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26th November, 2009. I was in York Minster yesterday – before delivering a lecture at York St. John University (to be posted here later). This is a report of an inspiring visit to the glorious York Minster with Cannon Dr. Jonathan Draper. Report from the excellent ‘York Press’ ……Like the ‘world expert’ bit…… ” 25th November, 2009 Dear patient readers of this blog…please find below my latest Huff Post post. Some may wonder why I cheered when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel announced that the president plans to cut the deficit, because he “does not want to keep on adding to the debt.” It’s no
22nd November, 2009 Have just left a great event in Manchester, where about 500 students gathered to sharpen up their campaigning on climate change – under the banner of ‘People and Planet’. Ian Leggett, the organisation’s director, reminded us that Barclays Bank still has a great big hole in its demographic – all those students who, back in the 1980s, refused to bank with Barclays because of their activities in funding apartheid. Today the students have a fresh target in their sights. They have pulled together a really smart campaign aimed at a bank in which we British citizens/taxpayers now have an 84% stake – after our government invested £56 billion in bailing out the biggest corporate failure in the history of capitalism. I refer of course to the Royal Bank of Scotland. The TUC has helpfully produced a video of today’s conference with yours truly, Gillian Tett of the Financial Times, Dave Prentis, General Secretary of UNISON, and John Kay, also a columnist on the Financial Times. It was a truly stimulating session, and you can watch it here. http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk/2009/11/video-beyond-crisis-what-challenges-and-opportunities-lie-ahead-for-the-uk-economy I published this on the Huffington Post on 11th November, 2009. In William Hogarth’s famous engraving of 1721, the world of finance, corrupted by the phantom of the South Sea Bubble, is cruelly satirised. To represent market cheerleaders, a goat sits astride a spinning carousel and asks: ‘who will ride?” Lured by this charlatan, investors crowd on to the shaky, but thrilling merry-go-round. In another corner a winged devil with a scythe throws chunks of Fortune’s body to a greedy crowd. And in the right hand corner – ‘trade lies dead’.
Today — as global trade lies dead, as unemployment rises, as wages and incomes plummet, as US consumption (70% of US GDP) and investment falls — share prices zoom upwards and commodity prices rock. According to Fortune magazine, the stock market climb of these last few months is the fastest on record. By November, the S&P 500 had surged by 62 percent to 1,093.08 after sinking to a 12-year low in March. 29 October, 2009 Dan Roberts has a great column in the Guardian today. He asks the right questions. First, why is the Treasury spending £8 billion of taxpayers money reinflating the housing market? Second, why is the Treasury encouraging this now nationalised bank to increase mortgage lending, when the productive sector of the economy –
I promised to explain – to Alastair, a reader of this blog - the link made earlier between 1945 and today’s supposed government ‘debt crises’. Sorry if its a little long – but a promise is a promise. I consider the scaremongering around government debt to be nothing more than an over-egged and salted buttermilk pudding dished up by the economic quackery of the Her Majesty’s Opposition. Not unlike that ancient remedy for (verbal) diarrhoea, it is intended to induce intellectual constipation – in those that absorb it in spoonfuls at the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the Treasury and City of London. We should have nothing to do with such childish prescriptions. To illuminate and evidence my point let me offer you (below) a chart – with data provided by Her Majesty’s Treasury (Public finances databank, Table A10 http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/public_finances_databank.xls) and with thanks to my colleagues in the Green New Deal group. 26 October, 2009 As readers of this blog will know, together with luminaries such as Caroline Lucas MEP, Larry Elliott, Richard Murphy (he of the revolutionary Tax Justice Network) and Colin Hines, I am one of the co-authors of the Green New Deal – highlighted on this page. I am therefore proud of
Taking a leaf out of Simon Cowell’s book – an immodest boast: a couple of days ago the Guardian invited a range of economists/commentators to give a zero to 10 rating for ‘green shoots’ in the economy – in effect to revise our ratings produced in the Spring. I am the only contributor to argue for a zero rating – Ruth Lea of the Arbuthnot Banking Group improves her rating to 2.5 – up from 1. Bang on time, the GDP numbers appeared – and ‘unexpectedly’ (for the Danni Minogue school of economists) GDP is down again – and this is now the longest recession since records began in 1955 – which goes some way to explaining the rise of the BNP. My comment posted below: Gillian Tett has a great piece in this weekend’s FT (17/18 October, 2009). Its all about Michael Moore’s use in his latest movie, of a piece of research undertaken by Citigroup’s ‘global equity strategists” into today’s ‘plutonomies’ – economies powered by rich elites. The report (published in 2004) identified the US and the |
In the September 2003 edition of openDemocracy I wrote: 
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