In the first six months of this year this blog had 1.735 million reads.
To put this in context, last year it had 1.739 million reads.
Now to be fair, last year was the lowest number of reads for several years. My academic work was pretty seriously distracting in 2019 and the number of posts was way down.
And to also be fair, there have been one or two pretty exceptional circumstances this year that have contributed to the change, and not all of them by a long way of my making. I'd much rather some had not happened.
But, that said, thank you. I admit I do not write to find favour. I write what I want, and think appropriate. I know that's both a strength and a weakness. I accept that. It's also, in my experience, the only way to pioneer change and survive the experience of writing a blog in the long term, which can sometimes be a bit challenging.
When in June 2006 I began this blog I had no idea what might happen. 19.3 million reads later some things have. And a great deal of really useful debate has arisen. I have learned a massive amount, and changed my mind along the way on some issues as a result. And I really appreciate that.
I am making no forecasts for the rest of this year. Every single forecast for 2020 so far has been so wildly wrong no one can be sure what will happen. What I can say is that I do still want to develop key themes, on tax after coronavirus, sustainable cost accounting, MMT, the Green New Deal and more. This year has a long way to go as yet.
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Richard, you are an essential counter to all the illiterate economic nonsense that’s out there. I have learned a great deal from your blog – I am very grateful for all the time you devote to it.
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I don’t get to read every post but just want to say that your contributions here and to public life generally are much appreciated. I am extremely pessimistic about the UK in the short term, indeed I think it’s approaching game over for the union, but am hopeful that what emerges afterwards will be much better for each of the constituent nations, for the environment, Europe, & the rest of the world.
I have only been following this blog a few months.
What you do is alot of free,innovative thinking, but based on what you have learnt through carrying out all that hard work before. As you rightly say forecasts are very difficult to make ,but it also takes courage to make them public. So it is not the end of the world of they are not always correct. I read something recently that actually praised “aiming to to a bad job”. In that it is better to try and to fail than never try at all,or procrastinate and dither. Besides ,you can re-calculate forecasts and adjust work as you go,at least you have started and are willing to learn from that process,which is something we all need to do. No one knows it all and it is the way we all actually evolve as human beings
Your heart is also in the right place,so you have the conviction of someone who wants to makes a better difference in the world . For that and all your dedication to running a very busy blog, you get my full admiration.