blyth describes the rise of populism as basically being Angrynomics. The masses have been the losers, and the winners don't want to give up their games. What the problem really is that neither the populists nor the plutocrats have any real plan what to do about it. The decisions taken decades ago, cannot be fixed quickly, but neither can the populist avoid being bought by the plutocrats. Hence the lurch into outrage politics, and the influx of political entrepreneurs who wish to take advantage of the crisis to get the opportunity to sell out their followers to the plutocrats in return for getting very wealthy after they leave politics. The traditional parties are being neutered as opposition to the plutocrats, and the plutocrats are spending money to distract us from turning against them. Hence social media toxic influence. The masses honestly don't know the depth and extent of the mess they are in, and frustrated and resentful they are falling for the wrong solutions. They want the clock turned back, but you can't step into the same river twice. What to do? 1) Hold your hands up and admit to the the problems, 2) and then address the wealth gap between workers and capital; 3) decentralise political power by increased devolution. 4) modernise the practices in democracy. 5) Nationalise politics to remove private money from the process, including regulating media. 6) Ensure government at all levels is more responsive to the public. 7) Train our leaders differently.
But make no mistake, it will take as long as it did to create the problems to repair them. We need to return to mixed economies, we need to tackle corruption and we need to be honest about how we make our wealth. You see, imperial colonisation was replaced with economic colonisation after World War II. And that is not healthy. Exploitation of the poorer countries and peoples of the world can't be the foundation of our prosperity anymore. That dirty little secret has to confronted. It's not about destroying capitalism l, but making it work to fairly distribute it's gains in a sustainable and effective way. If we don't, we will suffer for fudging the realities we face.
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The Debt Ceiling was introduced in 1917 supposedly to give Congress the power to establish a limit on the growth of US sovereign debt. In practice however, the debt ceiling has never fallen. So go figure. The pessimism about US sovereign debt is questionable, because the ability to service the debt is there, even after sustained QE. However, the burden isn't evenly spread across the population, because the ALICEs - the asset limited, income-constrained employees - are getting hit now, and their children's prospects are worsening too. However, it's Congress who has turned the Debt Ceiling into an elevator, because the process is a consequence of the political will of Congress. All what will happen is that the debt will be rolled over, and as the majority of UST purchasers are US citizens, corporations, or institutions, Uncle Sam's debt is inescapably most of the savings of Americans. So, nothing will be done to change the status quo, unless there is a revolution in American Political Economy. And that's quite unlikely, because, at least for now, nobody is grabbing their pitchforks. The overwhelming privilege of being the global reserve currency is that USD or it's safest proxy - US Treasuries - are always in demand at home or abroad. That's the economic reality, and Congress keeps it that way. The only people who aren't happy, are those who think government debt is the same as personal or business debt. It's not. Having access to USD or USTs is the lubrication that keeps the global financial system running as capital and collateral. When there aren't enough to meet demand, the whole world gets uncomfortable. And the crises we've been having come about because there not enough to meet demand. That's why securitisation was a game changer. But, it means there are bottlenecks building up right now, because the AI bubble has been pricked by the possibly realities of Trump's trade and tariff war. If Trump gets his way, let's say the horses will be spooked, because his plans are naturally inflationary, which is perceived by the financial markets as an issue, because despite all the money thrown at the banks, they're trying to complete a tightrope walk. It's just crazy, but it also means, whatever happens in the future, right now USD is still the king of the hill.
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Lol and Hayek wasn't an Economist? Please stop treating serious stuff like a football game. To say Hayek is right about everything is as false to believe that any body is 100% right about everything. What is really sad is that you haven't even read George DiMartino's paper, or you would have realised that mainstream economics as practiced is the dismal science, because it's really more like a religion, and that includes Hayek. Economics as a discipline isn't practised as a social science. It's practised as a social science trying to convince everyone else it's a "hard" science that can produce empirically tested and proven facts without experimentation. That's bunkum. Economics is about human behaviour around resource allocation. But mainstream economics ignores that. It tries to pretend that every one is objective,rational and that they don't suffer from greed or bias. Hayek sadly falls into that groupthink. And his thought was more ideological than empirical. Real Science is supposed to describe or predict reality, not prescribe it. And don't get me wrong. Mainstream economists of whatever school tend to suffer the same problem, because the discipline's founding thinkers were ideologues too, who were concerned with "shoulds" and "oughts" instead of "what is." And we are all ill-served by that, because it ignores human nature. It's why no economic school of thought has yet predicted major economic catastrophes like 1929 and 2008. That fact alone should make you a bit more sceptical about how economics is practiced. I'm not saying to ignore your values, but what I am saying is, that your values are not necessarily reflecting the reality of how economies are run in the real world. Indeed, the idea that markets can be self-regulating is proven to be dubious by the fact alone that we can't get rid of greed and folly as human traits. How seriously can you take any body of thought that ignores greed and folly? Isn't that kind of naive? And Neoliberal economics has failed because of those tendencies, because of naive ideological beliefs. So however much you like a set of beliefs, don't cling in to them too tightly until they have solidly proven their utility in the real world. Because Madame Reality is a real bitch who takes no prisoners when she's ignored. Just ask the UK about Brexit. The people who promoted that were Hayek ideologues too. And the free financial markets flipped them the bird, and the UK economy is still punch drunk from the beating Reality is still giving it. The same will happen to any untested theory. And economics is full of them. So, the heretics in economics need to be listened to, and thought deeply about because they're pointing out the Emperor is a bit naked. But the same can happen when they become the new Emperor.
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You need to read the review of the book "Money" by David McWilliams (2024) in the Financial Times. It explains why Monetary History ≠ the Economic History of Humanity. Quote:
"Money sits at the very core of human social and economic life. That is a boon to its historians, because it makes it of near-universal interest — but it also brings significant challenges. One is that money is so fundamental a part of our conceptual furniture that it is hard to get an objective view: misleading metaphors, conventional misunderstandings and the surreptitious special pleading of vested interests abound. Another is that any history of money must effectively also be a general economic history of humanity. In the wrong hands, the history of money can thus easily degenerate into a conceptually confused and unmanageably expansive mess.
McWilliams dodges these elephant traps. He establishes the Archimedean point of an accurate conceptual framework up front. Money, he explains in his introduction, is nothing more or less than a “wondrous technology” that “resides in our heads, representing value”, and which “humans invented to help us negotiate an increasingly complex and interrelated world.” He thus wastes no time on old canards such as the habit of confusing the tokens that have historically been used to represent money with money itself or the myth that money is a medium of exchange that emerges from barter. Instead, he identifies money clearly as a specific, but constantly evolving, collection of ideas and institutions — from numeracy and accounting through to coinage and the eurodollar market."
Money as a technology with supporting institutions, existed before Capitalism. Therefore, it doesn't belong in a history of Capitalism. It deserves a treatment all by itself especially as Finance and Banking, the Golden Calves of our age, are poorly understood by the public and that leads them to be especially vulnerable to the crises in this area. It will also better inform the understanding of evolutions like Cryptocurrency, and the opportunities and threats they represents. Keep on pursuing the knowledge though. More people need to understand money as a technology, a tool that can kill or cure.
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All it seem we are creating are hot house flowers rather than leaders with real intellectual rigour. All ornament, but of little practical use. Once they are removed from the climate-controlled greenhouse and put into the real world, their attractions quickly wilt in the harsh climate of reality.
Honestly, you, Gary Stevenson of Gary's Economics, or Political Economist Mark Blyth are the calibre of politician this country really needs. Not only do both of you have a grasp of The Dismal Science enough to display of understanding it's real world limitations, but you have displayed practical application of its ideas enough to formulate reasonable and reasoned positions that at least are addressing Economics and Finance's biggest failing in the real world: the distribution of resources. It's a lacuna in both disciplines that reflects a real world disconnect between their theory and application. Or more simply, the real world consequences of failure to meet the needs of everyone in the economy. In that, much of the economics and finance as taught is limited to a carefully curated view of reality that is detached from it. We are turning out economists that could get a job in the city but who fail to grasp how the economy is basically failing, and still get a decent job. In other words, stuffed shirts. The last thing we need are more paper tigers - efficient exam taking machines and ladder climbers who don't really care about the ideas they dutifilly exposed themselves to get a qualification. We need people who actually think beyond their own career. Or things are only going to get more lavatorial.
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Not really. If she was going down that route she should have dug up the bones of Winston Churchill who made the same mistake with the Gold Standard in the 1920s. Britain did not recover from that mistake until 1931. And was still wobbly when World War II came around. Read "England's Cross of Gold" by James Ashley Morrison, published in 2020. There's an interview by Professor Mark Blyth with Morrison discussing the book. It's quite an enlightening read if you are interested in British Economic History, because it discusses the drivers behind economic thinking and policy. He conclusion includes a discussion of Brexit, and how Britain seems to have periodic crises of confidence because of its prevailing ideology and identity that is highly self-referential and tending looking to the past, and projecting that into the future. In short, their thinking is more shaped by "shoulds", than what is. So subjectivity trumps objectivity, even in economics, leading to bad decision making. But that's just being human - we all have that tendency. No-one is immune from folly. Just look at the world we live in right now. But we must remember our weaknesses as well as our strengths, and have enough humility to check our assumptions, before making decisions. Something that our leaders need to accept.
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Paul, you cut the story short. Where do you think this attitude came from? The unwillingness of American elites to pay the costs of what made them wealthy at home. It just an extension of that same attitude, which is hollering out the US economy. Where does it make sense that the infrastructure in the richest country in the world is breaking down, with poor transport networks, and everyone in need of repair? Polluted drinking water, inadequate energy provision? And then that neglect is further shown by the quality of life of its citizens, which is lower than in many countries that are less wealthy than it.
I think American elites unwillingness to pay the costs of what made them wealthy has created the political crisis that is, by many experts, only at its first flood. By granting it's own people economic apartheid, after the greatest wealth transfer in world history, American elites are reneging on their responsibilities to their own people. They don't want to pay to prevent the damage of climate change, they don't want to transition away from what will make things worse in the future. They cannot accept they have enough to prevent the disaster. They want to exploit it to make more money instead...
TBH, if the Ukraine War stopped completely, it would not change what is really going on in our world. The elites of the world are entitled and irresponsible, and are more afraid of being less rich, than they already are. That's it. And perhaps we should be more sceptical about billionaires and plutocrats ability to rationalise making other people suffer just to add a few more coins in their already overflowing pockets. I don't mind them being rich, but it is a problem when they forget that that privilege comes from the willingness of people to work on a culture, and to protect that society so at least all can get the basics and thrive, not just survive.
The truth is, Paul. We've been here before. The famous civilisations in the West were bought down by the same tendencies, where wealthy elites chafed against a state designed to support wealth creation, and then broke it by suborning it's politics.. Greedy people are shortsighted and don't plan for the long term. It was ever thus. They didn't want to pay taxes for the things that allowed these empires to survive, like the army, and weakened it over time. 5hey didn't want to support their allies and vassals. They just wanted tribute. They didn't want to stop getting more debt assets, so the wealth creation slowed. So when trouble came knocking at the door, there was no-one to stop it coming, or to prevent it destroying things.
We're repeating the same mistakes. With the same end results. Just saying.
As you said, history tells us how this goes down. It just uses rhyme, instead of prose. The true conservatives must speak out, because the vipers in your bosom will not relent from bleeding you dry unless you do.
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What caused the prices to increase? There's Supply-side inflation = egg supply down due to Bird Flu culls of egg-laying hens vs. Demand-side inflation, where too much money is chasing too few goods, for example, luxury goods, like Louis Vuitton luggage. Nobody goes hungry when it's Demand-side inflation, because it's inflation in Discretionary spending. But when it's Supply-side inflation, Non-discretionary spending has to fall, and people are eating porridge for dinner, instead of meat and 2 veg. And the consumption in the economy right now is being mostly done by the top 10% of the Income Distribution. That's not enough consumption to grow the economy. Why? Rich people don't spend all their income as workers and poor people do. Inflation measures the speed of price increases. But that doesn't matter if your wages and other income is keeping up with price increases. So cutting Interest Rates by the Fed doesn't change that relationship. What the Federal Funds Rate cut is doing is signalling to the Market that more lending is needed, but the Market can ignore that signal. Why? They may perceive that it's too risky to lend more at that time. So, unless your credit rating is stellar, you might not get a loan. And even if you do, it will cost more during such times. Anyone with limited or no assets will have experienced falling living standards since 2008. And now, the Wealth Transfer from those people to the Asset Wealthy is so acute, it's killing the job and growth creating parts of the economy. And the Asset Wealthy don't want to stop sucking up more money. It's crazy, but greed is crazy unless it's controlled. And the Fed can't do anything to control it. What's needed is not more 5ax cuts for the wealthy, but more tax increases on speculation, and more tax credits on productive investments in industry. Without that, the US economy is in trouble.
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@Gibbonomics You might say that, but you have to ask why did humans evolve to have empathy, before rational thought? One is not better than the other, because intelligence is context-dependent. Literally, one's experiences shape how your brain grows. And our brains developed the need to relate not only to what we now call family, but to our collective - the tribe too. Until you can explain that, your conclusion is nowhere near the far more complex truth. Nature's agenda always trumps any rationalising we might indulge in. And there's a shed load going on amongst the Russian elites. And one can understand why. But, the bubble they exist in is misleading them. And it's not all their fault.
America and Russia share one thing: they are both too big to know themselves or the world in any depth. The world is bigger than they are, and there's much, much, more to learn.
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That's what Gary described as State Capture, and like gunk in the drains blocking the flow of water, it's a perennial problem because extendive asset wealth gives you power and influence. But it doesn't have to be that way. If we don't put the effort to ensure our politicians serve the interests of every citizen, then that's on us. Our ancestors came back after World War II, and used the ballot box to draw a line in the sand. And unfortunately, we can't say "one and done". It's only taken 50 years or so to erode that legacy, of the electorate really taking back control. We didn't realise that that legacy had to be defended. A legacy that fought ignorance and despair, cannot defend itself against a system that relies on leveraging some of the worst traits in human nature. We must protect ourselves against those traits getting out of control in those we reward for exploiting them. Democracy is the only means the people have to tame it, because to govern the country requires our approval to have legitimacy. The cynical say if voting meant anything, they wouldn't let us do it. But I say, if voting meant nothing, why do the plutocrats spend so much time, effort, and money on trying to influence who and what we vote for? Why did certain people try to make it more difficult for certain citizens to vote. For once, Rees-Mogg wasn't lying when he admitted that Voter ID was gerrymandeting. That's why our voting system needs to upgraded and made more effective democratically. We have to move to a system where every vote counts. It's only one defence against those who would manipulate us, but it's an essential one for our democracy to act more effectively. We have to have systems of governing that ensure that our best interests of our communities and country are served. We have to stop being dependent on being lucky. Our democracy needs strengthening, and so do our communities. Neoliberalism isnt just an economic experiment gone badly wrong. It was a social and political one gone awry too. The ideology wanted us to believe that there was no such thing as Society, until those pushing that nonsense wanted it to replace the state's collective support that had been deliberatively withdrawn to provide bug tax cuts to cipirations and their owners, who had 8nturn suppressed wage growth fir decades. They encouraged us to believe that John Donne was wrong when he asserted that No An is an Island, written when the powerful wealthy elite wreaked havoc on their people to entrenched their power. Donne wrote that passage as a survivor of political and economic upheaval in England in the late 16th century that was dressed up as a religious and political struggle, but was the wealthy throwing the little people under the bus yet again, to secure their power. Like a gardener having to keep on weeding the garden, the citizens if this nation have to keep fighting time and time again, against those who would put themselves above the interests of the country and their people. And as austerity and the pandemic showed us, the tendency for the asset wealthy and entitled to throw poor people under the bus never goes away. So we must be able to weed them out. And we must work at it to protect the harvest of our sweat, of our hard work being stolen and hoarded while we suffer. That's the part 9f our history not exactly taught and it should be, because the work can never stop, can it? It's not the 16th century. it's not the 20th century. It's the 21st century. And the work has to continue for the next generation not to slip into poverty again.
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You assume that they are commemorating, instead of indoctrinating. You assume the past in some sense defines who we are. And that's about true as the earth is flat. Should we commemorate that belief? It's the indoctrination bit, without the critical thinking alongside, that equates to hero worship. And it's easier for a rich person to donate funds for a statue, rather that teach people to question what they are being told to accept is true. And we need much more of the latter than the former. Scepticism saves us from cynicism as the fallout out from the inevitable disillusionment that real knowledge provides. It's a kind of healthy acknowledgement that more often than not that the righteous and the victorious, are not always clearly defined, and often not one and the same. Discovering who and why they get designated as one or the other is where history really earns its keep. History should be a handmaiden of justice and truth, but it's not always the case. We like simple narratives, but truth is far more stranger, and often disturbing than fiction. I mean, in reality, there were some nasty pieces of work from our present day perspective, whom we would not celebrate now. But their statues are fitted around our spaces. Or they are lionised for some agenda today. Should that factor be ignored? No; but we need not be so precious about them either. I think characters like Oliver Cromwell's alleged entreaty to be shown in his portrait, with warts and all, is what's missing from our commemoralising, which is often co-opted into politics. That tendency itself is a logical fallacy, as it is an appeal to history as authority in the present. That shift from the descriptive to the prescriptive in the present is smoothed over by indoctrination by the powerful. Talk of pride and being a proud nation, unleavened without drawing on the continuing injustices and failings left in the wake of such narratives, is a loaded discourse, leveraged by those who want power, but not the responsibility that goes with it. Leadership in any context at its core is duty and service to a cause larger than oneself. And political leadership is even more so. Pride was seen by the Christian faith as one of the deadly sins, with good reason, because pride and confidence, or strength. are not the same. "Only the truly strong can afford to be gentle." And when the flag shagging type of self-serving brand patriotism becomes fashionable, it is when we are not confident or strong enough to resist it. Yes, celebrate our wins, but let's address our failings too. The work never ends because we in the present are stewards fir those we bring into the world and those who will follow us. And by understanding the complete legacy our ancestors left to us, warts and all, we can then win by our efforts and application meaningful victories in the present. Only those will be a firm foundation for our people in the future.
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The Danish East India Company was a Danish-Norwegian chartered company that operated in India and had two periods of existence:
1616–1650: The first Danish East India Company operated during this period.
1670–1729: The second Danish East India Company operated during this period, and was re-founded as the Asiatic Company in 1730. It Established factories
The company established its first factory in Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu in 1620, and another in Serampur, Bengal in 1676.
In the 19th century, the company sold all of its settlements to the British and returned to Denmark. The sale included Serampore in 1839, Tranquebar and most minor settlements in 1845, and all Danish rights to the Nicobar Islands in 1868.
Sold to the British
In the 19th century, the company sold all of its settlements to the British and returned to Denmark. The sale included Serampore in 1839, Tranquebar and most minor settlements in 1845, and all Danish rights to the Nicobar Islands in 1868.
See... Google it and learn something.
The Dutch VOC and the British EIC stayed in Asia after Denmark exited. The VOC went bust. The British EIC outlasted it's remaining rival, the VOC, until it too went bankrupt and was dissolved, and the British state took over its Indian operations.
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If History was a "way of forgetting things" , how come you use it to remember? History is a tool, how it is used is down to people, who come and go. Often power defines who gets to try and set their own agenda by using history in every age. And the prevailing narrative is anything but set in stone. Often it is incomplete or even biased. And there are many examples of the History being shifted to reflect values of a later age. A prime example is the historical context of Oliver Cromwell. He now has a statue near Houses of Parliament, but his prior status was to be expunged from history, and to be punished for his rebellion. His body, and those of the members of Parliament who signed the Death Warrant of Charles I, was on the return of the monarchy under his son Charles II, were dug up and their remains were publicly desecrated. But the Victorians erected a statue to Cromwell. What is the truth? Well, it's complicated, to the extent that Cromwell is no hero, but neither is Charles I. Depending on your perspective, you could see that whole period as a glorious revolution or a coup, by early English capitalists who used religion as a pretext to remove a stubbornly annoying king who was getting in the way of economic progress as they saw it. And useful history would reveal that both can be true at the same time, because history provides context which fleshes out the meaning of events and better explains the motivations of those involved. It doesn't tell us who we are in the present. That is truly our decision in the present. We can take or leave what we will. we are not bound by the past, unless we choose to be. And it should be understood that this is not a consequence free choice. And often whether the consequences of our choices are positive, are not certain. Yes, we evolved in certain ways to ensure our survival, but we must remember we did not evolve perfectly or evenly. We often make mistakes, and must debate what should be kept and what should be left behind. There should be no sacred cows, but reminders of how others dealt with similar issues, and what we can learn from their actions.
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Sorry, but that's not true. Petrodollasr are the payments in USD for oil. Oil pool producers markets other than other BRICS pay for that oil in USD. So where do OPEC+ put those USD? Straight into the Eurodollar Market, which is worth $12trn in market cap. So sorry, but you are putting the cart before the horse. BRICS+ whilst trading in gold between each other, has to use USD with everyone else. So they put that money into the Eurodollar Market, because it's returns are better than onshore banks. And it's liquidity is greater. So... Petrodollars aren't dead, they're still in the machine that is the global financial system. And, as oil production is falling in response to stagnating global trade, the BRICS countries are trying to diversify in part, but they can't move away from USD, because gold is not as liquid as USD. When Gold can be used in a McDonald's, then things might be different. But until then, USD Is still the global reserve currency that can be sent anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes. That's why you're still in a USD world, and are likely to be for a good while yet. After all, you can be sure all the BRICS+ countries are still holding dollars or US Treasuries. That's how China is paying for all the credit their throwing at their dysfunctional banking system, by selling them, probably to the Japanese. That's just how it is.
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No; he isn't being disengenuous. He is being literal. Have you you actually studied the evolution of money? Money came into existence before Finance and Economics. And for good reason. Indeed, Accounting came before Finance and Economics. Money emerged as civilisation did. Why? It is a tool first for representing our beliefs. It is a technology for representing our bekiefs. When we did not need money, it never existed, but when we needed tokens of value, it emerged. And as our civilisation as a species grew, it developed means of valuing, counting, and tokenising value. And we have Accounting, Finance, and Economics respectively. So, as a Chartered Account and an Economist, Professor Murphy can combine the two disciplines to critique the dominance of Finance over Economics. In this we should be careful not to conflate the two disciplines, and their perspectives. You see Finance has different goals to economics, and we often are encouraged to conflate the two. But they are not the same. Hence our confusion about money, and the heterogeneity of beliefs about it.
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You must be pretty bored today. You've obviously never had an original thought of your own. Or 1) you would have worked out that Gary was and still is a capitalist. 2) Capitalism is like Ice Cream - it just doesn't come in vanilla flavour. Other countries are less wealthy than the US, but the quality of life for those who work hard, save, and pay their taxes is much better than the US. They have better outcomes like longer life expectancy, less homelessness, less suicide, and less mental health issues than the US, and they're capitalist too. Perhaps it's beyond your Ken, but in many ways you are aren't doing so hot. As Scott Galloway said, America's place to make your money, but Europe is a place to live and spend it. You need to get out more, and see the world as it really is, and learn what it's really like. You'll learn that the American way isn't the only way to do capitalism. There is no perfect way to do capitalism except one - ensure people have what they need, more than what they want. If they want more they can go for it, but not at everyonelses expense. And not at the Planet's expense either. It's the only home we have.
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@subutaynoyan5372 To be honest, he says they know thing about financial economy. And he's absolutely right, because finance and economics are two different perspectives, but financiers aren't theorists like economists are. They are about practice, the practical means of how finance works, which in turn has economic, social and political effects. Economists are theorists and financiers are practitioners. That's why economists don't always know how the financial system works, because their perspective deliberately ignores certain things. But that's orthodox, classical economics. The heterodox, modern economics are the guys willing to use the 5 Whys, to dig deeper.
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@11conormcloughlin No; sloppy language reveals gaps in your understanding. The only people who deal with the monetary system are governments. You live in the financial domain where you have to manage your use of money. It is financial markets that are now dominated by speculation rather than productive investment, and that bleeds off money away from things that create jobs and make your quality of life better. But even more importantly, cash is no longer king. Asset wealth is in the driving seat, and accumulating cash, is seen as suboptimal. Why? Because the world runs on credit, not cash. And people don't understand these things. They treat stocks like horse racing. No wonder then they lose. 70% of retail customers lose money. You have to understand the rules of the game before you throw your chips in, or you will get fleeced. There are ways to make money, but there are pros and cons of each method, and "financial gravity" - how much you can invest relative to other participants - matters. So the Stock Market is the Little Casino, and the Options Market is the Big Casino, and the risks and rewards match each market. So, if you want to make money, understand the rules of the game, understand basics like risk and diversification. Unless you understand thoroughly the pros and cons of a financial asset, don't buy it. Read and educate yourself, and take it seriously. Good Luck.
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@ImperialDiecast It's an anomaly until it isn't. America itself was an anomaly. So was Haiti's independence. So your point about anomalies is half baked, because it's essentialist in nature. And comes from a perspective that your part of the world is the norm. It isn't. It's specific to you. And it would be an error to describe your world as an anomaly, wouldn't it? Because that would imply that other places aren't. And that they are the norm, and that your place is abnormal. And that would not make you happy, would it? So let's get real. Human nature because of how our brains evolved, likes recognisable patterns. So much that we like to impose patterns and structure where arguably none exists. We do that with people too. And to save processing power, we order our lives around familiar shortcuts, but that is not the way of nature. Nature relies on novelty, evolution, and adaptation. Our weakness is this tendency to fall back to ideological patterns that are truly specific, and try to generalise them. Russia's "pattern" is specific to Russia. America's "pattern" is specific to America. And China's pattern is specific to China. And so on. And, truth be told, everyone should just think for themselves how to make the best of the circumstances they find themselves in. No one shoe size fits all. No one ideology fits all. And the only thing that truly exists is the present. Pretending otherwise is folly. And we need to escape those stories that no longer serve us. So our people can live in peace and have a real chance at a good life. And the real enemies of that goal are those that cling to the stories that elevate them over others. Folly. Discard the old patterns or accept a Darwin Award. That is the choice for the whole of humanity right now, because we cannot control the climate, and the damage that is coming down the line. So we have a simple choice: hang together or hang separately. And the Big Bosses can rule over a hill of bones, and history can do nothing about that.
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Not really right now, because your loan is literally a drop in the ocean in the current global debt based economy. Gary is simplifying a massive, mostly hidden financial mechanism, which is the creation of credit by banks and non-bank financial institutions. The scale is such that it is bigger than any national economy, and it's not controlled by any government. It's controlled by the banks and non-bank financial institutions, and therefore controlled by those who own these, who in turn use their wealth to directly and indirectly influence national governments, and to buy assets everywhere. Assets are true wealth, and debt is the major asset class in every economy. Why?
Debt is the major mechanism of creating money. Approximately, over 90% of all money created is credit from loans made by banks and non-bank financial institutions. This money creation goes on in every financial centre 24 hours a day, 365 days a week. And a lot of it is done in offshore financial centres that are not regulated by governments. The bit of the financial system that is regulated by government is the tip of the iceberg. Your loan comes from that tip, but the money created to provide you with your loan originated much further down below, and is very difficult to trace where it came. Your loan is the end of a chain of loans as Financial institutions borrow and lend to each other. Big systemically important investment banks/NBFIs to commercial ones to retail ones, etc. And billions are moved around, all out of sight of the public. They also lend to governments and multinational corporations too. That where most of our money comes into existence. And most of the largest owners use offshore banks and shell corporations and blind trusts in tax havens to hide their ownership. Yes, you can track shareholdings in the visible tip of the iceberg. Those are the financial institutions that interface with the public, but not the rest. As tax havens exist to hide ownership of assets held in them. (And a major driver of Brexit was the threat posed by the EU's Anti-tax evasion Directive to Britain's major share of the global tax haven business. (Watch Britain’s Second Empire here on YouTube for a still relevant explanation.)
What Gary is proposing is to tax the visible bit of wealth. That is big enough already to make that affordable for the wealthy to pay that. It won't touch the rest, but at least living standards can be maintained for those who rely on a job for a living.
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@PatrickMcLaughlin-ji4rb Sorry, but you don't understand logic. Logic is the means to process information, and it doesn't not control the accuracy, validity, Iegitimacy of the information processed. Hence, the computer science acronym of GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Logic doesn't care whether the inputs are objective, measurable truths, or subjective, qualiative truths, like morality. Or lies and falsehoods. Therefore, behind every atrocity in human history there was logic...
So, such misapprehension create the inability to grasp with the reality that we're in a Post-truth populist era, because people don't understand logic, and how amenable it is to both good and evil. It is an amoral, mechanical process of processing assumptions. So GIGO applies.
That why Steve Bannon strategically argues for "flooding the zone" with 💩as to override logic with untruth, to deny, to distract, to neuter both "rational" logic and 'moral' logic, which are not the same. Rational logic relies on objective, empirically proven truths as inputs, but Moral logic relies on subjective, unprovable truths, that can only be qualiatively and subjectively experienced. The logic of the greedy vs the logic of the moral is a choice, a subjective one, and thus falls into the realm of belief. Not facts. Ideology. These can only be argued for, and the inputs, the premises, the assumptions, can be manipulated. But what else are rich people doing but trying to reshape our reality? Hence, we need to be more sceptical about rich people knowing what's best for people who aren't rich. We need to stop loving and admiring them. We need to see them as ordinary people and not heros or gods. Americans have that blindspot, and it keeps hurting them. We should take that beam out of our own eyes. And see them as they are.
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Governments don't have to borrow to have money. It's a choice, a virtuous one, as the people that own that debt are almost all British. So government debt is our savings. The problem is that those savings are too concentrated in the hands of people and institutions that don't spend the money they make back into the economy, by buying goods or making capital investments. They hoard their wealth instead, and just buy more assets. That's not helping the economy. And because Rachel Reeves is taking advice from the Wealth Hoarders, instead of people who understand that wealth hoarding is a problem that only can be addressed by reducing the incentive to hoard, by either taxing it, or increasing incentives to invest productively in capital projects that create jobs and things people need or want, we're in economic stagnation. That stagnation is being exacerbated by external factors too, such as the artificial hike in energy prices because of Geopolitics, deliberate policies by OPEC with price gouging, plus the long-run consequences of Covid 19 disrupting supply chains, and labour supply, altogether making the global economy flaccid. And let's not forget Brexit. So Reeves doesn't understand how to negotiate all this factors objectively. She doesn't understand how to use the power of the state to restructure the government deficit, and stop feeding the fat cats at the expense of everyone else. And may I remind you that after World War II, the UK's debt-to-GDP ratio peaked at approximately 240% in 1947. This was one of the highest levels in British history, reflecting massive wartime borrowing to fund military efforts and post-war rebuilding. We finally repaid that in the 2000s. As of December 2024, the UK's public sector net debt (PSND) was approximately 97.2% of GDP, according to the latest data from the House of Commons Library. This represents a slight increase from 96.9% at the end of December 2023. So we actually are nowhere near as worse off, as we once were. But we did not repay our WW2 debt by undertaxing and oversubsidising the wealthy, as we're doing now. That's why there's no growth.
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I think you have never been a Civil Servant. You sound like someone who goes to their supermarket to buy their favourite loaf. It's out of stock and you take it out on the shop assistants. Government is not a supermarket, but civil servants are very much like shop assistants who have to deal with people who have no idea how things work in their business. Who have to deal with people venting their frustrations and not actually willing to listen or investigate. Please become a civil servant. You will quickly realise that they are real people. All types of people trying to do two things: do their job and serve their country. Like real life they will be good ones, mediocre ones, and poor ones, and the poor ones don't last. Why? Everything they do is scrutinised and subject to public oversight. You can write to your MP, and if they're organised, will contact a public department dealing with your issue, and every time they will have to have the circumstances reviewed, and will have to draft a written response to your MP. As civil servants are humans, and Government is a human designed institution, things can go wrong. Why? because nobody's perfect. And things can go wrong. To stop that happening there has to be responsible people in place to ensure the rule of law is adhered to and that the rules are followed in the public interest. That is a thankless job, because there are always people who don't know how complicated or demanding the reality of governing is. And nobody like being told "No." But that's necessary too. Civil Servants in the top echelons even have it worse, when you can get people who do not even have a scooby about how things work, come into government and think they know it all. They don't. Even worse, they're not going to be around long enough to get a working knowledge of their brief. Someone has to be the safety net to stop things going wrong. There has to be someone who keeps the process going despite the politics. The Civil Servants are like nurses and first responders. They see the messiness caused by human folly, and still have to serve, protect, and maintain the structures that keep the show on the road. They are not responsible for policy they are responsible for execution in the real world. If policies fail, you need to ask the ministers what they could have done to prevent their policies failing. And listening to stellar examples like Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, the turnover of staff in the Home Office, and their promotion of illegal and immoral polices might have contributed to their failure. By law, Civil Servants cannot break the law. And both Patel and Braverman would have known that, but didn't care. The Civil Servants cannot publicly criticise, but if they have expertise they should be consulted, and their opinion heard. So please, please, please, if you can, become a civil servant. Or at least read magazines like Civil Service World, so you can at least be better informed how the Civil Service works, what can be done, and what cannot be done. Or actually talk to Civil Servants in your community. Then you'll know that the least of our problems are the Civil Service.
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Divide and Rule is the oldest political trick in the book. At home and abroad, it's been a tool of powerful minorities to maintain control over the people. Turning them against each other, means people dissipate their strength and their attention in fighting each other. And either blindly believe they will win, (they can't - they're not asset rich and never will be) , or fail to notice how the asset rich minority are hoovering up the asset wealth, while they and the people they're fighting have to do with less and less over time. Pastor Niemöller's poem describes the end result. Why? Because when one 'enemy' isn't enough to distract, they will find another one. That's the reason behind the Culture Wars, and the Hostile Environment around immigration. And it's all convenient lies to distract voters from the real reason why you will get poorer, have to make do with less, and your descendants will be even worse off.
Don't let them distract you. Follow the money. If you don't, eventually the Hostile Environment will be the norm for you, whilst the asset wealthy will just keep on hoarding their wealth.
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Absolutely. And selling these bonds into the financial market means that the Dealer Banks will be buying as much as they can at this discount, and will either sell or lend them out at a profit, or redeposit them in their reserve accounts at the Bank of England which ensures they meet their capital Reserve requirements quite cheaply, and get paid interest as well. It's another form of subsidy to banks that should be able to stand on their own feet. As Mark Blyth, the political Economist argues:
"First, it (the Labour government) could massively increase its fiscal space by telling the country’s central bank, the Bank of England, to stop paying interest on the commercial bank reserves that it holds to influence short-term interest rates. With the United Kingdom’s high interest rates, banks prefer to hold on to money and not invest in the real economy. As a consequence, they are expected to make around $286 billion in interest by 2033 by simply parking reserves at the central bank.”
That's nearly £218 billion a year to the banks in interest. And who benefits from that? Only the shareholders of the banks, because banks are not investing in the real economy, because that is more risky than selling debt and speculating. That's why Sunak was going after the UK pension funds to start taking more risk by investing in capital projects. So, ou pensions are going to be exposed to investments that banks aren't interested in. What could go wrong?
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Not true. The West has always traded with the Far East, and it's money would be moving with the merchants travelling from East to West and versa, and the Mediterranean was the region that allowed African commodities to reach the west. And if you looked at a globe how Spain's problems became everyone else's by the logistics of Trades in between markets and the knock on effects of the deflation of silver. Especially as some large commodity suppliers only took payment in Gold or silver like China.
Economic History seems not to inform investors, and so beliefs are thought to trump facts. If you understood NY even bigg traders like China who loved silver and gold, still had to resort to paper money, just like the goldsmiths in Europe. And until gold can travel around the world as fast as bank credits, it is no longer logical to consider it as money. Yes, you can sell it for money, but you can't use it without intermediate steps, costs time and money. And as international money it's lack of liquidity relative to other forms of money, and it's inability to allow national economies to manage inflation easily, makes it a has been as international money. We need to step away from national currencies as international money. And the technology is already there to do so, but the faith isn't. Nobody trusts anyone anymore, so there are few nations which would be prepared to deal in a currency that was open but not controlled by governments. But we haven't evolved to be the kind of world where that would happen.
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Egoism and narcissism are human traits not exclusive to one gender or the other. Indeed, despite feminism, females with this tendency still lag their male peers in accessing the opportunity to indulge themselves. However, that's irrelevant in dealing with the power-hungry. They mad, bad, and dangerous to tolerate. These aren't politicians out of any conviction to help their country. As has been demonstrated over 14 years, they actually despise anyone who isn't like them, including their fellow countrymen. That's the irony of working class Conservatives voting for people who wouldn't give them the time of day if they didn't need to. Boris Johnson during his time at the Bullingdon Club reportedly tore up a £50 mote in front of a tramp. Liz Truss and the other authors of Brittania Unchanined, wrote about how British workers were lazy good for nothings. Kemi Badenoch claimed that Nigeria was better than the UK. Need I go on? The British public needs to remember that when people show you who they really are, believe them. How these blowhards treat people they think don't matter, is how they will treat you. They don't respect you, or what you have given them in any meaningful way. As some say on the street, "they wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire."That's why they lie to you easier than silk rubbing on your skin. They are deeply cynical, and dangerous people. And we shouldn't turn to them out of fear for the future. Instead, we should face the future head on, and work together to rebuild and repair our country. We should leave no-one, or nowhere behind. We need to stop and reverse poverty and ill health, as you can't pull up your socks if you don't have any. And most importantly, we need to be more sceptical of quick and easy answers to complex problems and those that offer them, whether they are wealthy or posh. Really. We need to get over our issues with class. And we need to trust ourselves more. Instead of listening to crackpots, we need to use evidence. Real evidence to helps us decide. And stop listening to crackpots, chancers, and rabblerousers. And we need courage too, because what decision we make, there are always consequences. We want the best, and we might just get it, if we don't succumb to fear. Good Luck everybody.
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I think you misunderstand ritual. It's simply that repeating an action with intent legitimises it's importance to you. An effective ritual is not based on the external props, but on its meaning for you at the time you carry it out. So you may, every anniversary of the death of someone you care about, and go and light a candle in a Catholic church. All you might do is find an open Catholic Church, walk up to the candle stand before the Virgin Mary, drop some coins in the money box, take a candle from the stack, light it from another lit candle, and then put it in the candle holder. And stand in silence for a few moments. You might pray a short prayer and whisper "I miss you, love." And then turn around and go home. The more you repeat those actions the more you strengthen the importance of the person you commemorate. Ritual takes you out of the hustle and bustle of your daily existence and give you space to affirm what is important to you. Ritual is so potent because our cognition has evolved to pay attention to patterns. And Repetitions Legitimation And the ritual can be as banal as Going to a football game with your mates every Saturday, every season, year after year, after year. Or wearing a piece of jewellery someone special gave you. Or carrying photo in you wallet of someone you love. Your lucky socks for interviews. Whatever. It makes you present, intentional, and focused in that moment. You are truly here. That's the point. You're not on auto-pilot, but creating and reinforcing meaning for yourself. All the actions and props are to keep you in that state of mind, until you are purposefully ready to return to the fray. You don't need to make a fuss or go big. Just be intentional about it, and repeat it.
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Prevention is better than cure. I've just been taking a peek at how 1 factor will impact the UK's future - access to rare earths that are needed for our future technological trajectory. They're needed not only for defence, but for Healthcare, and other critical infrastructures. And guess what? We don't have any, and most of the resources are abroad. And yes, we can send some functionary to knock on the door and say, "Hello, would you mind selling us some of your rare earths? But there's nothing much to stop then treating you like a double glazing salesman, and slamming the door in your face. After all, we're also competing with the US and China for the sane resources. So how to we manage to get in with people who aren't short of other suitors? The International Aid budget funds our soft power, which translates, if done correctly, to building connections, making contacts, and opening doors. It moves relationships from the polite but distant, to friendly and smooths the path to further and more mutually beneficial relationships. And it can open doors to influential people. It's a pay to play world now, and that tiny budget is sure to not to cover everywhere it's going to be needed in the following decades. And it will be needed, because we're just another country on our own. We have to try harder to make an impact, or get elbowed aside. I mean, we can supposedly afford to subsidise UK banks by almost £40 billion a year, but we can't fund global outreach? Our priorities are perhaps skewed? Badly? And if you want to check that figure, check out the journal Foreign Affairs, the April 2024 edition, and an article entitled "Don't Bet On A British Revival" byMatthias Matthijs and Mark Blyth, that discusses the UK fiscal space, or "wriggle room", if you will. Very interesting reading.
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Nope. To reverse the Cantillion Effect caused by QE, one cannot let just the purchasing power of the money pumped into the economy and accumulated overwhelmingly by the asset wealthy be eroded by inflation. But that is exactly what the BOE and the Treasury, and other central banks are doing. In particular, the BOE are only reducing what is held on their balance sheet. In effect, that's an accounting exercise, leaving the £800 million of assets in the pockets of the Asset Wealthy, which they are spending on buying more assets, and crowding out the ALICEs of those markets - the (A)sset-(L)imited, the (I)ncome-(C)onstrained, and the (E)mployed. What's worse, the BoE is not allowing the Bonds they purchased from the Dealer Banks to keep them afloat during Covid to mature. They are selling them back to the dealers at a discount. So the post-Covid K-shaped income recovery is being entrenched, with the incomes of the ALICEs being depleted as their purchasing power is also being eroded, whilst the passive incomes of the Asset wealthy continue to appreciate in quantity and value. The only way to reverse this increasing spread between the two groups is tax the asset wealthy. This will reduce the money supply in real terms, and not just in nominal accounting-exercise terms. And those who got most of the stimulus will bear the cost. Not the ALICEs who got very little.
In fact, all QE has proven is that the 1) financial capitalism of today is replicating the mistakes of the past in entrenching rentierism and unproductive investment. 2) people hear what they want to hear, and don't always know what they are being told isn't true, and 3) not disincentivising rentierism is a political choice that will impoverish ordinary people, and destroy real economic growth by reducing the resilence of the economy as a whole, whilst politically and economically disenfranchising the ALICE majority. Too much rentierism creates economic instability and prohibits wealth creation amongst those who need it the most.
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Aswath Damodaran just dropped a video entitled "Fed Up With Fed Talk? Central Banks And Interest Rates: Fairy Tales And Facts", where he lays out his data analysis of the impact of the Fed on interest rates and the S & P 500. He concludes:
"There is an ancient story about a rooster named Chanticleer. Chanticleer was anointed the ruler of the farmyard that he lived in, because the other barnyard animals believed that it was his crowing every morning that caused the sun to rise, and that without him, they would be destined for a lifetime of darkness. That belief came from the undeniable fact that every morning,
Chanticleer's crows coincided with sun rise and daylight. The story now takes a dark turn, when one day, Chanticleer sleeps in and the sun rises anyway,
revealing his absence of power.
¨ The Fed (and every other central bank) in my view is like Chanticleer, with investors endowing it with powers to set interest rates and drive stock prices,
since the Fed's actions and market movements seem synchronized.
¤ As with Chanticleer, the truth is that the Fed is acting in response to changes in markets rather than driving those actions, and it is thus more follower than leader.
¤ That said, there is the very real possibility that the Fed may start to believe its own hype, and that hubristic central bankers may decide that they set rates and drive stock markets, rather than the other way around."
He has a link to download his analysis, if anyone wants to look at his evidence. Aswath Damodaran teaches Financial Valuation at NYU Stern, and is an investor himself.
I remember Jeff when you made your case that the Fed is in reality a janitor attempting to clean up after the mess created by others, and cannot proactively prevent their mistakes. This video is just restating that view, and you are not alone in your view. You've been validated by an investor who knows how to value companies and invest wisely in the Stock Market.
Keep going. Ignore the bot farms and the naysayers.
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The Eurodollar markets are the global offshore market for USD capital. In capitalisation it's about 1.5 - 2 times bigger than the US domestic economy. It's no surprise that countries outside the US are following its financial sector cues, because as the major global reserve currency, everyone uses USD to finance their banking sectors. So when securitisation evolved in the US, those securities weren't just sold to US banks. They were sold and used as collateral in the Eurodollar Markets as well. So the risk contagion was global. Hence, the damage done by greedy and credulous US financial institutions in 2008 damaged the global financial system. It's broken it, as can be seen by the stagnation in the global economy since the GFC. And that interdependency was the product of the US-driven financial globalisation initiated by the US after World War II at the Bretton Woods Conference. But, it's arguable that becoming the global financial hegemon then was storing up issues for the US in the future. Being the major global reserve currency is a two-edged sword, because now your economy gets cheaper capital, but you have to supply the global demand for your currency. It's arguable that the US postwar policies were well-meaning but short-sighted, because it became a problem for the US economy thereafter to supply those USD.
it was then the currency was geopoliticised, and caused issues. The postwar boom in the US increased the demand for imports, increasing inflation in the US, to which the response was capital controls to control the amount of USD leaving the US. This had the knock-on effect of reducing the amount of USD available in the rest of the world. That caused problems for everyone else, as they needed USD to pay for their imports, from the US and elsewhere, as well as producing their exports. It was that problem that bought about the evolution of the Eurodollar market between British and continental European banks, lending offshore deposits in their vaults to governments and each other.
Demand for USD outstripped supply, and those banks in London and Europe made a huge profit. It came to the attention of US investment banks, who got around the Capital controls by setting up subsidiaries in London and Europe. Together with the Europeans they connived with governments to keep the trade unofficial and deregulated, which made them even more money, but also made the size of the market opaque to Uncle Sam. This probably contributed to him not taking it that seriously. So, since at least the Mid 20th century, the global economy has been interdependency because of reliance on USD to fund global trade.
Financial globalisation is barely on the radar of those discontented with globalisation. But it exists in the similarities and synchronicities between national economies. E.G. Every developed economy has a housing bubble; trade in debt both consumer and commercial has ballooned, all have embraced privatisation to a degree, and all has problems with wealth inequality, aka the slow death of the middle class and social mobility, etc. Indeed, the level of financialisation within their economies correlates strongly with the degree of their adherence to Neoliberal economic tenets. (It is no surprise the worst impacts are in countries that fully committed themselves to those economic beliefs. The more sceptical, the less corrosion in the economy for the ALICEs - Asset Limited, Income Constrained Employees.) So, bad ideas spread just like viruses, and the chances of recovery depend on national economic beliefs.
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But what you dont acknowledfe is that modern monetary systems are no longer solely run by government, because instead of national financial systems, weve been encourage to allow evolving away from that to a global financial system which produced the largest amount of money - bank credit - on behalf of sovereign states, multinational corporations, and financial institutions. The financial institutions need to be paid for creating this source of the cheapest capital on the planet for investors. So, the UK falling down the rabbit hole because of Brexit explains the disparity. And those cause the problem have used their money to buttress their power. I mean, even the US got downgraded in 2022.
So, trust is the basis of money as credit, and everyibe relies on it. And you should have provided the debt to GDP percentage and data about the US to provide some sort of benchmarking. Murphy knows how sovereign debt is used, snd he can caluate the analysis better than you or I. For instance, Germany has a low interest rate, but the differential between that abd the UK's doesn't correlate with their Debt to GDP ratios. Interest rates are subjective judgments on a debtor's riskiness, not on what they owe. I mean, Trump went bankrupt 5 times, but still got banks to lend to him. It was only after he screwed over Deutsche Bank, did that flow of cash dry up... Subjectively Trump was a risk, but it wasn't until it became a consensus in the banking industry, was the decision not to borrow to him an objective one. The same applies to yield rates for sovereign debt. But what's more important than individual rates, is yields relative to one's competition. And wirh Trump taking the presidency, alk bets are off. Why? His economic plan to reindustrialise the US won't boost the US' credit rating, because it's the consumer - who's already punch drunk - who will bear the costs in very direct ways. Americans will be living in very interesting times for the next 4 years,as will we as we all share the same broken global financial system.
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I found a very good a analysis by Paul Warburg on YT, and Trump is on the ropes. He's desperate for some victory of some kind to throw at the feet of his base, and he's actually out of his depth. He's lost leverage over Zelensky and Putin, and has got nothing. Zelensky if he can start breaking the Russian lines, and begin to reclaim territory in the East, then Zelensky can start negotiations to swap time limited licences for extraction and processing of CREs and CRM in Ukraine for security guarantees from Europe, Japan, and the US on his terms. Such resource diplomacy agreements are already in place for states like Saudi Arabia. And then Trump can get in the queue like anyone else. That's what the lazy kind of thinker Trump is, because he did not consider that at all. As subtle as a brick, and just as dense. His intelligence is another crevasse. Narrow across but deep, and usually more of an obstacle to be avoided, or bridged carefully. If Zelenskyy holds out, Putin is out of the fridge and lying in state due to a short illness soon after.
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Starmer is coming across as a a bit of a Hot House Flower. Bought into the cold, ruthlessly sharp climate of front line politics, his foliage is being shrivelled. And his defensiveness is becoming the story rather than his political vision.
You Richard are a good communicator. You're used to transmitting complex ideas without oversimplyfying them. Whether one agrees with your conclusions or not, we understand much of what you say and why your saying it. The gift of being a good teacher I suppose. And you're not alone. There's Professor Mark Blyth of Brown University in the US, who is brilliant at putting ideas about political economy in developed countries. I discovered yesterday that he used to be a stand-up comedian, which explains somewhat his style. Both of you could be great politicians because of that. Lawyers are supposed to be good speakers and the best trial and appeal lawyers are excellent and engaging, but not every lawyer is good at being a trial lawyer. They're good at being administrators and managers of small teams, but they don't get enough practice at communicating to a wide audience. I fear Starmer falls into this group. He's not "mastered his brief" enough, and it shows. He's not incompetent, but he is inexperienced in getting a crowd of people engaged. He's too self-conscious, and he's not used to being challenged or heckled. I think Starmer never had to do that kind of communicating, where being challenged is to be expected, and you understand audiences. It normally takes a good while of having to deliver that kind of engagement regularly to become skilled at it. In Labour's early days, going out to working men's clubs, union meetings, and regular campaigning honed those skills 'on the stump." We don't have those opportunities so much today, and our politics is suffering because of it.
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Unfortunately, justice takes a long time, because the LIBOR Scandal was found not to be a scandal, and those prosecuted have been found innocent on appeal. What goes on in the global financial system is, since global financialization, reflects geopolitical shenanigans as much as financial support for globalisation. In other words, there's a lot that goes on that isn't made public, and reflects the politics of a globalised world that is opaque but powerful. The LIBOR Rate Setting arrangement was just one part of an offshore, unregulated banking system which first emerged in the middle of the 20th century to get around US capital controls, which created a demand for USD. To meet that demand private banks lent out USD reserves to governments, multinationals and other private banks. It was so profitable that it became a private association of banks lending and trading foreign currencies in an unregulated market, that even now mostly trades in USD, but overtime moved to trading and lending other in demand currencies and sovereign debt. And even though other countries complained, London was the major centre for this unregulated trade. And successive uk governments absolved any responsibility for it. Indeed, American top rank investment banks discovered the market, and joined. And even Uncle Sam used it to placate OPEC and provide petrodollars. As an offshore market it's activities began to impact the global financial system, and it may have been in part responsible for the inflation of the 1970's by its irresponsible lending. London's LIBOR rate was the interest rate charged for financing in this unregulated market. And became a benchmark for interest rates in contracts. All whilst being unregulated. And it's activities financed the folly and greed of the 2008 GFC. And the history of the Market is based on deceit and secrecy. Ask anyone what the Eurocurrency Market is, most would not know it even existed. But that's what London's role in the postwar financial system was - secretive, hidden, and deceitful. So, in that light, the rise of Londingrad was inevitable once we decided to worship the Golden Calf of the Financial Sector under Thatcher. Humanity is just hairless apes on two legs after all, so folly is inherent in the human condition, and by extention the other vices too. Fear and Greed is amongst us as much as Love and Charity. It's just that Prudence keeps getting kicked around as someone else's problem or an inconvenience, until her big brother Reality puts his boots on and gives everyone bruises.
A final thought - the biggest donors to the Conservatives was the Financial Services sector. The Corporation of the City of London is the only private institution to have a seat in the House of Commons without having to be an MP. It's behind the Speaker's Chair. The Lord Mayor of the City of London has his calendar managed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and not even King Charles or his agents can enter the Square Mile without permission of the Lord Mayor of the Corporation of the City of London. The Financial Sector is a power to itself. Been so for centuries here, but now it's a problem everywhere, because it's become too big, too powerful. It wants to run everything. But it can't even run itself.
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Ethics is an academic discipline. Goodness, the general public until very recently in human history people were considered to be educated if all they could do was read, write, and count. Any further than that was for those with money and or status. That's the irony. We have as a species curiosity and imagination, but yet we have not evolved to develop an ethical perspective on life. Yes, we have culture, yet as usual it is neither comprehensive nor inherent in our dealings with anyone. We have to learn about the SWOT of Ethics - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of ethical thinking. Then actually desire to live ethically. That doesn't necessarily come naturally to the human condition, beyond some sense of "fairness", which we share with monkeys btw. So, ethics evolved out of that condition in humans, and we have institutionalised it. But amongst competiting priorities ethics has to compete. You should watch Sir John Guilguid's performance of The Grand Inquisitor by Dostoyevsky here on YT. And contemplate it's perspective.
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How does Elon square importing foreign labour without training American citizens to do the work he wants migrants to do?
By now, you should be feeling a little unsettled, as you should be. Embrace that feeling and go where it leads you. It will remove the scales from your eyes about the nature of Musk, Trump, and all the post-truth authoritarian populist spivs who claim to represent "the people." They don't. They represent themselves, their kith and kin, and who is in their pack. And it isn't you, nor your loved ones, your peers, or your class. You think extortion can benefit you? Then why not elect a modern Al Capone? who is extracting his cut from you and your class right now. Your grievances are valid, but misdirected. Foreign corporations do not run your economy. They do not set the rules you live by. Nor to they tell you it's your fault that you are a failure according to their standards, when you have to go bankrupt to pay your medical bills. Did you ever watch the HBO series "Succession"? There's a line in the script of Season 1 Episode 9 where the wealthy media mogul Patriarch of the family says:
"I don’t like being outside the US for too long... There's a mercilessness I miss... Fucking without a rubber. Everywhere else feels soft... All of it. Slaves, cotton and sugar. This country was nothing but an off-shore factory for turning evil into hard currency ."
The last sentence was broadcast as:
"This country was nothing but an offshore factory for turning suffering into gold."
Suffering was almost always part of the deal until 1945, when America got "soft" as the means to prevent communism or socialism taking over. The GI Bill stopped the repeat of what happened after the end of World War I. Unions were allowed, and wages were allowed to rise so that Consumerism could be embedded, and American exports could flow outwards to the territories of the old world that was being rebuilt. American multinationals could walk in through the doors American politicians had kicked down as the price for fighting a 2nd world war. And American workers enjoyed the benefits that came. But, it was built on shifting sands. The American economic empire was a victim of its own success. It couldn't last when fighting communism was so damn expensive, even though American banks were in cahoots with British and European banks to get around US capital controls. Fear. Everyone needed USD and US Treasuries, but there were never enough. American bankers created securitisation of debt in an attempt to fill the gap, but as a consequence, put in place the foundations of the house of cards what would come crashing down in 2008. You know the rest. The postwar consensus was too expensive for elites to maintain, and a demographic and technological shift ensured it's demise. The American Dream, could not withstand reality. And all through that American elites did not care about you and yours. They did what they did for you to prevent you picking up the pitchforks. And so, using the insights of politics, economics, and psychology, they sought another method - the Enemy Within. Old wine in new bottles BTW. Every empire has used it in its old disguise as Divide and Rule, and America was no different. Blacks and immigrants, were always convenient scapegoats with thing went wrong. And the politicians could harvest your resentment and make political capital out of it. But, when things continue to go bad, you need new scapegoats to deny and deflect from the reality. So trans, BLM, Antifa, Immigrants, Blacks, and finally foreign corporations. How convenient.
What doesn't change is that American workers continue to suffer. Sufferings part of the deal. Nevermind the employees' slice of the GDP pie keeps shrinking year after year, whilst fat cats get fatter year after year.
Extortion rackets never end well, and the costs outweigh the benefits. Especially as your favourite elites like Musk and Trump will inflict the costs of those tariffs on consumers like you. So your standard of living will fall, as importers pass on the added costs of tariffs on to you, the consumer.
Now, with the fires in California, there's going to be an uplift in inflation, even before Trump can apply any tariffs, which add more inflation on top. If your feeling the pinch now, just wait until Easter if Trump starts throwing out tariffs like confetti in his first 100 days. If the more grounded analysis wins out, Trump will impose very few tariffs, and those will be symbolic. If it doesn't, you had better punch some extra holes in your belt, because it will need to cinch tighter to hold your pants up. Good Luck.
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Look, this is politics, a very human activity subject to human tendencies such as perception being more influential than truth, simply because truth, like thinking, is hard work, inefficient, and not always comfortable to sit with. Al lot of human problem stem from these limitations. What we want isn't always the absolute truth, but just enough truth we can be comfortable with or is useful. That's why maturity is the realisation that a lot of what you've been told is true isn't, and you come to a place of compassionate scepticism. In other words, you pick your battle. Strategically and probalistically, truth is a collaborative project. It relies on consensus to be accepted as true. And consensus isn't easy to get, or keep. Nevermind the reality that those within the consensus are limited, including you...
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It's bad enough working for a corporation to which you are nothing but a number, a cost center on a spreadsheet. But to turn your country into a place driven by nothing more than an open labor camp, fueled by the fear and greed of the guards, is a sin worthy of the punishments in Dante's Inferno.
It's more like Animal Farm now, with economic apartheid and the posh, greedy pig spivs thinking of anyone who isn't asset wealthy as marks and mugs to be exploited, with no other value than how much they make them richer. And it was plain as day that it was a scam from the days of Thatcher onwards, because it was cemented in place by divide and rule. By economic apartheid, plain and simple.
Neoliberalism was no bottom-up revolution. It was an imposition of an essentially top-down, cynical, and nihilistic worldview, where they talked of British values, of decency, hard work, and integrity, as they broke every value in the book. They polluted the notion of values to the extent that we struggled to even put them in place. Instead, they acted as if those they had failed, who were left behind by them, were to blame, or were already dead, so could be ignored.
Carol speaks for the real majority in this country: those with common decency. And I'm glad she was finally heard. But it's been a long time coming. It's been like a living nightmare, where it only got worse as time went by. To put things right and keep the wolves at bay who would feast on what's left is the next hard slog on the menu. People like Carol give us strength because, armed with the truth, we can finish the fight. There's a lot of work to do, but it must be done. We must adapt to the fact that we cannot rely on good people getting to the top, nor can we ignore wrongs for too long.
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We finished paying off our world War II debt in 2004. If that's recent, I'll be elected Pope at the next Conclave.
Our relationship with the Americans is not predicated on debt, but on shared interests, and where there none, we should be cautious. The Special Relationship mularkey is just PR. The British and Americans are frenemies, because they both love money. Examples? Suez and the development of the Eurocurrency Market in London at the end of the 1950s, where private banks in London broke US capital controls to supply London with US Dollars, and UK governments pretended they knew nothing about it, and couldn't do anything about it, and if that little cabal of private bank had not let American Bilge Bracket banks in on the business, there would have been another diplomatic crisis between Washington and London. Don't be fooled. It's always been a marriage of convenience, and falling for the blabdishments of American billionaires helped to bring about Brexit, and Bojo desperate for a US-UK trade deal, and guess what? The Americans asked for terms so onerous, that Johnson has to give up on the idea of a trade deal. Nothing personal, but American governments were and are robber Barons as much as British governments were pirates. Trump is only distinguished by his lack of pretence, and British conservatives and centrists by their naivety and complacency. Zelenskyy and his people are no fools. They know the score because they have studied history, and they know why the war happened, and probably why they were helped in the first place. Everybody wants Rare Earth Minerals because the clock is ticking in climate change, and the destruction of the oil energy markets, and the Minerals in Ukraine are needed for the next revolution and that is Green Energy, because in reality there is nowhere to go if Earth's climate turns against us. And the develop of new computer chips relies on the same tech. That's why Russia invaded nothing more; nothing less. Ask the Russian speaking minorities in Ukraine, who Putin took their men of fighting age, and put them into the meat grinder. And let's not talk about Germany, because they're not to be trusted fully either to act in the best interests of Ukraine either. I pray Zelenskyy holds on, and Ukraine gets its freedom and sovereignty back. Fair exchange is no robbery, after all.
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Does anyone see breathing as work? Do you even know how many breathes you take in a minute? Hobbies and work is a false dichotomy. Both take, time, money, effort, and commitment to accomplish a goal. So its an us problem really. For example, take school teaching, or teaching as a profession.
People jump quite a few hurdles to get into that profession. Lots of exams to get their graduate qualification and mentored learning to become a qualified teacher. But notwithstanding their demonstrable focus, commitment, and dedication, new school teachers are leaving the profession after qualification within 5 to 7 years. And they're the ones that even finished their training. Only 24% of those starting teacher training actually go on to qualify. 76% drop out.
We have attrition in medicine and nursing too. At one time, according to the College of Nursing, the NHS had over 100,000 vacancies for nurses, which is why we have to get them from outside the UK, because we don't even have enough training places, never mind the student nurses we do have being so broke they eat the patients' left overs and use foodbanks.
Criminal barristers who are self-employed, were before their pay rise earning before deductions, expenses, and student loan repayments, around £15 per hour in a job where they have to travel to any court in England and Wales by their own steam to get there at short notice to attend court on behalf of their clients, and could be there for weeks. Their training is 7 years, to earn less than minimum wage.
When I was young, these were Professions with a capital P, but now, they're grist to someone's poltically entrepreneurial mill. And we are suffering accordingly. And if these professions have become difficult to stay in, what hope is there for everyone else? These professions and the institutions they work in are part of the glue that keeps our economy and the society in which it exists together and working. A democracy, yet over a few decades they are struggling to do their jobs.
To me, The Hostile Environment created in this country is not just for refugees. It's consequence of political entrepreneurs squeezing everyone else for their own gain. And as for the working people of this nation are going to be stretched to find enthusiasm in their work, if they can barely find a living wage in it.
Hobbies cost money, time, and effort, just like work. And if all you are doing is working just to meet your living costs, then hobbies become a luxury. Any work is done to meet a need, and pehaps we need to focus more on work and hobbies as means to meeting human needs, rather than just ends in themselves. I mean isnt that what an economy is actually for? Or am I missing something? Do human needs really matter in our society? Or we are just a society where we know the price of everything but hardly the value of anything?
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Not really. The Bank of International Settlements has a database which tracks Credit owed to the non-financial sector, and credit owed by governments to the financial sector. Both these swamp the sums central banks deal with. And their balance sheets are central bank reserves, which is purely electronic money. The people who have the wealth is not the central banks, but the banks, non-bank financial institutions, and corporations, and their owners. Central Banks don't control money; the money markets control money. And money comes in 3 types. The smallest in value are Central Bank Reserves, which are only about 3% of the total, then there's Currency aka Cash, which is only about 3 percent of the total, the other 95% is Bank Credit, money that is created by banks, and appears in the ledgers of each bank. This is created by the issuing of loans, and is destroyed when loans are repaid. That's the biggest and most valuable form of money in the world. The Eurodollar Market is the global unregulated wholesale money market, where once banks have run out of deposits to lend out, they go to borrow cheaper capital to make more loans. This is why Debt is the most important financial asset, and why the Global financial system runs on credit. But there's a problem. Money is about trust, and when trust is broken, financial systems stop working efficiently. That's why there are more crises, because there is a perennial shortage of trusted collateral for the loans needed to keep the global financial engine running. Nobody trusts each other anymore since 2008. and so the cost of money should be going up, if governments had let the greedy banks suck up the mess which they created. Instead, governments bailed out the banks, and the cost was placed on tax peers with the promise that their money would regain its value. But, that hasn't happened because the banks are still broken, and theirs not enough collateral to finance the real economy - the one that provides jobs. Instead the banks are funding speculation like crypto, and other asset bubbles. And the illusion of telephone number house prices disguised the issues, the forever climbing stock market, and the Ponzi scheme that is crypto is go up in price, that is assets, but the price of labour is surpressed to encourage works to subsidise their lifestyles with debt. So, central banks are just MCs, not the band who is playing the music, while your life gets harder as your purchasing power goes down. Why? The people who own all the debt and all the securities, and assets are the only ones getting rich. The Central banks are the public face of each country's cabal of plutocrats. The banks are parasites, because debt and speculation chases out productive investment. Debt is sucking the life out of the economy. And if you read some financial history, you would realise that the control of money and debt has been at the centre of a struggle between rulers vs oligarchs and plutocrats throughout the history of finance. It destroyed Greece and Rome, and unless someone, somehow bites the bullet and call a mulligan, it's not going to get better. And if you're an American, both parties know that this is a problem, but the asset owners are in charge because they can fund politicians to do their bidding. So Jay Powell is a messenger boy to the public, to keep them calm, and the Fed follows the credit market, rather than lead it any where. And the Eurodollar Market is controlled by the dealer banks. And there are people who know this, and Jeff is one of them. Michael Hudson is writing a trilogy on the history of debt, and David McWilliams has just written a popular history of money, called "Money". And there are academics now who realise we're just the modern version of the late Roman empire financially. It can be fixed, but the wealthy don't want to give up their power. So, again, perhaps through tariffs, you and everyone else who isn't isn't asset wealthy, are paying the price for that.
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Free market capitalism makes no such claim. All it claims it that the winners win,whether the world benefits from that or not. In that framework, the market can then reject any product by simply not buying it. Of course, free market capitalism is unrealistic, because it disregards human nature, which is a fundamental flaw when people make up markets. Capitalism ultimately harnesses greed and fear - two emotions that helped us to survive, but are problematic in civilisation. Ignoring that fact, has led us to this messy time of ideological cul de sacs created for the benefit of the asset wealthy to excuse their failings, and prevent having to pay for the consequences. Of course, they want to persuade us that this is ok, whilst we get poorer and our children and grand children get even poorer.
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Why do you parrot that old trope without understanding what actually was going on? And why? It comes across as brainwashing. And to boot, MMT is not about money printing. Indeed, the term is deceptive in a world where 95% of money in circulation is "printed" in your words, by commercial banks making loans, and entering digits on a computer. Nobody complains about that, because they don't know that reality. The present reality is that of all the money in circulation, 95% is bank credit, 3% is central bank reserve credits, and the rest is currency as cash. The truth is that money creation is predominantly done by banks, with the government through their central banks being their safety net for the financial acrobatics. Historically, Germany's problems under the very short-lived Weimar Republic stemmed from not money printing but prior malinvestment that failed to create a bulwark of value and the burdens of war debt. Money Printing was a response, not the cause of its economic woes.
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The problem with your point is that it's is really stretching the meaning of democracy. Let's not forget that democracy as formed in ancient Greece did not solve slavery or poverty, did it? Why because you are conflating means with ends. Democracy is the means to decide who gets what. It doesn't decide what there is to get. Civilisation based on societies is even more complicated than ancient Greek city states, where only the oligarchs had a vote. In its current form in the Anglosphere, it's only been around for about a century. And that's nothing in human history. So democracy is still in its infancy. Can it be improved? Definitely. Will it be? Who's to say? Market ideology is en vogue, but is proving to be a false hope, and our oligarchs are trying very hard to cover up their mistakes. So our politics is negotiating the capture of our states by asset wealthy oligarchs who think - why I do not know - they can run whole nations better than the population. They dream of running whole states like principalities, just because they're rich. What the real issue is that Injustice and Illiberality exist, and the values to erode these are being eroded by the same elites who want to control everything. 'Don't be a citizen; be a consumer or a subject.' 'Don't be a member of society; just look out for your kith and kin.' we are being conditioned to look away from things that might remind us all is not well. And it is we who must look to our own values, and strive to arrive at shared values that are expressed through our shared institutions. That means not being complacent, and not thinking that's someone else's job to do. We have to talking and thinking together about shared values. And one could argue our overlords don't like that sort of independent action. They're too stuck in their ways. We shouldn't follow their example. We should dare to think how to evolve our society away from its current model which is actually endangering our society. We should be able to do better, but we're being encouraged not to do so. This why we need a state free of regulatory capture, and with the right priorities that ensures a basic standard of living to everyone. That's going to take time and effort, because ideas evolve faster than human beings. So we must keep working to improve things, because we can only go through. We can't go around.
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Read the New Yorker magazine article "What has 14 years of Conservative Rule done to Britain? It's 10,000 words of truth bombs, including a section on local authority funding from Central Government, which has fallen by 45 percent since the Conservatives came into power, even though the national debt rose from 56%, to over 100%, and now is at 97% of GDP. Councils are going bankrupt in the United Kingdom, as their local populations get poorer. So, even to fund what little there is left to their functions, they have had to put in above inflation increases in council tax and business rates, even while their populations get poorer and/or leave to find better work. So reversing clean air policies won't cut it, cutting business rates, won't cut it, and all your other solutions are now untenable. And the process began that bought back the slums to Britain started 40 years ago. We have to become serious about the problem, because it might already be too late.
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If we look at an apple from chemistry and physics, as biological and ecological perspectives, eating the apple is only one brick in a Lego model of the planet Earth at life size. Your own DNA includes contributions from bacteria, and we still don't know all the interactions between plants and the environment, nevermind human epigenetics. That's why for instance, the world production of cocoa is in danger because of its industrialised monoculture production framework produces pests and diseases that are highly adapted to and effective in attacking cocoa trees, a crop that has been grown commercially for centuries. Nature experiments far more effectively than humans ever can, and keeping up with a extremely complex system of which we are part of, but can never fully control, means we are always playing catch up with Nature. And because of our limitations in the financial sphere, we are now unlikely to be able to afford such follies as vertical farms in the future. That's why Bill Gates and his ilk are buying farmland across the planet.
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We are human, in whatever context we find ourselves in. You think we haven't been here before? What do you think the 1st Industrial Revolution did? It wrecked people's livelihoods, sometimes forcing artisnal workers to surrender their independence and become machine minders in factories, earning less, and at the beck and call of their employers. And it will keep on happening because we fetishsize profit and efficiency. But unless we find meaning in our inherent humanity we cannot organise for AI to be used not only to eliminate workers, but to augment human skills. If you don't think you are worth more, then your right. If you think removing humanity from the equation is unnecessary to a degree and detrimental to progress, then you're right. But you have to do something, even if it is actually deeply and constructively thinking about the subject, because you need to survive, right? Then you need to decide how, and even more why you want to.
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I think you are less informed than you think. The EU has on its agenda reshaping the models of association with the EU. At the present the model is a string inner court of full members - rule makersand a hodge podge of differing associations as an outer court of rule takers. With Brexit, Ukraine and possibly other states interested in joining, and the issues with Greece has motivated the EU to consider creating a probationary form of associate membership. And that has been agreed and passed to the EU Commission and the EU Parliament to set that up. The exact terms and conditions have not been yet established, but that is a project in progress. You can't step into the same river twice, and so whenever and however our future relationship evolves with the EU is not guaranteed by what went before. We are not the same country or economy as we were before, and neither is the EU. So we can't turn the clock back, but we can reset our relationship to one that is functionally and practically useful for both, rather than exist in purgatory. Only time will tell whether we can repair the damage done to make us ready for it sooner or later, because right now we're not ready. Our oligarchs gambled they could defy economic gravity, and spent money convincing us up was down. So no wonder our politics is in disarray and our economy and quality of life are in decline. Forget about GDP. Brexit is literally killing people, both in fast and slow ways. Brexit was a lesson in the limits of human decision-making, and how that can be exploited through lack of awareness and monied ruthlessness and callousness. And until we redesign our systems of governance to better counter such folly we are prone to, we will keep on having lost decades where we keep on screwing things up. We need to remember that wealthy people are good at making and keeping wealth, but might not be good at everything, or even care to be good at anything else. We need more devolution in England and less power held by Westminster. We need PR, and we need to confront our prejudices. In short, we need to engage with reality a lot more, and we need to cope better with change. Or we will be left behind as a country. We need to develop flexibility, and critical thinking, and we need to handle conflict more constructively. It's time to grow up.
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You can say what you like. It doesn't mean that it's true or accurate. When you have a house fire, do you call the fire brigade? Or call the local sofa warehouse to check if they've got one you would like to replace the one on fire? The VIP Lane was the the latter. This was not ineptitude, or even a lack of common sense. This was rank neglect, because NHS approved supplier details are on the Internet. You can find them by googling it. And you can find the manufacturers there too. Now, if a nobody from nowhere can do that off the top of my head with mobile phone Internet, what do you think anyone in the Department of Health, with the NHS Supplier Database at hand could have done if ordered to do so? So why weren't they?
Your generosity, whilst admirable is misplaced. Mone and the others have lawyers to argue mitigation, once they been charged, tried, and found guilty. They can argue based on evidence, and reason. Not misplaced sentiment. People in the NHS died whilst treating patients because of the lack of appropriate PPE. Think of their relatives left behind.
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PS Gary, might be worthwhile reaching out to Richard J Murphy for a chat, as he wrote the Joy of Tax and as you want to bring Distribution to the centre of economic thinking, it might be useful to have a chat with him, as he's just finished a big report on reforming the Tax System as you can see on his blog called "Funding The Future". He's also a daily uploader of short but focussed content on politics, economics, and accounting. I call him "Bomber" Murphy, because like you, he keeps on dropping truth bombs are very well targetted. And we need to find the joy in tax, because it's a tool that we need to understand far better and fear less. and talk about how if used correctly, tax can help counter and prevent economic externalities like misallocation, and promote fairness and wealth equality. Arguing against tax is like arguing against having taps, once you understand how they work.
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The Winter Fuel Allowance was not allocated efficiently or effectively. Efficient use of tax receipts doesn't give money to those who don't need it. So any government should ascertain a civilised standard of living for pensioners and people on benefits, and those who are above that standard should not get it. The problem is that the government standard of living for pensioners is too low. And that's an inherited problem, that can't be fixed anytime soon. The Cost of Living in the UK is going up strongly, and pensioners are not all loaded, but some are. And it unfair just to discribute limited funds willy-nilly. The basic living needs for pensioners needs to be addressed in a way that is clear and understandable. Nobody understands pensions at all. That's why the winter fuel allowance was poliiticised and paid as a bribe, but a serious number of pensioners were still needing to choose between heating or eating, whilst those who didn't need it, were getting it anyway. That should not be the case. That the state pension is still to low to live on, is another inherited situation, and pension Credit is still too low. That's the real issue, and for that you can blame a long line of givernment back to Thatcher who fiddled the National Insurance Fund and broke the link with wages. Google 'The Rape of The National Insurance Fund" by the late Tony Lines, and you'll see why pensions and the NHS ended up being squeezed for cash. The report is still online, and it ties into the Waspi Women as well. And the amount lost if adjusted for inflation are eye-watering. The fact is, the problem is too big now for any quick and easy fix, and it's only going to get worse. Political opportunism is only possible where people don't know what's really happened over nearly 5 decades. And labour can't fix it, because the accumulative problems has wrecked the potential for real growth in the UK.
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@andresa6049 Not really. Stoicism is an ancient philosophy built on this these two eternal truths, and that produced the golden age in Roman civilisation. It was the over-optimists that destroyed it. Work to live, not live to work is good advice, because the modern preoccupation with material wealth has led to not only the enshuttification of the economy, but of the planet we rely on to survive, for gains that aren't sustainable. So materially, we're all going to be poorer paying for that damage, and we are enslaved by debt, corporations and devices. So... In a rigged game that you can't control, the pursuit of excellence should be directed toward what sustains you beyond the material. Neglect that, and not only will you have to pay for costly divorces, and family estrangement, simply because you're not around to maintain meaningful relationships with anything but work. And you'll attract people who just like you for your money. Good luck with that.
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So but this is just AI generated filler. This is not business history. This is financial, economic and political history in the making. All throughout economic history, which is far better known than financial history, trade has need to be financed. Transporting commodities takes time effort, and money. So this crisis is about money, not business. Specifically about how global trade is financed. And international money has become more complex as trade has expanded with the assistance of technology to span the world. And that has not been a smooth or easy path, because the desire for wealth and power creates distrust, and money is trust-based. The Eurodollar system evolved to meet a financial need, but as history shows us, banks fail because of human failings both the bankers and their customers. And states often cannot prevent that happening. Folly is part of the human condition. And until an alternative can be found to replace the Eurocurrency markets, the world is stuck with them. And it doesn't matter which national currency is involved. John Maynard Keynes proposed the Bancor, a non-sovereign international currency after World War II as a means to prevent future currency-based rivalry. It's a shame that his scheme was never taken up. If it had been, perhaps there would have been no need for Eurocurrency, because nobody would control the Bancor. And perhaps the world would have been better off.
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This is an opinion piece not a debate. Its upto you to challenge your own beliefs by looking for contrary opinions, and testing them against reality. The truth is that as only the government and institutions authorised by government can create money, there is no ownership of money beyond the government. Its very much like land, where sovereign governments have the right to structure and organise the distribution of land rights. In the UK, The Crown, in the form of the Executive in goverment has a sovereign - an overriding - right of possession and use of land, the area beneath land, and the air space above it. In the US, this right is called Eminent Domain. The same thing occurs with money. So there is no "taxpayers money" per se. Taxation removes money permanently from the system, much like a pump or lock gates control the flow of water in a watercourse. What the problem is that almost everyone is ignorant about the monetary system and the role of taxation in it. Worse tgey have been misled by political political entrepreneurs who have taught them to think negatively about taxation, and to lionise the private sector. As long as any institution - money or otherwise - is run by humans, they will occasionally make mistakes. No-one is immune to folly, but those who are not immune to folly, are not immune to the temptation to grift or self-deception either. So, ideally, we have to stop pretending that big business is somehow nore trustworthy than unions. Thats patent nonsense, because their human. Moreover, we need to make government better, and independent from both Labour and Capital. And we need to stop producing educated idiots as our politicians and oligarchs in charge of our institutions. In short, we're getting what we deserve, because we're less than sound or honest about things. Have real democracy, with devolved powers and sortition to choose who we devolved the powerr of the people too. Only until we stop settling for easy answers to hard questions, will things improve. Thats why populism has reaered its head again in mant developed countries, because their system of governance and practice of democracy is too stuck in the 19th century. And why our economics is brojen too.
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I'm m a fa.n of Japanese TV shows here on YT, and there's a show called 'Neko Samurai,' which is in English Samurai Cat. Its the story of a human grinch of a Samurai sword master, who having lost his job, leaves his family goes to the capital Edo to find work. Through various adventures he ends up secretly owning a cat, who ultimately changes his life. Today's episode involved him having to look after the local cat shop. While there he has to look after a stray kitten. The owner gives him a book on Cat Massage, which while wearing a frilly pinny, he proceeds to practice on the kitten. Jokes and cuteness ensure with the kitten and his cat Tamamojo, with japanese poetry on top. You remind me of the Cat Shop owner smart, savvy, and kind, to even the grinches of the human and cat worlds. Her catchphrase is "Cats are family!" So's your channel.
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I think you need to read "Money" by David McWilliams. Then you'll actually understand the subject, because McWilliams is not a proponent of MMT, but understands the limitations of the theory in the real world. You don't in any real sense economically or politically. Why? If what you say was even just a little bit true, it would mean you love being "socially controlled." You like spending money, and don't mind receiving it. Hell, if you were to be paid to write comments like you have, you wouldn't refuse, would you? If you're writing these comments for free, then you are simply confusing the Map with the Territory. If you want to ground your critique in reality, rather than ideology, you need to study what Theory is. And you will then understand why MMT is nothing more than a map. It is not perscriptive, but descriptive. The whole thing about thing about MMT is not that it is incorrect. It is correct. But what does that mean for those creating monetary policy. Arguing ideologically about MMT is like arguing that a weather map shouldn't show where rain might fall. Not only is that iilliogical, it's pretty irrelevant. The only thing that matters to someone who using a map is what they should do about it. If there's a drought, then rain is to be welcomed. If there's too much rain, then that's a different matter. These are real world constraints, and every theory comes up against reality. It's reality that determines the applicability of any theory. For instance, two theories were tested by a charity - the first was Milton Friedman's assertion that Inflation is solely a monetary phenomenon, and the second was a theory of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that injecting direct money transfers to individuals would have a multiplier effect on overall economic activity, in that the benefits would cascade over time. A Randomised Control Study was carried out in Kenya, and Friedman's hypothesis (theory) was disproven, and Keynes was proven within a 30-month time scale. Fine. But what does these findings mean? and what are the implications? These are the real-world constraints on theories, which can be tested for. MMT has constraints, which haven't yet been tested for. Yet, the idea has been politicised, which doesn't help anyone. The truth is that MMT is a theory to describe only a very, very limited source of money creation. Indeed, it is the only source of money creation that governments have chosen to retain direct control of, but the amount of money produced accounts for less than 10% of the money in circulation. The other 90% is ledger money, aka Bank Credit in the private sector and created by banks issuing loans. So the idea that MMT is a form of Social control is just plainly wrong. It can't be, because it's impact is minimal. By outsourcing almost all money creation to the private sector, governments have reliquished control over the money supply. Indeed, the offshore money market is huge - $12trn market cap - but no government controls it. Until 2008, it operated outside government control, until greed and ambition wrecked it, throwing the whole global financial system into a crash, and governements agreed to bail it out, because every bank on the planet were involved. They used MMT to do that, instead of letting the whole system collapse, because there was no other source of money to do it on the scale it needed to be done. If governments had done nothing, there would be no money left in the private sector. That's the reality - they socialised private losses. Was that the right thing to do? Well, that's a debate that cannot be concluded, but how they did it, and what they didn't do impacts us to this day. The financial sector is more regulated, but banks can't make as much money, and that's a problem, when the demand outstrips supply, especially for USD, the global reserve currency. And the pandemic replicated those mistakes. MMT wasn't the source of those mistakes. People's ideas and beliefs were. And MMT is just pointing the finger at those. It doesn't say when or how money should be created by governments. People do thst, and their motivations need to be questioned, and MMT allows us to identify them and how people act upon them. It's not a prescription. It's a description, and the GFC and the pandemic showed the decisions made regarding monetary policy proved the description correct, but like good theories should do, it also raised important questions about policy decisions made, and the consequences. So, that's what you should be zeroing in on. A knife is only a tool, that can kill or cure depending on how it used. The theory that describes that truth is not to blame for it being used to kill or cure. It's the persons using it. MMT raises those fundamental questions that some people - very powerful people - would prefer remain unaddressed. They can't though, because the consequences are still with us, and will cause problems for those who follow us.
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Sorry, but stereotyping economists is no analysis, or a useful critique. Economics is not a monolith. There are divisions within the discipline, with the classical, orthodox economists in the driving seat for nearly the last 5 decades. But there are heterodox economists who are sceptical of the claims of neoliberal economic theories, and their empirical work is proving that some key orthodox assumptions are wanting. Why? Few orthodox economists have a strong grip on Finance or Accounting, or Distribution within an economy. In that sense, orthodox economics doesn't provide an irrefutable description of how modern economies work. They had no idea that 2008 was even possible, but being wedded to political and corporate power, their account of the economy ignores key elements of it. And since 2008, the heterodox economists has have been pointing out the holes in the economic theory of the orthodox thinkers.
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Only by those rules, including the ECJ acting as Court of Arbitration, being integrated into UK law by Acts of the UK Parliament. On the same legal basis as WTO rules, and the Law of the Sea, things that Brexiteers accept, and rightly so because Parliament is Sovereign within the British Constitution... So what are you complaining about? The ECHR is part of the same body of law where Parliament has granted legitimacy and Jusridiction to extrasupranational bodies and Courts by Acts of Parliament. This gap in understanding that allows the less well-informed to get their knickers in a twist without realising that the ECHR, the ECJ, and every other supranatiinal court is legal under the UK Constitution. So the problem isn't their legality, but the current administration's unerring ability to misrepresent reality, and to make promises they can't keep, and arguably don't really want to either. There's nothing stopping the UK Government, especially as then spend a lot of public money to be in the UN, to start a campaign to update and reform the Refugee Convention. Why haven't they? Instead, we get this pantomime of cruelty and crassness, that just diminishes our standing on the world stage, instead of addressing the problem directly. But having sold their country's honour and security to fill their pockets, they can't fix anything.
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Then you don't know a lot of people. Perhaps try again. Say for instance the UK chemical Industry spent £1.5 bn on trying to deal with Brexit. Or the more typical SMEs who traded with Europe, and lost those exports as their customers didn't want to pay the extra cost involved after Brexit. Or the businesses that closed operations here and moved to the EU. UK banks cut a loof their expenses, e.g. HBSC shut down their Canary Wharf HQ, along with a lot of the high end accounting firms like PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC) all moved out of London to Birmingham, whilst they shut down more branches. So, you see, the cost of Brexit is tangibly real. One of my suppliers closed down their business, because they couldn't afford to deal with the red tape. And those costs have made the price of materials and tools go up significantly. Even stuff from China jumped up in price, partly because if the 13% fall in Sterling's value, but also increased friction trading with the UK. So, you don't know everything what's going on. You can't. You're in Durham, and that's not the whole of the UK. It's not even that big a city.
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Thank you for clinging to the truth. We know Farage is an opportunist, and is likely to faik. And we should worry then, because what would follow him. Like vampires, they can't harm you unless you invite them in and tolerate them in your space. So when Nigel fails politically - because he and his party embody the problems we're trying to solve - that in turn will open the door to a much smarter, and more ruthless political entrepreneur to say anything to get into power, and raid the kitty. The discontent is the fruit of what was done over nearly 5 decades of Neoliberal economics, and the pain imposed was a feature and not a bug. And that pain is being still imposed, by an alien and technocratic political and economic culture. So the frogs carefully heated of the last half century cannot do anything but try to jump out of the hot water. And anyone who's been scalded knows, that your mind isn't focussed on cause and effect rationality, but finding something, anything, to take the pain away. Brexit, the Red Wall Collapse, and the trouncing of the Tories are all attempts to find cold water. Nigel would get elected just because Starmer is unrelateable and technocratic, and people are still burning. And they would continue to burn whilst Nigel leaves the gas on. What else would he do? He was one who was happy to turn it up. He and his party are neoliberal to the core, and just want access to the kitty and the power. Farage, if elected would fail too, because neoliberal economics is a busted flush. And he would be elected because he has no other agenda than getting the keys to the kitty. So it's what would follow Starmer and Farage which could even be worse. Starmer needs to understand that his electorate is increasingly alienated, because his type of governing makes little or no sense to them anymore. Why would it, when the pain is still growing? They are angry because promises made back in 2008 have yet to be fulfilled, and seem unlikely to be any time soon. So, more of the same technocratic alienating approach is too alien to increasing numbers of voters. He needs to own his shortcomings, and address his and the ever growing political and economic dangers ahead, or see things get worse. He should not focus on saying anything to get power. He should be brave and develop a vision of the future that will stop Farage and others like him gaining traction. And then execute it forthwith. And "more of the same' isn't good enough.
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Professor, I think there's no-one alive now who dealt with such matters during the Cold War. So, the experience is missing. There are experts, but because of the current climate, we might have to go outside the usual channels to find the expertise we need. It's time to get real about to the danger to our democracy and our way of life. I think we should turn to the example of the Scandinavian countries who because of their proximity, were subject to many attempts such as these to weaken their own states. The idea that we are in the midst of a different kind of war should be discussed openly, and the public knowledge and awareness of how this Cold Cyber War should be fostered. Fighting disinformation, and protecting ourselves from cyberwarfare is something that everyone needs to know about, and pay attention to. Much like the mental distortions it's meant to create, it's wounds can run to more than a mere bruise. We are busy building our society around the internet without the knowledge to protect oursekves. To me, it is now cowardice to può a helmet if ordinance is raining down. But we're behaving like words and distrust don't kill as much as bombs. We need protect oursekves. And the government needs to lead the effort to do so.
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JP Morgan was being disengeuous, because credit is money. And he made his fortune by using bank credit. Why? Both currency and credit are commodities that have a financial value, and they can be bought, rented out, gifted, spent or sold. The vast majority of money in the modern age is credit. Get paid your wages by check or bank transfer into a bank account? That is credit. Take out a car loan or buy a house with a mortgage? That is credit. According to the Bank of International Settlement (BIS), 95% of financial transactions in the global economy are made by bank credit. Cash as currency, or specie such as gold and silver, are increasingly rarely used in the day to day business in the global financial system. Even China, allegedly buying gold as a hedge against inflation, don't send it to pay it's bills. They have to exchange it for cash or credit to use it's value.
Once technology made it easy to transfer information quickly or cheaply, the use of currency and specie began to decline in favour of bank credit. So now bank credit is the dominant form of money.
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Please name the emininent professor who said such a thing, because that statement doesn't quite match up the facts. Indeed, reading "England's Cross of Gold" which describes the economic thinking behind the UK’s Gold Standard Crisis under Winston Churchill's tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer, find that Britain was worried because of its rivals in Europe and America having caught up with it industrially and economically. Not only would Britain be forced into protectionism because of its huge WWI debt to the US, it's trade earnings were being eroded by cheaper goods. That fear drove the government and the unions to agree to a too high value of Sterling under the Gold Standard. Not only did that make British exports uncompetitive, it also created the financial crisis which would lead to the 1926 General Strike. You see America's great leap forward, fuelled by it's industrialisation, and owning most of the war debt from WWI, gave it the power to set the Gold Standard, not Britain. The Gold Standard error would drag on until 1931 when Britain crashed out of the Gold Standard. Britain was rich on paper, but the reality was that it had fallen behind so much that it's economy became destabilised. And the British working class had really tough times in the 1920's. Hence the rise of the Labour Party, and the demise of the Liberals. And 1929 didn't help either. So... I want to know which eminent professor would assert such a opinion, because he's no economic historian based on your comment.
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Even ChatGPT4 acknowledges that, but it should be noted that actual or potential superpowers tend to throw their actual or implied weight around. So, the UK needs to start thinking for itself again, (i.e. Bulk up) because if the Trumpettes have their way, it will be all stick and no carrot. Indeed, an examination of the post-WWII debate between British and American economists on the future of the global economy was the last time Britain had a chance to shape things on a global scale, and the Americans gave them the bird. J. Maynard Keynes wanted an international currency union, with an international credit the Bancor, being used for international transactions. The Americans would have none of that. The wanted everyone to be dependent upon USD, and that's what happened. Looking from that perspective to now, the present rumblings in the global financial system are unsurprising. 'With great power comes great responsibility.' But people get bored too easily.
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The idea that Ukraine is the problem is proof positive that this American administration is planning not only to force Ukraine to lose the war, but for the US to lose the peace. Why the US to lose the peace? They're proving Kruschev right, that the US will surrender themselves to Russian domination without a shot being fired.
Just because one is wealthy, it doesn't mean you are immune to folly. And Musk, Trump, and all of these out-of-touch billionaires and millionaires in the US drooling over Putin's Russia is just proving the truth of that. Bored, mindless obsession with wanting to escape the complexities of real governing, and give into performative rule, will help no-one.
Why do you think that Russia lost millions of its brightest minds as soon as this "special operation" was announced? They lost them because Putin is isolated and too narcissistic, not to indulge in a mystical fantasy of Making Putin/ Russia Great Again, whilst simultaneously wrecking its chances of being so.
Putin doesn't even want Ukraine for anything practical. It's just an egoistic flex against Trump. The more Trump asks him to stop, the more he will go on flexing his power, while bankrupting the Russian economy. This is not making Russia greater. It's destroying it and it's people. And Putin won't stop until he's bet the house and lost.
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Have you heard of a different framing of the US government debt that links its existence to Bretton Woods? Did you know that there has been a global shortage of USD for financing international trade ever since Bretton Woods? The gap between demand and supply for USD has existed since the end of World War II. The US government did not do anything to fill that gap. It was left to private investment banks in Britain and Europe to innovate, and create a capital market using USD left on deposit in Europe. And their customers were governments, multinationals, and other investment banks. At this time America was expanding it's economic reach, which would become the latest iteration of globalisation, and American banks and American multinationals turned to this offshore capital market to get around the US Government's own capital controls... They were put in place to prevent a run on Gold-backed USD leaving the US to pay for imports. As the US got over its economic slump in the Post-War period, it had gold from its allies on deposit, and instead of returning that gold, the US offered USD. Unfortunately, it still didn't fill the gap, and the Eurodollar Offshore Markets grew in size to provide financing via USD-demoninated loans. As the global economy grew, the US economy also grew. In the 50's the postwar boom, drove up consumer demand for imports. Instead of paying for those imports in USD, they were paid for using US Treasuries. They were were used as collateral for financing in the Eurodollar markets, and became a method of addressing the US trade deficit. You see, the value of the USD meant that countries which wanted to buy US goods, or commodities denomined in USD could use USTs to get hold of the USD needed. And since the USD became the global reserve currency, USTs themselves became valuable. That's why China and Japan bought lots, because they facilitated their trade policy. So USTs are a form of transferring USD to countries who then use them to buy USD. So the US government debt is just not supporting government spending. It's also supporting USD's position as the main global reserve currency. Moreover, it's reducing the costs of imports to the US economy and financing the expansion of American MNCs abroad. So, unless the US is forced relinquish the benefits of being the global reserve currency, Uncle Sam's debt isn't going to be paid off. It's too useful. So it might be tamed, but paid off? Nope.
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Boris Johnson was, as said in polite conversation, an entrepreneurial post-truth politician. In other words, he was a lying spiv, a chancer, without the humility, self-awareness, or work ethic to admit he knew bugger all about trade rules and economics. So he didn't even know that his Oven-ready Deal was serving up the livelihoods of British working and middle class voters to be stuffed like an Aldi Turkey. Boris came from the school of promise anything to get women to shed their knickers. So nobody should be surprised he used his only super power on those who knew even less than he did. He absolutely didn't give a flying fig about what the consequences would be. And signed off on that pretty useless Oven ready dose of food poisoning. He said "F**k business“ and he ensured that British SME's were thoroughly rogered. That was fine while he was taking money ftom Russian and Foreign Non-Doms to pay his child support. And you think Boris was populist, when all it was about him thinking he was good enough to be prime minister, and he wasn't. He was so populist he missed the first 5 COBRA meetings because he had to finish his contracted biography of Churchill or repay the money he was paid as an advance to write it. And it was bollocks. Then he loudly declared that he would let the bodies pile high, rather than use a lockdown to stop the spread of the virus that he allowed to run rampant. Then he signed off on Sunak's stupid Eat Out to Help Out that let it run rampant even more... He instructed Rees-Mogg to lie to the Queen, and his handling of the pandemic probably contributed to her husband's death. And while she was following lock down rules, and burying her husband alone, he had Downing Street parties. Boris was no populist. He was a wannabe. He wanted his ego pumped up. He wanted to be Prime Minister. That's all. He never really cared about anything else. He certainly didn't care about you.
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Gary, I think this was a great video. You explained the problem, really, really well. I hope Starmer and Reeves realise that they have to be more assertive about it. The exposure that the UK has to Interest Rate Risk is real, because the economy is structured in a way that makes it more unlikely for growth to occur. And Brexit has closed off much of the opportunities to grow the economy in productive ways. And squeezing even further the bottom 50% by austerity, will be vampirising all future potential for growth, which depends on consumer spending. An economy, where the state tries to borrow back the excess money created during the pandemic it gave out is a futile exercise. It's not gonna happen. This pressure is a reality check for the Labour economists, who deluding themselves. They have to tax the asset , as the bottom of the income and wealth distribution are running on fumes already. Why? Well, in modern revolutionary history, revolutions only happen when the middle classes are hit. And if an opinion piece in the FT is correct in its conclusion that the bottom of tge income-wealth distribution in the UK is getting closer to the middle, then things are going to get messy. Historically, the economic impact of pandemics don't dissipate quickly, and the push to get back to "normal" whilst understandable, is also the missed opportunity to sort out the economy. As you say, nobody's asking the right questions, about the billions of pounds created that needs to be taken out the money by government. The people who are hurt most by austerity are those who need government spending the most, but didn't end up with that excess cash. The people they spent it with did. And they're the asset wealthy.
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1. When the US spends 5% on defence... Well, it's good to lead by example isn't it?
2. I came across a suggestion from Matthias Matthijs and Mark Blyth in an article they wrote for the US journal Foreign Affairs in July 2024. They argue that the UK government could expand its fiscal space by instructing the Bank of England to stop paying interest on commercial bank reserves. Currently, high interest rates incentivize banks to hold reserves rather than invest in the real economy, allowing them to earn an estimated $286 billion (£221.37 billion) in interest by 2033. With that, Labour would not have had to abandon its green investment plans costing $35 billion annually, highlighting the disparity between government spending constraints and central bank payouts to banks. They also claim ending interest payments on reserves would reduce long-term debt projections and facilitate investment at lower rates. The European Central Bank (ECB) has already adopted a similar policy, setting its rate at zero percent in September 2023, which allegedly had mixed results partly because of its immediate implementation, and partly because it passed on the costs of Quantitative Tightening onto the banks, which reduced their margins. But, is there a SMART way to save that money? What do you think?
3. If we don't defend what we have, we will lose it. Yet, there are many ways to do so, and the rebuilding of Britain's soft power is the cheapest place to start. Nework effects are force maximiserz. Therefore, if there's a political and strategic brain inside Starmer’s stodgy head, it had better start learning in the job and fast, because we haven't go time to waste. Starmer needs to find a pair and out Brexit out of its misery pdq. A bilateral customs union and removal of trade barriers would be the first plank wilding a bridge to the continent, and improving the quality of life of British people. He also needs to strengthen alliances ans security networks to, but also if defence spending has to increase, it doesn't have to focus solely on building up armed forces. It could focus in building up defence production, because Ukraine may need alternative suppliers sooner or later than the US. Investment in Cyber defence, and AI R & D is more important that boots on the ground. Money earners would be providing technical expertise to Ukraine in technology, reconstruction, and governance so it's productive capacity can be maximised whether or not it retains only de jure but not de facto control of all its territory for the time being. Upgrading the manufacturing of consumables, materiel, and spares for Ukrainian armaments would help. Financing is piliticised as, Russian frozen assets are being held by Europe, and whether they are added to the pot is a serious matter. But the ECB and the IMF could help with financing for Ukraine to pay for resupply. Boots on the ground is a long term goal, especially as we have labour shortages in Europe. And so on...
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Lol. How can it be ruled by a majority who do not fulfil the duties of a ruler? Who do not realise that their power is blunted by self-interest divorced from communal concerns? You want the majority to rule? Then it needs to stop being completely divorced from the responsibilities of being a community, bound by meaningful concern for each other, rather than just shouting slogans. You want power, then take the responsibility that comes with it. Stop voting for parties that divides people, that creates economic apartheid, that won't a decent standard of living to everyone, who tells you to tolerate suffering of others in your midst. In other words, be the change you want to see in the world. If you want to rule, then take up your burden and be responsible for what you do, and have done. And then strive to do better. You get the government you deserve if you do not. Why? If you wish to be a sovereign citizen, you need to behave like one. Not just shouting slogans on social media. You need to do what a sovereign should do.
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