Now a three month mortgage holiday. Quick maths - £1500bn in outstanding mortgages, from memory? 3% rates? So £10bn?
I was almost exactly right on the mortgage amount, have no idea on interest rate and didn't factor in repayment amounts, so it could be bigger. But smaller if it's only "distressed" borrowers?
Now @SamCoatesSky has asked if these loans are the thing - what if people can't repay?
Implicitly, the government is assuming/hoping this is V shaped, a Nike Swoosh. But what is the Swoosh is more like a roller coaster? Well HMG may be on the hook for many many billions...
The "can you afford this" question comes in from @GuardianHeather - and the Chancellor says yeah, sure
Fyi my very bodged up model of a fiscal crisis finds a one off bump in debt is just fine. It's a structural hit to growth, tax revenues or spending that we should fear
Rather surprised the PM is doubling down on the British-made ventilator project after what I read in the FT today, but the FT comments section isn't the sum of all wisdom. Maybe this is possible
Both the PM and the Chancellor appeared clear in the press conference that they will not tolerate "quibbles" by insurers about venue closures
When I saw that @IPPR (@GeorgeDibb and @carsjung specifically) had written a report eviscerating the UK's investment record, my first reaction was a shrug and "huh, yeah we know that". But it is well worth your time: 1/ ippr-org.files.svdcdn.com/production/Dow…
To start cheekily: it praises the Sunak/criticizes Labour's plans!
"The government’s plans for ‘full expensing’ capital allowances are a step in the right direction"
"a Starmer-led government would cut public investment more than the 2010-24 Conservative administration"
2/
Two: it is salutory to be reminded of how deep-seated is the UK's failure to invest.
If you are looking for culprits behind our growth failures, *you need to find big things*. This is a big one - £1.9tn cummulatively. Had that been invested, GDP would be much higher ... 3/
They share the Johnsonian Cakeist position that Green Growth is a three-fer - you win at growth, regional balance and environmental policy by going for it.
Most of us are reasonably convinced that Truss's economic programme (fwiw) was proven to have failed within a month. The market verdict was brutal.
But most policy isn't that clear.
I read a LOT of centre left pamphlet-speak calling for industrial policy ... 1/
which you could machine-write: "the UK needs a green innovative industrial strategy that invests in sectors of the future and cuts pollution while creating green jobs and rebalancing the economy/levelling up. It should borrow to do this/tax the rich".
What I seldom read... 2/
... is anything like a statement of what failure would look like. Give it 50 times longer than Truss - 5 years, say. What would force you to concede "this hasn't worked"? What metrics would count for evidence? Or is that too short?
"Budget blowouts and delays: why the UK struggles with infrastructure"
OK, this is a vitally important and *difficult* topic, and it plays directly into a subject I've been trying to force myself to think about: when markets or planning are better 1/on.ft.com/3S5WnbK
This observation crudely suggests to me that the UK has opted for the ever-more-market approach to doing stuff. Issue a tender, that gets sub-contracted and so on in an attempt to stimulate competitive dynamics that somehow produce the best outcome. But it hasn't worked! 2/
In my amateur estimation, we've been trying to exploit the insights of Hayek's Use of Knowledge in Society which emphasises the supreme knowledge difficulty of planning. But he understands that the right answer depends on circumstances! 3/ econlib.org/library/Essays…
Remarkably, 15 months ago there was a 49 day government whose actions triggered a bond market panic and the reversal of tens of billions in tax measures.
Even more remarkably, it blamed “Treasury Orthodoxy“ for the country's ills.
This is the report @ollybartrum @RhysClyne and I wrote after interviewing dozens of current and former insiders about what this Orthodoxy is, what it is responsible for, how it is implemented in practice, and many sundry issues. 2/
Tl;dr: is there an orthodoxy? Sure! It's what you would expect! Sound money and spending control matters, when pretty much every other part of govt is pressing the other way. But it is *highly* responsive to political direction. Blaming it for political decisions is silly 3/