Tuesday, May 14, 2013

I have been running business's for other people and myself since 1983. Running an economy may indeed be unlike running a household, but it is EXACTLY like running a business. Some of the most famous business's in the world went bust because they could not finance their debts, or were the victim of bad debts where their customers could not finance theirs. You need cash flow, you need working capital, you need a stable exchange rate, you need to keep an eye on all the important ratio's one of which is liquidity and you need to make a profit both as a business and a country. Which is where we could get too deep on financing long term deficits on the balance of payments. Cliches are cliches because they are right.
One cliche is "cash is king" If you have money, then you can buy assets, invest in assets and make some good deals. The world will beaty a path to your door. If you are skint, like Cyprus the world does not beat a path to your door, it bashes your door in.
Here's another cliche: If you owe the bank $50,000 you have a problem. If you owe the bank $50,000,000 the BANK has a problem....The Fallacy of Composition argument that national economies and indeed the global economy as a whole are like a household or business economy and should be run as such was laid to rest thirty seven years ago!.  In summary there are three vital economic ideas politicians and the electorate need to understand to fight recessions and achieve economic growth these are Fallacy of Composition, Sectoral Balances Accounting and Sovereign Currency Creation of Money.... And so the debate trundles on. Austerity or more money printing. I suppose the only way to find out is to suck it and see. Well in fact we are getting a hybrid policy which has elements of both approaches: loose monetary and tight fiscal policy. The upshot, stagflation. Was there ever a more egregious policy mismatch. Anyway we (central banks around the world that is) seemed to have produced a stock market rally and the beginnings of a rally in the housing market. News papers are full of 'soaring' equity prices as a sign that the 'recovery' is firmly in place. Recovery for whom I wonder? All that QE money had to go somewhere and it hasn't gone into productive investment, but hey, the headlines are good.  Unfortunately the whole thing looks like Global Bubble MKII and we can safely predict it will end in the same catastrophic manner as the 2007 debacle notwithstanding all of the media hype.. If it walks like a bubble etc., ... Is this the famed Keynesian stimulus at work I wonder? If so it isn't quite running to plan.  This depression has a long way to run. Like the 1929 slump it began with loose credit and excess demand in the US stock market followed by the failure of the Vienna Bank Credit Anstalt and ran right up to WW2, albeit with a partial recovery. But even as late as 1938 US unemployment was running at 20% and world trade was being stifled by a tariff war which added a further twist to the slump. Sovereign nations with their own currencies were engaged in a currency and trade war against each other to gain competitive advantages in the diminished world export markets. All eerily similar to today's situation.  Here's a prediction, an inflationary upturn with any number of asset price bubbles as the corollary - this is not an accident it is policy - then the inevitable pop and back in the **** only this time even deeper. That is what is on offer from the Treasury and central bank mandarins.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

David Cameron to rush out law for EU vote
David Cameron will propose laws tomorrow to guarantee that the public is assured an in-out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union before the end of 2017.

Anonymous said...

Cameron should just put an ashtray and a pint on the Cabinet table, and invite Farage to take a seat.

Had they a set of balls between them, the Tories would go down with the ship in 2015, captain at the helm, rather than scurrying for the lifeboats, and jettisoning principals and policies to appease an obnoxious pub bore.

Britain is sleepwalking into a kind of pseudo-fascist, isolationist state advocated by a grinning buffoon. His jovial pint-swilling attitude disguises a complete lack of policies - other than xenophobia and homophobia. This is not Britain at its best. Dark, dark days for all Britons.

Anonymous said...

The Conservatives will take the highly unusual step of publishing “draft legislation” which would write into law the pledge made by the Prime Minister earlier this year.

The draft Bill will be published amid growing pressure from Tory MPs and ministers for a referendum to be guaranteed in law.

The development, which emerged in Washington tonight, came after Barack Obama effectively backed Mr Cameron’s attempts to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU before ordering a referendum.

The president called for Mr Cameron to be given time to “fix” the EU, as he warned that Britain would lose influence if it ever left the single market.

The endorsement was hailed as a coup by Downing Street, 48 hours before a parliamentary vote called by Conservative MPs who are demanding that the referendum pledge is written into law.

Anonymous said...

The Conservatives will take the highly unusual step of publishing “draft legislation” which would write into law the pledge made by the Prime Minister earlier this year.

The draft Bill will be published amid growing pressure from Tory MPs and ministers for a referendum to be guaranteed in law.

The development, which emerged in Washington tonight, came after Barack Obama effectively backed Mr Cameron’s attempts to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU before ordering a referendum.

The president called for Mr Cameron to be given time to “fix” the EU, as he warned that Britain would lose influence if it ever left the single market.

The endorsement was hailed as a coup by Downing Street, 48 hours before a parliamentary vote called by Conservative MPs who are demanding that the referendum pledge is written into law.

Anonymous said...

Senior Conservatives hope that draft legislation will persuade 70 Tory MPs to drop their support for an amendment to the Queen’s Speech criticising it for failing to recognise a future referendum.

However, without Liberal Democrat support, which is unlikely to be forthcoming, Mr Cameron is powerless to introduce the draft legislation before Parliament. It is therefore expected to be put forward by a backbench Conservative MP then supported by Tory ministers, including Mr Cameron.

Tonight, a senior Conservative source said: “The Conservative Party will publish a draft Bill to legislate for an in/out referendum by the end of 2017. We will examine all opportunities to bring this Bill before Parliament including as a private member’s Bill.”

The source said Mr Cameron was “open” to introducing the Bill as a piece of legislation. However, well-placed sources said he had not yet discussed the issue directly with Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, although there are talks going on between the two parties.

The sources claimed that the idea of publishing a draft Bill had been in Mr Cameron’s mind for “some time”, rejecting suggestions that it was being done to counter the threat of the UK Independence Party following its success in the local elections. On Sunday, two Cabinet ministers said Britain should consider leaving the EU unless there was significant reform, in comments that added to the pressure on Mr Cameron.

In a clear shift in American policy, Mr Obama appeared to concede that the EU was “broken” and acknowledged that Britain may have to decide whether to leave in the future. However, he also gave a clear warning that Britain’s global standing would suffer if it was to pull out.

Asked what his message was to Cabinet ministers advocating a withdrawal, Mr Obama said: “I think the UK’s participation in the EU is an expression of its influence and its role in the world as well as obviously a very important economic partnership.”

However, he added that Mr Cameron made sense in his point that “you probably want to see if you can fix what’s broken in a very important relationship before you break it off”.

There were also signs of scepticism that Mr Cameron will be able to claw back sufficient powers from the EU. “Those are tough negotiations,” Mr Obama said. “You have got a lot of countries involved. I recognise that. So long as we haven’t yet evaluated how successful those reforms will be, you know, I, at least, would be interested in seeing whether or not those are successful before rendering a final judgment.

“I want to emphasise these are issues for the people of the United Kingdom to make a decision about, not ours.”

Mr Obama’s apparent support for Mr Cameron’s position marks a shift in America’s stance. Earlier this year, Philip Gordon, the US assistant secretary responsible for European affairs, said that Britain’s membership of the EU was “in the American interest”.

He stressed the importance that Washington attached to Britain’s position as a leading member. “Britain has been such a special partner of the United States — that shares our values, shares our interests, has significant resources to bring to the table. More than most others, its voice within the European Union is essential and critical to the United States,” Mr Gordon said.

Conservative MPs criticised America’s earlier intervention, and last night it was not clear whether Mr Obama’s latest comments would influence backbenchers or anger them.

Mr Obama’s intervention is being seen as reciprocation for Mr Cameron’s support last year when the Prime Minister travelled to Washington during the president’s re-election campaign.

Mr Cameron, who spent more than an hour in talks with Mr Obama in the Oval Office, will spend much of this week in the US. Tonight he travelled to Boston, where he will pay his respects at the site of the marathon bombings. He will continue on to New York, where he will ride a London Routemaster bus with Prince Harry in an event to encourage foreign companies to invest in British business.

Anonymous said...

EU bank proposals 'risk domino sequence of failures’
Proposed European Union rules governing how losses are imposed on creditors in a failed bank pose the risk of a “domino effect” threatening financial stability in Britain, George Osborne will warn on Tuesday.