I may have little time for Rachel Reeves, but as I argued in January trying to pin the blame for the continuing malaise in the UK economy on her (as much of the media continues to do), really is missing the key culprits; the Bank of England.

Lets be clear: the UK economic problems while related to external circumstances, have also been significantly worsened/engineered via the interest policy of the sado-monetarists of Threadneedle St.

#economics #politics #recession

https://northwestbylines.co.uk/politics/economy/is-rachel-reeves-budget-the-real-cause-of-the-latest-economic-slowdown/

The key Q. on the regulations of financial services is this:

Was the finical crisis of 2008 an anomaly or does it reflect structural problems with banking?

If the former, then after 15 years you might agree with UK Finance (a lobbying group) that regulation needs to be rolled back to 'support' growth (they certainly have Rachel Reeves' ear).

If the latter, then loosening regulation on financial services heightens the risk of another crisis & more damage to the UK economy

#economics
h/t FT

The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has hardly been an an effective pro-competition regulator (witness the UK's endemic problem with sectoral oligopolies), but Rachel Reeves is still defanging it further, limiting investigations on the basis of 'share of supply' & 'material influence' raising the threshold for the initiation of regulatory intervention (further).

Whatever Reeves thinks, or has been told, the UK widespread oligopolies are the problem not the solution!

#economics
h/t FT

Its that time of the month again; this Thursday the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee gets to vote on whether to stick or twist on interest rates.... but signs are already that despite the continuing flatlining of the UK economy, the sado-moneatarists still think 'inflationary pressures' are too high & will leave rates unchanged (again).

So, having contributed to a stagnation through two years of high(er) interest rates, they think we need to suffer some more.

I don't think there's any reason to ever be patriotic. People should be ashamed that nations exist at all.

Borders are murder and slavery.

That's the anarchist point of view but the neoliberal justification is also good: There's no reason why goods, service and capital should be able to cross borders freely but that labor (i.e. people) should not be allowed to. This is an artificial regulation that inherently causes market inefficiencies.

https://crimethinc.com/2018/07/06/borders-global-apartheid-a-new-poster

Younger Americans don't have enough saved to cover a single month of spending, showcasing their vulnerability should the economy head into a downturn. Members of #GenZ spending twice the amount they had in savings on average in February. The ratio has increased in the past 2 yrs, and is much higher than for other generations...they tend to spend a bigger share of their incomes on necessities including #rent and #utilities. https://fortune.com/2025/03/14/gen-z-americans-dont-have-enough-saved-to-cover-a-single-month-of-spending/ #economy #economics #stockmarket #spending

The (forced) disappearance of cash continues, but I wonder what would happen if you turn up at a card only premises, eat their food & then only offer cash?

They will say card only, but you are offering legal tender;

They might say you have consumed food without the means to pay, but you have the legal means to pay.

Would they call the police & how would this be litigated I wonder?

Just needs a group to organise this sort of action, and we might find out?

#economics
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/mar/16/uk-high-street-chains-restaurants-cash-payments

Doug Ford: "We will never become the 51st state. Canada is not for sale ... he's taking more money out of Americans' pockets, and for what reason? We're still trying to figure this out."

mar 15

5 min

How to kill the goose which lays golden eggs. University layoffs.. research shutdowns, Cuts to basic research in government foundations and agencies, universities revoking degrees, and all the crazy shit ICE is doing, I certainly painting an American education and a unique fashion.

And you can have a side of deadly preventable disease diseases!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76jK-QfHTSg

As pressure builds on Rachel Reeves to relax or shift her self-imposed fiscal rules, the Q. is whether she is one of those people who respond to pressure by doubling down on the criticised decision.

As so often (as Modern Monetary Theory adopts are no doubt screaming), the idea that the state could create credit (as with Quantitive Easing in 2008 onwards) is being ignored... if ever there was a time for the idea of a People's QE, now is that time!

#economics #austerity

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/15/economists-urge-rachel-reeves-to-bend-fiscal-rules-instead-of-cutting-welfare

If tariffs end up harming the importer's economy as much as the exporter's (as many economists argue, by virtue of their impact on inflation & the slowness of likely import substitution activity), then Trump's tariffs look likely to be felt hardest in the mid-West.... which is not going to do his popularity much good (but on the other hand as he will not face election again, he may not care).

I know I sound like a broken record, but reading comments today on the slight drop in UK GDP in January, I've seen:

cost pressures allied to employers NI rises;

cost pressures due to changes international markets;

rising energy prices;

new green levies.

But when interest rates are mentioned we're led to believe that's about market views of UK public debt.

Why isn't anyone mentioning the explicit policy of the BoE to engineer a recession to 'control' inflation?

#HeadInMyHands
#economics

At the root of many contemporary economic problems (the UK's productivity puzzle, deterioration in the terms & conditions of employment) is one simple issue:

Managers too often see workers not as a 'resource' to be invested in & nurtured for the long-term good of the organisation, but rather as a cost which can be reduced for short-term gain while the longer term consequences will be fixed (in some way) by technology.

The de-humanisaton of economics is a major problem!

Yet another #Trump "success"

"U.S. stock market loses $5 trillion in value in three weeks"

#Canada #NAFTA #Tariffs #TradeWar #USA #Mexico #EU #Europe #NATO #News #Democrats #Enemy #MAGA #Fascism #Currency #Economics #Finance #Oil

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/14/us-stock-market-loses-5-trillion-in-value-in-three-weeks.html

Tesla - a canary in the mine for the US?

http://archive.today/2025.03.07-174900/https://www.ft.com/content/809cd697-8f3e-459a-bb2f-82754282ace5 (archive)

‘But even if Musk himself were not so polarising, the company’s share price has become “completely divorced from the fundamentals”, as a JPMorgan analysis put it barely a month ago. What’s more, the reasons that Tesla’s brand has become so tarnished overlap with the larger decline of America Inc.’