In today’s Times, George Osborne promises to be straight with us, unlike that ‘phoney’ Blair. At last, a politican that is going to be honest – someone should have thought of that earlier. Bet Labour are kicking themselves (and Vince Cable is hoping to sue). Osborne’s most important statement follows. “We will turn an economy [...]
Archive for February, 2010
26 Feb
Breaking news: GDP revised down
According to Edmund Conway. Amazing this has not been put about more, given the headlines say, um: UK economic growth revised up. It is consistent, read his blog. Oh, and now FT Alphaville are joining the QE poetry game.
26 Feb
Martin Wolf makes me envious here
A Balancing Act/Slash and Grow/Credit Where It’s Due (link to follow on Monday) are about three things: fiscal policy, where growth might come from (in demand terms), and monetary policy. Wolf ties them up beautifully in a few hundred words. Balancing Act said that fiscal deficits have to rise in a recession – well duh [...]
26 Feb
Krugman Profile excerpts
I thought this piece was beautifully written and interesting. Here are some bits I found surprising or interesting: Krugman was buoyed and protected in his youth by an intellectual snobbery so robust that distractions or snobberies of other sorts didn’t stand a chance. “When I was twenty-eight, I wouldn’t have had the time of day [...]
26 Feb
David Miles speaks
So the day I opine about QE in front of 100,000 experts in the FT – and start sending out draft copies for comment amongst a few friends – an MPC member delivers a speech on the same subject. In my nightmares, it starts with the words “Contrary to what some idiot wrote in the [...]
25 Feb
You can tell things are going downhill when ….
Jeremy Warner of the Telegraph is berating the heir-presumptive of the ECB, Axel Weber, for being anti-inflation: Yet it is plainly better to be attempting to choke off an inflationary boom than to be in a Depression wondering how to get out. In a deflationary debt spiral, monetary policy becomes almost wholly impotent. However low [...]
24 Feb
Interesting idea on CentreRight
Andrew Lilico of Policy Exchange (plus many other areas, such as the Shadow MPC), has come up with an interesting compromise for those Centre-Right thinkers who are both annoyed by the high level of public spending, and worried about the macroeconomic consequences of cutting the deficit. Why not do a temporary tax cut at the [...]
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