Category Archives: Politics

The vain glorious and useful idiots of Brexit

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Economists often seem afraid to use words in common circulation in their analysis, they will resort to made up technical words, when a much simpler phrase would have been more appropriate and useful. One little known book today is Erasmus’s  “The Adages”. In this book he demonstrates how the simple proverbs and phrases in common usage can conceal profound truths. One of the frequent themes of his essays are the damaging behaviors of vain glorious princes. These princes in their lust for glory start wars which damage their countries prosperity leaving them poorer and indebted. The only beneficiaries are the mercenaries they employ in their armies. These wars were so profitable for the mercenaries that one even took over a city state and made himself the Duke of Milan. What economics lacks is that despite being a science of human society are the terms to describe those irrational behaviours that have a major impact on the economy and society. Just as in renaissance Italy we have leaders that inflict significant damage on their economy in pursuit of vainglorious enterprises, that they believe will earn them a place in history. However what I cannot find in Erasmus is any reference to the ‘useful idiot’ a person that is now very common in our political classes.

A useful idiot is the one who in elieving that they are advancing their own interests are  in fact advancing the interests of another more powerful individual or group of individuals. This  group prefers to avoid attracting to much attention, as it would highlight the fact that their interests are damaging to the health of the wider society.

The most damaging to our economic prospects as a nation are the useful idiots in parliament, who have successfully campaigned for a damaging break with Europe. When one reads of the vast sums of money paid by the Brexit supporting billionaires to those politicians campaigning to leave Europe, it becomes obvious in whose interests they are operating. Senior politicians who supported the campaign are now being paid hundreds of thousands for newspaper columns and books by the very press barons who wanted to exit Europe. Do these politicians really think that their newspaper columns or books are really worth the hundreds of thousands that are paid for them? What can be said is the hundreds of thousands paid to these politicians are but the small change in the pocket of these billionaires? Only the politicians themselves can really think that their talent is worthy of such high salaries. What can usefully be said is the many books being written by these self serving politicians will the very books which will be the first to be pulped next year as most of them will remain unsold.

There are another group of useful idiots in our parliament, these are not the paid proxies of the billionaire class but those naive politicians who having spent a lifetime within the Westminster confuse reality with the world as seen from within the Westminster bubble. They over estimate their powers and the significance of their actions. They seem to have a naive Harry Potter like perspective take on the world, they believe that having access to the levers of power in Westminster gives them the power to change the world. What they despise is the mundane reality of power in which Westminster is but one player, a player that achieves it goals through negotiation and persuasion. They have no time for the mundanity of reality, they are lost in their own fantasy world.

One of the worst offenders are those on the left. They believe that by turning their back on reality they can create the just socialist society of their imaginings. If only they looked at the failing career of President Hollande they would be aware of the fallibility of their beliefs. He was elected promising to create a better France by increasing spending on the French welfare system and to reduce France’s high unemployment levels. To fulfil promises he would have to increase government spending, but this was in the Europe dominated by a Germany committed to an Europe wide austerity programme. Nothing he promised the French electorate could be delivered because his government was committed to the European programme of austerity. Now Hollande is the most unpopular of French Presidents, who if he wished to stand for President at the next election would be rejected by his party.

At present the leadership of the opposition party supports Brexit, because they believe that freed from EU regulation they can remake society according to their values. What they fail to realise is that a Britain shorn of EU membership will be but a small struggling country on the edge of Europe. They to solve what will be a problem of growing unemployment will be desperate to make deals with those businesses that can bring jobs to the UK. In such a situation the various multinationals will be able to dictate the terms on which they do business. What they will demand is a freedom from regulation, particularly employment regulation, together with cash subsidies of various kinds and infra structure  to benefit them. As demonstrated in Wales where the Labour government to persuade Amazon to locate a warehouse there was forced to spend billions on new roads to improve access to the new warehouse. Amazon is an employer noted for its use of exploitative working practices. This Welsh Labour government despite its socialist principles has turned a blind eye to this firms employment practices, so as not to offend a major local employer. A weak desperate government will sacrifice all its socialist principles to attract business to  the country in its desire  to create jobs. These people I class as useful idiots, because they will be doing exactly what the various rapacious multinational corporations want, creating a country in which they can operate largely free of regulation.

Those on the right seem to believe in some magical notion of Britishness. They believe that Britain really is some ‘spectred isle’ which will be restored to its former glory by breaking with Europe. One of their claims is that Britain will be free to trade with all those countries outside Europe, that they could not do as EU members. Again as with their left wing opponents they lack a firm grasp of reality. Unfortunately these dreamers dominate government and seem to think that by destroying all links with Europe, they will restore Britain to its past glory. If or when they achieve their break from Europe they will find that they become are reduced to governing a desperate vassal state, whose real governors are the multinational corporations.

The words Puerto Rico seem unknown to these ‘unrealists’. This country is independent and has a free trade treaty with the USA. Something desired by the ‘unrealists’, however any small weak country is at a disadvantage when negotiating with a powerful neighbour. In consequence  the free trade treaty has kept the country poor and impoverished. It is the location for American multinational companies who wish to operate in a low cost and regulation free environment, which of course is of little benefit to the people there.

What I am trying to suggest is that economics struggles to explain the why and what of human activity that is irrational and self destructive. Reading Erasmus’s explanations of the adages that explain the vain glorious actions of Princes, gives a far better understanding of the behaviours of today’s politicians than does any economic text.

Billionaires and the Scrooge Factor

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Dickens’ Scrooge is treated as an agreeable story to be told to children at Christmas, yet this is to misunderstand Dickens intention. This was a book for adults one that was intended to show the destructiveness to the human personality of acquiring money for money’s sake. There was a real life Scrooge, a John Ewles who went so far as to sleep with the horses in the stable as he used the warmth generated by the horses so he would not have to light a fire in his house. There is no doubt that the CEO’s of the largest business corporations have read or at least are familiar with the Scrooge story, but what they fail to realise is that their behaviours mirror that of Scrooge.

A friend told me that the largest business corporations in the world have cash assets totalling three times the world’s GDP. Checking with the internet I find that the cash reserves of Apple and Microsoft combined exceed those of the British Treasury.  Apple has the world’s largest cash reserves of £95 billion. Although I cannot confirm my friends figures, I know him sufficiently well to know that he has not made them up. (The source I think was Oxfam but I could not find the figures I wanted on their website). The usual reason given for these huge holdings of cash being stored in overseas  tax havens to avoid losing their cash to the taxman. Not paying tax is one of the moral imperatives of the new Scroogian morality.

(The following text only makes sense with an economists understanding of money. Money has no intrinsic value, it is only a claim on wealth and its value is determined by how large a share of wealth can be claimed by each unit of money. If the total sum of money to spent is greater than the monetary value of the goods and services produced in an economy, then when that  money is spent those who have the greatest sums of money will outbid those who have least for the available goods and services and so push up prices. This is in essence is inflation, if the price inflation is modest people will retain their faith in money and will continue to treat it as a store of value. If as in Germany in 1926 if price increases are high and of ever greater frequency, people lose faith in the currency and a hyper inflation develops as money becomes increasingly worthless.)

However what I want to suggest is that such holding such vast sums of cash is an act of stupidity.  The first thing to realise is that these companies can’t use this money in any productive way. The sums held are so vast that if these companies decided to spend that money, it would significantly increase the rate of inflation and reduce the cash value of their holdings. The London property market until recently demonstrated this effect, it was a market where billionaires and multinationals seeing it as a safe haven for their money have successively bid up the price of London properties to astronomical levels. If they started to spend their cash piles other sectors of the world economy would experience similar levels of inflation.These businesses are trapped by their piles of cash, they cannot do anything that would reduce their value. If Apple for instance spent £10 billion from its vast cash pile on investing in a new business venture, the shareholders would be up in arms, as that reduction in the cash reserves would be matched by a reduction in the value of their shares. Apple, Microsoft and the other cash rich multi-nationals are held prisoner by their money, they can do nothing which might diminish their cash stock piles as in doing so they would risk the wrath of their shareholders. Rather than these CEO’s being the giants of the world of business, they are reduced to rather pathetic figures do all they can to protect their cash hoards. They are held captive by their money.

I do wonder if this practice of hoarding and nurturing their cash piles does not make the owners more risk adverse. I own an Apple Iphone but instead of planning to upgrade to a newer model at the end of the contract, I might just instead keep my current model. It does seem that the innovative flair that made Iphone a ‘must buy’ is now lacking in the company. Has the desire to hoard cash diminished the funds for innovation?

When this cash is spent it not only devalues the currency but also the politics of a country. One example is the Koch brothers, millionaire oil traders who have spent billions backing those candidates who do their bidding or who have an agenda similar to theirs. In consequence in the Koch influenced US Congress the majority of the Congressmen oppose any action that would effective ameliorate the effects of climate change and reduce oil sales. It is possible to say that the melting of the Arctic ice is a consequence of the action of the Koch brothers. What happens when this occurs is a narrowing of the political agenda to such an extent that Congress and other political institutions come to represent the views of their financial backers rather than the people.

One consequence of this is that these companies spend some of their cash pile on ‘economic toys’. Such toys have very little productive value but whose ownership brings status and prestige to their owner, they do little for the companies bottom line. However the sums spent on such toys are but a minuscule proportion of their cash piles. Nobody ever made money from owning a Formula 1 racing team, but the money squandered on such an enterprise is merely the small change from these huge cash piles.

The problem for the owners of these vast money mountains is that they dare not risk moving them out of their havens for fear of devaluing the value of these cash reserves. The Bill Gates foundation that does so much good in the developing world, is a ring fenced fund, quite separate from the Microsoft business, which has its own huge cash pile.  The Dicken’s solution to the Scrooge complex is for the rich man to give his money away. While such a move would be welcomed because their cash holdings are so vast, any such spending would risk destabilising the world economy. They just have too much money for their own and the world’s good.

Unfortunately just as with Scrooge their desire to protect their money forces them into many anti-social acts. The British press barons have campaigned relentlessly to leave the EU. One of their main motives for doing so was to prevent any future European wide body from organising a more effective system of tax collection. It was said by the IMF that Britain is the largest tax haven in the world and these group of anti social men will do anything to prevent any action that would lead to them paying more tax. The fact that leaving the EU would do tremendous damage to the British economy is of no consequence to them. Even the threat to their wealth from a fall in property prices  consequent of Brexit is a price worth paying to protect their tax exemptions. Just like Scrooge these men care only for their money and little for their fellow men. Aristotle said a nation governed by the rich was a plutocracy, however that term does not do justice to spirit of meanness that prevails in contemporary Britain, a better word to describe the country is a Scroogocracy.

There is a solution to this problem. When I first studied economics in the 1960s the top rate of income tax was 79%. Now it a wealth tax of a similar rate was applied to these cash piles they would be reduced to an amount that was insufficient to destabilise the world economy. It would also reduce the attractiveness of acquiring these cash piles. One curious fact that would result is that the governments of the world would face restrictions on how they used this cash. They could spend some to alleviate their budget problems, but if they spent all this windfall at once, hyper inflation would result and there would be a major destabilisation of the world economy.  Most of that money would have to sit untouched in the treasuries of the world’s central banks.

One objection to my proposal is that all this money is hidden in tax havens beyond the reach of the world’s governments. However these tax havens are little more than the foreign branches of the major banks. The money might appear on the balance sheet of a Bahama’s bank, but in reality it is banked in London. If the banks and the owners of these cash piles wanted to keep up the pretence that this money was really in the Bahamas, capital controls could be imposed preventing this money being transferred to London or New York. There is little that the vast sums that are banked in these tax havens could be spent on locally. They would just harmlessly rot way.  What I am recommending is the destruction of these cash piles, as they do little for the world economy and they create a risk adverse culture among the super rich, which means economic growth rates are much lower than would be otherwise. I would recommend a policy in which either the holders of these vast cash piles adopted a voluntary ‘potlatch’ in which they destroyed their useless cash piles or they surrendered them to government where they could stored as part of the national reserves, where they could do little harm.

A REPLY FROM AN ECONOMIST TO THE ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM OF DONALD TRUMP AND MICHAEL GOVE

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(There were many errors in my first draft, it was written in anger and published without  a thorough checking for error.)

Contention

Economists don’t always have the right answers, they can be wrong at times, but their answers to problems are better than those of ill-informed politicians and journalists. There are plenty of never-never land politicians selling an unreal picture of the world to the electorate. There are many fewer such economists because there work would have undergone informed scrutiny by their peers and much that is dubious would have been discarded. The overwhelming majority of economists believe that Brexit will inflict significant economic damage on the economy, while a significant number of politicians and most journalist believe the reverse (who are lacking any evidence apart from their misguided optimism in the rightness of their beliefs).

Confession of interest

I am one of those experts that Michael Gove spoke abouto he said people are fed up with and who they should be ignored by the people  when making decisions about the future, such as how to vote in the EU referendum. I am one of those people who following Aristotle’s advice  have dedicated the best part of their life to study. What Michael Gove is trashing is the value of learning, I cannot accept that my years of study have been wasted. How can such small minded person go against centuries of a tradition that values learning? He is a graduate of an elite university but he seems to dismiss the value of what he learnt there. I can say to Michael Gove that when teaching in a tough secondary school I never demeaned myself to pretending that I lacked learning. What young people can identify is the phoney, the teacher that pretends to be like them. Michael Gove’s attempt to pretend to be one of the people is as phoney as my colleagues who adopted a fake working class accents and mimicked the words and manners the young in an attempt to win their favour. Behaviour as phoney as that of the Dad who to tries to impress by claiming a knowledge of and love for garage music and rap.

The dangers of contempt for learning

If Michael Gove’s lead is followed as experts such as myself as regarded as just another self interested individual with an agenda to promote, a lot is lost. Economists such as myself are in possession of or can access a body of knowledge about the economy not available to others. Acquiring and understanding the store of economic knowledge takes years and to be honest a life time of study, because the subject is always changing and developing. What Michael Gove is saying is that my learning is of no consequence. I cannot accept that the anti intellectualism of todays politicians will stand future scrutiny. Without wishing to be too unkind Michael is an insignificant figure compared to Adam Smith, Ricardo, Keynes, Hayek, Polanyi and Robinson. With time his anti intellectual populism will be a but a minor blip in the progress of humankind. In studying economics I developed a critical faculty which makes it possible to make reasoned judgements about government policy, rather than relying up prejudice and common sense on which to found my judgements. Paraphrasing a much greater thinker than myself who used this phrase in the context of religious belief, those who don’t believe in God are likely to believe in anything; similarly those who don’t believe the truths of  economics are likely to believe any nonsense about the economy.

One such nonsense is the current belief that there is a real knowledge of the world, which is only possessed by men of business, who deal every day with the complexities of the real world, as opposed to the unreal world of academia. One such person held to possess this knowledge is Donald Trump, the next President of the United States. I would question the breadth of his knowledge, he is a real estate developer. Yet one who has failed in several business ventures and has only been saved from bankruptcy by the protection afforded by US law to such people. If you wished to buy and develop a property you would go to a real estate agent or property developer, but one with a better track record than Donald Trump. Apart from his deal making in which he has a very mixed record I cannot see how Donald Trump has a better understanding of the world than me. As a teacher I would be criticised for living and working in an unreal world, which is a silly phrase as the school is as real as the boardroom. One other silly untruth is that teachers lack the toughness to cope with the real world, all I can say is that these people who say that have little understanding of the difficulties of teaching a group of adolescents. One of the most telling examples of the falsity of this stance is a video on Youtube, where Michael Gove is addressing a group of teenagers. They show complete disdain for his lecture and indulge in all the behaviours of disaffection typical of teenagers. What I am saying is that my experience as  teacher of economics is as valid as Donald Trumps as a property developer, although if I’m honest I think mine is the superior knowledge of the world.

When politicians deny the truths of learning they became prey to the teaching of messianic and charismatic charlatans such  as the  novelist – Ayn Rand author of ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ whose followers include Sajid Javid and all politicians of the Neo-Liberal persuasion. Her book paean to billionaires who she believes are the heroic figures that make our civilisation great. The central figure of the book John Galt a man of independent means who is puzzled as to why billionaires keep disappearing from society. He is taken to a mysterious canyon remote from Washington, where the billionaires are hiding, seeking sanctuary from a rapacious Washington. These  billionaires are fed up with being oppressed by a government that so taxes and regulates them, that they are denied their role as the creative driving force of society, a rapacious government has reduced them to impotence. It does not realise that without their enterprise, society would fall into stasis and decline. When these billionaires go on strike society collapses and thousands of the useless poor die as a poor and weak government is forced to withdraw the income on which they depend for their survival. Eventually a discredited government is forced to welcome back the billionaires on their terms and these billionaires put society back on its feet and society develops and prospers. Many politicians of the new right are followers of Ayn Rand and her influence can be seen on government welfare policy. The Ayn Rands in government believe in a policy of brutalising the poor to the extent that they are forced to work at any price for anybody. It’s a cure for the wasteful culture of dependence, to such as ‘Sajid Javid’ homeless and misery is a just punishment for the useless poor. When governments ignore the truth tellers they are prey to the charlatans and other paddlers of fantasies and falsehoods.

Economists do possess a knowledge of the economy which is invaluable  for the effective running of government. One such economist is Anne Pettifor who is constantly ignored by governments because she tells them truths they don’t want to hear. Economists such as her can be compared to the Old Testament prophets who were constantly ignored by the rulers of Israel.

Anne Pettifor -is the author of ‘The First World Debt Crisis’. While most politicians are aware that economic growth is driven by consumer spending and debt, such as the popular car leasing system, they have little awareness of the dangers of this policy. The growth of consumer debt is so large that it has created a credit or debt mountain of unsustainable proportions – UK bank debt in 2009 – 586% of GDP it falling to around 400% of GDP in 2009 (Dominic Raab), but has since risen. Even Germany has similar problems the collective debts of its banks are over 300% of GDP (much of the money lent to Greece was recycled back to the German banks who had made too many ill-judged loans to the Greeks, so as to prevent them experiencing a liquidity crisis).The UK vies continually with Japan for the title of most indebted country of the industrial developed world.

David Cameron was right that Britain was maxed out on its credit card, he was just wrong about which credit card.

Rather than tackle the problem the government spends billions on quantitative easing to provide the cash to keep the banks afloat. At the height of the financial crisis in 2008/9 Gordon Brown was willing to spend a sum equivalent to the almost the total national income to keep the banks afloat. The official policy is to kick the problem can down the road leaving it to a future government to tackle the problem.

Why do governments fail to tackle this problem? They fear the electorate reaction, if they brought the credit boom to an end. Loans of various kinds account for a significant proportion of people’s spending and to reduce lending would in effect to reduce people’s incomes in that they would be unable to spend as much as previously on various consumer goods. What they are most scared of is cutting spending in the housing market which would lead to a fall in house prices. The belief amongst politicians is that falling house prices equal lost election.

The best informed of politicians know that the risk is that the whole financial house of cards will come tumbling down in a crash as bad as that of 1929, yet they prefer the risk of a future catastrophic crash to taking action now.

The right and wrong of economics

Although I can as an economist make more accurate predictions about the future than any politician there are limitations to the usefulness of my predictions. I cannot say exactly when a predicted event will occur or how great will be its impact on the economy. The economy is a dynamic social institution that is constantly changing and changes can maximise or minimise the impact of the predicted event.

Last year The Observer published one of my letters in I which predicted an economic downturn in 2017. I made my prediction on the basis that all free and largely unregulated markets are liable to exuberant booms that always end in a crash. Past history shows that such crashes occur every nine years, that is 1990, 1999 and 2008/9.

This contention is supported by the economist Hayek. What he stated was that there is a period when the benefits of innovation are exhausted and economic growth falls and the economy falls into recession. This has happened to the UK as the benefits from the mass production of consumer goods begin to tail off. Since the mid 1980s there has been too many car manufacturers in Europe, making cars that were needed. The consequence was retrenchment in the car industry and in Britain the disappearance of the native car industry. When industry fails to deliver alternative sources of income need to be found. In the UK, USA and Western Europe that has been the development of the speculative industry, increases in income no longer come from employment but from the increase in the value of assets, such as houses. A speculative economy is particular prone to booms and busts, as there become periods when it is generally believed that prices have peaked and they can only go down. These downs are quite spectacular and cause widespread distress.

However although I can predict with confidence that a downturn will occur, there are a number of proviso’s that I must make about prediction:

There is no iron law that states a downturn will occur every nine years, but evidence from the past shows that this is likely, it is events that may change the date of the crash.

Brexit – if Teresa May calls an early  election the uncertainty generated by that can bring the date of the crash forward to whatever she makes that announcement.

Events may occur that halt the downward trend – if the government panics at the thought of there being held responsible for the negative effects of Brexit and states that it will do whatever deal is is necessary to ensure that Britain remains in the single market, this could result in a boost to business confidence with businesses now rushing to make the investments that they had postponed due to the uncertainties of Brexit. This rush to investment will lead to a temporary boost to the economy that will delay the economic downturn. However it will only postpone the crash.

Conclusion – Economists are not infallible but they are closer to infallibility that most politicians. What economists possess that politicians do not is an understanding of the workings of the economy.

Xenophobic and racist behaviours as understood by an economist

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Neo-Liberalism or the practice of free market economics is claimed to be responsible for the decline in living standards, but it is not usually blamed for the decline in public behaviours. In the UK ever since the vote to leave the EU there has been an increase in racism and xenophobic behaviours. (A policy decision desired by NeoLiberal and Libertarian politicians.) What I want to suggest is that the adoption by Western European governments of Neoliberalism and in particular by Britain, has been one of the main contributory factors in the increase in racism and xenophobic behaviours.

One of the great economists but who is rarely read today gives an insight into the processes by which the practice of Neo-Liberalism gives rise to anti social behaviours. This economist is Micheal Polanyi and any reader of his book ‘The Great Transformation’ on reading the first chapter would think that he is describing today’s society, whereas in fact he is describing that of the 1930s. The great insight that he reveals in this book is that the unregulated free market is destructive of social order. He demonstrates that this was a fact known to rulers in the past who insisted on regulating the market to minimise its most destructive effects. Although he does not quote this particular example, the biblical story of Joseph shows that the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt were all to well aware of the destructive effects of an unregulated market. Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dream to as a warning that there will be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Then Joseph and the Pharaoh store grain during the good seven years to distribute to the people in the years of need. The Pharaoh’s understood the importance of controlling the market, they knew that food shortages and their exploitation by the merchants who took the exploit the situation to raise prices for the scarce  supplies of food could lead to food riots and possible threats to the rule. A careful reading of folk tales shows that good rulers regularly opened the warehouses of the greedy merchants to the hungry people.

Evidence seems to suggest that the great Greek dynasties of the era of the Trojan wars and Agamenon, were overthrown by internal revolt. One possible cause is the shortage of food caused by adverse climatic changes, a problem worsened a self indulgent aristocratic elite failing alleviate the hunger of the poor and preferring to spend the wealth of their society on conspicuous consumption by creating ever grander palaces.

When reading Polanyi’s book I noted uncanny resemblances between the England of today and that of the 18th century. He writes about the plight of the workers in the cottage based textile industry, as they lost work and income to the large cotton manufacturers who employed the latest technology in weaving and spinning. These people were reduced to a life of misery, having to rely upon handouts from the parish  to feed their families. Their contemporary counterparts are those workers in the so called ‘gig economy’. The development of the mobile phone has made it possible employers no longer to have workers on site or in situ, as its possible to call them in for work when they are needed. No longer does business have to keep a large staff team on site to deal with those busy periods, instead they can be called in when needed.

These workers are also disadvantaged by the lack of employment protection legislation, as ever since the Neo-Liberal revolution of the 1980s, successive governments whether of the centre right or left have seen as it as their task to remove as many as possible of the labour protection measures. These measures it was believed hampered the efficient operation of the labour market. What this legislation did was to leave the worker increasing defenceless against the actions of the exploitative employer. The gig economy is made possible by two things, the mobile phone and the lack of legislation to protect the rights of the worker.

Not surprisingly this was paralleled in the 18th century when legislation removed workers access to common land. Prior to the 18th century workers in the countryside had access to the common land on which they could keep cattle and raise crops. This meant that in time of hardship they could rely upon this as a source of income and food for their family. These people were often the workers in the cottage based textile industry, who when trade was bad could rely on the produce from the common land to keep the family fed. A series of enclosure acts deprived rural residents of their rights to common land. When the collapse of the home based textile industry happened these people were deprived of two sources of income and reduced to abject misery. (These hungry and desperate people were the workforce of the new textile mills willing to endure the most dreadful of working conditions as the alternative was going without.).

When society falls to deliver people look to alternatives. In the 18th century  it was to France where the  revolution had otherthrown the old exploitative landlord class and promised a fairer society. In England many revolutionary societies were formed and the aristocratic government was in constant fear of revolution. They were only able to suppress the revolutionary instincts of the poor through repression and through a system of regional handouts (the Speenhamland system) which prevented workers being reduced to that state of despair that would make them resort to dangerous measures. The Speenlandham system was not unlike our current tax credits system.

The depressed poor not only turned to thoughts of revolution, but also to xenophobia. There is the story of the monkey that was cast ashore from a shipwreck in Yorkshire. This unfortunate monkey was then hung as a French spy. Whatever the truth of this story xenophobia thrives when people are in need and society appears to be failing them. They look for scapegoats to blame for their misery, then it was the French, now its immigrants. When resources such as housing are scarce, its easy to see it as being caused by the foreigner who has taken the house that by rights should have gone to a native born citizen. Politicians have used this xenophobia as a means of winning popular support. They have constantly used the EU as a convenient scapegoat to blame for the nations economic and social ills, ills which were often of there making and so it was no surprise that when people were given a choice they would opt to leave the EU.

Now there is a situation in which a government refuses to acknowledge its culpability for the increasingly dire economic circumstances, and instead relies on scapegoating the other (the foreigner) to distract from its failures of governance. It has boxed itself into a corner and now the only policy measure that it can offer to alleviate the misery of the people is the limiting of  immigration.They promise that no longer will the European immigrant take the council house or job that should have gone to the native born Englishman or woman. What they fail to realise or the brightest and most cynical politicians fail acknowledge, is that their anti immigrant policies will make the situation much worse for the so called ‘just managing class’. Even when the negative effects of abandoning the EU become apparent the politicians will be unable to acknowledge there policies are failing. What instead they will do is to to adopt more and more extremist language to disguise their policy failings. Economic decline will be blamed on those opponents of Brexit who have talked down the economy. Already one Conservative party councillor has suggested that the people and politicians that oppose Brexit should be charged with treason. The only hope for a xenophobic government is to turn up the volume of abuse directed at their opponents in the expectation of silencing them. This of course is the policy pursued by the current government, when any reasoned criticism of Brexit is answered with abuse. The opponents are the ‘Bremoaners’ or whatever catchy phrase of abuse that they can conjure up.

When the government’s sole claim to legitimacy is that it embodies the xenophobic instincts of the people, it language will be that which both implicitly and explicitly gives sanction to racist and xenophobic behaviours. The government will not act effectively to discourage such behaviours or to  condemn them without fear of alienating its most xenophobic supporters. Next year when the negotiations start in earnest and the impact of the uncertainty accompanying those negotiations will cause increasing unemployment, increasing inflation and falling house prices, what can be expected is an increase in the abuse directed at those who dare to suggest that these are a consequence of Brexit. Incidences of racism will increase as the government’s abusive language towards its opponents will seem to give a green light to their extreme behaviours. A government that suggests the actions of its opponents is bordering on the treason will be seen to sanction violent racist actions, as they can be described helping the government cleanse the nation of that element that is responsible for the ills that beset society.

Brexit myth 2 – that despite all the evidence of the naysayers the economy is performing well

Economics, Politics, , , , , , ,

Government and its supporters in the media are constantly claiming that the economy will benefit from leaving the EU and constantly point to economic indicators that seem to demonstrate the correctness of their beliefs. They have the evidence of continued economic growth and the rise in the value of the FTSE 100 index (a measure of the value of the top 100 companies registered on the Stock Exchange). Their  constant trumpeting of good economic news suggests a certain nervousness, as people don’t need to be told that things are good, they know it for themselves. What they ignore is evidence that suggests the contrary, such as a slow down in the construction industry. Members of the building trade are asking for government financial help with the aim of increasing the number of housing starts, hardly an example of the success.  This is a story which will only be found in the quality press, it will be ignored in the popular press which as backers of Brexit detest any news that would suggest that Brexit is a mistake.

Any reader of the popular press will realise that the one measure of economic prosperity that they value is ever rising house prices. House owners can use their houses as a cash machine, using the ever rising value of their property to secure loans to finance the purchase of such as cars and foreign holidays. In doing this they can avoid the painful reality of living with stagnant or slowing rising incomes. They are living in what can only be called an economic fantasy land, as the speculative bubble that is ever rising property prices cannot continue for ever. There will be a crash which brings to an end this bubble and it is quite likely that Brexit will be the object that punctures this speculative bubble.

One journalist wrote that the falling pound will be good for the London property market as it will attract lots of well off foreign buyers into the market. However this ignores one fact, it is ever rising prices that attract foreign residents to invest in this market. Even today there was a report of a fall of 56% in the demand for luxury homes in London. This is a trend that can only increase as foreign residents seem London as a less safe home for their money. What they want is a market in which prices are constantly increasing as means the money they have invested in London will be constantly increasing. Any risk that the value of their investment in London properties means that they will shy away from the London market. A depression in the London housing market will fed outwards into the country as a whole depressing prices there.

Even right wing economic think tanks such as ‘The Adam Smith Institute” have expressed concerns about the impact Brexit on economic growth. Outside Westminster there are few economists that don’t think the long term effects of Brexit will be damaging for the economy. House prices will not continue to rise in a declining economy, they are more likely to fall. British home owners are increasingly unlikely to be able to use their homes as a cash machine.

The property market is inherently unstable and liable to experience shocks such as a rapid decline in prices. It is a market built on the belief that property prices will constantly rise is liable to panic once it is realised that prices are not going to go on increasing and rather than prices rising month by month, they will fall month by month. Not a welcome prospect for house owners, particularly if the falls are as spectacular as recent increases.

The British economy is driven by debt, whether it is money borrowed to invest in the property market  or money borrowed to finance the purchase of consumer goods. Private sector indebtedness is rising rapidly towards 200% of GDP (national income) and this is made possible by borrowing at what are historically low interest rates. It is no exaggeration to say that the British economy is afloat on a huge debt bubble. A lot of the borrowing that makes this bubble possible is done on very low interest rates. If interest rates rose many would find that they were unable to repay their loans, and debt defaulting on a large scale with a consequent popping of the debt bubble and a horrendous economic crash. Mark Carney the Governor of the Bank of England is aware of this problem and has for that reason pledged to keep interest rates at their current low level, even if inflation rises to 2.5%.

However Mark Carney’s hand could well be forced, there is a possible situation in which this could occur. Ever since Brexit the pound has continued to fall in the foreign exchange markets and at present apart from the prospect of rising inflation due to rising import prices, the falling pound has caused no other concerns. However the governor cannot forever ignore the fall in the value of the pound forever. The pound could fall to such low levels that it would pose a serious threat to living standards, as would happen if the pound fell much below the rate of £1 to $1. Even before that the governor could be forced to act if the fall in the value of the pound threatened to fall so fast that it threatened to make foreign trade impossible, this occurs when foreign buyers are unwilling to accept sterling in payment for goods because they fear that the pounds they received today will be worth substantially less tomorrow. Any central bank governor would be derelict in their duty if they allowed this to happen. The only means of reversing this downward movement is to increase interest rates, as if foreign residents thought they could earn more on their deposits of money in London than elsewhere, money would flood into London, so pushing up the foreign exchange value of the pound. Unfortunately other financial centres would be forced to follow suit and rather than there being a modest increase it could be quite substantial.

This would present Europe with a substantial problem, as the countries of Europe also have substantial private sector debts. These debts can only be sustained if interest rates remain low which will not happen if the above scenario occurs. In the very worse of events, Brexit could cause a European wide crash. Hopefully it will not happen, but if I was a European central banker I would be suffering many sleepless nights.

The cause of what could be a horrendous economic crisis is a group of poorly educated politicians making decisions about an economy of whose workings they appear be in ignorance of. Michael Gove a prominent leave campaigner stated during the campaign that people were fed up of experts and wanted to hear nothing more from them. If political leaders such as him had listened to the experts (economists) the government would not be in its current mess. All the political leaders of the leave movement can do is to abuse their opponents who correctly point out that the emperor has no clothes and try to close down the debate on Brexit for fear that it will expose their own inadequacies.  If I said the new minister for external trade was the minister for trade with cloud cuckoo land, it would not be unfair as the ministers seem to have little idea of what is required to negotiate trade agreements with real countries and not those of their imagination.

Brexit myths 1 -that the rich well off campaigners for leave have nothing to fear from leaving the EU

Economics, Politics, scepticism, , , , ,

What the financiers, right wing politicians and business who have backed Brexit believe is that they are immune from any of adverse consequences that might result from Brexit. A belief that can be rephrased as follows that, ’bad things don’t happen to the rich, only to the poor’. Only a person completely ignorant of the past and past economic crisis can believe such nonsense. These people  are of a generation that has no knowledge of the great economic depressions and financial crashes of the past. My generation of economists were told stories of financiers jumping out of the window of their offices to their death, as they could no live with the consequences of their business  failures and lost fortunes. Although this was a popular myth as Galbraith writes in his book on the great crash of 1929, what it does is through a popular myth convey a truth, there were many rich man who saw their fortune disappear with the financial crash of 1929. The Joseph Kennedy’s who had the foresight to get out of the stock market before the crash, where few and far between. After the crash there were many millionaires reduced to relative penury. A fact disguised by the terrible suffering of the less well off who lost homes and jobs, a fact which tended to dominate the popular imagination.

The misplaced confidence of the many rich right wing politicians is in part due to the fact that the crash of 2008/9 left them with their fortunes largely intact. The action of the government and the Bank of England prevented these people from suffering any real adverse consequences from the crash. When banks failed, the government through the Bank of England invested billions in the weakest banks to maintain confidence and preventing  a run on the banks developing and causing a more general  collapse of the market.  All banks and financiers had over invested in the property and equities markets and were at risk of seeing their assets fail catastrophically in value. As a consequence only the most reckless and unluckiest of banks failed, most were left relatively unaffected by the crash. A serious and catastrophic financial crash was averted  through the government being willing to back the banks with whatever money was needed to maintain the banks solvency.

What is not understood is that at the height of the crash the government was willing to pledge most of the country’s wealth to support the banks. Fortunately the credit of the British government was sufficiently high in the eyes of the banks major creditors that this money was never called on. If it had been the British population as a whole would have been reduced to abject poverty as major creditors would have wanted their money and it could only have been provided by taking it from the incomes of the people. The only consolation would have been that if the British economy crashed because the bank’s creditors doubted the credit worthiness of the banks, the world economy would have crashed because most of the developed world’s banks were as unsound as those of the British.

The world economy is subject to regular cyclical downturns, which seem to occur at intervals of every nine years. If this cycle continues as normal, the next downturn is due in 2017. In 2017 negotiations to leave the EU begin and the uncertainty generated by these negotiations will worsen any economic downturn.It is unlikely that the UK will go through 2017 without a significant downturn in economic activity, especially as now the leaked Treasury report on the negative impact of leaving the EU has been published, a report which confirms the fears of those doubting the wisdom of leaving the EU.

Many of the rich Brexiters have invested considerable proportions of their wealth into high paying and high risk financial investments. The high risk element is concealed by the continued upsurge in asset values, which makes all investments appear sound. When interest rates are low and prices are constantly rising it is possible for even the worst of investment managers to make money. What matters is belief or confidence, in 1928 investors bought into a project which promised to build houses on swamp land in Florida. They did not worry about the soundness or otherwise of the project, as they believed that they would be able to sell their investments in the scheme for a  sum higher than that which they invested. The financial markets today are brimming with misplaced confidence so that investment managers are making many investments that are ill advised. Unfortunately the opaqueness of so much financial accounting makes it almost impossible to judge which investment funds are the ‘dogs’ in the market.

Next year if not sooner such financial dogs will be revealed. The bull market will turn to a bear market as the fear regarding the when uncertainty about the future of the economy grows  when it becomes obvious that the Brexit negotiators have no realistic plans for offsetting the negative impact of leaving the EU. The negotiators at present are literally conjuring markets for British goods and services out  of nowhere and when the markets see that there is no substance to the optimism of the politicians prices of all assets will tumble. Then in a falling market the financial dogs will be revealed, some will inevitably be unable to meet their obligations and will collapse. Those unlucky wealthy politicians that have invested heavily in these companies will face substantial losses.* While I can  be very confident that next year, if not this will be one of financial crisis, it is impossible to predict how severe the crisis will be. If the crisis reveals that there are only a few dogs in the market it can be contained. What matters is how the collapse of a number of investment and property funds affects the confidence of the market. In a volatile market which is the financial market,falls can be substantial before the market recovers its nerve. All that can be said is that there will be a number of rich politicians next year who having lost substantial sums of money will be regretting their decision to campaign for an exit from the EU.

* The compensation schemes exist will be insufficient to compensate these rich investors for their losses, particularly as the government will need to spend its money elsewhere to minimise the negative impacts of Brexit.

The Immorality of Current Economic Practice

Economics, Philosophy, Politics, , , , , , , , ,

Jeremy Bentham one of the more influential figures in 19th century economics was also one of the founders of the philosophy of utilitarianism. The foundational principle of utilitarian philosophy is that good actions are those that give the greatest pleasure to the greatest number. Those of an older generation of economists such as myself, will remember how utilitarian principles were used in the construction of market theory and in particular the laws of supply and demand. I think that utilitarian principles still influence economic theory and practice, although they have been modified with time. Welfare economics is still an accepted part of economic theory, a theory that tries to explain how the optimum levels of production can be attained in a particular economy. However the practice of economics has led to a very modified form of utilitarian theory, economic practice still aims at maximising the pleasure and happiness of people, but it is not always the maximising of pleasure of the majority, all to often economic practice can be directed at maximising the happiness of a privileged group.

Economic utilitarianism can now rewritten as follows,

‘happiness can only be maximised for the few through the pain and suffering of the majority’,

A recent example from business demonstrates this principle. Sir Phillip Green was only able to buy his third super yacht at the expense of his staff at BHS. There is  a rough equivalence between the money that he took out of the retail chain BHS and that which he paid for his new yacht. His yacht cost the jobs of 11,000 BHS workers. It can be argued that this one example of bad business practice is not representative of the theory of economics. However the most popular of current economic theories is supply side economics, which has been practised by both government and business over the past thirty years. This teaches that the major obstacle to maximising economic welfare are restrictions that the limit the supply of the factors of production, the principle factor being labour, that is people. Governments have since the 1980’s have successively removed employment protection legislation, so that today there are very few restrictions on how employers can use their workers. Given the removal of these protections Sir Phillip Green had few obligations towards his workers and could pass on his near bankrupt company to another knowing that he could avoid having to make redundancy payments and having to honour the pensions payments promised to BHS staff. This is not a unique example but just the latest in a long line of business owners of refusing to take any responsibility for their staff. If it had not been for the adverse publicity in the media and the hostile reaction of some MPs, his actions could have been put down to yet another failure of a UK business that failed to adapt to the times.

The name Ayn Rand is little known outside political circles, the media and the profession of economics.Yet this novelist cum prophet is the inspiration for much of current government policy.  What she preached was a crude social darwinism. The poor did not deserve to survive in society to which they contributed little. The poor through their low incomes and poverty demonstrate their unfitness to survive ,as they cannot even provide for themselves. In her novel ‘Atlas Unchained’ she sees the death of so many of the worthless people as a necessary means of social cleansing. The heroes of her books are the billionaires and the money men, those who through their own efforts have made millions. Any restriction on their activities such as  taxes on their incomes only makes society the loser, as it limits the creative and wealth making activities of these individuals.

‘Randian’ philosophy is applied to welfare policy. Those who claim benefits are part of the dependency class. These people who have come to depend on the state for their income and who in consequence have lost the incentive or will to provide for themselves. The harshest of sanctions are required to get this class of people into work, any suffering of benefit claimants is justified, as it the stick required to make this class of people work. This why the government can be indifferent to the suffering of those deprived of benefit for a number of weeks for a minor infraction of the rules. They don’t mind if these hungry and desperate claimants have to resort to food banks to survive, as they provide a useful example to others.  Hunger is the best spur for making people work.

Even in the benign 1960’s this malign philosophy was active within economics. At that time unemployment was around 1% of the workforce, it hovered around 100,000. People thought that the full employment of the post war period was a success. I believed that myself and was shocked to discover at university that there were economists advocating an increase in unemployment. They wanted the government to take action to increase unemployment to about 3% of the workforce. This they claimed would reduce the pressure of prices and cut inflation. Yet this was a time when the majority of people remembered the horrors of the Great Depression of the 1930’s. They found little support at first in government, because there was no desire to return to the 1930s and the misery of that period. Then for these economists the utilitarian maxim would have been

‘the happiness of the majority can only be achieved through the suffering of a minority’, now with ‘Randian’ philosophy dominating government it can be rewritten, as ‘the happiness of the minority can only be achieved through the suffering of the majority’.

This may seem an overly pessimistic assessment of government economic policy, when the majority of people are well fed, well housed and living well. The misery seems to be confined to the precariat, that is those in insecure low paid employment such as cleaners and shop workers. However the impoverishment is slowly seeping upwards. Large numbers of whom would have been the future well off middle classes, university graduates of whom large numbers are looking forward to an insecure future of low pay and insecure work. The government is actively working to reduce the privileges and protections enjoyed by the professional middle classes in their employ. Teachers and doctors are just two groups that are expressing discontent with the negative impact of government policy on there working lives.

There is no reason why economics should be directed by such a malign philosophy. Economic policy in the 1950s had the aim to maximising growth, employment and the welfare of the people. Apart from a small minority economists shared these goals. Only bad economics as practised today aims to immiserate the many and enrich the few.

Ignorance is the New Black (or the stupid things journalists say about the economy)

Economics, Politics, United Kingdom, , , , , , , , , , ,

While listening this morning to an early morning radio programme I was struck by one of the comments made by the broadcaster. This comment was made during a discussion of the economic consequences of Brexit. She said  will it matter if the UK falls from being the seventh largest  to the eight largest economy in the world? This is an example of the typical remarks made by a member of the economically illiterate media.

Nobody with any understanding of economics wants a modest downturn in economic activity, because that modest downturn can easily turn into a catastrophic downturn. What journalists and politicians never seem to understand is that the economy is inherently unstable and decisions should never made that threaten the stability of the economic order. There are times when the economy resembles a house of cards and the slightest puff of the economic wind can send it tumbling down. Yet there are other times when the economy seems to be as a house built out of granite and is impervious to any economic storm. The problem is that it is difficult to tell before an event whether the current economy is structured like a house of cards or a house of granite. Only a fool would start an economic downturn, as history all too often shows that minor downturns become major ones. Unfortunately for the British people the political and media classes seem to filled with these economically illiterate people. Typified in the figure of the politician Michael Gove who during the Brexit debate said people where fed up of experts (economists) and did not need to heed their advice.

Politicians and journalists have forgotten that the collapse of the 2008 started when a minor bank Northern Rock collapsed. This collapse exposed the fault lines in the financial markets which led to the catastrophic collapse of the banking sector. It would have been more accurate to use an example from the USA but my knowledge of which minor bank there presaged the collapse of the banking system there is lacking. However what I wrote about the UK economy is true of the USA. The collapse of these minor banks would have had minimal impact on an economy that was sound, but as the economy was of a rotten construction it brought the house down.

The first fact to establish is that the British economy is far from being strong, it is in a fragile and perilous state. The Bank of England has recently reduced interest rates to a new low of 0.25% to offset fears generated by Brexit which threatened to  destabilise the economy. Prior to that the Bank of England has had to keep rates at 0.5% for several years. In a healthy economy interest rates of 5% or more would not destabilise the economy, whereas in a weak one a rise from the previous low of 0.5% to 1% would threaten to tip the economy into depression. The merest hint of a rate rise in America caused a minor financial panic.

The decision to leave the European Union (EU) is one such destabilising factor. After the initial vote there was some panic in the financial market and the pound fell to record low levels against the dollar and the Euro. If one major Japanese car manufacturer now located in Britain were to announce the cancellation of a major investment project, this would negatively impact on business confidence and could lead to copycat cutbacks in investment projects which would could lead to a recession. Nobody really knows which lever will be pressed which would start a major economic downturn in the UK, what can be said is the uncertainty generated by Brexit has revealed many potential vulnerabilities  in the UK economy each of which could lead to a major downturn.

When an economy is on its knees, what should not be done if the economy is get back on its feet, is give it a metaphorical kick in the teeth.  This is exactly what the ‘vote leave’ politicians and their supporters in the media have done.

What this journalist had in mind was probably the modest falls in national income predicted by economists when accounting for the expected increase in inflation caused by the fall in the value of the pound. The expected fall in income will  be between 3% and 7% (Wyn Lewis ‘Mainly Macro” blog) for somebody on an income of £100,000 it’s a loss of £3000 a year. An unwanted cut but quite affordable. If it was an income of £60,000 it would be a loss of £1,800, again affordable but unwelcome. However for a person on the median income of £27,600 a cut of £828 will mean some bills go unpaid. Those on lowest income bracket who at present are just about able to pay their bills out of their limited income will find a cut of 3% catastrophic. Even with such a small cut in their incomes they would be unable to pay many of their bills. Any greater fall in income would push thousands if not millions into a life of despair and utter misery.

The previous paragraph makes the assumption that the fall in the incomes of all would be between 3% and 7%, but in an economy in which wealth and power are unequally distributed, the powerful (the upper middle classes) will be able to minimise their income loss and ensure that the less powerful take the greatest hit to their incomes. Broadcast journalists at least those who are national broadcasters on a BBC radio programme can bargain for increased incomes to offset any cut in their income due to rising inflation. The BBC would not want to lose a well known voice or face, as they know these well paid journalists could easily find employment elsewhere. This years pay cut (inflation imposed) of £3,000 can be next years pay rise of £3,000. 

The position for a person in the precariat, such as self employed delivery drivers or care workers on zero hour contracts will be dire. They are in weak bargaining position and will have to accept in full the cut 3% cut in their real wage. Demanding a pay rise to offset the fall in their real income caused will likely lead to the individual being unemployed, as the employer can find alternative workers willing work for the now reduced income. The government in response to falling tax revenues caused by the falling national income will cut in work welfare benefits such as working tax credits. Resulting in a further fall in income for these workers. The businesses who employ such workers will be experiencing falling sales and to maintain the income they derive from profits will make further cuts in wages. Whatever happens to this much larger group the sheer volume of their numbers mean that the cuts to their income will substantially reduce the national income, leaving scope for above average pay increases for the lucky few.

To conclude ignorance is the new black, when speaking about the economy as Michael Gove said you don’t need to be an expert. Whatever is the received opinion at the dinner parties in Notting Hill or whoever the well-off congregate for social events, is the truth about all matters economic. People can without any sense of shame boast that they are terrible at maths, people ignorant of economics don’t even feel that minimal shame. The billionaire who approached David Cameron at a social event who said that the solution to the UK’s unemployment problem was to abolish the minimum wage represents the sophistication of the level of thinking in this group.

The Economics of the Titanic or a comment on Larry Elliot’s article on Brexit economics

economic history, Economics, Politics, , , , , , , , , , ,

When reading today’s Guardian I was struck by an article written by Larry Elliot. It was mocking all the doomsayers who predicted dire economic consequences if Britain left the EU. He quite rightly wrote that since the vote to leave the EU, the economy has  been doing quite well. Unemployment is down, economic growth is higher than expected and sales in the retail sector are as buoyant as ever. There seems to be no evidence of the economic disasters that would occur if Britain left the EU, as claimed by the Remain campaigners. However, he does in his thoughtful article explain that there are still unresolved problems that threaten future prospects of the UK economy, such as the appalling low productivity levels of British workers and the large trade deficit. He does suggest that these problems do have solutions and that the shock of exit will force the government into tackling these problems in the economy that have been ignored by politicians for decades, as they wish to minimise the negative effects of EU exit.

There are just one or two caveats that I would wish to make. He as did I would have read J.K.Galbraith’s “The Great Crash”* when a student studying economics. He would have read that one of the prime factors in causing the great crash was an unsustainable boom in asset prices. One these prices moved downward all the flaws in a weak financial sector were exposed and a panic would set in forcing a crash sale in assets such as shares with the consequent bankruptcy of many business enterprises. There is plenty of evidence of there being a speculative and unsustainable boom in asset prices within the UK economy at present. Despite a few blips property prices have reached new highs. While it is not clear when the downward in the property market will occur it is likely to be sooner than later. Given the natural turn of events financial downturns occur every nine years, 1990, 1999 and 2008, which means that if this cycle continues there will be a crash in 2017. Leaving the EU has created an aura of uncertainty which not only undermines market confidence making a financial downturn more likely but means when it does occur it will be worse that otherwise would be expected.

If I could use a metaphor to describe the foolish actions of our political leaders, I would see it in the actions of the captain of the Titanic. The captain of this ship overestimated the soundness of the construction of this liner. He believed that if the ship collided with an iceberg, the nature  of its construction would mean that any collision will result in minimal damage to the ship. As a consequence he sailed too far north, to close to the area of the Atlantic in which the icebergs where situated and the resultant collision with an iceberg sunk the unsinkable ship. The attitude of the politicians who campaigned for Brexit mirrors that of the Titanic captain. They vastly overestimated the soundness of the UK economy and its ability to withstand economic shocks. Instead of there being a small hole below the economic waterline, caused by exiting the EU which can soon be fixed, there is a much larger one that is capable of sinking the UK economy.

One of the flaws never mentioned by Larry Elliot and the Brexiters is the massive over indebtedness of the British economy. Consumer indebtedness is moving rapidly towards a total of 200% of GDP and the debts of our banks are far in excess of 400% of GDP. Much of this debt, particularly that of the banks is owed to overseas investors. Even in normal times this represents a problem for the UK economy, but in a time of uncertainty it becomes a far more serious one. The value of the pound sterling has fallen since Brexit, this has meant that the holdings of British currency in British banks by overseas investors has decreased in value. At the moment the fall in the price of sterling has stabilised and there has been no rush by overseas investors to withdraw their money. They judge that the advantages of investing money in Britain outweigh the disadvantages. However in a time of uncertainty there is a possibility that the value of sterling will fall further, which will probably occur when the exit negotiations hit some difficulties. Then these foreigner depositors will not be willing to see their cash deposits shrink further in value and so will begin to withdraw their funds from the UK. This can easily develop into a panic and the consequence will be a run on sterling. The UK government would have to apply to the International Monetary Fund for emergency funding to tide it over the crisis. Quite possibly the European Central Bank would be involved as many large European banks are located in London. In this event the price for these loans would be the imposition of a Greece like austerity programme. Such a programme of austerity would devastate the British economy as massive cuts in public spending would be required. One casualty would be the National Health Service as one of the first casualties, as the Greek experience shows that any national system of healthcare is regarded as a luxury that an indebted nation cannot afford.

If Larry Elliot’s memory had served him better he would have remember that Galbraith wrote that there was a relatively long lead in to the crash in 1929. The signs of the impending disaster were visible  long before the crash occurred. Then it was the evidence of the foolish speculative spending made by investors, they would invest in anything in the hope of making a profit. One story sticks in my mind and that is the one property developer marketed Florida swamp land as a desirable housing investment. This obvious fraudulent nature of this development mattered little to investors as they believed what they bought for $1 in the morning they could sell for $2 at the end of the day to some sap. Obviously this could not continue and it would end in heartbreak for many.  A minority of investors got out early recognising that there would  be a stock market crash, investors such as Joseph Kennedy. The soon to be multi millionaire father of JFK. Similarly in Britain there are signs of problems ahead. There has been a marked fall in business investment as manufacturers are unwilling to commit to a future which is so uncertain. A collapse in business investment is as any economist knows is the mechanism which starts a downturn in economic activity and possibly a recession. There was also the short panic that occurred just after the Brexit vote when a number of property investment funds had to temporarily stop withdrawals as they had not the funds available to met the demands for cash withdrawals made by panicky investors. The omens for the future are not good, despite current appearances to the contrary.

Whatever happens in the coming years all that can be said it that they will be years of difficulty for the British people. Years of difficulty brought about by the foolish actions of our political leaders who demonstrate a flawed understanding of the UK economy.

* J.K.Galbraith ‘The Great Crash’ an account of  the Great Depression which started in 1929

Economics of the precipice

Economics, Economics, politics, short term ism,, Politics, , , , , ,

There seems to be a lemming like instinct among politicians, in that if the economy is in trouble they seem to do exactly the thing that is designed to push it off the economic cliff. A behaviour that mirrors that of the lemmings who are popularly supposed to commit mass suicide by jumping off a cliff into the sea.The current situation in the United Kingdom (UK) provides a good example of this lemming instinct within the political classes.

The economic auguries are not good for the UK. One obvious problem is the record trade deficit, the highest for any country in the developed world. Then there are the record levels of consumer debt again some of the highest in the developed world. Finally there is the combined deficits of the banking sector which are in excess of 400% of GDP.  There are also a host of other problems such as some of the lowest levels of productivity in Europe and the continuing decline of the manufacturing sector make for a troubled economy. The decline in the manufacturing skills base is is so marked that the Ministry of Defence can no longer find within the British economy sufficient native engineers to design and build our warships. In desperation the Ministry of Defence had to borrow warship designers and engineers from the USA for this task. In such a situation what is least needed is a political shock that could send the UK economy into a dangerous downward spiral. Yet our political classes did just that with Brexit.

One of the leading campaigners even said that the warnings of economists should be ignored as there could always be found self interested experts to support any political campaign. Ignoring the facts is the criteria of all lemming politicians.

To be fair the vote leave politicians they did recognise that there might be an economic downturn, in the event of a vote to leave the EU. However they assumed that it would be a small and temporary economic downturn one from which the economy would bounce back. History shows that when politicians plan what they think will be a temporary economic downturn, it proves to be anything but, as these downturns can easily spiral out of control.

The greatest threat to the UK prosperity is its massive private sector indebtedness. The level of debt is so great that it vies with Japan for the unwanted title most indebted of developed nations. Unfortunately it is in a much weaker position than Japan in that much of that debt is debt owned by foreigners. This foreign owned debt consists largely of money lent at short notice (that is the debt that the owners can demand repayment of immediately or within a very short time period), which is then lent long to property companies etc. Meaning that in the event of a large withdrawal of funds the banks will have trouble meeting the demand for cash. Only if the banks and the Bank of England have sufficient reserves of foreign currency can they meet the demand.

This is a very volatile situation as demonstrated by the fact that soon after the Brexit decision, many property funds had to stop customers withdrawing funds as they did not have sufficient funds to meet the demand for cash. This proved to be only a temporary crisis as the Brexit panic was short lived and the funds could return to normal operating practices, when the panic ended. However what is forgotten is that on Black Wednesday  speculators forced the Bank of England a state of near bankruptcy, when it ran out of foreign currency reserves to meet the demand for foreign currency. Whatever might happen in the future, the UK remains as vulnerable as it was in 1992 to an adverse movement in the foreign exchange markets. Only the most foolish of politicians would want to create a scenario in which that becomes more likely.

What every politician should know is that to deliberately provoke an economic crisis or downturn no matter how small to achieve some political end, is the most foolish of all actions as such downturns always prove hard to control. All too often a small economic crisis turns into a major crisis that has difficult and unforeseen consequences. Politicians need to learn that they cannot turn the economy on and off as they please.