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Richard Murphy
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Nice.
More brilliant than ever. Exceptional.
That was terrific. Maybe the guy presenting the clip has the right approach. We shouldn’t be so polite about this wretched mess being made by the tories – after all, aren’t we angry?
And as he seemed to be standing outside a station, I can’t resist adding that the government doesn’t seem to have any ideological objections to state ownership of our railways. As long as it’s not by the UK state. Germany, France, Holland, Italy, they’re all fine. It just goes to show that we truly are ruled by a bunch of spivs.
I shared this on my Facebook page last night. I know most of the figures he quoted but ‘overpaying on the national debt?
I read the Bank of England will raise the interest rates today. That sucks more money out of an economy where energy and food prices are diverting spending from other businesses. As far as I can see this will push us harder into recession. This calls for more state spending in line with Keynesian theory. Does Sunak not realise or is his banker ideology in opposition.
I heard a radio 4 program about Truss’s time in office and I heard a party donor talking about people who challenged Keynesian thinking. I didn’t note the name but as Johnson, Truss and Sunak have all mentioned a belief in ‘supply side reforms’ and a ‘small state’, it should not be a surprise. Oh, for politicians and journalists who see the bigger picture.
That figure he quotes may well come from me……
The Truss supporter on the radio 4 program was John Monyihan of the IEA . Usual crew.
Supply side arguments are based on the Austrian theory of marginal analysis. That reducing the burdensome restrictions will, at the margin, increase economic activity. Jacob Rees Mogg has made this argument about energy prices. They believe that just by business producing more that prices will go down. They also believe that the state spending more money will only cause further inflation.
The department of justice website has an interesting article about what economists get wrong about the accounting principle of variable costs. While this is coming from an anti-trust perspective, it does demonstrate that “economists” do not understand how businesses determine prices for their goods and services. They do not necessarily understand how theories of marginal analysis relate to practice. As such I have very little faith in this approach when it comes to government policy.
No one sets price on a marginal basis in my experience and why they heck would they? It’s an economists fantasy that they do
How much time does the typical economics education (at whatever level), spend on double-entry bookeeping? I have serious doubts they understand the deep significance of double-entry in the complex functioning of money flows, its influence on the abstruse use of deferral instruments that moves the liquidity risk dial with all their consequences (CDS’s in 2007; LDIs very recently); or its impact on the hierarchy of money in the digital age; or in the circulation of money in the real economy. I have rarely read an economist who convinces me that they understand anything at all about the operations of business in the real world (I make an honourable exception of Mehrling).
The answer is nothing re double entry as far as I know John
It’s hard enough teaching it to accounting undergrads
I learned it by working for a firm from age 17, which was considered geeky even then
You cannot laugh at this because it’s all true.
I see that the BBC has been interrogating union leaders again, more so than those who have led us to this point and won’t budge.
QT tonight from Winchester has both Rees-Mogg and Pat Cullen. She can stand up for the nurses very well.Even the people of Winchester will be on the side of the NHS, I hope. Shared Pie far and wide.
So far she has done well
Brilliant. A slice of Pie always goes down well.
Craig
Very good but why are Opposition politicians not shouting this – without the rude words of course !
Totally agree Dennis!
I love Jonathan Pie, I love his visceral anger, he absolutely articulates what I and so many feel but have no voice to express.
I despair at the lack of anger and passion in the opposition, with the exception of Caroline Lucas, and feel so unrepresented at a parliamentary level.
The only people who inspire and have a grip on what is needed at the moment seem to come from the unions, they make the Labour Party (which I’ve always voted for) look bland, unimaginative and unable to present a viable alternative – I can hardly bear to listen to Starmer or Streeting and some of the views they espouse.
That was a party political broadcast, by the Base 10 Arithmetic party.
Absolutely – -but most of all I’d register and redouble Dennis’s point. The contrast between this – or indeed the figures with which you regulalry have regaled us – and the ‘mumbledon’ which is Starmer’s ‘new improved’ Labour Party is almost as shocking as the statistics themselves.
In the face of all that these Tory ‘governments’ have done, the lives they have cut short, the communities they have laid waste, the liberties and proprieties they have trashed and the democracy they have subverted and ignored – in the face of this maelstrom of destruction the near silence and feebleness of Labour is not merely disappointing, it is complicit.
Labour is now complicit in the slide from democracy and decency – more concerned in inheriting power than fighting the corruption of the system and the exploitation of position. If they are not – root and branch – against all this and therefore committed to reverse all this – just as a necessary base one first step – then they are ‘for’ it.
They have become the enemy – just with a different rosette.
Keir Starmer should employ Jonathan Pie as his script writer for Prime Minister’s Questions.
Keir Starmer should have destroyed Sunak yesterday; especially when the PM blundered into the 19% rise ‘claim’ for nurses pay. An opening offer is a mere decorous opening move in a well known and rehearsed ritual dance. It has been going on for centuries. Every business knows that. The 19% is not a settlement. How do you settle? Through the Government opening a genuine pay negotiation and negotiating a settlement; not even achieving a settlement, but genuine efforts to achieve one (I will return to that).
The Government will not open negotiations because quite obviously they do not want a settlement. They want a Victory. They want a grimly won surrender by the nurses: the nurses (we are long past happy clappy Conservatism, when the ythought they needed the cover of the nurses for their egregious Covid failures of managment). They want despairing, angry and hopeless nurses to go back to work on the Governments terms; the Government that broke them. They therefore want more nurses to leave the NHS, to lower morale, to produce inefficiency and disarray; and and exhausted and despondent work force who have given up, and toil bleakly on, with a shrinking standard of living. Well, we all know what happens to private companies in that predicament.
How does settlement work? Almost never with a settlement set at the level of the opening gambit. We know that. Negotiation almost always leads to a compromise. This Conservative Government does not care about judgement or competence; only winning matters. For Conservatives a Pyrrhiv victory is, hey a Victory! Declare a Triumph! The Mail and Telegraph will trumpet it.
What could Starmer have done? He could have pointed out that opening a genuine negotiation alone can stop a strike. He could have pointed to two things that happened in Scotland.
1. The mere fact the Scottish Government sat down and negotiated with nurses; genuinely negotiated on pay; one strike was suspended, even without a settlement.
2. The Scottish Government settled with some nursing categories; a 7.5% pay settlement met, and the staff working without a strike. I cannot say how happy the nurses are with that settlement in these tough times; but a lot better than the brutal, blood extraction politics of Sunak and his cruelly incompetent Government.
Of course Starmer did not select the easy victory. How could he? Concede sound judgement to the Scottish Government in a difficult situation? Never! Better a weak performance in PMQs when no Oppostion Leader has ever had a bankrupt Government, increasingly despised by the electorate, on it knees, gibbering drivel; and passing it up, because at heart, you lack confidence the electorate will trust Labour. Well, he may yet be right, because Labour is so weak it can still ‘blow it’; and everyovdy knows it. At bottom, you have to believe in – something. Right? Left? I reject all that guff. What matters is what works, a process of Government that acknowledges the crucial importance of both public and private sector; and the wise use of each, practically to solve problems with the option that best provides the solution (and not fake markets in utilities or transport services requiring national investment to be done at all; that is, monopoly services that require heavy regulation – merely as hasty illustration).
What does Labour believe in? You tell me.
The trouble is most politicians have never worked in anything remotely like the real world
They was not the case in the past
The Scottish Comedian,Kevin Bridges did this many years ago, spot and an extremely funny;
https://youtu.be/c8mRWW3C_Kk
Very good
“No one sets price on a marginal basis in my experience and why they heck would they? It’s an economists fantasy that they do”
(I recognise that this was aimed @ products – there are some that think it can be applied to services).
Economic imbeciles in the electricity industry (both Uk & EU) insist that marginal pricing works a treat. True if you are an energy trader/parasite (physical elec vs futures is roughly 1: 2.5 btw (& growing) = an accident waiting to happen).
What’s more, the economic imbeciles think it is all fine and dandy. True to a point if you care zero about Uk serfs or indeed EU citizens – who pay at least 50% over the odds for elec – all because of a brainless theology – which is what it is.
The UK’s reverse auction / marginal pricing is bonkers in a situation where a spike in prices for gas creates windfall profits for everyone else. There are plenty of things the Government could do to address this, but it seems they refuse to do anything other than provide (inadequate) subsidies to customers to pay the profiteers.
But Mike, can you explain what you mean by “(physical elec vs futures is roughly 1: 2.5 btw (& growing)”
Are you saying that the volume sold through the futures market is about 2.5 times the size of the physical market – that is, each kWh actually generated is sold on average 2.5 times? Is this necessarily a problem? Speculators in the market will try to make a gain by predicting where price might go, but at the end of the day electricity is a time-limited commodity and it will be supplied at the prevailing price. Is there a bubble that will burst, or price gouging, or something else?
Andrew – thank you for the question (& the comments).
The stat quoted reflects the situation in the EU, it is most unlikely that it is any different in the UK. It is claimed that the 1:2.5 ratio of physical vs speculation improves liquidity. I’m unconvinced. Furthermore, two developments will vastly increase the size of the electricity market: the move to de-carbonise by more electrification coupled to a move towards “power-purchase-agreements” (PPAs) which are, simplifying, a futures contract in which a company (at the moment it is all companies) agrees to purchase a certain amount of electricity, often/usually but not always, from a renewable supplier. This locks in revenue for the RES project and usually delivers lower cost elec for the company. The elec traders are licking their chops at the prospect of a vastly expanded (& poorly regulated) market. The PPAs are being out forward (in the EU and by EU institutions that have been for the most part captured by traders) as a painless way to reform elec markets.
In terms of elec being time limited. This is a true statement now. It will not be true in 2030 – when options for storing at scale will be available from, for example, electrolysers making H2 – which is then stored in a re-purposed gas network. This is not speculation. This leads on to questions such as: if electrolysers can balance system demand vs system generation in real time – what role the market? (which both puts a price on the elec and delivers initial day-ahead & intra-day balance). Other question: if most RES is not built on the basis of auctions/auction price – why not build that into a basket price which is then “the market price” & the price for supplying to electrolysers. etc etc. Oh an the price that is vastly lower than that defined by gas generators.
Had an interesting dicussion with a Euro energy lobby group today. Some of the staff are doing a course with “The Florence School of Regulation” – on elec markets. I looked at the material and the questions – pathetic and desparate stuff – biased to the nth degree – and this is an org “with standing” with the Commission & institutions. People being “groomed” to think in specific ways. Terrible.
Apologies for the long winded explanation.
Thanks
No need to apologise at all Mike. Your expertise and insight is valuable, and I suspect entirely outside the skillset of most people here (frankly, most people anywhere).
H2 storage at scale would be a game changer for renewables, although the engineering challenges of repurposing natural gas for hydrogen should not be underestimated. (2030 sounds challenging: and ITER might be operating by 2035). No doubt there would be interesting opportunities for arbitrage between current and future demand.
Markets in futures for commodities are nothing new. One would hope that the need for effective regulation is well known from previous mistakes and we don’t have to repeat them or reinvent the wheel.
When I look at the faces of working people on strike in the UK far too many are smiling or grinning – behind the grinning mask lies the face of fear.
Only when the mask is dissolved and the angry face appears will the Establishment know they have a real problem, then they will become frightened. When that moment arrives ordinary people will know they have a chance, a real chance to make real lasting changes until then the Establishment is relaxed.