This is a clip of my opening contribution to the Nicky Campbell Show on BBC Five Live and on the BBC News Channel this morning:
Watch Prof Richard Murphy sets out why this country is poorer now.
"Brexit is the reason why our balance of trade has got worse, because the £ has dropped dramatically, well over 20%... that's a massive issue... " pic.twitter.com/odq9PaaGzF
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) April 26, 2023
I have also asked for a clip of my closing comment. I suggested during it that there is a conspiracy against the interests of working people in this country right now. A representative from Abrdn, the investment managers who have dropped all their vowels, claimed that was a political comment. I am sure he did not appreciate that his rebuttal supported the conspiracy.
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The issue is all about politics. His awareness of the political influence on economics deserted him for that brief moment, or perhaps he chose to ignore it and that the political ideology of the current government represents the conspiracy that you correctly describe. At the risk of prejudging the result of the next election, will it be the same under Labour? I sure hope not.
Warren Buffet famously said that since the 1970s there has been a Class war going on and not only is my side winning, the other side still don’t know there is a war going on.
Presumably the man from the imbecilically named Abrdn thinks that old Warren is just another mad conspiracy theorist.
I suspect so
I was listening to a recording of Andrew Bailey talking at the LSE last month. https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2023/03/202303271800/economy
In a speech that seemed clearly written for him by someone else, and buried among a lot of economic jargon (for example, two hidden variables which he admitted can never be measured directly, r* and R* – the natural or neutral rate of interest, with and without short-term fluctuations, in that never-achieved fantasy state of economic equilibrium) his main point was that we’ve had several supply side shocks – such as the pandemic, and people choosing to leave the labour market, and supply constraints, and the Russian invasion affecting prices of fuel and food and other things, although I don’t recall Brexit being mentioned – but demand has not fallen to match. As the the only tool the Bank of England has to affect demand (almost the only tool it has) is interest rates, so the only way to prevent inflation is to kill demand by increasing interest rates. He didn’t sound very sorry.
As for this being politics: yes, this is the political economy. It is not pretty demand and supply curves and academic theories of perfect information and economic equilibrium and rational choices in a toy model. It is about about allocation and distribution of resources in the real world, and the effect it has on real peoples’ lives, in a world that may be going up in flames tomorrow.
Bailey will always prefer fantasy to reality
Inflation forecasts are all central bankers are happy to talk about – because it is the only thing that cannot be proven to be wrong, even if it can be shown every previous forecast was.
If he likes fantasy I recomend Lord of the Rings. Hopefully it will take his mind off raising interest rates.
I agree – but I’d put it this way – that there has been a continuous war over the money supply in the West as to who is in charge of it and who benefits from it.
This is in recognition BTW of the state’s sovereign role in money supply and regulation and now capital or wealth want the commanding heights of the economy.
The wealthy want to monopolise the money supply – and by doing so, they want us all being poor, on credit and buying their goods and services to prop up their position and their life-styles. Even better if they can do away with cash.
That is the simplest way I can think of putting it.
THanks
PSR:
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
It seems too few voters understand the Truck Acts.
🙂
Loved that song on a 78 as a child
Indeed Supermarkets are moving to dictate prices when a Market is supposed to be about what you are willing to pay for something…. Try haggling with a self service machine robot on the price of something you won’t get very far you could take the dicounted gone off food they want and need to clear however which is what I try to do to keep my costs down as much as possible.
With that said if you argued with somone on a till about the prices thay would say they have no control over the price like the robot self service machine.
All in the name of cost cutting that never got passed on in any meaningful way it just meant less cashiers with less money to spend in the economy apparently they got other jobs? Whilst the self service robots were seen as an opportunity to increase profits….
Do not for one second believe AI will create as many jobs as it will take the proof is in that these companies only care about their costs not the population’s costs and expenses. I was already targeted by AI based on location to save on Travel and Hotel costs in an international market based around work occuring in London where closest living to the job wins. Nevermind I never required a hotel or my travel costs were even less than others the AI is told to find the closest people to the job and filter out the rest. Sad state of affairs considering people fly in to attend but they are visitors not workers ot’s ok for the bisitors but the other important thing is location vs skill set and that was wholly ignored as it was not the basis of the search.
“A representative from Abrdn, …, claimed that was a political comment.” You don’t say. Keep ’em coming!