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May 29, 2024

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rsm

《The Bank of England cuts interest rates and the government borrows more, thereby supporting demand》

Why ignore trillions in currency swaps with the Fed and outright asset purchases by the BoE?

Why continually leave finance out of your analyses, especially since our blogger made all his money in finance?

Blissex

«big policy questions: how to go beyond "predict and control" macro policy; how to regulate key industries properly whilst ensuring resilience elsewhere; how to have a welfare state that supports incomes and facilitates necessary job moves. [...] once we start talking about economic security, some sensible ideas naturally emerge.»

I guess our blogger is arguing that public life in the UK suffers from a scarcity of "sensible ideas".

«leftists should welcome a Labour government, especially one with a big majority - because it would change the agenda away from media-inspired Tory drivel and towards more serious issues.»

So putting better people in charge would mean they would deal with ˚serious issues” thanks to “sensible ideas” to solve “big policy questions”. It is curious that not so long ago our same blogger wrote this:

https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2023/12/the-class-base-of-bad-government.html
«schoolteacher politics, the notion that bad policy is mere intellectual or moral error that could be avoided if only we had better people in charge»

In my fantastical parallel earth the “big policy questions” that have arisen in public life have been "how to redistribute from worker and tenants a lot of wealth and income upwards with rapidly increasing housing costs”, and "how to ensure City spivs make a lot of money with very risk trading by deregulating them and then backstopping them entirely with state money” and “how to make workers more competitive with lower wages, pensions, and much meaner welfare” and “how to moderate taxes by cutting spending that benefits workers and tenants”.

All these questions have been solved for the past 40 very well, the governments of the past 40 years have achieved much to the delight of their voters.

In my fantasy parallel Earth there is no scarcity of “sensible ideas” as to solve the problems above, and they have been solved.

How fortunate must be the real planet in which you all live where the big problems on which most voters agree are to “go beyond "predict and control" macro policy”, “regulate key industries properly”, “have a welfare state that supports incomes”, even if the people in charge are not good enough to have “sensible ideas” on how to solve them.

rsm

What if in my fantastical parallel world, the rich create a lot of money for themselves, use the central bank as a public money backstop when necessary, and impose scarcity on the poor not due to physics but simply as a kind of icing on the cake, pointing to the zero-sum models of mainstream economics as an excuse why they have to be mean (even as they cynically press the money-printing button as much as they want, for themselves)?

What if the poor realized that the zero-sum models of economics are just being used cynically by those in power to justify rising inequality? What if we the people voted in politicians who would implement a non-tax-funded high basic income fully indexed to inflation?

Blissex

«So putting better people in charge would mean they would deal with ˚serious issues” thanks to “sensible ideas” to solve “big policy questions”. It is curious that not so long ago our same blogger wrote this:»

While I keep following this blog as I appreciate the quality of our blogger's posts presenting interesting literature with useful links, I keep making this point because...

I liked rather more his writing when he was talking about economic matters, rather than "metaphysical" matters like cognitive biases and the quality of the people in charge.

There are plenty of strange economic happenings around us, from high inflation here and negative inflation in China, the weird goings on in the USA government debt markets, the evolution of the UK trade balance, the enormous fall starting in 2004-2005 in both electricity consumption and production in the UK and many other "mature" economies, the apocalyptic increase in valuation of USA stocks like Moody's, ...

I am also disappointed by his constant inconsistency :) between his acknowledgments that politics and economic policy is about conflicts of class interests and power for specific constituencies and his talking of "kumbaya" style government for what he seems to think is "the national interest", solving “serious issues” thanks to “sensible ideas” to address “big policy questions” like “go beyond "predict and control" macro policy”, “regulate key industries properly”, “have a welfare state that supports incomes”.

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