We need a different kind of economy, fairer to the lowest paid and demanding greater responsibility from the higher paid; broader-based, less reliant on financial services. A better capitalism.
The speaker was right.
The speaker was Ed Miliband.
As Jackie Ashley says this morning:
If that isn't what Labour is for in 2011, then I don't know what is. The risk is twofold. First, the media will savage any plans for higher taxes, even for the super-rich. This is a default position in post-Thatcher Britain that Labour just has to live with. Second, it needs an honest and harsh review of what Labour didn't achieve when it was in government.
The first is a matter of making the case: that's doable.
Miliband is facing up to the second. That's enormously welcome.
Now we have to ensure we're clear what that better capitalism is.
I'm in Norway this morning. I'll be in London tonight - hopefully discussing just how we deliver the promise of a better capitalism.
One that is fairer to the poor and demands more responsibility of those who should bear it.
One that reduces the role of finance.
One that delivers the promise of a better, more sustainable way of living in the UK that will help people in this country fulfil their potential - which I believe to be the goal of macro economic policy.
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Interesting socio-political viewpoint: however:
“What happens when Greece defaults. Here are a few things:
Every bank in Greece will instantly go insolvent.
The Greek government will nationalise every bank in Greece.
The Greek government will forbid withdrawals from Greek banks.
To prevent Greek depositors from rioting on the streets, Argentina-2002-style (when the Argentinian president had to flee by helicopter from the roof of the presidential palace to evade a mob of such depositors), the Greek government will declare a curfew, perhaps even general martial law.
Greece will redenominate all its debts into “New Drachmas” or whatever it calls the new currency (this is a classic ploy of countries defaulting)
The New Drachma will devalue by some 30-70 per cent (probably around 50 per cent, though perhaps more), effectively defaulting 0n 50 per cent or more of all Greek euro-denominated debts.
The Irish will, within a few days, walk away from the debts of its banking system.
The Portuguese government will wait to see whether there is chaos in Greece before deciding whether to default in turn.
A number of French and German banks will make sufficient losses that they no longer meet regulatory capital adequacy requirements.
The European Central Bank will become insolvent, given its very high exposure to Greek government debt, and to Greek banking sector and Irish banking sector debt.
The French and German governments will meet to decide whether (a) to recapitalise the ECB, or (b) to allow the ECB to print money to restore its solvency. (Because the ECB has relatively little foreign currency-denominated exposure, it could in principle print its way out, but this is forbidden by its founding charter. On the other hand, the EU Treaty explicitly, and in terms, forbids the form of bailouts used for Greece, Portugal and Ireland, but a little thing like their being blatantly illegal hasn’t prevented that from happening, so it’s not intrinsically obvious that its being illegal for the ECB to print its way out will prove much of a hurdle.)
They will recapitalise, and recapitalise their own banks, but declare an end to all bailouts.
There will be carnage in the market for Spanish banking sector bonds, as bondholders anticipate imposed debt-equity swaps.
This assumption will prove justified, as the Spaniards choose to over-ride the structure of current bond contracts in the Spanish banking sector, recapitalising a number of banks via debt-equity swaps.
Bondholders will take the Spanish Banking Sector to the European Court of Human Rights (and probably other courts, also), claiming violations of property rights. These cases won’t be heard for years. By the time they are finally heard, no-one will care.
Attention will turn to the British banks. Then we shall see…”
From:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/here-what-happens-after-greece-defaults
One of the sectors hit hardest under Labour was the IT industry, where many British IT workers were replaced by Indian contract workers. Were there no British IT professionals? Was it because they were better trained than their British counterparts?
No, the Indians were notionally cheaper to employ, and Labour let them in in their tens of thousands. In fact, these Indians weren’t really cheaper to employ because they were and are allowed to work in the UK without paying any NI for the first 52 weeks, and they are paid a minimum taxable wage plus an extra tax free amount that was treated as reimbursement of living costs. Factoring in the loss of revenue the UK lost out more than it gained thatnks to Labour stupidity, although I have no doubt they thought it would win some votes.
And the worst bit of all this is that much of this went on under government IT outsourcing contracts.
True – but Ed has simply GOT to learn to hit back, taking a leaf out of the John Prescott book of rapid response. I watched him this morning on BBC 1 News, making a perfectly reasonable case for the need to invest in young people, when we have a 20% unemployment rate for the under-24’s, and then Sian Williams – not noted for being a Labour supporter, indeed, quite the opposite – asked him a question along the lines of “How are you going to convince people – after all, it was under Labour that the financial crash occurred.” And Ed, instead of punching straight back with words such as “It happened under Labour, but we did NOT cause the crisis. Indeed, the actions taken by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling actually saved this country’s economy. If we’d followed Tory urging, there would have been a complete financial meltdown, the like of which would have been very much worse than the 30’s. Labour saved the day!” Instead, trying to be all sweet reason, Ed ignored this, letting it pass. Ye Gods, we spent 5 months electing him Leader, when a month – two at the most – would have sufficed, leaving the ConDems time to embed their perfidious nonsense (see this Blog passim for details), and now Ed is going to campaign on “We accept we got htings wrong, but this is how we’re going to do things in future”. NOT good enough; it should be “We got some things wrong, but on the economy we got it right; we saved the economy, to allow it to recover”. If that message isn’t sold – if the electorate don’t accept that argument – then Ed could be Gandhi, Mandela, and Mother Theresa all rolled into one, and it won’t matter a hoot, the Tories will still walk it. And let’s remember- this isn’t just about the next election – it’s about saving the democratic process. We have a government that soon will not have to resign if it loses a No Confidence Vote; will have a gerrymandered House of Commons, possible Labour seats having been airbrushed out, using the flagrantly unfair FPTP system, and a packed House of Lords (Cameron’s created more peers in one year, mostly Tory, than any other PM in history). The trend is the same in the US, with Republican Governors and legislatures passing laws on Voter Registration that are clearly designed to disenfranchise the Democrats. The new elite is seeking to lock in its current hegemony, turning it into something perpetual. We really do need to recall Abraham Lincoln’s warning – “The price of liberty is perpetual vigilance”