Sterling slip-slides away

Another day, another plunge for sterling - it's at E1.022 and the slide shows no sign of tailing off. The world is beginning to worry that the kids are running the sweet shop in the British economy - and that mum has gone to Iceland.  Well, not quite, but the Reykjavik-on-Thames scenario - while still very unlikely - is becoming vivid enough to cause alarm. So far this month, sterling is off 13% against the Euro and 16% against the Swiss Franc (probably the most stable currency right now). And today's...

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That's the end of free markets then, isn't it?

The current woes are used as a back up to the insistence that free markets are dead. We must not continue with this "neo-liberal" (a word that doesn't lend itself to spitting, but that's the way it's usually said, spat as a swear word) system, we must have more regulation, more planning, more rule of the feckless masses by the wise and omniscient.

Hmm, well, yes, although finding those wise and omniscient isn't actually as easy as all that. For example, if we accept the critique that people are not rational decision makers then where are we going to find...

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What you can get for $100 billion

We all know about the damage the credit crunch has wreaked on financial institutions, but this anecdote in Anatole Kaletsky's column today is still pretty astonishing:

"An even more spectacular case came to my attention in an e-mail I received in mid-November, when global stock markets hit their low-point (so far). Royal Bank of Scotland, my reader pointed out, spent $100 billion to buy ABN Amro, the second-biggest bank in the Netherlands, in October 2007. If only the directors of RBS had been a bit more patient, this is what they could have bought for the same

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I'm sorry, this is nonsense

Will lots of people lose their jobs this ycoming year? Yes, I'm sure they will, sadly. However, this really is nonsense:
More than 1,600 people will lose their jobs every day during 2009 as the British economy sheds workers at the fastest pace for nearly 20 years, personnel managers say today......

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development forecasts that 600,000 workers face redundancy during 2009......

John Philpott, the CIPD's chief economist said early 2009 will be the worst period for redundancies since 1991......

Now assume that those numbers are true, it's still nonsense. For they are...

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On Richard Murphy

I rag on Richard Murphy a great deal. I think he's extraordinarily wrong headed but that's not normally enough to get my dander up. The unfortunate fact is that he's also get a certain amount of power in our current political system. He writes reports for the TUC, he gives evidence to Commons committees and the like. His pamphlets are approvingly noted by such luminaries as Nick Cohen, Michael Meacher, Polly Toynbee....and such luminaries they are.

So as a special Christmas treat I thought I'd bring in a ringer, an American gentleman who blogs under the name Dennis the...

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