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FUNNY YOU SHOULD SAY THAT

"Will Hutton on Newsnight clashed amiably with economist Diana Choyleva"

In the interest of balance: I saw a man in torment who could not make eye contact with the object of this 'amiable clash'.
This might seem to have nothing to do with the matter in hand, but I suspect it nuanced his offering somewhat!

I should add that I read Paul Mason with interest (and total gullibility, where finance is concerned) but feel well qualified to comment on matters human!

the market mechanism depends on one thing. How do markets arrive at a price?

what are the factors that determine price? Supply and demand [ some stop there]. Are those the only 2 things that determine price? or can we add perception? What we think its worth because of the beliefs about it.

Take the justice system in the uk there is a belief expensive justice is 'good' justice. If someone offered you a cut price nuclear reactor would you take it? This idea the more expensive something is the better it is, is the basis of the perception part of price. So markets do not only follow supply and demand but also perception.

When we see perception is part of price then we can understand how important managing that perception is and how it affects profitability.

so will not those seeking profit focus on perception? e.g the British Gas leaflet explaining 'high prices' by showing a graph with price at the height of the july spike.

Is the State an arm of finance or finance an arm of the State?

If we think the first then the State is there as an expression of finance and one might say traditions such as the Head of State having to ask permission to enter the City of London is a nod in that direction.

Can finance break govts or can govts break finance? Has it not been shown that no country is greater than the international markets opinion? e.g. ERM? The current slide in the pound is a reflection that the markets think the BOE has got it wrong and will have to lower rates. Who will win that bet?

So if we believe that the State is an arm of Finance and that politicians are 'pr frontmen' then it is logical the State should serve finance [with bailouts, tax breaks - office cleaners paying more tax than executives etc] and always will.

so the 'debate' is among those who believe finance is a creature of the State and those who know the State is a creature of Finance. Those who think the cart goes before the horse and those who put the horse before the cart?

No 10.30 deadline today?

In case you are bereft of topics at the meeting, might I suggest a return to matters green, if more mundane?

Last night ITV ran an expose of the state of our national recycling policies and systems, whereby an OAP seems eligible to be sent to Elba for popping an extra cabbage leaf to their bin, yet the person in charge of such a policy at their LA has no clue where container loads of 'recycling' (note: the tonnages box-ticked are only on what it is (might be); nor whether it is any use to man nor beast) goes, but for sure will be ready first in line to get their bonus for an all round sterling job.



I am minded of a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ expose back in Dec 2005 that covered pretty much the same thing.



What, if anything, has changed, bar the bonus structures on an index-linked basis, plus what's shaping up as a terrific 'guilty 'til proven still guilty' revenue-collection system?

Maybe when our convoy of governance has got back from its outing to trying to run the country again without more wheels falling off, maybe one of the succession of environment Ministers (past and present... maybe even Mr. Milliband?) might be invited to waffl... comment on how we have come so... er.. far.

I really don't see much point in all these stories if they are not followed up and the protagonists held to account.

WE ARE RUBBISH AT BOTH (#2 and 3)

The global village is rubbish. We are a global CITY with all its ghettos, gated communities, mafia, vice, industrial drugs, gambling, animosities, anonymities, instabilities and waste disposal problems.
When we lived in small communities with just enough weaponry to balance out being toothless, clawless, slow animals (and in equilibrium with our drugs) without the wheel or money, we had our niche and fitted in.
For the global village ever to be viable, it would be necessary to redesign man. Just as Gordon's 'end to boom and bust' and Hitler's '1000 year Reich' have passed away, so, it seems, must the global village and its over-confident, under-competent villagers.

Tories are tories and they always act for the benefit of their class. They always have done and they always will.

We have a tory Labour party that has for the last decade been acting for the benefit of the nation's tories too. The Labour party has cut itself off from its roots and connected with aspirational toryism.

The mood in society has moved against Labour, not for any deficiency but because the economy has turned sour and the people expect the government, which ever party is in power, to protect them.

The few people in any of the parties who can do simple arithmetic have realised that New Labour's tory spending plans of the last decade cannot be kept going into the next decade so it is hardly surprising that the Tories have said so - indeed what is surprising is that Labour has also not said so.

I expect austerity to be announced by all parties before the next election. It is a question of who cons the more people to believe that they will be best protected by their party. No party can protect the people of course, but they can pretend and they will.

Labour can construct a recovery by protecting the poor, or convincing the poor that they will be best protected by Labour, similarly the Tories can do the same thing. Interesting times for journalists! But in the end the credit crunch's liquidity reduction has to work its way through and who ever gets into office will be hard pushed to keep in power as it is highly unlikely that the (dishonest) expectations of financial protection that they will use to gain victory can be actually achieved.

What price a National Government!

What is the current PFI debt ?
What interest rate guarantee were given as part of the deals ?
How long are the loans over ?

Then you got PPP, that locks public sector bodies into contracts for services from private companies, for a new building.

What is the combined debt of these, the last thing I heard was the Government saying details of these deals were too commercially sensitive for public publication ?

I think this is part of what the other political parties are referring to as this Governments financial black hole, it's an unknown !

We need another dose of realism. Another generation has grown up without the dicipline of Maggie's purse. You might like that holiday in Spain, or latest mobile phone, but if you can't afford it you don't get it.

NuLabour is old Labour tax and waste but in Tory clothes.

To get technical, Keynsian economics was there all the way through with militarism - No neolib govt has had any qualms about propping up the arms industry with public money, ever. Especially in the UK version of Export Credit Guarntees - over 50% of the £ of this scheme go to the arms industry. This supports arms exports to dodgy governments underwritten by UK tax payers.

That's apart from govt procurement here, where all pricing etc is secret - if its not 'commercial confidentiality' its 'national security'.

High profit, not too many employees, and all secret. Not a bad welfare deal for arms corp shareholders.

Old free market Thatcher was pretty close to that action.

Diana Choyleva was absolutely brilliant. Calm, informative and in control despite the rude and boorish Will Hutton constantly scaremongering interrupting. Please bring her back again!!

paul, please look at FISIM some more. i want to know about it. we now have the first GDP figures to account for FISIM. ramifications? please answer.
nick