Just about everything about this so-called UK economic recovery is wrong. It’s not just today’s report from the Resolution Foundation that the lop-sidedness of the labour market is becoming entrenched, with bonuses to the City financial and insurance sector rising to £14bn this year while the pay of those in the bottom fifth, mainly women and part-time or zero hours contract workers, are stuck in a rut or even falling. The whole shape of the ‘recovery’ is misguided. Continue reading
Tagged with Recession
Can Britain’s recovery be sustained?
All around there are signs of recovery. One can almost hear the sound of champagne bottles popping and fireworks crackling in the Westminster village. Indicators are improving. Commentators are reassessing the chancellor, whose reputation for economic management had plunged, causing his stock to fall amongst his Conservative colleagues. Now they can’t resist giving him a positive ‘thumbs up’.
Fair do. Britain is emerging from the longest slump in more than a century. So good news is welcome, and a little cheer is in order.
But we have been here before. Indeed there have been ‘green shoots’ and other signs of recovery since 2009 – when Labour’s chancellor, Alastair Darling was still in charge. Continue reading
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Who is to blame for the crisis? Not unions, immigrants or ‘scroungers’
A crisis is an objective fact to which there can essentially be only two responses. The cause can be identified and addressed, or some other explanation can be advanced which effectively shifts the blame for the crisis elsewhere. The government and the supporters of austerity are increasingly bent on the second course.
A succession of scapegoats have been offered for the crisis, including perniciously both immigrants and ‘scroungers’, and now unions. However, as these cannot begin to provide an economic explanation for the crisis, the supporters of austerity also persistently claim that the cause of the current crisis is weak exports, effectively blaming foreigners for the British crisis. Continue reading
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Is there going to be another crisis? Of course there is
“You have a dog, and I have a cat. We agree that they are each worth a billion dollars. You sell me the dog for a billion, and I sell you the cat for a billion. Now we are no longer pet owners, but Icelandic banks, with a billion dollars in new assets.” (From The emperor has no clothes by David Lizoain)
Is there going to be another crisis? Of course there is. The liberalised global financial system remains intact and unregulated, if a little battered. “The crisis has proved itself as a way to solidify the existing economic order” – as Professor Joseph Vogl noted. Continue reading
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How Osborne’s ‘recovery’ evaporated in a puff of smoke within 24 hours
Twenty-four hours is a long time in politics, let alone a week. Dressed in his best City garb Osborne informed the assembled banking grandees in the Mansion House last Wednesday that: “We are moving from rescue to recovery. Britain has left intensive care”. Really? On Thursday words from Ben Bernanke, head of the US Federal Reserve, to the effect that he was slowing the pace of QE3 and might conclude it by mid-2014, blew Osborne away and with him most of the stockmarkets across the world. Continue reading
