I am a Post Keynesian economist specialising in the science of money & the benefits of climate change mitigation. I have brought integrality into economics.
Apr 23, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Exactly this. Past and current Cabinet Ministers appear seriously ignorant about the United Kingdom’s constitutional governance, & the role of civil servants in relation to the executive. The politicisation of the service is relatively recent, and has already gone too far.
The outrageous disrespecting & attempted or actual replacing of Permanent Secretaries by sycophants during the #Brexit years was unconstitutional & corrosive of good government. Our government has become populist & authoritarian. Standards of public service have been set aside.
Apr 23, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Incredibly, the 2022 stress tests for the UK banks also did not include testing for substantial hikes in interest rates. The list of failures, policy mistakes, & uncovered crimes, of UK governments & their bankers, grows by the day. #TimeForAChange
Instead of this reckoning, we should be focused on #NetZero now, the #CostOfLivingCrisis and the coronation. We must move on from the rotten Tory system to survive. #GeneralElectionNow
Apr 23, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
English water ways are an international disgrace. So-called plans for improvement are announced by Tory governments, but they tend to remain plans, not actions. The pollution continues unabated.
Then at the next election, after yet another failure, the Tories promise to do better. And the whole disgraceful, #PostTruthSociety vicious circle of #PublicRelations , half truths & lies is repeated again, while the #Finacialization of the water industry goes on, unabated.
Apr 22, 2023 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
Lol! I think that Raab is the real scary one, but he/she? is no longer lined up to face the cameras as a Minister. And the Prime Minister is also awol, stunned by his own indecisiveness. Raab holds intemperate views about the #CivilServants of the UK conspiring against him.
#DominicRaab is very cross. Tossed out on his ear by a cabal of conspiring servants, who dared to speak up against his ungentlemanly behaviour. Or correctly, tossed out by himself in response to outrageous allegations, now confirmed as bullying, about his Ministerial misconduct.
Apr 15, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Thanks for useful summary of how “heterodox” economics is defined. The name is problematic, since it appears to be “non-orthodox”, yet “orthodox” economics is left undefined. Is it “mainstream”? I prefer “new” versus “old” economics, which are not defined by their age but …
.. in relation to the Keynesian revolution of the 1930s. Keynesian economics was characterised after WW2 as “new” in relation to the “old”, neoclassical, Marshallian, economics that preceded it. The counter-revolution of the Samuelson neoclassical school eventually prevailed.
Apr 14, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The Big One chuffed.org/project/thebig…#ClimateActionNow implies that we should all act now to do what we can, bring reasonable about it. We can check what fossil fuel we could stop burning, or at least reduce burning. And reduce its use.
Apr 12, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The problem with western central banks is their obsession with the outdated Taylor Rule. They don’t know what else to do, but by slavishly following the rule that can make serious misjudgements in the timing, speed and extent of interest rises.
Another problem for western, inflation-obsessed central banks, is that they tend to focus on one instrument of policy, when a mix is much better, including fiscal and regulatory policies, especially for #NetZero
Apr 10, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
#Labour is fighting dirty, provoking the woke @Young_Tories@loveukhatetory What to think? About time? It’s political theatre, grandstanding on the issue of crime. But justified, because the legacy on 13 years of #ConservativeParty misrule has led to #BrexitBrokeBritain#Strikes
The Tories #brexitshambles followed by @trussliz were accompanied by underfunded public services, especially policing, the courts, jails, & probation services. Lawlessness stalks the land and this is at least partly to blame.
Apr 5, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
I regard him as a progenitor of the Big Bang, one of the most devious and scheming of Mrs Thatcher’s ministers, who brought the country to its knees with the monetarist experiment in 1979-82, & who deserves to be denounced as a supporter of those who deny climate change.
Lawson chaired the notorious and toxic Global Warming Foundation. He was a terrible Chancellor, using the Office to pursue extremely damaging ideological policies based on the writings of Hayek. He and Thatcher were well matched in ideological purity, along with the dictator of… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Apr 4, 2023 • 16 tweets • 7 min read
#Budget2023 and #NetZero a thread. The UK is lagging behind in its commitment to achieving a drastic reduction in GHG emissions & protecting us against climate change.
#Budget2023 has an industrial strategy. However, it is clear that it will be insufficient to meet the requirements of #NetZero in the right place, in a timely manner in order to reach the target by 2040, not 2050. We are in war-time crises of an unprecedented kind.
Apr 2, 2023 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
I’m watching, on delay, @SuellaBraverman on @bbclaurak this morning. What a liar, what a fake, what nonsense she utters, no end of squealing and misbehaviour. She should be on a boat in the channel, experiencing the wrath of the sea. Ruanda! Deterrent! “Evil people smugglers”!… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
She should be on the cross of public opinion. What drivel, what … This is insupportable. “Cohorts of people”. Who does she think she is? We are not stupid. The ear rings! I could swear they were mine in a previous bad life. I can’t watch any more. #PostTruthSociety She surely… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Just look at his expression. He’s trying hard to be a serious politico, but he comes across as an angry #Brexiteer This is their language, their fault, their crime against our country, our homes & families. Yes, it’s them vs us as they wanted it, @Boris and his merry band of… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Let him live in a tent. Let him enjoy the comforts of the English countryside in Spring under canvas. Let him cook his own meals on a Primus stove in the rain under an awning overlooking the North Sea, maybe in Clacton?
Mar 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Keynes is right in questioning this inconsistency in govt attitudes to spending in war&peace. Govts make the ideological pursuit of controlling public debt in a sovereign state, their policy aim. This is misconceived.
Government should pursue achievement of a balance between 1) full use of available resources and 2) price inflation in a basket of goods and services serving basic needs, broadly defined.
Mar 21, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
We have arrived in the mountains. After a journey to Cannes, Nice, Toulon, Aix, Nimes, Arles, Lyon, starting in Paris, Gare de Lyon. Over two days & nights. Here at last. TGV staff made multiple errors, cock-ups, mess-ups, mistakes, you name it. We are to be fined for their… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The oddeysey began in UK on a rail strike day. We chose to travel exclusively by rail&foot, successfully in that regard. Random chance, love, laughter, human interaction, sympathy, much humour, dancing, 20 hours on trains acros La France. We were overwhelmed.
Mar 13, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
We do. It’s government that is responsible. Failed, failing, and downright corrupt governments, led by the @Conservatives for the last 12 or so years, becoming increasingly smug, entitled and corrupt, in the pay of foreign spymasters and fraudsters. Destroying the country.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
We’ve never had it so bad.
Mar 13, 2023 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
Too true. The #SiliconValleyBank collapse is another confirmation & deepening of the #SecondGFC. Another straw in the global financial hurricane. We are seeing an acceleration of major bankruptcies in #Crypto, now #Tech. The danger is #Contagion. Do the banks have it covered? No
How can the banks, the Central Banks, the retail banks, Barclays Execution, manage a global crisis, without having sovereign power? They could not. They need to take over governments via threat & bullying, as they did in the #GFC financial crisis in the USA and the UK in 2008.
Mar 11, 2023 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
This is so wrong, so @Conservatives secret City-led policy to led the rich off the hook, whilst the rest of us PAYE or take our reduced benefits, while *they* swan off to their yachts, islands and retreats in the sun What about #NetZero ?
So prosecutions of tax evaders (& avoiders, if actually criminal) have dropped sharply in the @Boris years. No surprise - #Brexit was also about these crimes. What about #HMRC being properly funded to collect revenues when it pays the govt to do so?
Mar 5, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
A startling fact:
In the IPCC AR3 Working Group III 2001 report on "Mitigation," Chapter 3 titled "Technological and Economic Potential of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction," does include a footnote related to the use of General Equilibrium models by the US government.
The footnote states:
"One prominent example of a disaggregated model is the NEMS model used by US government agencies. However, NEMS and many other models currently in use omit some technologies, such as electric and hybrid vehicles,
Mar 3, 2023 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
This is so important in understanding the poor quality of UK homes, the stagnation of the UK economy over the last 12 years of low interest rates, and the failures of policy leading to the #Brexit disaster for national psyche.
Such a period 2010-2023 of near-zero interest rates clearly leads to over-investment in *monetary/financial assets” such as second-hand housing, and new forms of money, such as crypto. Real investment in the meantime languishes because of poor expectations of real growth.
Mar 3, 2023 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
To all my followers. I’m preparing my presentation for the @CTNTE Conference to be held next Wed. In short, the UK can learn many valuable lessons from the Mexican experience in addressing the inflation problems caused by the knock-on effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I have tweeted before about the Mexican policy solution to the #CostofLivingCrisis , and will retrieve the tweets if I have time. Russia is using oil & gas prices as a war weapon against the West. We need to respond in kind with fresh anti-inflation policies. In summary we need:
