I have never had much liking for the tawdriness of secular Hallowe'en. If there was ever an indication of the corruption that markets can perpetrate upon a festival that once had a very different meaning to that now ascribed to it, Hallowe'en delivers it.
This year the date has a very different significance. The furlough scheme ends today. The single half-decent move the government made in response to the coronavirus crisis has been deemed time-expired. With that end Rishi Sunak abandons his pretence that he is supporting business, employees and the economy at large though this crisis. Instead, in pursuit of his goal of seeking to balance the government's books come what may, he hands over people's fates to market fortunes when he knows that the consequence will be economic carnage.
It's hard to imagine that a policy promise - that this scheme would end - has ever been so mindlessly pursued. As it becomes very apparent that we are heading for a catastrophic second wave of coronavirus - largely as a result of government inaction - one of the most important lifelines that businesses and their employees need to survive is being withdrawn. When the catalogue of disastrous coronavirus decisions comes to finally be drawn up this will be up there amongst those that caused most harm.
I am aware that I have been forecasting that this winter will be grim in economic terms for some time. I did so partly because I was never convinced by the epidemiological arguments that some presented to me that there was no chance of a second wave, when I always thought that likely. But I also did so because I was quite sure that the government would end its support at just the time when businesses would be at their most vulnerable and that as a result the cash that is required to keep the economy going would run out.
There can now be little doubt that the cash will run out.
That will be deliberate.
In fairness, most economists are telling the government that it has this wrong.
Even the IMF is telling the government it has the capacity to spend, and that it should.
And despite this the government will not be spending. To provide an analogy, its current approach is equivalent to the government deciding to cancel Spitfire orders on the fall of France in 1940 and trust to luck, making the argument that it simply could nit afford them.
The analogy is, I fear, apt. The government has surrendered to this virus. It has decided that the NHS will be overwhelmed. It has decided to let people die. It has decided that businesses will be left to their fate. And they are reconciled to what they think will be 4 million unemployed, but will likely be many more.
This Hallowe'en this is the real grisly story that we have to face. We have a government that in the face of a crisis is simply washing its hands of responsibility. The consequences are going to be horrid.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Someone who is on minimum wage and is contacted by the Serco people and told to isolate, will be tempted to ignore it unless there is adequate financial support. In one case in my village, a chap (on a fairly good wage) was told to isolate and that he could only obtain sick pay. He took leave instead, but at least had that option.
A teenager I know has a part time job in a local cafe. The owner tells her he is thousands of pounds in debt. We will need these and other businesses when the pandemic is over. I have this image of half of the local businesses reopening but with the businesses owned by the bank. The ultimate financial take over. Please tell me it is a fantasy!
Agreed
Where ‘Idiotology’ rules, only death will prosper.
And then there’s Brexit!
I know it’s the Tories who are implementing these suicidal policies, but the blame for all this lies squarely on the leadership of the Labour Party from Blair onwards.
Letting the market rip was a colossal failure of judgement by Brown and Co. A LABOUR chancellor? He was warned of the consequences by several progressive economists, but he persisted. When ir all went to pot, he organised massive intervention of almost all the worlds’ central banks to provide suffficient liquidity to prevent the retail banks from collapse, proving two main points:-
1) Sovereign states can and do spend vast sums of money into existence without causing inflation, and
2) In times of major crisis, the private sector cannot marshall sufficient resources to deal with the economic and political/social upheaval resulting therefrom.
We are faced with the biggest threat to our economy since WW2 and our govt is sticking to its small state, markets know best, head in the sand dogma.
Everyone, even the IMF lol, knows that the money’s there, the state is the best vehicle to get it into the economy in a targeted way, and our political leaders simply refuse. They should face charges down the line for criminal neglect and fraud.
I agree
Tweeted similar ideas nit long ago
Did not Labour switch policies as they had lost in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992? They took on the ‘market ‘ philosophy to get elected. Then Murdoch put his newspapers behind Blair.
From 21 Sept when it rejected its own science advisers’ unequivocal recommendation for a ‘circuit breaker’, as the only way to prevent infection and deaths increasing again, Govt policy has been deliberate killing. This should be the subject of an immediate legal challenge, or even police action against the perpetrators.
This government has so far called all the shots, wrong as they may be, due to our seriously skewed voting scheme (not that I think the last election result was 100% clean!). They can do what they damn well like without consequence, the list of wrongs, illegalities is well known but nothing, absolutely nothing changes.
My only hope is that events will overwhelm them and literally leave them with no say in the matter. Of course, by that point we are all screwed, to put it mildly, a bit like the voters in Florida who the decisive factor on putting Bush Jnrin the White House are themselves now sinking underwater due to climate change.
I personally think the last election was as clean as reasonably possible
Why do you disagree?
OK, let’s look at what happened.
Cummings was able to predict the likely majority, probably just dumb luck that he got that exactly right but a big majority anyway and this is in the face of:
Johnson not appearing for interviews, hiding in a fridge, booed where ever he went, Arcuri scandal, yet no one dancing in the streets on the result, postal voting higher than usual and suppression (making it difficult) for students etc. electorial roll being updated at that time, the handling of postal votes are in the hands of a long-time Tory. I could add that promising a ‘Get Brexit Done’ in the full knowledge that you fully intend to renege on the agreement signed was a fraud.
Yes I know all promises made and manifesto pledges count for nought but when he knew (though I can’t prove it of course) he would not follow through.
Maybe people like the ‘Jack the lad’ persona and he is thought of as a bit of a laugh, don’t follow politics, get Brexit out the way, sick of hearing about it etc.
It is just lots of little things that add up.
I don’t buy it
It looks like we are heading for the OBR’s worst-case scenario, from which it is hard to see Boris surviving.
file:///C:/Users/HP%20User/Downloads/OBR_FSR_July_2020-1.pdf
From page 100
Sorry can’t get the link to work! Is there another one?
Try going to https://obr.uk/download/fiscal-sustainability-report-july-2020/ (from https://obr.uk/site-search/?_keywords=Fiscal%20sustainability%20report%2C%20July%202020 ), whence the document will download.
It is worse than abandoning spending on necessary Spitfires (Hurricanes are always underrated!)
It is like sending what few we have to strafe our own flotilla of small boats trying to get the expeditionary forces off the Dunkirk beaches.
There has been deliberate under testing in London for the last few weeks – resulting in reduced positive numbers being reported. – meaning the Capital was not locked down when it should have been – hence there will be additional unnecessary Excess Deaths and ICU’s will be fuller faster than they should have been.
More Blood on their hands doesn’t bother these Ghouls as it doesn’t the MSM or the current Labour Leadership.
Exactly. This give the lie to “following the science”. Advisers advise and ministers decide. Especially when they decide to ignore the advice for short term political reasons, and people die as a result.
On page 60 of her book “Making Money: Coin, Currency and the Coming of Capitalism” Christine Desan makes the following two statements:-
” Credit that circulates more broadly depends, like money on the enforcement power of a governing agent ….”
She uses the term “stakeholder” throughout her book to refer to someone or entity who issues credit. A governing agent is therefore a stakeholder. Talking of historically early governing agents she goes to state:-
” A stakeholder likely spends money only on a certain kind of resources – soldiers and military suppliers, for example. (The word “soldiers” comes, in fact, from the Roman”solidus,” the gold coin in which they were paid.)”
The Roman governments had no central bank to issue these gold coins the government simply minted them. (The Roman did, however have private sector banks.)
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/how-did-rome-put-money-into-circulation-with-no-central-bank/
Note also in this “armstrongeconomics” the word currency derives from the Latin “currere” meaning “to flow”
Given that Boris Johnson studied the Classics, ancient literature and classical philosophy at Oxford University and spent a year teaching Latin in Australia after this degree you might have thought he’d be quick to put Rishi Sunak right and tell him the Romans built a mighty empire without a central bank and therefore the need to balance its books. You’d think he’d explain they did it certainly by issuing credit in the form of a flow of minted coins which, of course, they “retired” in the form of taxation:-
https://www.communitytax.com/ancient-taxes-around-world/
So there you have a prime-minister and a chancellor of the exchequer who basically lack any knowledge about monetary systems and the ways they can be made to work. So you still think the UK is “world-beating?”
We know it isn’t….
‘Lack knowledge’.
I disagree.
This is denial with intent. I’m serious……….we have to realise in my view that these people know what they are doing and it is deliberate. Otherwise why would they do it at all?
The truth of the matter is that Covid -19 has put the Tories in a position where they have to do something – spend money as a Government in much the same way as it would do if we were at war. And they don’t like it all because it is not a war in the traditional sense is it – there’s no victories to celebrate or figures of hate to dehumanise? All there is a virus with no face, no personality, no army no tanks, no flags or insignia and no real estate on maps to refer to.
But make no mistake, the medicine we need is cash and new ways of spending it into the economy.
It seems as though the only businesses the Govt. are prepared to protect, are the financial ones. So the response should be a co-ordinated refusal to repay any financial commitment, from mortgages, rents, cards ,cars etc. I’m sure that immediate losses from their backers would “enable” the Govt. to find a solution.
Here we go again. Second peak, second lock down. Too late again, and thousands more will die because of this government’s Panglossian optimism bias, with reality turning out to be worse even that their reasonable worst case scenario. Perhaps they need to adjust their assumptions. It would help if they were not so insulated from the consequences of their decisions in bubbles of wealth.
Three culls
People
Companies
Jobs
Massive mortality in each case
I can’t get my head around the minimum wage situation. The minimum wage is sort of supposed to be the minimum amount you can live off so we decide to pay 2/3 of it. It makes no sense?
It is callous
Presumably the minimum the Government thinks someone can live on is universal credit, which is something like £343 per month for single claimant aged under 25, or about £4,100 per year. That is roughly equivalent to working 10 to 12 hours per week at the minimum wage.
It would be interesting to know which (if any) government ministers have ever had to live in a family whose financial position was that straitened. Something like 2/3 of them went to private schools (which educate less than 10% of the children).
Even his press conference is late. Still at least the rugby on 5 wasn’t interrupted.
I think they delayed to avoid the Italy v England international rugby match. And so crashed into Strictly instead.
Perhaps next time they will get the message that it is better to lock down earlier, before things get out of control and for a shorter time, and risk being told it was unnecessary, instead of waiting until it is inevitable and then panicking and so having to lock down harder for longer, and in the meantime letting more people die (and many more suffer long term adverse health consequences) unnecessarily.
Many of us who live Up North have noticed that whilst Northern Cities were locked down, only 67% of wages were available from HMG to those who cannot work through the local tier three lockdown. Lo and behold! as soon as those living Down South have to start coping with the extra lockdown measures, furlough rates are immediately raised back to 80%. No wonder Northerners feel that we are being treated as second class citizens, I think (hope!) the so-called “Red Wall” Tory constituencies will not remain pale blue after this insult.
The injustice is very clear
indeed. all in it together! (once it affects the south)
I feel the same about new year – that commercialisation has made it a tawdry and tedious affair, at least it doesn’t have the same level of paraphernalia of other celebrations I suppose. Well, not for children anyway. It hasn’t become grisly either, of course.
Well, not yet. I believe we have a no deal Brexit to look forward to. That could be on top of another Covid-spike. I wonder how many people will be wishing each other a Happy New Year on the 1st in 2021?
Sigh.