The Guardian notes this morning that:
George Osborne has warned the Bank of England that it risks derailing Britain's fragile economy if it uses tough new financial watchdog powers to clamp down too hard on the City.
The chancellor told the Bank's governor on Tuesday that Threadneedle Street's new financial policy committee (FPC) should take account of the impact of its actions on "near-term economic recovery" when deciding on the regime under which banks operate.
Gordon Brown must be delighted. Could there be a clearer signal that Osborne now believes in light touch regulation and wishes for boom and bust - the very hallmarks of Brown?
The Treasury has, very obviously, learned nothing from the recession.
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Just a reminder of why we might not want “light touch” regulation:-
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425
The telling phrase is ‘manipulation on manipulation’. No-one seems to have an overall picture and all this seems to be a mass of red-bull fueled fund managers making computer based decisions in nano-seconds. The result seems to be moving towards a sort of Fritz Lang Metropolis future with an underworld of impoverished masses who are unemployed.
When rewards are so high and control is in so few, but always the same hands, this unfortunately is the result. Even the courts will not take them on. Another house of cards is waiting to collapse.
Does George Osbourne really understand what he is doing? Or just listening to bank lobbyists?
I went to a Positive Money Conference in January this year. The leaders of that group said they had spoken to both George Osbourne and Ed Balls about the creation of money/economic bubbles. Apparently George Osbourne, according to them, is not as aware as Ed Balls about the realities of banking. Surely Ed Balls should have learned by now and should be finding this an open goal for criticism, he must know where it is leading by now.
Balls seems to be entirely limited to discussion of what’s in the Overton window, what’s being discussed in the media, along high streets and over fences, basically. Both he and the other Ed seem to be disinclined to do what’s needed and put clear water between themselves and the Coalition even though they’re preented with endless opportunities to do so. Which leads me to assume they’re more than happy to carry on in the same austere vein. They’re on the same neoliberal team as Osborne is, in other words.
Labour need to abandon the Overton Window approach. I think Richard has pointed out that the time is NOW for them to challenge what jeffrey Sachs has called ‘the crisis of values’ and ‘the pathological moral environment.’ If Labour don’t do this then there is no major party to represent this growing underswell which will mean more voter apathy and unrepresentative Government. Will they do it – of course not!