Phoney Deficit Mania

Since the publication of the Con Dem Autumn Statement a new reverse paradigm has been introduced into the economic debate in Britain - cutting the deficit versus borrowing. Self serving Tory assumptions about the need for permanent austerity rule the roost. The deficit must be solved, taxation on big business and the wealthy must be minimised, public services outsourcing should be extended to everything but core functions and, of course, public sector pay should continue to be held down despite 6 years of wage stagnation.

Seumas Milne, writing in today's Guardian, challenges this new orthodoxy using the ample evidence of failed austerity policies since 2010: 'where Cameron, Osborne and their friends have succeeded, of course, is in convincing large numbers of people that Labour spending was somehow responsible for the crisis – which it wasn’t – and in turning the budget deficit into the central issue of economic policy – which it isn’t. In reality, the deficit was below 3% when the crisis was triggered by a financial crash – and up to that point public spending under New Labour, at 38.7% of national income, was lower than under every other government since the 1950s. And the budget deficit is only a reflection of the real problems in the economy and cannot be controlled by the government, as Osborne has demonstrated so comprehensively'
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/17/deficit-mania-political-fraud-osborne-economic-nonsense

Thatcherism a ruinous economic & social failure

Mitchell Anderson compares and contrasts the economic and social development of Norway and the UK, two countries which benefitted from North Sea oil wealth windfalls from the 1970's onwards:
    'Thirty-five years after she swept to power as British prime minister, it is ironic that socialist Norway now has $830 billion in the bank and enjoys fully funded social programs that most of us can only dream of. Meanwhile the U.K. is enduring another round of wrenching austerity and owes over £1.3 trillion - about US$2.2 trillion. That massive debt grows by about $3.8 billion each week, while every seven days Norway adds another billion dollars to their bank account'
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/03/10/Thatcherism-Verdict/

The myth that Britain is broke

The New Economic Foundation is undertaking an economic myth busting project via their blog. Today, the UK national debt is significantly lower than Japan’s (about 200% of GDP), and comparable to Germany’s (83%) and the US (80%). By international or historical standards, the national debt is not high. Read more at:
http://www.neweconomics.org/mythbusters-britain-is-broke

TUC final verdict on Thatcher – ‘Good at Destruction'

‘Demonising unions and stripping the great mass of private-sector workers of a voice and power in the workplace is still the root of the great living standards crisis that saw the share of wealth going to wages slide long before Lehman Brothers failed,’ says TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady in a Guardian article on the legacy of arch neo-conservative ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
    Frances goes on to point out that the ‘financial crash of 2008 was a direct result of the policies Thatcher championed. The dominance of finance in the economy and the failure of bank regulation flowed from her belief that markets should always be left to themselves’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/09/clearing-up-margaret-thatchers-mess

Thatcher’s professed aim - 'irreversibly' dismantling Britain’s public sector

A considered view of Thatcher's legacy from Michael Hudson writing for the US webzine Counterpunch. From her first Government's groundbreaking privatisation of telecommunications and public utilities through to New Labour's deregulation of the City of London and the financial sector, Hudson traces the continuities since 1979 which have led to Britain's 'Great Polarization between the creditor 1% and the increasingly indebted 99%'
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/08/the-queen-mother-of-global-austerity-financialization/

Modernising Money - The Way Out of Austerity

The current monetary system still continues to fuel a social and economic crisis, and although the media coverage doesn't give us much hope, there is a way out of it!
  The government claims its run out of money, it has too many debts so it has to cut spending. Is this right? Is it true? No is the answer.

Negative interest rates - more madness?

Another day another mad idea to get banks lending (but wasn't lending the cause of the crisis?)
  The basic idea is that the Bank of England (BoE) starts charging for any surpluses held by banks who have accounts at the BoE. Currently the BoE has to pay interest to the Banks.
  All of banks and building socities have to hold accounts at the BoE - to make sure that all transactions in the economy are balanced up at the end of a day and so that as the lender of last resort they can inject money into a failing bank (electronically).

UNISONActive Analysis - Downgrading Osborne's economic strategy

There seems to be mood of delight on the left about the downgrading of the UK government's credit rating. This an error and a misleading outlook.
  Why? Firstly it gives Osborne the cover for further cuts to public spending and destruction of public services, he will argue that to win back economic credibility further action must be taken to reduce the debt and debt payments.

Banking on safety?

Retail banks aren’t safe: Politicians fool themselves and us to think otherwise.
Day after day more and more scandals erupt from our banks, RBS the state owned bank, has been fined £390m for involvement in interest rate manipulation. In the face of scandals like these, the political debate about structural banking reform has intensified. Last week, George Osborne committed to forcibly breaking up banks if they do not ring fence “risky” investment arms from their “safe” retail divisions.

Irish Unions - from 'social partnership' to mass protest

#feb9demo The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) mobilised over 110,000 people in a massive protest against austerity. Marches and rallies under the ICTU slogan of 'Lift the Burden - Jobs not Debt' were held in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Sligo and Waterford:
http://www.irishtimes.com
/newspaper/breaking/2013/0209/breaking2.html

The disastrous effects of austerity policies

‘In short, the UK experience shows how austerity policies, when applied without regard to the state of the economy, often lead to more government borrowing and debt creation, not less. In the past few years, we’ve seen pretty much the same thing happen in other European countries: Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and now Italy and Spain. Still, though, many proponents of austerity refuse to acknowledge their errors,’ writes John Cassidy in his New Yorker column 'rational irrationality'. Cassidy calls on US fiscal policy makers to heed the lessons of the Con Dem Government’s disastrous austerity policies:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/02/uk-shows-how-austerity-policies-lead-to-more-borrowing-and-debt.html

Lift the burden: Jobs not debt

On 9 February, 'the people of Ireland will be on the streets in their tens of thousands' against crippling debt repayments that will cost 30,000 jobs, ICTU General Secretary David Begg tells Union Post. Demonstrations have been called in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Sligo.
“We have been saddled with a €64 billion bank debt burden that eliminates any possibility of economic recovery and guarantees years of continued stagnation", added David.
   UNION Post also runs a tribute to Inez McCormack who died last month.
http://www.ictu.ie/publications/fulllist/union-post-february-2013/

Governments are not households - the failure of Con Dem austerity policies

John Lanchester, writing in the London Review of Books, takes a scalpel to the UK's economic performance under the Con Dem's and concludes that austerity policies are failing on their own terms. When creative accounting is reversed and interest from quantitative easing is discounted, the structural deficit stands higher then when the Coalition Government took office in May 2010:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n01/john-lanchester/lets-call-it-failure

UBS corrupt payments exposed as bank pays £940m to settle Libor claims

From drug money laundering to fixing interest rates - crashing the economy and causing mass unemployment... yet NO ONE goes to prison. The fabric of our society is completely corrupted by banks, bankers and debt based money.

An early Christmas present for the big 4 banks

Not content with robbing us blind, laundering drug money for the world's most dangerous drug gangs and fixing interest rates for their own trading and bonuses - now we learn that the UK's biggest "too big to fail" banks are to receive a big fat Christmas present in the form of £34bn subsidy from us! http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2012/12/early-christmas-present-britains-biggest-banks-%C2%A334bn-taxpayers

Icelandic Parliament investigating stopping banks creating money!

Is Iceland – the island with just 300.000 citizens – going to be the first country seriously questioning the privatised money creation and considering Full Reserve Banking proposals (the requirement to hold £1 on account for every £1 lent out)? It seems that it might well be the case:
http://www.positivemoney.org/2012/12/icelandic-parliament-investigating-full-reserve-banking/

Osborne's Austerity Exposed As Lies - Treasury Stops Paying Interest on QE bonds

In a move of enormous cheek and deceit the Treasury has changed its accounting rules so it does not have to pay the Bank of England £35bn in interest payments on the government bonds the Bank bought, by creating electronic money, for its Quantitative Easing (QE) programme.

Why is there so much debt?

Positive Money blog has uploaded a video which explains that there is so much debt because almost every pound in the economy has to be created by a bank and lent to us. There has to be as much debt as there is money, and the more we borrow, the more money there will be. It’s actually impossible for the public to reduce their total debt as long as banks are allowed to create money as debt. Watch here:
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/consequences/debt/

Analysis - We can bring the recession to an end without more debt, no cuts and no new taxes

For all the nation's economic woes, the debate seems stuck on tax hikes for the rich or more borrowing from the bankers - we need a new and permanent solution. Just like the one being debated on MSN money, yes that's right Microsoft News Money - http://money.msn.com/investing/no-debt-no-cuts-no-new-taxes we should be debating these issues at the TUC congress this week!

Europe’s Debt Crisis - failing to learn lessons of history

Some old philosopher somewhere once wrote that “Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.” Larry Elliott in the Guardian aptly demonstrates the truth of that maxim in his analysis of  the Eurocrats currently dealing with the Eurocrisis that has manifest itself  within the Eurozone, demonstrating the economic history is not  their strong point. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/aug/19/eurozone-latin-america-debt-crisis-1980