Economy

One of the problems with claims that our situation is “just like the 1970s,” is that very few adults of the period are still around to share the memory.  Those of us who were children at the time have only memories distorted through the lens of childhood innocence.  I, for …

There was always something Marie Antoinetteish about the UK government’s decision to appoint a tech millionaire as its “cost-of-living Tsar,” but then critics have renamed SW1 “Versailles on Thames” for good reason.  Anyway, no sooner had Mr Buttress got his feet under his new desk than he has sparked controversy.  …

One of the greatest skills of our political leaders is the ability to tell a blatant lie while keeping a straight face.  Like the one about how inflation – officially running at 9.1% last month – is being fuelled by workers’ pay increases.  That one has gathered pace this week …

History ended in 1991.  That, at least, was the myth put about by a certain triumphalist brand of neoliberal.  The West had won the cold war.  The communist beast had been slayed.  And the looming twenty-first century would be an American one.  From that point on, there would be just …

In 1998, the Brent crude price of a barrel of oil fell to 12.8 dollars – its lowest price since 1976.  By 2000, it had risen to its highest price – $28.4 – since 1984, beginning the period of oil price volatility which has persisted to this day.  After briefly …

Those who argue that the entire world is being manipulated by a secret satanist elite cabal (I believe the truth is far worse) may see some significance in the order of events which have dramatically accelerated the collapse of western civilisation.  Covid-19 (pestilence) followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine …

As the surplus energy available to the economy declines, so the number of things that we can do in theory but can no longer do in practice will grow.  This is the inverse of the technological efficiencies won in the course of three centuries of industrialisation – the peak of …

The remarkable feature of the unfolding stagflationary crisis is the speed with which it is happening.  Just six months ago, our political class was congratulating itself for successfully steering us through the pandemic.  Rises in gas and oil prices were merely a transitory re-adjustment of supply and demand as economies …

Are we in a recession?  It is an interesting question because nobody can know for sure.  A recession is defined as two successive quarters of negative growth.  Okay, but how do we know if, in the quarter we are in, the economy is shrinking?  Again, we cannot know this.  This …

The UK may have avoided a technical recession – two successive quarters of negative growth – in the first half of 2022, but a year from now this will be of little comfort.  This is because – despite the protestations of the US Bidon administration – the downturn in economic …