Last month’s general election for the UK parliament provided a harsh reminder to some political parties that electoral success is all about telling a good story. The narrative has to be one that the electorate wants to believe or, at the very least, one that appeals to their common sense. The Scottish National Party won…
All around the world government ministers are obsessed by the size of their deficits: the gap between revenue and spending that can only be filled by borrowing money. This year’s deficit gets added to all of the previous years’ deficits, which accumulate into an ever-expanding mountain of debt. As the debt piles up, so too…
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21631140-interest-rates-turn-negative-some-worse-nothing?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/worsethannothing : The Economist reporting that a German bank is to apply a negative interest rate to personal accounts with balances of more than 500,000 euros in an attempt to get people to do something productive with their spare money. I can’t see how negative interest can work when it’s applied by only one bank…
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/green-party-monetary-policy-ahead.html: A very pertinent article from Another Angry Voice pointing out that the Green Party is the only one in the UK that has recognised the stupidity of our monetary system. He explains that the Conservatives, in their ignorance, are amplifying the ill-effects of the system thanks to their idiotic Help To Buy policy while…
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/universal-basic-income-sanctions.html :: Here’s an article from Another Angry Voice in which he compares means-tested benefits with universal basic income. The comments are interesting in that they concentrate on the problems of funding UBI rather than attacking the concept of it. Are we getting to the point where the argument for UBI hs been won in…
In Thackery’s early 19th century satire, Vanity Fair, all of the characters are flawed in one way or another, but George Osborne is is without a doubt the most shallow, self-regarding and stupid of the lot. Fast forward a couple of hundred years to the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. The Chancellor of the Exchequer…
http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/the_economics_of_ed :: Here’s Frances Coppola with a good summary of why the economics of austerity that’s being peddled by mainstream politicians is the exact opposite of what we need. She directs most of her fire at the Labour party but the rest of them are equally culpable, as are our mainstream journalists who appear to be dedicated…
The Scottish independence referendum was about different things to different people, but a common theme was the hope of finding better ways of doing things: ways of tackling poverty and inequality; ways of moving government closer to communities, of making democracy more responsive; ways of encouraging an economy to thrive. For many people who are…
I’ve been following a blog for the the last few months called Flip Chart Fairy Tales, written by a business insider called Rick. His strapline is “Business bullshit, corporate crap, and other stuff from the world of work”, and from what I’ve read so far you get exactly what’s advertised: straightforward analysis of of business…
http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2014/08/Citizen_Income_briefing_2014_final.pdf :: Here is the Scottish Greens’ Briefing Note on a Citizen’s Income (aka Universal Basic Income) for an independent Scotland. The amount they’re proposing is barely adequate and only partially removes the need for benefits, all because they’re stuck with the idea of funding it from income tax. It is, however, a bold and…
Views From The Boatshed 