Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Crisis of the living dead

If you listen to the news today you hear a lot about debt, lending, big bazookas, doing something, fiscal pacts etc etc.

Its as if no one thinks the economy does anything any more, or should be trying to do it.

It wasn't like this during the 1970's early 1980's emergency. The news talked of balance of payments, trade deficits. Each month the figures came out and were headlines / front page material. The papers debated why UK goods weren't winning exporting markets any more. Was it right to buy a Austin Allegro instead of a cheaper more effective Japanese car ? Buy British or make better things people actually want to buy was the debate.

Job gains and job loses were reported just as inflation and libor is now.

The earlier crisis was about something - this one seems to be about money, and no one seems quite sure what money is. ( Oh yes they'll say they do, but push them on the subject and they'll realise otherwise. )

Its as if the hight of our ambition is to get back to the state of prentding thigns were going well that New Labour used so effectiveley.

There's no anaylsis of what's going wrong, no debate and certainly no vision and leadership on offer. As many other commentators have pointed out its all distractions these days ( frankly things are bad enough that we welcome them - part of the reason the Jubilee was so popular, it gave us a chance to pretend we had a government with a leader ), now its all "bread and circuses".

There's no creative destruction (& so no recovery as capital is reallocated ) - zombie companies and zombie house holds hold on thanks to wage restraint and reduction and cheap money. Zombie countries bail each other out and there is but one rule - no one must ever ask the question are we/they solvent ? Let alone what on earth are we doing and what will our ch9idlren be doing ?

On that basis you have to expect the crisis to go on a long time.
 

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