The news that Labour is planning to use some form of private finance initiative to supposedly revive the UK, which I have discussed this morning, and which Daniella Gabor discussed in The Guardian yesterday, made me recall an early Genesis album entitled 'Selling England by the pound'.
The opening track is the one the album title came from.
The unfortunate fact is that this is exactly what it looks like Labour wants to do. Such is its paranoia about supposed debt - which is the cheapest and most efficient way to transform the country (whatever the country that is being referred to is) - Labour would rather, in effect, transfer large parts of future tax revenue to foreign-controlled private equity partners.
Political depravity is rarely more obvious than this.
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Compare/contrast.
Orsted, 51% owned by the Danish state, raises money on bond markets (raised Euro900m recently) to fund operations/project developments. Its modus operandi is to develop an off-shore wind project and then sell perhaps half of it to BlackRock or some other bunch of hooligans at a price that covers +/- the full cost of finishing the project. In effect Orsted gets half the project (having taken on board 100% of project risk @ the very begining) for nothing. Nice business model and exposes BlackRock & co for what they are: unoriginal parasites – with whom LINO seems happy to work with – ah well, takes one to know one I guess.
As for political depravity – I would not be so harsh, UK politicos know very little (apart from the ins and outs of the Wezzie village) – small people with smaller brains and thus you get the result that you do. They ain’t depraved, they are just incapable of being imaginative. They deserve our pity & perhaps contempt (me me me, I want power, I know how to use it, honestly! etc………. I predict Rowson featuring Streeting in short trousers – as a schoolboy – style of).
Thank you and well said, Mike.
BlackRock employs the likes of George Osborne, his organ grinder Rupert Harrison (PPC for the new seat of Bicester and Woodstock and likely to lose to Labour’s Veronica Oakeshott (sister of Reform’s Isobel and cousin of Liberal lord Matthew)) and former Swiss central bankster Philipp Hildebrand to facilitate their predation. The banks, especially Goldman Sachs, do the same. Politicians, regulators and other officials know what rewards await such corruption.
I worked closely with Denmark’s presidency of the EU a decade ago. Soon after that semester / presidency, some of the Danish lead officials joined Goldman Sachs. It happens all the time and in all EU member states.
Further to my reply to Mike, I forgot to add this: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/02/private-sector-lobbyists-embedded-into-labours-shadow-cabinet-teams. Please read in conjunction with my comment on the PFI post.
Richard, MMTers do not have Labour’s ear at the moment so they continue to believe a private sector £ is better than a govt £. Labour rather like Macron several years ago in France will generate no revival or changes in fortune for most people. The far right in opposition will prosper I’m sure. Labour by excluding solutions for society and the economy from the left means poverty, inequality and poor economic performance will just grow.
“Political depravity is rarely more obvious than this.”
Well there was British slave owners being reimbursed with British government treasury bonds to the tune of several trillion pounds in today’s money after slavery was abolished in this country!
I did say ‘rarely’
Excellent!! — I’m referring to the music, of course!
🙂
You’re showing your age
“Such is its paranoia about supposed debt – which is the cheapest and most efficient way to transform the country (whatever the country that is being referred to is) – Labour would rather, in effect, transfer large parts of future tax revenue to foreign-controlled private equity partners.”
As always the issue here is that government taking on debt by borrowing is a choice rather than a necessity but this gets interpreted as the government has no choice but has to borrow in order to adequately fund its objectives beyond its tax revenues. Ignorant mainstream media journalists and politicians constantly push this argument.
I have just been arguing with a Labour supporting idiot who described PFI as tried and tested. Well, yes, but it failed the test!
Ask an ignorant Labour Party supporter why you would want to borrow from yourself and how when you can as a government create fiat money at will subject to avoiding over-bidding real resources and they’ll flounder. Here’s Randall Wray on the topic:-
https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/OP_72.pdf
From the New Stateman:
“A line-by-line look at what they all do for a living. There’s a reasonable number of doctors (31) and teachers (25), and as usual there is a concerning lack of engineers and scientists. One group, however, really stands out: as I explain in today’s investigation, at least 103 professional lobbyists are standing to become MPs.”
“at least 103 professional lobbyists are standing to become MPs”: Is this true and correct?
It sounds like “Selling England by the Pound” is a good description.
Hence why I am using it…
I believe these figures are correct. I am always amazed by how many professional lobbyists there are. Why would anyone want to be a professional lobbyist? What an incredibly socially useless waste of a life!
“Why would anyone want to be a professional lobbyist?”
@Bernard Hurley (何熊心)
If one is good ay “Lobbying”, one can make a metric F-tonne of money as a professional lobbyist!
Correct
@BayTampaBay. That’s partly the point of what I am saying. These people are not doing it in order to survive, which would be understandable, and could all find something more worthwhile to do and still be comfortably off. I would find it embarrassing to be mistaken for a professional lobbyist.
You only get to live once. Why waste it for a metric F-tonne of money?
@Bernard Hurley (何熊心)
I could never be a lobbyist.
However, I am a Yank and things like a metric F-tonne of money are ingrained in our culture. Our “class system” has little to do with where you went to “high school” (university is a different matter) or who your parents may be but what you have achieved on your OWN. One measure of achievement is how much money you have have in the bank by your OWN efforts. (See Mark Cuban and Warren Buffet.)
Sneaky Starmer about to put PFI on steroids whilst British voters snooze!