I think it's time to stop talking about whether we might move into a recessionary environment.
I think it's time to admit we are in that environment.
The thing to talk about now is how we manage the new state we're in. Let's stop pretending other options are available.
Are you listening Mr Osborne? I cannot be alone in wanting to hear your response.
And, come to that, to hearing Labour saying now really is the time for the policies that were described as Corbynomics last summer.
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Ignore this man at your peril. Learn your history is my advice , of starving , slum dwellers barely 70 years ago. No NHS . Terrible times and as with WW1 it culled millions of starving as did WW2. There is no third chance if a WW3 comes to this world due to a right wing rising and an economy falling into an abyss.
Well he is *certainly* listening to these people:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3407623/Rip-pension-fees-scrapped-Osborne-pledges-change-law-hit-accessing-cash-victory-Mail-campaign.html
That is a disaster in the making
This is a novel concept you’ve introduced Richard – a ‘recessionary environment’ which isn’t actually a recession. Is it an environment where just rich people are in recession off as their share portfolios lose a thirtieth of their value in one day, but everybody else is just about ok ( unemployment down a fraction, wages up a tiny amount, and cheaper energy )?
I think a lot of punters would settle for that.
Presume you know how stupid you are making yourself look
No. He’s pointing out that you have fabricated a new term to make your own political points.
So?
Isn’t that the basis for all progress?
I agree Richard but the selfish ALWAYS post on pages where the truth be told in the battle for the right to decent pay, NHS, a home , education etc. As I wrote the TORIES historically a danger to all but themselves and very wealthy feeders. As history dictates the starving. DO rise up .. Eventually ….
Jim-ALL terms are fabrications-why do you believe they reflect a meta-reality?
No, Richard.
I’ve picked you up on this before, and all you do is umm and ahh until you say that the other person is wasting time.
You cannot change the definition of a recession.
Economics is a social science in which there must be an epistemological infrastructure secure enough to debate issues. If you just change basic definitions to suit your own prejudices, you undermine economics and undermine your own credibility.
But I’m sure you won’t let this post see light. Or if you do, you’ll disingenuously misunderstand the argument and then accuse me of wasting your time.
Oh well. I suppose you are, at least, consistent.
I can actually do whatever I like
And have
So I was the person who redefined tax havens as secrecy jurisdictions, for example, and now that is what they are commonly called
And please also stop pretending economics is a science: that’s just a neoclassical myth intended to preserve orthodoxy and allow the pursuit of heretics.
And for the record, undermining that economics (that wrong economics) is my aim
As it is of the whole body of heterodox economists
But I bet you have not heard of them
Oh dear Richard
When you have to resort to ‘I bet you didn’t know that’ arguments, you know you’ve lost. It’s particularly embarrassing when you have no idea who, in fact, you are talking to.
And – again – the rest of your answer was complete fluff. I’m beginning to think you don’t quite understand the epistemological difference between the foundational aspects of a social science and the arguments based upon those foundations. Practitioners of the social sciences can define phenomena and they can argue about anything under the sun; what they cannot do, however, is appropriate a definition and use it in a misleading way. It’s not even intellectually radical. All it does is cause confusion in an astonishing banal way.
;
I can assure you I am certain I have lost no argument
And if you are really too embarrassed to say who you are – grow up and fess up
And when you do I am quite confident I will find a person with no clue about the realities of economics
And I have some: I doubt I would have been appointed a professor otherwise
I rather prefer the real-world view, as in here:
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/2787-the-us-is-at-the-center-of-the-global-economic-meltdown
Personally, I just do not believe UK gov is an honest organisation anymore, if it ever was.
Our economic rise, the present one, is based on a part-time and self-employed employment rise. A low-wage-if-any-wage-at-all economic “miracle”
Not forgetting the rather boring problem that unemployment figures based on anything from the department for less-work and -low-pensions are just bound to be far removed from reality. Just like IDS.
Another link to an excellent article, JohnM. Fascinating stuff. I particularly liked this nugget. And yes, the marine tracker map works:
‘Maersk ties the decline in global shipping to a FALL IN DEMAND, not an increase in shipping fleets.
This point is driven home when one examines the real-time MarineTraffic map, which tracks all cargo ships around the world. For the past few weeks, the map has remained almost completely inactive with the vast majority of the world’s cargo ships sitting idle in port, not traveling across oceans to deliver goods. The reality is, global demand has fallen down a black hole, and the U.S. is at the top of the list in terms of crashing consumer markets.’
Have you got your wheel barrow at the ready – once the attack dog is off the leash – it’s going to be utter hell NOT those white middle in the Dorsets and Surreys mind. Forget they got their “pensions” and inflated homes on the back of the Labour Party. They care zero for these to come ie their grandchildren and great grandchildren . Richard is a very sound master of economics – thank goodness.
And Boeing has just slowed production of the 747, citing a reduction in sales as reason.
Noted from the article is that the demand for air freight has dramatically dropped.
Like all freight
Well Baxter, let’s take that one at a time.
This might come as something of a revelation but there happens to be a sizable chunk of ordinary people out here in the real world who will currently be looking on with alarm at the current falls in the stock markets.
The reason being is many large organisations of employers, regardless of which nominal sector they happen to be, have for some time, as part of their HR approach, engaged financial companies to advise employees approaching retirement on options on what to do with their lump sum from their pension. This usually takes the form of wrapping a chunk this money in what is euphemistically referred to as a “tax efficient” wrapper through a stocks and shares ISA and a stock option, usually spread amongst amongst range of companies determined by the choice of whether the individual clients want amongst high, medium or cautious risk.
The process is that not all the lump sum is tied up. Some proportion is kept accessible, with a chunk set aside for emergencies, and topped up from time to time by gains made from the investment. The point being this is not something which just affects middle and lower management but also staff who have taken this route over the years. There are many ordinary non “rich” working people out here in the real world who have worked thirty or forty years at the coal face who have retired with a small lump sum who will have put half in such schemes and are set to lose at least a large chunk of it.
On unemployment you really are having a laugh here. The numbers on zero hours contracts have increased; large sections of those on the unemployment register have been and are currently being removed from the unemployment stats through enforced (or you lose your social security payment) via so called “self employment” courses (the figure was around 4 million just under a year ago) where the vast majority end up on a poverty level income; and others are being shunted off the register for the most spurious of reasons. Hanging your hat on official employment statistics and ignoring the contextual detail is cringeworthingly embarrassing to witness.
Similarly with wage levels, which may well be up slightly but are only good news if one ignores the context the long depression of wage levels very a period of years and years as wealth not so much trickles as floods up from the 99% to the 1%. It means aggregate demand remains depressed and as any seriously functioning economy depends for its continued survival on an adequate throughput based on demand, which in turn requires more equitable distribution rather than concentration of wealth and resources, means the environment in which we are operating and living under is recessionary. Each round of the negative feedback loop further depresses a whole range of factors from price levels, wage rates, real employment, debt ratios and so on, each feeding back into each other to produce further rounds of recessionary outcomes
Recessions are not just discrete periods with sharp identifiable borders; it officially started on this date and ended on that date sort of pseudo analysis. We are dealing with complex systems here, what the late Mr Ackoff often referred to as a “mess.” From the point of view of accurate observation the term recessionary environment represents a description of what is taking place in the real world which is more congruent with that reality than the reductionist mumbo jumbo you and your mate are offering up.
Well said
“Wait for a bus and then tell me the market knows best”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/21/why-nobody-complaining-bus-services-deregulation?CMP=share_btn_tw
“to hearing Labour saying now really is the time for the policies that were described as Corbynomics last summer.”
Absolutely and noted by Liam Young in the New Statesman:
“one who knocked on doors during the election campaign will know that the Tory rhetoric on Labour’s handling of the economy chimed with the average voter; the comparison of government debt to household debt may make zero economic sense, but it is certainly an easily understandable concept.”
He goes on to say:
“If we can convince the average worker that Labour will have their economic interest at heart then there is no reason why we cannot win the 2020 election under Jeremy Corbyn. It is, however, much easier said than done. As long as fairer pay and conditions, a roof for all and vastly improved public services become the bread and butter of Labour economic policy we will all have a message to hammer home.”
Labour needs to do this vigorous myth-busting LOUD and CLEAR with zero timidity and with zero reverence and obeisance before the perceived Overton Window!
agreed
Very noticeable how invisible Osborne is at the moment. No “Good News” to sell. Wonder who he plans to blame for this economic mess.
Also, i am curious as to why so little has been made of the large fall in the pound against the dollar in the past few months (~7%). When it fell to this level in 2009, Shadow Chancellor Osborne said it showed Labours economic mis-management!
What about now then, George??
LisaP
This may help?
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/19/forget-economic-gloom-george-osborne-in-charge
“Also, i am curious as to why so little has been made of the large fall in the pound against the dollar in the past few months (~7%).”
http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/gbp-lowest-since-2010.html
“Brent premium recently disappearing; now showing up in exchange rate.”
Quite right Richard. The media will not discuss these issues or give a platform to those such as yourself who oppose the neo liberal agenda.
Baxter Basics is as usual making a fool of himself. I do wonder why you allow people like him on this blog.
I understand the technique is known as giving people sufficient rope to hang themselves with.
Quite right, Richard. Isn’t it time to consider whether democracy is failing us here? In a system where YKW are subverting democracy through corruption, is it possible to fight back within the system? For the last 70 years there has been no effective control of those we’re fighting against, and it’s time that ended: the only way to finally solve this issue is for the ‘bankers’ (YKWIM) to be rounded up and tried for their crimes against humanity.
Is that You Know Who?
Of course. Those who shall not be named, as it were.
This all sounds so complicated, and so far removed from ordinary experience (I have a job, so I get paid, so I can buy things; I don’t have a job, so I don’t have much money – if any – and so I can’t buy stuff and life sucks)
I read this and it’s all high faluting theory and opinion. Not saying its wrong. And there are frequent observations that the system is all fucked up and needs a complete makeover.
Am I to understand that the government and institutions and industry of this fair isle are (and have been for generations) all incompetent crooks and there is but a small band of those who see how things should be?
Up and down the country hundreds of thousands of people do every day
And many get it right
Reality is complicated and getting to grips with it, rather than, say, vegetatating in front of the TV with a six pack watching strictly big brother’s apprentice et al, requires effort in the use of the little grey cells.
But even with more evolution behind us than you can shake a stick at too many of us choose the easy option of Aesopp’s grasshopper and accept everything that Berney’s PR propaganda disciples choose to tell us. Marley’s (Bob) advice about freeing oneself from mental slavery is pertinent in this regard.
I don’t know you Tex, but I’ve got every confidence in you.