There were two reasons why I recorded this morning's video.
The first is that I believe that everything I say in it is right, and that John Healey is going to present a disastrous budget next week.
The second reason was that I am beginning to practise my interview lines for that budget. I suspect that the arguments in the video will feature in my budget commentaries.
I will, as usual, be on BBC Radio 2 on the Jeremy Vine Show next Wednesday, talking about the budget at about 1:30 pm.
I also recorded a podcast interview for one of our major television channels yesterday afternoon. It shoudl be out this morning. I will share it when it is.
And I am still, at present, on the guest list for a Sunday morning television programme, but I am aware that these lists can change before the day arrives.
When most people are debating the minutiae of what John Healey might have to say next Wednesday, I think they are actually missing the big picture story, which is what is of the greatest importance.
The fact is, if John Healey is also sweating the small stuff, he will not be preparing for the multiple crises coming our way, and I believe one or more of them will happen, with the chance of all of them happening virtually simultaneously now being very high indeed.
I have been here before. The risk of a financial services sector meltdown was apparent from the summer of 2007 onwards. I began to talk about this spilling over into a crash at the beginning of 2008, becoming, as a consequence, one of the relatively few who can reasonably claim to have done so.
Everything feels the same now. All our stars are out of alignment, and a crash is coming. What worries me is that we are no better, or maybe worse, prepared for this eventuality now than we were in 2008.
The key difference between now and then is in the role of private equity. Back then, these funds were largely involved in relatively peripheral activities within the economy. Now, large chunks of the economy are under private equity control, with the viability of a great many employers in this country being utterly dependent upon their ability to pay onerous debt obligations heaped on them by so-called private equity entrepreneurs, whose only real ability is asset stripping.
If these funds begin to collapse as a consequence of the AI bubble bursting, the impact will spread far beyond banking this time. I can see nothing that prepares us for the potential consequences of that.
This worries me most at the moment. This time, it's not just banks at risk. Real people's livelihoods are, too.
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There is a lot of inevitable chaos ahead (because of corrupt and incompetent government).
But if part of that chaos includes the collapse of neoliberalism, and a move to something caring and competent, then I will grit my teeth and take what is coming.
As you prepare for a signicant week of MSM exposure, know that we are rooting for you, and that your opponents are increasingly desperate – because they know that the public do not believe their lies anymore. I’m having interesting conversations nowadays!
I think the challenge on air will be a battle between your solutions and their smears. They will focus on demonising you, and trying to set various straw men on fire. (Woke, Inflation, irresponsible spending, capital flight, Zimbabwe, Weimar Republic, socialist, Corbynite etc etc – to use up scarce air time).
That’s part of the on-air battle you need to prepare for. That’s just my penn’orth anyway. Good luck!
I can assure you all that you predicted what happened in the interview I recorded yesterday.
Whether the host calling me bonkers makes it through the edit, I do not know, but it happened. Would that happen to a neoliberal? I doubt it.