The basic reason that the leadership election has been so disappointing, until Jeremy Corbyn came on the scene, was that it was stuck on issues (insofar as it was stuck on any issues at all) that, while certainly important, did not have the makings of a vision. Even when Corbyn prompted the others to produce some actual policies, they were not the real thing. Andy Burnham was right to praise land value tax and above all the need to integrate social care within the NHS, and Yvette Cooper was absolutely right to demand that Britain takes its proper share of Syrian refugees where the government response has been callously dehumanised. Bully for her. But these are not the fundamentals, and only Jeremy Corbyn seems to have grasped what this election is really all about. Continue reading
Tagged with Depression
A milestone reached in the British slump
The release of the second estimate of GDP in the 3rd quarter of 2013 marks an important milestone in the current slump. The fall in investment has for long been the driving force of the current crisis and in fact preceded it. As in many other countries investment (Gross Fixed Capital Formation) in Britain began to fall before the recession began. It also statistically accounts for the recession as the fall in investment is larger than the total fall in GDP.
With the publication of the latest GDP data it is now the case that the decline in business investment alone more than accounts for the entire slump in GDP in the current crisis. It is always possible that the data could be revised substantially with the release of the third estimate in the National Accounts data (and could be revised later). But the most recent data show that the total fall in GDP since the 1st quarter of 2008 to the 3rd quarter of 2013 is £40bn. Over the same period the total decline in investment (GFCF) is £61bn. This includes investment by firms, by government and by private households. But it is firms that play a dominant role in the British economy and its level of investment. Continue reading
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How long can this go on? Not the Coalition, but peace on the streets?
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 of the last 5 years, has not eased, it has deteriorated further.
Total debt – not just government debt which gets all the attention, but the equally important household, financial and corporate debt – has actually increased in 10 Western countries since 2007. One of those is the UK, but the list also includes the US, Germany, France, Canada as well as the more predictable countries in deep trouble – Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland. Continue reading
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How can the monstrosity of doomed austerity be stopped?
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 over the next year, has now begun a precipitous fall, with the PMI index down a catastrophic 7 points in the last quarter. Continue reading
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Greece: Answering the critics of a united front against austerity
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 in the old way.
Even the people who decide to end their own lives are not doing so quietly. They are going to the squares to die and they are leaving messages that talk not so much of their own despair but of struggle – ‘hang the bankers and the politicians’, said one. Continue reading
