Fundamental question on growth - surely permanent growth is an illusion? Does there come a point where driving for more growth becomes counter-productive? I say this because everyone seems to be getting their knickers in a twist about the German economy due to a 0.3% downturn in the last quarter. But Germany still has the 3rd or 4th (depending on where you look) highest GDP in the world with record employment. The loss of cheap Russian gas is still being felt but energy prices have stabilized and will inevitably fall as alternative sources come on line (Biden‘s electoral tactic of not renewing LNG export licenses notwithstanding). Inflation is coming under control in the Eurozone and the first signs of a drop in interest rates will trigger consumer confidence. But the way certain parts of the media go on here you‘d think Germany is crumbling. Maybe it is just anti-government rhetoric or greedy industrialists looking for free hand-outs but I don’t get all the doom and gloom.
Scientists have discovered trees from 350 million years ago looked like “something from Dr Seuss’s imagination” and are “unlike any of those that live” in the modern day. Thank goodness they managed that
Somebody tell Carol Vorderman that British Seniors’ Over 50s Plan now comes with a £135 gift card, trumping her £125 one. Soon it will get to the point where everyone will be buying an Over 50s Plan, keeping up the payments until the gift card arrives and then stop paying the Plan and take the profit from the gift card. Quite astonishing that a woman who used to make £900k doing numbers of daytime TV has become a dumb old woman with a social media obsession who hates her old friends like Michelle Mone and the Tories.
I am not sure that pensioners are in a great place to grumble as the Tory triple lock, introduced in 2011, made sure pensions rose at least as much as wages. They will go up by 8.5 per cent in April. The Tories know that their core voters are pensioners so they looked after them. If rich pensioners want someone to blame it is surely Gordon Brown, the one who raided their pensions before they even retired. Rachel Reeves may do the same. I would pay no attention whatsoever to the IMF as their forecasts are absolutely useless. They make the OBR look good.
Yes, permanent growth is an illusion. Economies work in cycles, the duration of which are usually determined by political incompetence. The bull run is coming to an end in the West now that the piper has to be paid. The definition of a ‘technical recession’ is two consecutive quarters of no growth, so hence Germany is on the brink. The Net Zero obsession has proved catastrophic already for the German industrial powerhouse as the people are finally waking up to the unsustainable cost and the unrealistic objectives. Only a total idiot would buy an EV, massively overpriced with minimal resale value and totally impractical for anyone without a garage or off road parking. So Germany’s auto industry is scaling back production. The renewable technology simply is not there to do away with fossil fuels no matter how much Marxist Saint Greta protests. Only Capitalism has any chance of providing solutions but Europe becomes more Socialist, weighed down by high taxes and regulation with every passing year. Jacques Delors is barely cold in his box and his Euro (formerly known as the Deutschemark) has destroyed most of Europe’s economies and the German credit card is maxed out. Jean Monnet’s delusional United States of France now faces terminal decline, a doom loop that the clueless British Left Elites spent most of the Brexit anniversary on social media desperate to rejoin, without telling anyone why. Britain may be doing badly post Brexit (because we failed to actual do it – we have BRINO) but the EU is doing worse – the ship is sinking and when the European Parliament elections come around in June, the revolt will start with ballots not tractors. I would not be holding my breath waiting on interest rate cuts in the EU. The Federal Reserve signalled last week that no cuts will be coming soon in America because of bad employment figures as Biden’s economic disaster starts to unravel. The last Bank of England MPC meeting saw only two members vote for a cut and one vote for an increase whilst the European Central Bank has the worst debt issue with 6 countries well over 100 per cent Debt to GDP and really needs to continue Quantitative Tightening for as long as possible thanks to incompetence but will probably end up resorting to more QE. The mistakes/failures of lockdown policy during the pandemic are now coming home to roost as the colossal debts generated now overwhelm not just Western economies but the Chinese economic behemoth. All of the institutions that we used to rely upon are now open to question: the government, the judiciary, the police, the ‘science’, the mainstream media and the Establishment orthodoxy.
Without legislation forcing the development of more affordable electric cars the European car industry would do nothing but continue to churn out SUVs with 3 litre petrol engines. As it is, car makers have until 2035 to produce affordable electric cars like the Chinese have already done. Responsible politicians have finally realised that the kind of future depicted in the "Mad Max" films is not really what we should aspire to after all. The institutions you mention are only open to question in the crackpot right wing bubbles out there - 200,000 demonstrators in Berlin yesterday (and thousands more in multiple German cities over the last couple of weeks)are adequate proof that there are more than enough sensible people prepared to defend democracy against these lunatics. God help us if they ever get anywhere near power.
A Labour MP has sparked outrage after calling for a change in the law to allow people's gender to be changed on official records after their death. WTF is wrong with these people? I wonder what other pressing topics get dicussed
Have you been reading GB News again Ron? You might want to read up on Brianna Ghey and find out what this is really about?
capitalism is the reason for all this destruction , misuse of resources and the imbalances in economies , yet you trump it as the solution to its own problems.........
Hi rudey, I'm no economist and not into politics but I do take interest in what others have to say if it looks logical. Could you give me some idea as to what you believe the answer to be, how it would work and how it could be achieved
Depressingly it was the other way round. Two of the MPC voted for an increase and one for a cut. Worrying that there two people with such influence saying there should be an increase. The shadow MPC, which meets at the same time, have shown themselves to be much more on the ball over the last 3-4 years. They called out the BoE more than 3 years ago that inflation was the big problem coming the UK's way if they didn't raise interest rates and stop printing money. Time has proved them right. Last week they voted unanimously for a 0.25% cut but they had voted for the same in December.
seems that there are two choices , one is continue on the present path , with huge inequality, unsustainable use of finite resources , climate change is going to make the so called immigration problem seem like a tea party , with multiple millions having to move to try and survive , others will pull up the draw bridge , wars , water going to be a massive issue , the alternative , is a world organised for need , not growth , this can’t be done under a capitalist system , so only a socialist worldwide movement would be able to offer any hope , can’t see that atm, but history teaches us that things can change very quickly , revolutions occur when conditions are right , crisis of capitalism , is one , but a revolutionary alternative has yet to materialise , no doubt qm will be on to provide the far right view.....
A good start would be: Get rid of stock markets Make company pensions mandatory More radical would be: Basic income for all A limit on personal wealth Rich countries pay to rebuild the poor countries they have ravaged either directly or via climate change As Rudey says, won’t happen though. People have no sense of shared responsibility and having less stuff that they don’t need
Nonsense - just a fairer division of wealth. Elon Musk doesn’t need all that money. Neither do the Sunaks.
Yes, they should give some to me. I’m just a poor Lancashire lad who used to dangle a magnet on the end of a piece of string- to try and capture an old penny at the bottom of a grate in the street gutter. You live and learn!
