There is an auction taking place on the size of the welfare cuts to be imposed in the next 5 years. The Tories are arguing for £30bn cuts in the first 2 years to 2017-8 via no tax rises, £12bn in welfare cuts, £5bn in extra corporate tax evasion revenues, and bigger departmental cuts (up […]
Posts under ‘Earnings’
Osborne fiddles the figures – again – on living standards
Mar 21st, 2015 by Michael Meacher.In a budget speech spent firefighting against his opponents’ attacks, Osborne’s most eye-catching claim was that household incomes are now higher in 2015 than in 2010. However like everything else this slippery chancellor does, nothing should be taken at face value. And once again the spin he has put on the facts is wildly misleading. […]
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Austerity and economic failure to continue
Mar 20th, 2015 by Michael Burke.The Tory election campaign is based on the claimed success of the government’s economic policy, as the hype around the latest budget confirms. In reality the Tories’ economic record has been unprecedentedly poor. Their economic policy is not primarily aimed at increasing growth or prosperity but rather at effecting a fundamental change in the economy […]
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If you are going to tell porkies, tell big ones
Mar 19th, 2015 by Dave Watson.If you are going to tell porkies, tell big ones. That seemed to be the Chancellor’s strategy in yesterday’s budget. It was as if the past five years didn’t happen. The worst fall in real earnings in recorded history a total fall of 7.9% and even this is on the basis of the lower CPI […]
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What the 3 main parties aren’t telling you: a radical way out of austerity
Mar 16th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.On budget day this Wednesday (18 March), I and 16 other contributors are launching in the House of Commons our book What the Three Main Parties are not Telling You: A Radical Way out of Stagnation and Inequality as a counter-blast to Osborne’s demand for another 5 years of austerity. Mariana Mazzucato refutes the conventional […]
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Spain’s jobs crisis will last as long as it is in the euro
Mar 10th, 2015 by Tom Gill.By Juan Torres López and translated from the original Spanish by Tom Gill A crucial question for the Spanish economy is why it suffers a level of unemployment that is much higher than the rest of the economies that surround it. Obviously, it is a question with no simple unequivocal answer, for surely there are many factors […]
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Performance-related pay is a myth to excuse greed
Mar 5th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.It has been reported today that Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, received a 25% rise in total pay and bonuses last year even though shareholder returns deteriorated and company profits fell back significantly because of the halving of the world price of crude. According to BP’s annual report published yesterday, his overall pay rose […]
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If you think bankers are greedy and self-interested, you should meet fund managers
Mar 4th, 2015 by Jon Lansman.The latest incomes data shows bankers still getting obscenely high remuneration and whopping big bonuses, yet they are being overtaken by another group within the finance sector. Fund managers have now overtaken the pay and bonuses of bankers, though they’re keeping it very quiet. They say there’s no need for customers (i.e. the investing public) […]
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Non-doms: this extra scam for the ultra-rich must be abolished
Feb 28th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.One of the scams highlighted by the HSBC Swiss bank scandal, and then quickly ignored, is the continuing absurd anachronism of the non-dom rules. Stuart Gulliver, the shamed CEO of HSBC, though living in London in order to run the second largest bank in Europe and routing his bonus through a Panamanian company to escape […]
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Five questions from Costas Lapavitsas to Syriza’s leadership on their Euroland deal
Feb 25th, 2015 by Jon Lansman.This is a translation of a blog by Costas Lapavitsas who was Professor of Economics at London’s SOAS until he was elected as a Syriza MP this year. He is known as a Eurosceptic critic of the more Europhile stance of the Syriza leadership, though his criticisms are more reserved than those of Syriza’s 92-old […]
