According to the Government’s ‘housing strategy’ paper to be announced today, the Tories are about to build some houses. So far, so good, though quite a surprise since in this last year housing completions shrank to their lowest level since 1923. But let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. According to Cameron, it […]
Posts under ‘Finance’
Greece, Italy: now markets choose prime ministers
Nov 18th, 2011 by David Osler.I am not entitled to vote in either Greece or Italy; even if I were, I would not support either George Papandreou or Silvio Berlusconi, anyway. In the normal run of events, I would greet their departure from office with Zen-like equanimity. But what we have seen in the last week or so is not the […]
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How bad does it have to get for Osborne to go?
Nov 18th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The economic news is so unremittingly bleak that any sane Chancellor would now be changing course before the country tumbles into the ditch (i.e. a double-dip recession). Not Osborne. But the real clincher isn’t just the appalling rise in joblessness for 18-24 year olds to more than a million or the total rise in unemployment […]
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Are banks the untouchables?
Nov 15th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Latest figures show Big 5 banks are now lending only half to SMEs that they pledged under Operation Merlin to an enormous fanfare of self-congratulation a year ago. There have been no checks imposed on proprietary trading or on transactions in financial derivatives, both of which were main contributors to the financial crash of 2008-9. […]
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Profits and austerity in the industrialised economies
Nov 15th, 2011 by Michael Burke.A previous article examined the profit rate in the Irish economy which is rising even though the economy continues to contract. Yet at the same time Ireland’s level of investment is falling. Corporate incomes – profits – are rising even though total economic activity is falling. Arithmetically, this can only occur by reducing the income of […]
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The disconnect of politics from the reality out there
Nov 11th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.It is almost incredible how the perfect storm is coming together from so many sources at the same time. The near-bankruptcy of the Italian economy could bring down the Eurozone. Yesterday’s official down-grading of growth in the EU to no more than 0.5% a year, and even of Germany to only 1% a year, heralds […]
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£2bn in profit but RBS keeps on sacking
Nov 10th, 2011 by Newsdesk.Bailed-out bank Royal Bank of Scotland is back in the black and lending again – but still continues to sack their own workers. The 83 per cent state-owned bank posted third-quarter pre-tax profits of £2 billion last week, following a £678 million loss earlier this year and a £1.6bn loss in 2010.
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Farewell to European democracy?
Nov 10th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.So the honest and decent Papandreou is forced out because he wanted to give the Greek people, who would bear the weight of the cutbacks, a chance to express whether they accepted them, however reluctantly, or whether they would take the alternative option of a default and leaving the euro. The corrupt and despicable Berlusconi […]
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The second global banking crash
Nov 7th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The EU sovereign debt crisis is not primarily about the 17 countries that constitute the Eurozone, it’s about the intertwined European banks’ exposure to a mountain of speculative lending in high-risk countries that could never have survived German competitiveness within a single currency. The UK is equally at fault here even though not itself a […]
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Financial markets do not exist
Oct 30th, 2011 by David Osler.One of the most striking aspects of the blanket media coverage of the eurozone crisis is the way in which financial markets are routinely spoken of as entities with a life of their own. They are conceived of as capable of adhering to ethical codes, from which they have of late drifted away. Ostensibly they can […]
