The International Monetary Fund’s latest Global Financial Stability Report October 2017 has raised concerns about the profitability of nine “Global Systemically Important Banks” (i.e. the ones that are too big to fail). Among the nine are two UK banks – Barclays and Standard Chartered – which the IMF lists as …
Read More »Britain faces dangerous deflation
In addition to his famous ‘hierarchy of needs,’ psychologist Abraham Maslow had a hammer: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” In central banking, that hammer is the rate of interest on overnight lending …
Read More »UK faces years of depression
The apparent resilience of the UK economy in the face of last year’s Brexit vote has confounded economists and pundits. The Remain Campaign’s dire ‘project fear’ predictions simply failed to materialise. The sharp fall in the stock market – more a reaction to the surprise result than to its economic …
Read More »Neoliberal training policy comes home to roost
The impact of migration on jobs is believed to lie at the heart of last year’s Brexit vote. Free movement of people, it was argued, was responsible for depriving indigenous workers of the employment they need. Halting free movement, then, was supposed to result in more and better jobs for …
Read More »Electric cars: more disruptive than we bargained for
The UK is the latest in a growing list of countries to announce bans on petroleum vehicles. This has led to understandable concerns about the ability of national electricity grids to cope with the massive demand for additional electricity that such a ban implies. The thinking appears to be that …
Read More »Energy is a bigger problem than Brexit
The temptation is to jump on the bandwagon and attack British Gas owner Centrica for profiteering and for participating in a cartel in the wake of its 12.5% hike in electricity prices. It is certainly difficult to feel any sympathy for a multinational corporation that raked in profits of £816 …
Read More »Why “The Consciousness of Sheep”?
The name of this website may seem a little odd to anyone who was not around two years ago when it was launched. The Consciousness of Sheep was the title of the book about the current economic, ecological and energetic collapse that humanity is hurtling toward. Drawing on psychology, sociology, …
Read More »The distinct whiff of ministerial greenwash
Green virtue signalling has become so prominent that even Tory ministers are getting in on the act. Today, Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark will announce a new Industrial Strategy that, apparently, aims to power the UK economy with solar panels. What’s not to like? Except, of course, that this …
Read More »Let’s boycott these evil polluters
It turns out that just 100 companies are responsible for 71 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Carbon Majors Report 2017: “Over half of global industrial emissions since human-induced climate change was officially recognized can be traced to just 25 corporate and state producing entities.” This …
Read More »They promised a small state. They gave us a weak state
While the 2008 financial crash finally exposed the infantile economic theories behind neoliberalism, most of its political claims remain unchallenged. Key among these is the belief that somehow successive neoliberal governments have been “rolling back the state.” Ripping up so-called “red tape,” cutting taxes and providing ready access to finance …
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