Retired Professor of Political Economy
(Lancaster University, UK - retired 2021)
(also #ProfDJ across the Lune Valley)
Contributor: North West Bylines #NoBridge
I sometimes thought my father thought he could't die while he still had books on his pending pile (a stab at immortality I seem to be replicating)... so, it was strangely touching to see Tom Gauld has had similar thoughts.
Ha ha, well access is good, but what we/you really need is infinite time for reading to digest & enjoy them all... or the (large?) portion that you might actually want to read
... The complete disregard for how an institution's actions & inactions impact on those at the bottom of the 'pyramid' & the subsequent attempt to evade responsibility for the harm caused when publicised.
(you'll have other you'd like to add to the list, I'm sure)
A damning picture of misused power & disregard for others.
George Monbiot on the role of profit in (children's) social care:
'two Northamptonshire councils revealed they are paying an average of £281,000 a year for each residential placement, or £5,400 a week. A direct comparison cannot be made, because many children in care have complex needs, but just by way of reference Eton’s eye-watering fees are £46,000 a year'!
So, much of tax payers money is supporting investors not those needing care!
It increasingly clear, as the media furore around Iain Duncan Smith's proposed law on cyclists causing injury & death grows, that this has been intended a s divide & roll measure in favour of car drivers.
Its clear from the data that both pedestrians & cyclists are more at denser from cars than from each other on the roads.... so Smith's attempt to shift the narrative to see pedestrians fume about cyclists, looks like a political help to dangerous drivers, not endangered pedestrians!
Each of Emma Newman's Planetfall quartet explores a different aspect of the same overarching story of religious driven intergalactic migration. In Atlas Alone (2019), the fourth story centres on an elite gamer & their attempt to uncover & then take revenge for a crime against humanity. To say much more would ruin the plot for you, but as with the others, this is great, fascinating sci-fi, which has a great payoff at the end.
Britain's record on homelessness is world beating, just not in a good way.
We've the highest recorded levels of homelessness in the developed world; while other counties have seen (albeit slow) declines in homelessness, since 2010 the UK's rate has been accelerating away.
The housing crisis has many dimensions, but here there's a direct correlation between the arrival of the current Tory govt. & massive increases!
The party of landlords is working for them & doing nothing for us!
Having learnt nothing from the previous disasters around PFI projects in the health service, OFWAT is pushing the model for getting investment in water infrastructure restarted....
So, the model to shift us from being exploited by renter firms who have taken our money & used it pay dividends rather than maintain the system, is to replicate that model in special purpose vehicles, running infrastructure projects on contract...
It will not go well, as history has already shown!
interestingly, Alan Beattie (FT) points out, the headline subsidies quoted as flowing to fossil fuel firms around the world include both explicit & implicit subsidies (calculated by the IMF & World Bank).
I'm not saying all is therefore fine, but the implicit subsidies include future taxes not levied... as well as other regulatory issues (rather than cold hard cash payments).
This makes the figures look less 'fact' & more political rhetorical which is worth knowing!
And so its starts (continues).... after the hints that the BoE might ease interest rates over the summer, Megan Greene (a member of the MPC that sets rates) is telling anyone who listens that:
'In considering for how long we must retain our restrictive stance before policy should be eased, I think the burden of proof therefore needs to lie in inflation persistence continuing to wane'.
As predicted the evidential hurdle is rising to keep workers under pressure a bit longer!
The model of 'flexible' labour markets with few(er) protections for workers & curtailed unions was (mainstream economists predicted) going to delver innovation, spur entrepreneurship & lead to better-paid jobs... but we actually have got from it is an economy patterned by low-wage labour, inequality, falling real wages & labour exploitation (via precarious working).
As Larry Elliot suggests, its time to follow unions urging to try a different way!
Despite Trudi Warner's case for contempt of court (for holding a placard reminding a jury of its ability to acquit on moral grounds in a climate protest case) being thrown out by the UK High Court because it was 'fanciful', the Tory Solicitor General Robert Courts has decided to appeal the decision.
The world is undergoing a major health pivot as the majority of premature deaths swing from being caused by disease to being the result of 'metabolism-related risk factors' (high blood sugar & fat levels) which cause illnesses like heart disease, diabetes & cancer.
As health systems are already dealing with the results of ageing populations, this re-emphasises the urgent need for investment in public health & preventative policies.
#health
data: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation/FT
Not only are the DWP causing pain & crisis in the lives of unpaid carers, three years ago they were told the approach they had adopted was doing this....
So even if it had been accidental (I 'm not sure it was) in 2020, for the last three years they have known the distress & problems their actions were causing but carried on blithely.
We should be cherishing & rewarding carers at home, not penalising them for minor infractions of unjust rules!
More evidence of greedflation & the maintenance & boosting of profits, as a driver of inflation.
But, the Q is whether the sado-monetarists care about such evidence or are happy to continue with the ideologically driven economic modelling that asserts greedy workers as the ket cause of inflation?
Oh we know the answer, the BoE will be quoting three month wage rise data not profits' trends across years, because that doesn't support disciplining the workforce.
Three climate activists have been found guilty under the new law that seeks to repress protests that interfere with key national infrastructure.
With the jury instructed to ignore the defendants' reasoning behind their actions its perhaps unsurprising they were found guilty... all a bit ironic given the unseasonal heat in the court room.
Sentencing is to come & will show how serious an impact the law may have... but its not going to be good!
Well, what do you do when you're in a polling hole, yes, you double down on attacking the poor & the vulnerable.... Jeremy Hunt & Mel Stride are portraying taking benefits as a 'lifestyle choice' that the Govt. should not support...
Have they got any idea about the world outside their Tory enclave; have they ever tried to survive on benefits; have they ever suffered ill health?
Hunt & Stride are vile, inhumane, people who care about no-one but themselves
More callousness compounding the inequities of the housing crisis...
As other have remarked Thurrock's communication(s) with Heidi Dodson are remarkable for their inhumanity, but it sort of follows from declarations that the vulnerable & poor are making 'lifestyle choices'.
Cruelty & callousness come down from our politicians who are forever 'punching down'.
Sometimes I wonder how we have come to this, then I look at grinning Tories & I know all too well!
