November 17th, 2011
No one likes to see their team relegated. Reading fans after defeat: courtesy www.dancake.net
I am back in London…only to be greeted by more bad economic news. Not only is unemployment rocketing, with youth unemployment hitting more than 1 million. But now the UK appears well down the Eurozone GDP League at third from bottom – just above Greece and Cyprus!
UK team coach Georgie “Best” Osborne blamed the opposition and tournament organisers for the UK’s shocking performance over the last year. “We felt our defensive austerity tactics would pay dividends against more stimulated opponents” he complained. “But then they all started to use the same negative growth tactics and that gave them an unfair advantage over us. But the other teams can and must learn a great deal from Team UK’s recent performance” he is reported as saying.
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November 1st, 2011
Dear readers. Please forgive the long absence, but I am in Africa on a trip: first, to Sierra Leone, and now in Ethiopia. The picture above was taken as our ferry drew away from Freetown port, and headed across the sea to Lunghi airport. Am here as part of a project for the reduction of maternal and newborn mortality in two countries, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia.
Of course here in Africa we are all watching the Eurozone crisis, the floods in Bangkok, the snow in Connecticut, and the upheavals at St. Paul’s
And observing these dramas from the perspective of one of the poorest countries in the world, has been salutary.
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October 15th, 2011
I have just got back from a frustrating afternoon trying to honour a commitment to the organisers of the above demo, to address the crowd on the steps of St. Pauls’ Cathedral. Got there at about 2.45 p.m to find that all avenues into the square on Ludgate Hill in front of St. Pauls were blocked by police. They stood close together in lines, and simply prevented anyone from entering that space….The picture above was taken when I was leaving…as police assembled in lines, with great gaps in between, and more lines down Ludgate Hill…
After circling St. Pauls, in search of an entry point…finally found a gap..
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October 13th, 2011
The New Statesman has included a contribution from yours truly to this week’s edition. The cover of the magazine declares: “Austerity has failed. Inside nine of the world’s top economists tell the Chancellor how to save Britain. This is Plan B.”
Exclusively for my readers, the following is the unedited version.
How to move to Plan B from where we are: an economy buried in debt by the City of London, and macerated by ‘austerity’ policies? An economy that daily generates insecurity and fear.
First we will have to acknowledge that lessons have not been learned. That austerity is, once again, the wrong remedy for the disease of ongoing financial breakdown, excessive private debt and private sector paralysis.
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October 12th, 2011
Photo by Maz Kessler
Joan Walsh of www.salon.com asked me some questions on Occupy Wall Street and wrote this article:
As the Occupy Wall Street movement spreads to dozens more cities and towns, it’s waking many Americans to the unrivaled control Wall Street exerts over American politics and the economy. It’s also shining a spotlight on the crushing amount of debt carried by Americans today – debt that’s at the core of our lingering economic troubles, which many experts believe can never realistically be repaid.
In 2007, American debt was 100 percent of GDP; today, after an austerity binge, it’s down to 90 percent, which is still a stunning imbalance. Almost a quarter of all home mortgages today are currently underwater, 2 million homes are in the foreclosure process – and at least 5 million homes have already lost to foreclosure since 2007. American student loan debt is over $1 trillion right now, higher than American credit card debt, with the average student leaving school with about $24,000 in loans.
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October 5th, 2011
George Osborne was presumably aiming at himself and his friends, when he vowed “to speak truth to power and wealth” at the Tory party conference this week, but dare he speak economic truth to the rest of us? – simultaneously published on Left Foot Forward >
On the narrowest of bases, he might still claim he spoke “truth” to the weak and powerless when in the House of Commons debate on the economy on August 11th he made this challenge:
“Those who spent the whole of the past year telling us to follow the American example, with yet more fiscal stimulus, need to answer this simple question: why has the US economy grown more slowly than the UK economy so far this year?”
It was a ‘brave’ claim when he made it, and it’s looking even ‘braver’ – and more disingenuous – now.
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October 5th, 2011
Thanks to all those who came along to the “Debunking Economics” event last night, and especially to Steve Keen for such an engaging presentation and to Prof. Victoria Chick for making it possible.
For those of you who couldn’t make it Steve will be posting a video of the event in the next four days, so look out for that on his site.
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October 3rd, 2011
Tomorrow 4th October, at 6.30 p.m. at the UCL Gustave Wilkes Lecture Theatre – where we will be gathering for a discussion on “Delusional Economics: views from inside and outside the profession.” Navigational instructions here.
To be sure of a place, please register with: info@primeeconomics.org
The event is hosted by Prime economics and will also be the venue for the launch of Steve Keen’s new book: “Debunking economics“.
Look forward to seeing you there.
September 28th, 2011
The following is the text of a speech to a joint meeting of the Christian Socialist Movement and the Co-op party on Tuesday 27th September, by Ann Pettifor, director of Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME), co-author of “The Green New Deal” and a fellow of the new economics foundation.
“I have just returned from a lecture tour of Australia where I came across the story of the Sydney Diocese and what the Aussies call the GFC – the Global Financial Crisis.
The Sydney Diocese, far from chasing the money-lenders from the temple that is their faith, invited them in, borrowed money against the diocese’s collateral, and used the borrowed money to invest – some would say gamble – on the stock market. When the financial crisis broke in 2008, stock market losses were amplified by the church’s huge borrowings. Archbishop Dr. Peter F. Jensen broke the bad news while addressing the church’s annual Synod in 2010, and according to ABC, said that the synod’s “losses total more than $100 million.”
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September 26th, 2011
Published in the Guardian Cif alongside responses from Jonathon Freedland and Sheila Lawlor:
Ed Balls said sorry for Labour’s record on ultra-light-touch financial regulation, and that must be acknowledged.
But apologies are just not enough. He and Ed Miliband must stop attacking his electoral base, “hardworking families”, many of whom are trades unionists.
As Balls recognises, unless urgent action is taken, this may be the gravest economic crisis in history – given the global integration of finance and the growth of world population.
So Balls must go further.
First, he must declare loudly and forcefully that Labour will never again be captive to neoliberal central bankers like Alan Greenspan; or private bankers like Sir Fred Goodwin of RSB.
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In the September 2003 edition of openDemocracy I wrote:
Click here to read the full story in openDemocracy
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