Look, sometimes I need a tenuous link to tie together a few things I found interesting. So this is it. A column in the FT argues against either fiscal OR monetary support in Japan. A Japanese Austrian? Fiscal stimulus and monetary easing policies should not be used as they get in the way of real [...]
Archive for March, 2010
31 Mar
The TUC swipes away a miserabilist myth
And you know the myth I mean. You know, there is loads of ‘hidden unemployment‘ that reflects some sort of Labour fiddle, taking the gloss out of the frankly wonderful unemployment figures (certainly compared to the gleeful alarmism of the Conservative press last summer). Here is the TUC’s graph-strewn reply. Eight million economically inactive people [...]
30 Mar
Things balance out – sometimes
or is that somehow? Everyone read Chris Dillow’s post about the GDP figures. As ever, he teases out an aspect unlikely to have been covered by the meedja. This is that the Corporate Surplus has hit a record. The point I want to zero in on is this: The counterpart to the corporate sector’s massive [...]
30 Mar
What I would’ve waffled
… had I had a long CIF piece on the Chancellor’s debate. This was to be my closing paras: ———————– Who do you think expressed these sentiments: “I wish you well in your job search – I think the government can help … Inequality matters … We believe very much in the tax credit system [...]
30 Mar
Disinflation, narrow banking, stuff
Just to keep the world up to date with, you know, stuff: Economist’s View: nothing but disinflation in the US Krugman disses John Kay’s regular suggestion of Narrow Banking as the answer. Without namechecking Kay. Chris Giles finds the Chancellors’ Debate a ‘depressing consensus’. Whereas Bagehot thinks they were a good thing for democracy. Paul [...]
30 Mar
This was my 8:45pm verdict
I do write quickly http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/29/chancellors-debate-darling-cable-osborne But there might be a longer one coming out later. Off for Radio Newcastle now. UPDATE: Polly Toynbee thought similarly, and my verdict yesterday on the whole efficiency savings cuts thingie: if credibility was the real prize, Osborne was already hamstrung by his extraordinary tax give-away earlier in the [...]
29 Mar
Efficiency savings: I’ll admit it, I’m confused.
I’m going to be producing reams of words here, there and everywhere about the Chancellor’s debate, so I ought to get on top of the big issues. Help me out on this one. (PS: This post is being updated as my feeble understanding rises) The Conservatives put cutting the deficit top of their list of [...]
29 Mar
How dare they, part 3
Ultra-loyal fans will remember how infuriating I found Cameron’s assertion last autumn about poverty, and how bad for poverty reduction Brown et al have been. Now they are at it again, in their latest increasingly negative poster campaign. The one that really drives me nuts is the first – “I increased the gap between rich [...]
28 Mar
Hysterical exaggeration of the day
is from Howard Reed, explaining why he would not choose Vince to be the next Chancellor: I have immense respect for Vince Cable, and as a Lib Dem chancellor in a post-election coalition with Labour he would be an intriguing proposition. But he has the problem that his party leader is Nick Clegg, a rabid [...]
28 Mar
A fitting moment to announce Q-day
Which will mean nothing to anyone reading. But since I started writing about Quantitative Easing, I have had a Google alert feeding into my Google Reader, triggered by news containing the words “quantitative easing”. This has fed about 50 items a week into my already stuffed inBox, and as some kind of punishment I have [...]
Recent Comments