UK Delusion

 Simon Tilford : 

Britain’s sense of economic invulnerability is even more puzzling. Why does a country that is significantly poorer than Germany, with fewer internationally competitive industries and greater dependence on foreign capital and managerial expertise, believe it can afford to quit the single market? Britain’s economic performance is no better than France’s and on some important measures – especially productivity – far worse. Yet nobody from France’s political mainstream seriously thinks that the French economy would thrive outside the EU.

Much of the British elite know little about how Britain’s economy compares. Few realise that three-quarters of the country is poorer than the EU-15 average; that Britain’s growth performance has been mediocre at best; or that there are relatively few British-owned and managed businesses with a strong record of growth. There are bright spots in the British economy, but its commanding heights owe much to foreign capital and expertise. Foreign-owned businesses generate more than half the country’s exports, and many of these exports are intermediate goods – links in international, predominantly European, supply chains. These companies are especially vulnerable to Britain leaving the single market. If the British economy were more locally owned and managed, it would be easier to understand the British complacency over the economic impact of Brexit. But for a developed country so dependent on foreign capital to do something so damaging to its ability to attract that capital has few precedents.

David Blanchflower :

GDP per head is up just over 1% since 2008 and real wages are still 7% below their level at the start of the Great Recession in 2008. The problem is that many who voted leave thought this was all about immigration and EU rules, whereas in reality it was mostly about austerity. The Poles, the Czechs and the Hungarians came to the UK to work; they have higher employment rates than those born in the UK and pay far more into the system than they take out. It is clear that the rising number of immigrants has put pressure on public services but this was mostly because Osborne under-invested in services in order to shrink the state. They paid their taxes, but Slasher didn’t invest that money in new schools, houses and hospitals.

Cameron and Antibiotic Resistance

Cameron does something important and starts to look into the threat of antibiotic resistance.

But he puts an economist in charge of the project with an explicit assumption its an economic problem that industry has failed to invent more antibiotics.

So lets see if the committee starts recommending the banning of antibiotics in intensive farming practices or if they just come with recommendations to extend "intellectual property" rights or other incentives for big pharma companies.

NeoLiberalism in Simple Rules

Because markets ...

What Is ISRG?

Good blog post on the people making the decisions.

Buying Signs From The Homeless

This guy spent 10 years buying signs from the homeless in New York.

Diamonds

Fascinating story.

There's Nothing so Radical as Empiricism

Chris Dillow :

There's nothing so radical as empiricism.

US Government Obsessed With Housing Prices?

Just creating the conditions for a new housing crash?

Max Keiser On LIBOR

Barclays and Libor

So let me get this straight. Banks self-report how trustworthy other banks find them. This information goes into a statistic that is used across the world to set interest rates and make other policy decisions. 

Now it turns out for the three years up to the financial crash of 2008 they were basically "making shit up" to scam more money. Then, when the crash hit, they continued lying to make themselves look more reliable than they were. (Barclays, remember, were the bank that famously didn't need a UK government bail-out because they found private sector loans to support them. Perhaps based on their faked credit-rating?) 

More : http://www.quora.com/London-Inter-Bank-Offered-Rate/Whats-so-significant-about-Barclays-Bank-lying-about-the-interest-rate-they-paid-on-loans , also my Quora Question )

Britain's Record "Debt"

 Will Hutton :

Nor is it true that Britain has record public debts. It did have a record annual public deficit in 2009/10 as the budget papers say. But that is not debt. Debt is an aggregate figure, the consequence of cumulative deficits over decades. Expressed as a proportion of GDP, debt has been higher than current levels for most of the last 250 years. Indeed, with the cost of servicing public debt at the lowest since the 1890s there have been very few decades since the 1760s when the cost of servicing public debt has been so low. Britain, despite the Orwellian attempt to misuse language, does not have a debt crisis.

Information And Insurance

The real reason health insurers won't cover those who are sick. Remember the end of insurance?

The Responsibilities of Economists

Krugman's overview of the failures of economics. Great analysis.

The Subsidy Of Limited Liability

Vinay very interesting on the implicit subsidy that government gives to business in the form of limited liability.

Europe’s Deadly Transition From Social Democracy to Oligarchy

Read this

I know I'm sounding like I'm just repeating the same story again and again. But what the hell else is there to do? This is now so blatantly happening. Another week, another story of a redistribution of wealth and power from the 99% (and government agencies that still have democratic responsibility to them) to the 1% wealthy elite.

So many people seem to vaguely perceive this. Many people are talking. But no one seems capable of stopping it.

Money quote :

This competition between banks and government explains the false accusations made that government credit creation is more inflationary than when commercial banks do it.

European Stability Mechanism

Not sure how much of a conspiracy theory this is but if it's even half true - and right now it seems horribly plausible - it's another extraordinary coup for disaster capitalism. 

Banks And Social Networks

Major Netocracy coming down!

And in the last year or so, financial institutions have started exploring ways to use data from Facebook, Twitter and other networks to round out an individual borrower’s risk profile—although most entrepreneurs working on the problem say the technology is three to five years away from mainstream adoption.

Update : While we're on the subject of Netocracy, here's Dillow on the irrelevance of politicians. Another symptom of the shift to Netocracy is the decline of the democratic nation state (a classic institution of "Project Man") attacked on all sides by networks. In this case, finance networks. (Look at Dillow even parroting the classic media-vs-state line : that voters have recognised the irrelevance and are bored with politicians.)

Original Pirate Material

 Pirate Utopias

These merchant ships were the engines of the emerging global capitalism, yet the sailors themselves were utterly excluded from the wealth they worked to generate. The decision to ‘turn pirate’ was thus a decision to wrestle back some autonomy, and when they did, life on a ship changed dramatically. Officers were democratically elected. Food was shared equally among men of all rank. When booty was collected the Captain only took two shares where the lowest took one – income differentials that would make modern CEOs faint. Loss of a limb aboard would be met with a payment of around £20,000 in today’s money – an amazing form of early healthcare.
So, far from being simple thieves, pirates were perhaps the original anti-capitalist protesters. The reason they were hunted down and suffered such savage public executions was because the powers of the day were petrified of the consequences of the pirates’ ethos.

Banksters' Lies

Surprised?