Mervyn is Right!

If a few men go out to sea in a small boat to catch fish - say haddock - and one of them catches a cod, that must now be reported to the national government, which must report it to the EU, which will deduct that codfish from the national quota that professional fishermen are allowed to catch.
The EU pretends that it is allowing more latitude to national and regional governments: but, as this new regulation about cod fishing shows, it is merely building up intrusive bureaucracy.
A parallel point was made by Mervyn King in his Edinburgh speech on October 20, 2009. Detailed regulation is mere regulation: bureaucracy is just costly bureaucracy: and clever Dicks who know how to manipulate the fringes of legality to their own gross advantage will always outsmart the deskbound rulemakers. The bankers have been given greater power to ruin the economy than they had on New Year's Day 2007; and they can safely assume that there will always be a Gordon Brown to lead the next bail-out. This will be true until the idiocies of the historical Economics establishment have finally been abandoned.

Freakanomics: a Nice Escape

Levitt and Dubner have deservedly struck gold with their second book in a series that could run further. Since SUPERFREAKONOMICS includes the sex trade among its subject matter, it has had huge exposure in the press.
Among the great attractions of their approach is that it does not hark back to the core dogmatics of textbook Economics: it is fun, it includes a lot of common sense and sensible observation. This is so unlike the aridity of mainstream economic theory, that has built complexity sky-high on the basis of assertions that are 150 years old and did not describe the 'real world' even as it was when they were formulated.
There is no similar fun in NUCLEAN ECONOMY, but there is realism and good sense: try it out, accessible from this site.

Contempt of the People

Bankers' bonuses are beating all records - and all but the most senior managers of the banks will be able to take most of their bonuses in cash pretty well immediately. Just a year after the credit crisis reached its peak, it is generally agreed that the bankers' behaviour is obscene. it is certainly contemptuous of the mass of people whose lives will be adversely affected by the bankers' and securities traders' past antics  for many years to come.
Meanwhile Britain's parliamentarians have got themselves in a pickle by having accepted an adjudicator on their expenses who has made up his own aberrant rules: they must now accept what he has said, or defy him and look corrupt and selfish. Either way, it means that politicians as a class do not have the moral authority to censure the bankers as they should.
Bizarrely, the one person who comes really well out of the past period is Alistair Darling, who predicted the depth of the crisis while on his summer holiday [to receive much ridiclue] and kept his cool throughout! While the Prime Minister postured, Darling beavered away; and when he made public statements they were measured, clear and comprehensible. It will be worse than unfortunate if he falls foul of the expenses kerfuffel in any serious way.

Bank Profits and Bonuses

The international bankers have again achieved what should be imposible.
They have made very significant profits, from which they are paying large bonuses; making fools of the politicians who bailed them out at such huge cost just a year ago. Ministers demanded that bonuses be limited: they have not been; though there are some cosmetic changes in the timing of when the rewards will go into the blokes' pockets.
How do they manage this, when things are getting tighter for ordinary people and for 'real' businesses?
The answer is, that they trade with others of their ilk in imaginative contracts, not in reality,
This is explained in Nuclean Economy, acessible via this blog.

More Assets to be Stripped

The government is trying to sell its holding in the Channel Tunnel, the Dartford Bridge, the Tote and other assets, to reduce the deficit on government spending.
The deficit arose because the stability of society was seriously threatened in 2008 by the near-collapse of the banking system. That failure was due to the disastrously incompetent manner in which the 'financial services' were regulated; and regulation in turn was burdened  by its dependence on nonsenical propositions that were asserted in Economics.
The revenue that may be received from these sales will be a mere drop in the ocean as a supplement for normal government revenue; but a much more important question is whether it is right or sensible to sell yet more 'public goods'  to be administered for private profit.
The Tote was established by Winston Chrchill in 1928, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it has supplied stable funding for the sport of horseracing ever since then. There is a broadly valid old adage: 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. We may add, if it's useful as it is, why change things?
Such tinkering will not make a ha'peth of difference to the economy, or to the financial position of the government. It is action for the sake of action: gesture politics. The real issues are demanding, and should properly be addressed.
To see a realistic assessment of the issues, refer to Nuclean Economy, via this site.

A true measure of Britain's problem

The World Economic Forum [best known for running the annual Davos shindig] has announced that Britain is the world's 'leading financial centre'; but this apparent accolade is balanced by the fact that the same survey lists Britain in 37th place for 'financial stability', after Nigeria and Bangladesh in a table of 55 countries.
The UK was 44th for currency stability, 45th for the stability of the banking system, 39th for managing the public sector debt and 40th for managing private deabt.
This is because there is precious little evidence that the government and the Bank of England really have control of the system
By keeping the economy open to global financial trade the government gets taxes from the City trading firms and on the salaries and bonuses of the traders. The cost of doing this is to expose the 'real economy' and the economic existence of citizens to unpredictable and potentially violent fluctuations.
Gordon Brown thinks that he has 'saved the world': he may have benefitted other countries by his vastly expensive intervention in the meltdown of the financial system in 2008, but he has pushed Britain further out on the limb that hangs over an abyss.

The Tory Twister

David Cameron has taken a bold line in his 2009 Party Conference, and it has received a good response. The ideas that emanate from work led by Iain Duncan Smith and by a recent import from New Labour show that the Conservatives have recognised the extent of the problems Britain faces.
But their proposed 'solution' will make matters vastly worse.
Nobody except their mothers and dependents likes or respects NHS managers: they are legendary for inefficiency, waste, and the avoidance of responsibility; so if they are - rightly - weeded out, who would ever employ them? Ditto for many of the MILLIONS of Civil Servants who should be thrown out if the Tories really want to shrink 'big government'.
It's great to claim to be able to 'get Britain back to work': but DOING WHAT? Serving in Tesco or Asda for a short week, selling imported commodities and receiving tax credit? That's no good for the tax burden or for the balance of payments.
The problems go seriously deeper than the 'solutions' that Cameron has proposed: see Chapter Five of Nuclean Ecnomy