Wealth Perception and Reality

This is a good video on the state of wealth in the USA, comparing people’s perceptions with reality and what they think would be ideal.
I would expect the situation in Britain and Europe to be a bit different, but the broad result to apply. We would like a more equal situation to pertain and not realise how chronically elitist the situation really is.

My own view has long been that we should sequester the rich and use this ‘money’ to pay down household debt and abolish most of financial services beyond ‘boring banking’.
Instead of sensible discussion of wealth, incentive and using the planet’s resources reasonably, the big new option available to us in the UK is UKIP – a little Englander party that plays on immigration and our myopic hatred of the European Union. UKIP are less revolting than any of our standard politicians, but the EU costs each of us about £74 a year – buttons compared with the rich and probable liabilities of the financial sector. A question of ‘its the economy stupid’ – with the proviso we’re too dumb to understand any economics!
I don’t care whether we are in the EU or not – though we should want to be in the trading block. What we’ve needed since I can remember is a decent industrial policy, near full-employment, decent policing and much great equality (though there is no point in expecting a few slogans in this area to lead to anything worthwhile – and the dangers of Soviet Paradise lurk).
The telling point of this video is that argument is pretty hopeless because most of us live in cloud cuckoo land. I’m off down the pub for a drink with Farage. He got my vote as the least of all evils on display.

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Economic Honesty

Its very difficult to find anyone as sane as this former member of Reagan’s staff talking about the UK economy. We look like a smaller version of the USA, other than on financial sector debt and military spending.
Most people just want to bury their heads in the sand and hope interesting economic times go away. My guess is they won’t and Cyprus is just the start of a wider wealth snatch – that is the ‘Plan B’ they are hiding from us is very scary indeed. We don’t know what has happened in Cyprus yet, but I’d bet the only people who end up paying will be local people and EU taxpayers – the hot money will be long gone. Here, we will find any solid financial assets going to Cayman and pensions and property sequestered.

Nothing Changes

Obama is giving Thatcher a medal and privatising the TVA.
When are we going to grab the idea economics doesn’t work?

Our energy bills are going through the roof, so privatisation worked did it?

We are in the sixth year of a “crisis” with an end as realistically in sight as world war claims ‘it will be all over by Xmas’.   When Canute ‘tried to prevent the tide coming in’ it came in and did so since.  He may have been demonstrating limits to a monarch’s powers or a total arse (plenty of royal examples).  Modern economics and government tend to make us believe the sky will fall without them.   Maybe Canute is the better example?

The song is 60’s – the economic arguments better understood in the 20’s when E D Morel unseated Churchill in Dundee.  We can waste £10 million on the funeral of a woman whose family could have done it quietly and sold the event to the Daily Mail.  Do you know the names of any of the leaders of the best country to live in for the last 100 years (Sweden)?  It’s time for a big rethink.  Sadly, most of our most able go to university to make sure they never will think for themselves.

The economics of being screwed

Some good clips from recent films help make the point of what has really been going on under the watch of our politicians and the masters of he universe.

Just The Greatest Investment Opportunity Ever

Surreal beyond Paul Merton Walking About With A Stuffed Shark.  There’s even a reporter called Wanko!  The series of videos has 57 ‘unique’ chefs.  Join me in remortgaging the house to invest in this wonder resort.  Sadly, we are already too late.  JP Morgan Chase has already lost a billion and the whole shebang is in repackaging bankruptcy with around $250 million of state money gone very West.  If you can take in the series of short videos you’ll find even the coastline sand had the sense to make a quick exit as the building went up!  Still time to stack your pension fund into Allcoppedout (Cayman Offshore) which will be bringing private sector expertise to the re-launch of the Bliar plan for an East Manchester super casino.  Our iron chefs will be Chinese and every chip shop will sport an acre of one-armed bandits.  The Millennium Doom will be transported strip by strip from London and be turned into a bouncy castle with blackjack and strippers.  Policing will be private sector too and at no cost to the public – other than those offending the new decorum being frog-marched to cash machines where their bank accounts will be stripped by our partner agency Capone’s Guardian Angels.  Invest now – you will never live to regret it!  The videos were all packaged to sell the resort to potential investors.  I’d rather pay tax and see a few more coppers on the beat than think drivel concepts like this bring urban renewal.  The embedded video seems to change – the main ones can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuFJzgyUt0Q&feature=player_embedded&list=UUqic0ZJestynEt-BYH8tdOg

Naff- but almost right ecnomics

The ideas of modern monetary theory