Against the backdrop of the open letter in The Guardian last year and the dismal UK growth figures for Q4 2011 published today, London’s Evening Standard asked me to write a letter for today’s paper. This is what I had to say: When last summer 51 other academics and I called on ministers to adopt [...]
The G20 and Jobs: Time for Plan B
22/12/2011 by
When the economic crisis broke following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and the global banking system seized up, workers began to be laid off, families saw their houses repossessed and banks teetered on the brink of collapse. Financial panic knew no frontiers. It was clear that a coordinated global response by governments [...]
The Wages of Economic Ignorance
22/11/2011 by
Politicians are masters at “passing the buck.” Everything good that happens reflects their exceptional talents and efforts; everything bad is caused by someone or something else. The economy is a classic field for this strategy. Three years after the global economy’s near-collapse, the feeble recovery has already petered out in most developed countries, whose economic [...]
A UK Recovery Program: Go Keynesian (Part 1)
18/11/2011 by
In a speech on 17 November, the leader of the UK Labour Party urged the Prime Minister to “change course” on economic policy or have another recession or worse. What would be a “new course” that effectively revived the economy? The answer derives from the cause. The stagnation of the UK economy is the result [...]
Time for a Eurozone Plan B
11/11/2011 by
The inflamed rhetoric generated by the current Eurozone (EZ) crisis—profligate countries, workers who pay themselves too much, bailouts on the backs of taxpayers and so on—far from illuminating the causes of the crisis has served to obscure them. Before the 2008 credit crunch and ensuing world slump, the Eurozone operated reasonably well. True, its neoliberal [...]
Plan B: The Building Blocks of a Progressive UK
31/10/2011 by
By now, even the most die-hard Tory must realise that the UK economy under George Osborne has flat-lined; like the Python’s dead parrot, it wouldn’t ‘voom’ if you pumped 4 million volts through it.[1] The highly respected National Institute of Social and Economic Research (NIESR) defines a ‘depression’ as that period of time during which [...]
A Plan B For The World Economy
05/09/2011 by
‘Capitalism’ is back on Main Street. Crashing, dismantling, reforming, repairing, restoring – all kinds of approaches to capitalism are discussed in the wake of the recent crisis. The debate has gained far more momentum today than it had during the past decade, though we had already witnessed a number of such crises. However, in practice, [...]
Political-economic argument or personal polemics?
06/06/2011 by
Sunday’s Observer published a letter calling for the UK government to reconsider its drastic austerity policies and come up with a ‘Plan B’ based on, amongst other things, revenue-side consolidation measures, a green new deal, and other changes to facilitate the transition to a sustainable growth model. The letter received signatures of support by 51 [...]
All Content