The media is astonishing today in its barrage against Jeremy Corbyn. Presenters repeatedly state that to oppose nuclear weapons and foreign wars is “weak”, as though that were undeniable. Spending quantitive easing on public infrastructure is “inflationary” and “irresponsible” – and these are the presenters not the guests. Why simply handing quantitive easing money to the bankers is not inflationary or irresponsible is not explained.
I would claim to have got there on “people’s quantitive easing” before hearing that phrase. 42 months ago I published
It is beyond doubt true that the effect of creation of new money is to reduce the value of currency already in circulation. The effects will show through in inflation and the exchange rate. Of course, those will continue to be affected by other factors as well, which is why there are better and worse times to do it. But in effect Q.E. is still a transfer of wealth from those who hold any of the currency to those given the new stuff. In other words, more cash from you to the bankers.
Actually if QE had been used genuinely to stimulate the economy it would have been a marvellous thing. With £350 billion we could have built an enormous amount of social housing on brownfield sites, converted derelict high streets into housing, built the Severn barrage and a high speed rail link from London to Aberdeen and still have had change. We could have reopened the steel industry to do it. a thousand manufacturing firms could have been re-tooled. Millions could have been employed. The entire logic of economic depression could have been turned around.
Instead we gave more cash to the bankers.
Progressive opinion catches up with me eventually. In another decade or more likely two, mainstream journalists might catch up as well.
Ishmael –
Yes, “Not considering current trends” things are just peachy.
“It’s been hit hard by the US/Saudi Faustian deal on oil prices…”
And most of it’s skilled workers emigrating to countries where they can earn more than a waitress in McDonalds hasn’t helped much either.
Fred
5:25 pm
Nice one!
Do your recollect when late Chaves made sure that his countrymen knew their constitution by printing it in parts on the back of everyday goods packets. Fact that Venezuela has a constitution for her people to be aware of, is somehow never pointed to by anyone of the excuse merchants spamming the net. As anyone is aware our constitution is an unwritten one, and is made up on the go, dependent on the situation and the time and place.
The political illiteracy of the Joe public in UK is frightening, but the same lot know umpteen ways of shagging after all they have been taught sex education from early on, how is that for a contrast with Venezuela, and that fucking Dictator Chaves?
Fred –
“And most of it’s skilled workers emigrating to countries where they can earn more than a waitress in McDonalds hasn’t helped much either.”
Where did you source that?
Rehmat, your opposition to Zionist and Israeli foreign policy is commendable, but seeing Jewish interests in everything may lead you into racist ideology that elsewhere you would condemn. The BBC is likely to have many lobby groups, and I agree that some of them will have made it to the inside.
One might call it “capitalist-controlled” rather than “Jew controlled”, in that case. Or, perhaps, “neo-con controlled”. Remember that Jewish people are not a homogeneous group who all exhibit the same brand of fierce pro-Israeli propaganda. There are plenty of moderates – Natalie Portman recently told the Telegraph that the Holocaust has too much of a central role in the formation of Jewish history – and there is a socialist and anti-imperialist movement inside Israel.
Squelched.
‘Parliament shuns debate on Jeremy Hunt’s removal as health secretary
9 September 2015
Parliament has decided against debating a vote of no confidence in health secretary Jeremy Hunt, despite a petition attracting 220,000 signatures.
A debate will be held on Monday 14 September, but crucially it will not be held in the main chamber of the House of Commons, but in the significantly more low-key Westminster Hall venue, and the debate will focus on ‘the e-petition relating to contracts and conditions in the NHS’.
Despite this, GP campaigners said GPs need to be lobbying MPs ‘like mad’ to attend the debate.
The Parliament.uk petition was headlined ‘To debate a vote of no confidence in health secretary the Right Hon Jeremy Hunt’, adding that ‘Jeremy Hunt has alienated the entire workforce of the NHS by threatening to impose a harsh contract and conditions on first consultants and soon the rest of the NHS staff’.
The Commons Petitions Committee said it had reviewed the petition, as well as a similarly worded call on Change.org that received more than 100,000 signatures.
/..
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/political-news/parliament-shuns-debate-on-jeremy-hunts-removal-as-health-secretary/20020055.article#.VfWlH2GFPSc
“I never said they didn’t – but without the creation of a bit of wealth and further investment for the future I can assure you that wellbeing and community bonding will not be enough to live on.”
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No you didn’t but I can assure you it’s all relative, but to address your above point, the British governments policy was and probably still is at the first sign of a defict a nationalised company is privatised.
Now I’m not saying that privatisation is bad on the contrary, but the likes of the coal industry, shipbuilding industry and the steel production industry in Britain, suffered greatly.
I dont even think England has a decent shipbuilding yard left, it kind of makes a mockery of Britannia rules the waves, doesn’t it.
Germany now has upped its coal fired power stations, instead of nuclear ones, and for awhile back there China was opening a coal mine every few months to meet demands. Scandanavia, France and South Korea modernised their shipyards instead of closing them, and now there booming.
Instead of finding ways to curtail union rights and the lowering of wages, and Zero-hour contracts a fair wage along with decent working rights in the UK, which are being eroded, would inevitably lead to greater production, and more employee satisfaction.
As it stands just now to a certain degree, and it will only get worse in my opinion, the UK is a high unemployed, low wage economy, built mostly around the finance and services sector.
You just have to look at the shops on any high street to see what I’m talking about.
Fedup –
“Do your recollect when late Chaves made sure that his countrymen knew their constitution by printing it in parts on the back of everyday goods packets.”
Yes, I do.
“The political illiteracy of the Joe public in UK is frightening”
Yes it is.
Joe Public wants all of the benefits he thinks he is entitled to under a “democratic” system, but NONE of the responsibility (i.e. the responsibility to GET INFORMED and PARTICIPATE!).
There’s just no excuse for it, now we have the internet.
Have you observed the keyboard warrior brigade spamming the net?
Why do you think that is?
Don’t blame the Joe public
“Where did you source that?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_diaspora
Fedup –
“Have you observed the keyboard warrior brigade spamming the net?”
Yes. (Sigh).
“Why do you think that is?
Don’t blame the Joe public.”
Yes, perhaps I was a little unfair, there.
It does take some education (self- or otherwise) beyond what is ‘provided’ by the state, and a large amount of study (which takes time) and determination, just to be able to tell the wheat from the chaff.
“Yeah, Japan builds amazing tsunami/earthquake-proof nuclear reactors and generously treats its people to as much radiation as they could possibly want.”
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Pan that’s a rather irrelevant comment, all reactors are susceptible to such forces of nature.
Japanese goods are probably around you now as I type, from Playstations to mobile phones, to computer games, not to mention a plethora of other electrical goods.
Japan has the third largest economy in the world, they are also the third largest manufacturers of cars in the world, remind again of the UK’s car manufacturing industry and it’s position in the world.
Yet in the sixties and seventies, Japan’s auto industry was nothing special, infact I’d go as far to say back then that British cars, were as good as any Japanese cars.
The Japanese flourished, we collapsed, our management, couldn’t learn to cope support and reach agreement with it unions or employees, where as the Japanese model, incorporated all of it.
Now the UK has no mass produced and respected British cars, Japan has Honda, Nissan, and many more.
“As it stands just now to a certain degree, and it will only get worse in my opinion, the UK is a high unemployed, low wage economy, built mostly around the finance and services sector.”
if you think that the problem would have been addressed by throwing money at the likes of Ravenscraig – which was large scale steelmaking using out of date plant – then you are being somewhat deluded. Yes there are still decent shipbuilding yards left in the Uk- but they tend to produce specialised niche products – rather than competing in markets where we cannot compete.
The lessons of successful players is that you have a thought through industrial strategy that both the public and private sectors work together to implement. I’m afraid I see neither the strategy or the necessary co-ordination in the current thinking of yourself or the Corbynistas.
Barbed critique of the Guardian’s appalling coverage of Corbyn:
https://historicalchaos.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/revealed-how-jeremy-corbyn-is-wiping-out-humanity-an-essay/
Sample:
Interestingly, the Guardian have yet (as far as I am aware) to run detailed articles in this leadership campaign on the connections of Burnham, Kendall, and Cooper with Blairite foreign policy. Toynbee knows about such connections but, significantly, only keeps the focus on Corbyn. Is Bloodworth right? Can politicians really get away with a range of positions on foreign affairs? Why not test it out on The Other Three too? Or will we find that the answer is murkier than we want?
You bet! It is a long and slow process but we must sustain it and keep at it, the beginning of any avalanche always looks pathetic, but what it ends up as is another story.
Pan..No not peachy at all…
But not machinelike mass saluter.
Think you missed the point, or what I think of this system overall. whatever…I’m not here to score points.
“Excellent news in all regards. If it’s a local commuter network you need then Scotland’s fair share will be all of it.”
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MJ.
I not sure you understood my last comment, HSR, hasn’t been touted to reach anywhere in Scotland, thus Scotland will not benefit one bit from it.
My point to you was even though that is the most likely scenario, Scotland will still need to pay a substantial sum towards it.
It’s a bit like paying money towards your neighbours new car it’s no benefit to you.
“But it’s not just Germany who’ve put Britain’s economic model to shame, Japan and South Korea are but a few who’ve shown that not only can they manufacture quality goods but also they know how to work well with their employees.
Yes I agree – and they both employed similar economic models to that of Germany – and in none of those countries did Corbyn’s hard left/quasi Marxist economics have much sway did they?
The lessons of successful players is that you have a thought through industrial strategy that both the public and private sectors work together to implement. I’m afraid I see neither the strategy or the necessary co-ordination in the current thinking of yourself or the Corbynistas.
I agree with your broad premiss, though with major reservations as to the implicit notion that labour costs must be minimised – by refusing to support low-margin domestic operations and waving them off to India or China – to maximise corporate profits.
But can you point to anyone who might have a thought through industrial strategy in the UK? Insofar as either NuLabour had or the Tories have a strategy at all, they appear to have been relying on leveraging imaginary artificial assets and reinflating speculative bubbles to the exclusion of all else. Where industry accidentally figures, the tax breaks go to foreign investors, who of course claim the profits. The picture is one of complete inertia.
Remember that Jewish people are not a homogeneous group who all exhibit the same brand of fierce pro-Israeli propaganda. There are plenty of moderates – Natalie Portman recently told the Telegraph that the Holocaust has too much of a central role in the formation of Jewish history – and there is a socialist and anti-imperialist movement inside Israel.
It’s true that they are not an homogeneous group but let me put it this way, they appear to be more homogeneous than most. How, for example, do you explain that the so-called socialist and anti-imperialist left within Israel – as Ilan Pappe acknowledges – bares no resemblance to what we take for granted here? How else do you explain that a disproportionate amount of diaspora Jews in Britain support the Tories? Could the reason be that the Tory establishment are the biggest supporters of all the main parties of the Jewish State of Israel? Furthermore, how do you explain the fact that over 90 percent of Israeli Jews supported last years Operation Protective Edge. The truth is the vast majority of Jews are right wing Zionist extremists.
RofS –
“all reactors are susceptible to such forces of nature.”
And Japan suffers such forces of nature on a very regular basis, which makes it irresponsible in the extreme to have built nuclear reactors there in the first place.
So now Japan is now irradiated (there are already peer-reviewed scientific studies confirming this) along with all the fish they eat, and the food they export.
I fail to see how building good cars and adding to the fortunes of their industry moguls mitigates this mega-catastrophy.
if you think that the problem would have been addressed by throwing money at the likes of Ravenscraig – which was large scale steelmaking using out of date plant – then you are being somewhat deluded. Yes there are still decent shipbuilding yards left in the Uk- but they tend to produce specialised niche products – rather than competing in markets where we cannot compete.”
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Not throwing money, upgrading and modernising, the monies you spend on these procedures will inevitably pay dividends in the long run.
South Korea upgraded their shipbuilding yards decades ago,and now they build ship of all manner, it wasn’t seen as ” throwing money” but as a development to give them a competitive edge.
It worked for them and it could’ve worked for Britain, but empirically regressively minded mainly politicians, who sought, nothing more than to smash unionism, though the unions didnt help themselves,lead the UK then, and unfortunately that mindset continues today.
The same model could’ve been applied to the steel industry in the UK, but it again wasn’t.
You mention thought through industry, our great industries in Britain no longer survive, yet they prosper in other countries, that we had decades of a start on, it seems to me that no one in government thought through the significance of the loss of our once great industrial companies.
News from Corbynista paradise Venezuala: opposition leader sentenced to 13 years in
prison. 138 witnesses heard for the prosecution. One for the defence.
Venezuela even.
“and they both employed similar economic models to that of Germany”
Give it up RD, these is nothing good about the upper reaches of the capitalist peaking order.
You must know other countries are not situated like the one’s who usurped wealth from around the world. Where did their gold come from again?
All the elite in most places are pretty much scum, who enact this order. Rot at the heart of Europe.
off topic now but Sunday Times has a piece that says army commanders demanded lawyers be present at every step of the way during the recent drone strikes, which reminds me of a case involving a solicitor charged with a money laundering offence. The solicitor knew there was something fishy about the transaction and so he instructed a barrister to advise him. Surprisingly at the time this was to be his undoing for although the barrister advised it was okay and that he could go ahead not only did the judge find that the barrister was wrong, but also concluded that the very fact that the solicitor had instructed the barrister meant he knew enough have a suspicion that it was illegal.
Law is of course not the same re drones, but the point is whether it is enough to rely on legal advice. If it is then it should’t be. Its a standard we hear from politicians and bankers and its sad that we now hear it from the army. “Lawyers says yes” / “computer says no” – whats the difference? Everyone must think for themselves.
“And Japan suffers such forces of nature on a very regular basis, which makes it irresponsible in the extreme to have built nuclear reactors there in the first place.
So now Japan is now irradiated (there are already peer-reviewed scientific studies confirming this) along with all the fish they eat, and the food they export.
I fail to see how building good cars and adding to the fortunes of their industry moguls mitigates this mega-catastrophy.”
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Pan.
Most nuclear reactors need a water source, that’s why Fukushima nuclear reactor is situtated there, without becoming too technical the reactor was basically a generator of steam to turn turbines, which creates electricity.
Japan sits on a fault line on the earths crust, the tsunami that hit Japan was unprecedented in size and power, I can hardly fault the Japanese people for not dealing with such a monumental event in a better fashion.
If it’s nuclear radiation or pollution you wish to address try the UK with 9000 DU shells fired into the Solway or the radio-active Dalgety Bay or Lochgilphead and Faslane polluted by nuclear subs.
Ishmael –
“Pan..No not peachy at all…
But not machinelike mass saluter.”
Ishmael, my gut tells me your heart is in the right place, from what I have seen you write, though I sometimes find your comments a little hard to understand, as they are often very cryptic.
I do not want to ‘score points’ against you at all.
I apologise for my unnecessary sarcasm (peachy).
Of course Europe is better to live in than it was during the “machine-like mass slaughter” of the two ‘World Wars’.
However, the warring and desperate suffering has simply been exported elsewhere. Europe still, by and large, tags along with (and enables) the warmongering powers-that-be.
Daniel, in time you will come to see that Jon is fixated on all things antisemi…… fact that thousands of Muslims are wandering the lands because of the war on Muslims, over there*, and over here.
However Jon is more interested in fighting the imaginary antisemi…. that he finds everywhere. Fact that none can mention even the phrase J_w is the degree of “sensitivity” that is surrounding the subject.
Although the sight of , Muslim refugees getting carted in the trains to destinations unknown or the clips of feeding time at the zoo with the guards throwing sandwiches behind the erected fences whilst wearing face masks to protect them from the stench and the airborne diseases. As yet has not registered with Jon. Although Jon will come back with half hearted attempt in fighting racism everywhere, but as you have seen and everyone else has witnessed Jon is yet to pull any of the zionist supremacists parasites spamming the board with their racist drivel over and again.
* A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm