I posted this on Twitter Yesterday:
It seems to me that this is the real question for Sunak now.
And there is no doubt he will have to answer it at the Covid inquiry, soon. He appears this autumn.
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I recall at the start of the pandemic asking “why is track and trace so useless?”….. and was told by someone “they don’t want to be traced – if they are found they will have to isolate with no money”.
Now, given all the expense of “track and trace” it was absurd to not spend that “bit extra” (ie. their wages) to give us a stab at a functioning system.
Hindsight tells us that this would not have prevented lock downs etc. – but they would have been delayed allowing time to prepare.
I suspect that Sunak et al. just could not understand why people would not want to be traced.
Agreed
Your argument makes sense.
The Vallance revelations will pile further pressure on a man with no mandate.
Mendacious Fatberg: won election to head vile-tory party, won national election.
Trussed: won election to head vile-tory party, no national mandate to be PM
Wedgie: no mandate to head vile-tory party, no national mandate to be PM
There is a certain symmetry here & as the car crash interviews pile-up, Wedgie starts to reveal his true colours: those of a dodgy 2nd car salesman (luverly colour guv, look at the shine on her etc etc). But that is all the vile-tories have – blather & bullshit, with the end point being Mr Fart-rage and his reception @ the recent vile-tory “conference”. However, all is not lost, in the wings, being groomed by the Uk meeja is his replacement, same slick hair, same gurning/vacant smile, same policies, same level of lying step forward Sir Kid Starver.
One bright note, there is speculation that, come the next election, Fart-rage will split the vile-tory vote & possibly the up-North vile-liebore vote (some of those that traditonally voted Labour and went vile-tory could go to Fart-rage & co). This opens up possibilities for tactical voting amongst the sane.
Well the answer from Sunak is predictable it would have caused inflation and such is the level of monetary system illiteracy in the country he’ll get away with it. It’s a bit like telling people that both the government and licenced banks create money from thin air and they immediately latch onto to the Tory nonsense that will result in the currency depreciating. Ask them if the licenced banks should therefore be restricted in the amount of money they create and there’s immediate confusion especially when you tell them that money is subject to taxation cycles too!
Very clearly the UK is in a mess because of the high level of economic and monetary illiteracy which this blog of course is doing its damnedest to correct!
Good argument
It seems to me Sunak proved that the state can create money -in fact huge sums-in some circumstance without inflation. The lockdowns started in March 2020 and until the autumn of 2021 there was little inflation. The inflation of late 2021 was mainly a rise in commodity prices.
I suspect a number of other businesses decided this was an opportunity to make up for loss of profits during the pandemic, plus the need to keep up share prices.
Please can someone explain to me, slowly, why there is a need to keep up share prices?
There is a lot of interest in the stock market and increased happiness if the prices are high, but what benefit is there to the organisation if share prices are high? I understand why existing shareholders want the prices kept high, but how does the company benefit? Do they get a % of every share sale or something?
The reasons are:
a) It keeps shareholders happy, and mai3s then feel wealthy(ier)
b) Politicians treat it as a virility symbol
C) The City does the same thing
D) It reduces the cost of raising money for companies – although few use shares for that reason.
So, it so all about signalling the virility of markets than any reality.
Richard Werner unpicking mainstream neo-classical / neoliberal economics particularly the role of bank credit creation for non-productive purposes that drives inflation. He shows this in a look at the relevant statistics, see presentation ;
https://youtu.be/3Lrht3ww87U?t=1074
2 papers
Are lower interest rates really associated with higher growth? New empirical evidence on the interest rate thesis from 19 countries
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijfe.2630
Reconsidering Monetary Policy: An Empirical Examination of the Relationship Between Interest Rates and Nominal GDP Growth in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800916307510
It is also about management’s share options.
Exactly right, Schofield. I just wish more MPs than Andy Verity and Jacob Rees-Mogg got it. Are you surprised that JRM knows how the national monetary system works? So was I when I listened to the first part of his speech toward the end of July last summer. Of course, he has never referred to the subject again. I wondered at the time what was going on. And I am no wiser about it now.
Everything the Tories do is inculcated with their perverse world view that is a result of their wealth.
Our rulers simply do not inhabit the same reality as most of us do and their ‘unreality’ has got worse as we’ve decided not to tax their excess earnings.
So another tax spillover effect is an increasing lack of empathy in the ruling elite towards the people they are in charge of.
Plus also, there is sheer economic ignorance. Everyone’s wages is someone else’s wages. Paying those self-isolating makes sense as the money gets circulated in the economy and reduces Covid’s impact on society.
Instead, government money was filtered to Tory party mates who squirelled out of the economy into their bank accounts and offshore.
So, this made conditions even harder for the government to help – they literally shot themselves in the foot on numerous occasions.
Sunak and his party ceased to have valid justification for being in power many moons ago.
The fact that they are still there is a failure of the checks and balances in our system of democracy.
Because it’s NOT a system of democracy we have, its a system of demagoguery in this country.
‘political activity or practices that seek support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument’.
I watched Channel 4’s Partygate about the ways things were conducted in Downing Street during the pandemic. They claim the depiction was mainly based on the Sue Gray report.
How many people watched it, I have no idea but it could be a factor in consolidating public opinion about not just their mendacity but their competence and honesty too.
Some will make the link with the Brexit campaign , also full of lies and inaccuracy. But will those who voted for Boris’s ‘Get Brexit Done’ admit they were conned?
I missed it…..
Probably don’t need to say but Channel 4 have a catch facility. That’s how I saw it.
I thought Partygate sounded like it might be fun, so I googled to see if it’s still available. It is!
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/partygate
Another good one is This England, you can rent/buy it on amazon Prime, otherwise it’s pay out for NOW TV or Sky. I watched it earlier this summer, might re-watch it as I think my NOW sub lasts another 2 weeks.
I go back to Jeremy Corbyn here.
If we accept – and I think we should – that Thatcherism/Neo-liberalism has scoured the political landscape so badly that it has left us with sub-par politicians in ALL parties, then it puts what happened to Corbyn in real perspective.
Sure, he had weaknesses, but he may have been the best intended of a bad bunch. I have never been to a rock concert before and had the crowd spontaneously burst out in support of a politician as they did, singing ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ at a Radiohead concert I went to in Manchester in July 2017.
And Radiohead joined in and played the backing to the crowd’s singing. I remember genuine tears of frustration at work from younger people after the 2019 GN.
Something really dark and evil has happened in this country to keep the Tories where they are. And I guarantee you that despite different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds, the perpetrators all had one thing in common: their wealth.
Partygate is a symptom to me of just how much we were denied a democratic change and also why the Tories can behave like this because they simply believed that they were untouchable at the time buoyed by the hatchet job on Corbyn (in which the Labour party itself had a role) and their party funding arrangements.
The Tories always seem to bring themselves down because of their innate short term thinking and the tumescence of their egos . And Labour is now always to pallid to deal with the consequences or has signed up to the same bullshit.
We are ill served by this politics and it’s time for change. The current incumbents care nothing for me or my problems so I’ll quite happily return the sentiment. With interest if necessary.
https://labouroutlook.org/2023/10/03/jeremy-corbyn-the-2-child-benefits-cap-should-be-scrapped-immediately/
Starting on Monday is a group calling themselves For the Many Network. It’s supported by Ken Loach, Audrey White and Ian Hodson of the Bakers Union, and is based on Corbyn’s 2017 manfesto, the one where he nearly beat May. It’s being held at an offshoot of the labour party conference, and I’m really looking forward to it.
By the way, neither Labour Outlook nor Labourhub support Starver.
I think we have to accept that the chance for redemption in this country has passed, and it’s now all hand-baling a sinking liner.
Those who on other forums berate those critical of Starmer need to simply ask to discuss the Forde Report, or the treatment of Corbyn, Abbott, Jewish Voice for Labour, etc at their local constituency or even branch meeting. They will be shut down and even hounded for such temerity, or if they do, the branch suspended. Forde validated view that the efforts of many within the party machine from 2015 onwards was to destroy socialism in the party and reinvent it as an anodyne, Tory-lite version to the right of even the Libdems.
This Blair-Switch Project has succeeded.
Tonight’s weownit youtube, starting at 5pm, is entitled
Why Keir Starmer should Reinstate the NHS as a Fully Public Service.
Just in case anyone wants to watch it.
So Sunak ignored medical advice over Covid- see also ‘eat out to help out’.
Ignored advice over the North and HS2.
I also know from one of those involved that he ignored the evidence about freeports.
Every bit as ideological, arrogant and detached as Truss.