The latest news about inflation – RPI up last month from 2.8% to 3.2% when wages are virtually flat – is bad enough, but the background makes this a whole lot worse. Since 9 August 2007 when the collapse at Northern Rock heralded the start of the Great Financial Crash, debt, despite all the privations [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Depression’
How long can this go on? Not the Coalition, but peace on the streets?
Aug 16th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.
How can the monstrosity of doomed austerity be stopped?
Jun 5th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.The evidence that prolonged austerity has failed is now overwhelming. The economy is experiencing the slowest and feeblest recovery from slump on record, and the longest depression since 1873. The double-dip recession is extending into a long contraction with no plausible scenario of growth in sight. Manufacturing, which initially rallied in 2010, then slipped slowly [...]
Greece: Answering the critics of a united front against austerity
May 31st, 2012 by Kate Hudson and Andrew Burgin.Greece stands on a precipice. There can be no return to the old politics there and a revolutionary situation is emerging amid the chaos of everyday life. The classic conditions for revolution are present: a working class no longer prepared to live in the old way and a ruling class no longer able to rule [...]
Three speeds In Europe, all slower
May 17th, 2012 by Michael Burke.The latest publication of the GDP data for the EU shows three distinct trends but one unifying theme – slower growth. In an important but dwindling group are those economies which are still expanding, led by Germany where GDP grew by 0.5% in the first quarter of 2012. In a larger group are those countries [...]
The far left and capitalist crisis
May 1st, 2012 by David Osler.Recent capitalist history has thrown up sharper economic declines and higher levels of unemployment than the ones we are currently witnessing in Greece and Spain. It’s just that they haven’t occurred in nice Mediterranean countries that Britons visit for beach holidays and long weekends. Bookmarks Hide Sites
We need Balls-plus
Sep 27th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Were Ed Balls prescriptions desirable? Yes. Were they sufficient? No. He wants to repeat the bank bonus tax, bring forward long-term investment plans, reverse January’s damaging VAT rise for a temporary period, cut VAT to 5% on home improvements, and give a 1-year national insurance tax break for every small firm that takes on extra [...]
Ed Balls speech: a right and left perspective
Sep 27th, 2011 by Carl Packman.Ed Balls today did exactly what he was supposed to do: he offered something by way of a plan to boost jobs, created a soundbite on Labour’s economic plan (“fiscal responsibility in the national interest”), apologised for what Labour got wrong in the past (75p pension rise, the abolition of the 10p tax rate), put [...]
Ed Balls speech: in denial
Sep 26th, 2011 by David Osler.This is the darkest, most dangerous period for the global economy that most of us have ever lived through, Ed Balls correctly insisted in his speech to the Labour conference today. But never mind; a temporary cut in VAT will soon sort things out. I exaggerate, of course. But only slightly. At a time when [...]
The mother of a crisis is on its way
Aug 19th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.The crisis is coming, and, though the bankers are still raking it in, the shit is really about to hit the fan. I can’t put it better than three wise men, whose concise views I quote at length: Duncan Weldon is terrified by bond yields: We have falling equity prices, falling commodity prices, record low [...]
