Banner Sign

GO AWAY

Turn left, keep straight until you reach the edge of the world, and fall off

Hi

Hey different online companies are selling world best items online like yours, no doubt yours is also a nice one

Thanks
Peter

Hi,

The logo displayed here is really unique one… I guess it’s one of the award winning designs.

Thanks,
MarkP

"I just want to applaud the 10 points. Putting PR at the top was highly significant. This would be a critical reform and much else would depend on it. We have been badly governed over the past 30 years and much of this has been due to the artificially-inflated 'landslide' election results that the profoundly undemocratic system has frequently delivered."

I agree with Ron. The trouble is we've been there before with New Labour's 1997 manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on electoral reform which, somehow and for whatever reason(s), just didn't happen. The only way to get electoral reform is going to be through a hung Parliament in which the deciding votes are held by Scots Nats, LibDems, Respect and the Greens. Still, at least Compass is making the effort to attempt to obtain form of contact, however tangential, with reality - which can't be bad, can it?

Putting Electoral Reform top of the list sends a clear message that will have an appeal beyond traditional Labour voters. However we need to go further and embrace Direct Democracy. Starting at local level, give voters a direct say in budgets, Council tax levels, local transport and planning decisions. There may have been practical arguments against this in the past but developments in technology now make it a real possibility.

So far nobody has mentioned socialism, merely various ways of trying to make this corrupt capitalism work more kindly or humanely. Forget it! Capitalism can never be controlled nor can it harnessed for good. Its based on greed.

I just want to applaud the 10 points. Putting PR at the top was highly significant. This would be a critical reform and much else would depend on it. We have been badly governed over the past 30 years and much of this has been due to the artificially-inflated 'landslide' election results that the profoundly undemocratic system has frequently delivered. Only in 1992 was the majority a slim one. The upshot has been an elective dictatorship. As the first commentator above said, this must be linked with action to curb the extraordinary and dysfunctional centralisation of power that has taken place.

An important part of this is point 5, which reflects the vital fact that localism can never occur unless local authorities have significant independent sources of income. Finally I want to commend point 6. Demutualisation has proved an unmitigated disaster and a classic piece of Thatcherism. If ever an argument for mutualism can be won this is surely the time, given the relative success of mutual institutions.out

None of these proposals are likely to appeal to New Labour or the Tories. But they are right and the cases for them haven't been pushed hard enough in the past - even the Lib Dems have gone coy about PR. And they would be in everybody's interests - as greater equality would be (see Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better, Allen Lane). These are the kinds of policies that need to be promoted whatever the political obstacles. Well done Compass.

I think its essential that Freedom needs to have a prominent role. Civil liberties, constitutional rights and rights of parliament have been severly damaged these last 11 years (and not forgetting under Thatcher as well.)

An agenda that encompasses Union rights, privacy rights, civil liberties, a stronger parliament, more judicial oversight and independence should be encompassed in a freedom/democray agenda including the democratic reform point.

We are a centralised power-hoarding state at the moment with an increasingly powerful and politicised police. (The recent blacklist scandal and police having a database on protestors and political activists shows our movement and progressive movements have been, and will be, severely damaged by this situation remaining the same.)

Something new worth looking at is the new web-site for the Equality Trust:

equalitytrust.org.uk

The 10 points for change represent a good start, but I can’t help still feeling a little disappointed by many of them. Most are short on detail, and the devil is in the detail. Chief among these is electoral reform (Point 1). It is good to see electoral reform finally making it to the top of the political agenda, but what type of reform? Lords or Commons? I say both. But what about having a proper written constitution as well? Neal Lawson and John Harris talk about the campaigns to stop ID cards and define modern liberty. Wouldn’t a written constitution do that? Should we not demand that as a way to curtail the authoritarian power of the state? A true democracy needs checks and balances, and a parliamentary structure that ensures that the laws that are passed are just and have the maximum backing of the electorate. I have already nailed my colours to the mast with my submission to How To Live in The 21st Century: “For true liberty and democracy we need electoral reform of both Houses of Parliament not just one”. It advocates different electoral methods for the Lords and Commons to increase pluralism and voter choice, to make every vote count. If you don’t like it, please feel free to disagree, but we need the debate.

But I have other problems with this list. How can a Tobin tax work (Point 2) without merely driving currency trading overseas? On the other hand we don’t need international agreements to regulate our own high street banks (Point 6). We should indeed separate retail and investment banking for UK banks, but also protect them from overseas ownership. It is this globalisation of finance that has caused the recent problems. We need to ring-fence some of our most vital financial institutions so that they are not infected by banking failures in other countries. The Globalisation may be good for trade, it is not good for high street banks, nor is it necessary. Every time UK retail banks invest overseas it ends in tears. It has done with RBS in ABN Amro this time around. Twenty years ago some of our banks came a cropper in the USA because of the fallout from the savings and loan fiasco. But before we re-mutualise banks, we should shut the stable door and repeal the banking act that allowed building societies to convert in the first place.

The maximum wage (Point 7), while well meaning is a non-starter. It is arbitrary and unworkable. If you want to control the pay of directors in PLCs you need to reform the democratic accountability of companies to their shareholders. Why is there no mention of City reform in these proposals? If PLCs are taxed in proportion to their directors’ pay, shareholders will act to limit pay levels and bonuses. Again I have stated my preferences with my submission to How To Live in The 21st Century: “Reform corporate appointment procedures, pay and bonuses to increase accountability and meritocracy”.

I welcome Radical Localism (Point 5) and A Green New Deal (Point 8), but again where is the detail. How about a commitment to convert our car industry to hydrogen powered cars in return for state support, or direct elections to NHS trusts, PCTs, and police authorities, with supplementary tax raising powers. Local services will only work effectively if they are accountable to the people they serve, not ministers in Whitehall. No minister can be expected to micromanage the whole NHS, to supervise every operation in every hospital.

But finally, there is no mention of the major reasons we are in the current economic mess (or any previous mess for that matter): the housing bubble and the relative weakness of UK manufacturing. We need a coherent housing policy. We need to limit mortgage lending when credit is too freely available, and ensure that the supply of housing is increased. I have again set out two submissions to How To Live in The 21st Century: (i) “Create a dedicated Ministry of Housing that is tasked to deliver house building to pre-set annual targets”; (ii) “Statutory Minimum Mortgage Deposits To Promote House Price Stability”. Those advocating Land Value Tax will doubtless disagree, but I believe these measures are necessary for the reasons I outline in each proposal. We also need increased investment in scientific research and development. Despite the improvements in Government spending in this area over the last twelve years, we still lag behind our major economic competitors. And our record of investment during recessions is even worse. Now is the time for change.

Sorry frances,a tribe of local pigeon fanciers have decided to flock around our tranquil rural villa for some launch out.Cheek,anyone would think it was their country.They'd better not hit my fence with their shabby white Fords.They're far too happy.
Their cheerful banter makes it very hard to concentrate on your usual fine-tuned analysis.Don't they realise this is a moment of destiny for UK Labour?Perhaps the chickens are really coming home to roost this time.
Maybe you're right about a middle class abandonment of the enterprise ideal in exchange for a more equable set up.But Blair was the pied piper that led Middle England to the centre left!

'During recent lively exchanges about education frances made some incidental references to the middle classes that troubled me.
The Blairite consensus never rejected middle class values and aspirations. Now these seem to be scapegoated by the reaction to Blairism. It's all very well to talk about sweetening and diluting this, but this section of the electorate trusted Blairism in a way it never would, say, Gavin.'

Middle classes are in the middle. If you run a competitive meritocracy with massively high rewards for the successful and miserable half pittances for the unfortunate then the middle classes will be naturally be invested in competing their kids from the cradle.

If you run a fairer society with modest rewards and lots of caring and sharing then they will make a good life for themselves and their kids in that environment. They will probably prefer that life. They might easily all vote for Gavin.

9. A Land Tax

Companies and individuals have done very well indeed from inflated land values in recent years - but now these same companies are facing disaster as their land assets are plummeting in value.

Even when/if the markets recover sufficiently for a land tax to be meaningful again it is difficult to see why profits from the sale of landed assets shopuld be taxed any differently to those from any other transaction.

Re Halifax I imagine the main reason it's not suggested for re-mutualisation is that no deposit holder would want to be made responsible for its mountain of toxic assets.

As long as you count more new nuclear power stations amongst those environmentally sound energy sources (and the fact that a lot of your imagined new coalition won't is a significant issue) the rest of comrade Lawson's Transitional Programme looks sound enough.

Glad to see, following the failure of the resolution I had intended to speak to at last year's AGM, that electoral reform is now seen as essential. However, it's the one thing that will happen now or never in England, as if the Tories get a majority at the next election there will be a demand for independence in Scotland and Wales and the
"New Tories" will be supportive of this in order to cement their dominance in England. Mind you the way things are going I suspect that an anti-Tory majority in parliament after the next election is by no means certain even with electoral reform...

Stan:We are at the stake,And bay'd about with many enemies;And some that smile have in their hearts I fear,Millions of mischiefs.
During recent lively exchanges about education frances made some incidental references to the middle classes that troubled me.
The Blairite consensus never rejected middle class values and aspirations.Now these seem to be scapegoated by the reaction to Blairism.It's all very well to talk about sweetening and diluting this,but this section of the electorate trusted Blairism in a way it never would,say,Gavin.Also,in the Julius Caesar vein,is it beind mooted that Brown must go soonest to achieve the neo radical
agenda?Or is cat-belling not the new fox-hunting!This mix of timidity and roaring doesn't seem the way forward.

I'm curious about the essay's assertion that Northern Rock and B&B should be remutualised but that the Haliax should not. Is there any reason that the government, as the majority owner of Lloyds Banking Group, should not force the Haliax to be split off from Lloyds and then remutualised? Perhaps you simply assume that this would be too embarrassing, given the government's insistence on the merger going ahead. Perhaps instead, a 20 or 30% share of Lloyds Banking Group could be given over to an employee-owned trust.

It is important to oppose the government's view that the nationalised banks should be completely re-privatised. Now that private ownership of banks has been discredited, the government should promise to keep substantial permanent stakes in both Lloyds and RBS.

A necessary start.

Point 1 Electoral Reform will certainly help engage more diverse opinions into the political process and i think will go someway to throwing off the current straightjacket consensus of the main parties. It has to be good for democracy.

Point 2. Tobin Tax. I think this idea holds on to the past and Blairism in that it doesn’t mind whether people get fabulously wealthy as long as the crumbs can be funnelled to a good cause. If we seriously want to create a more just world for the future i’m not sure the right way is taxing high finance, so the richer currency traders get the more crumbs we are grateful for.

Point 3. 35 hour week. I’d rather we focus on ensuring ‘real jobs’ are created that are well paid and offer training, development, security and pride for workers. I also think that instead of focussing exclusively on shortening the working week we should look at workplaces providing social, cultural and educational nourishment for workers with the provision of lunchtime and afternoon ‘nightclasses’. I would suggest that an afternoon of every working week should be given over to this type of activity (similar to Universities Sports afternoons on Wednesdays).

Point 4. Living Wage. An excellent and vital idea, although it cannot be watered down to only include the public sector. This would defeat the object of it and would exacerbate existing division between private and public sector workers.

Point 5. Radical Localism is necessary in such a centralised political system. However initially, with ideas of revenue raising powers it would need to be carefully constructed in the first instance so to reduce rather than increase the North / South divide.

Point 6 – Re-mutualise and Re-regulate the banks is an obvious and important step, although i think we should respect the input of the co-operative bank and movement in this respect and also pursue the idea of a ‘people’s bank’ linked to the post office vigorously. There needs to be a complete re-thinking what banks are for. Their value should come from what they do for people, not the smoke and mirrors exports they produce.

Point 7. A Maximum Wage. The idea is excellent to create an equilibrium balance in earnings across companies and in the country, however the description does not match the title as such, and that phrase is all that the right wing press will pick up on as they launch it out of the park. A more descriptive banner is needed around pay parity or equilibrium. In addition something along the co-operatve approach could complement this idea with all workers getting a share of profits as well as wage equilibrium.

Point 8. A Green New deal essential

Point 9 – A Tax on Land. I will favour anything that makes us look at houses as homes once more, rather than investment vehicles.

Point 10. General Well Being Index. I’m always very dubious about measuring happiness. I think it can get mixed up into gratification and selfishness. Being told constantly we should be happy and strive to be happy de-values other principles that we should strive for, becoming ‘happy’ in the process perhaps, and as a by-product. Fairness, Justice and Equality are far more noble pursuits than happiness, i would suggest.

Yes the ten points put forward so far for the No Turning Back manifesto are excellent, but not yet a sufficient answer to Polly Toynbee’s clearly expressed statement of what should be obvious to all, that ‘Blind pursuit of growth no longer looks economically, ecologically or politically sustainable.’ The manifesto needs to say (as part of item 10) ‘Quality of life not economic growth is to be the nation’s aim’. Local actions like the Keighley town initiative to localise food and energy production as reported today by Jane Gibbon will enhance the quality of life of the community because people are doing things for themselves.

What the manifesto doesn’t do is recognise that in the present crisis, and in the subsequent transformation of societal ethics and structures which No Turning Back seeks to achieve, there will be massive job losses. (The government’s response seems to be to offer psychotherapy – a valuable step in terms of current neglect of mental ill-health, but hardly an answer to large scale unemployment). Several times Compass members have advanced the argument for ‘Citizen’s Income’ – paid to every adult as a citizen’s right, and returned by those in paid employment through a restructured tax system in which the Inland Revenue and benefit agencies are merged. It sweeps away the ignominy and little-comprehended complexity of means-tested state-charity for the ‘unemployed’ and provides support for those who choose to work at voluntary occupations. It gives dignity to those who, for no fault of their own, lose their jobs. It could support their search for quality of life for themselves and their families.

An excellent piece, and a strong, radical agenda for real change.

If we are to reform the banking sector that has created such havoc and rewarded its own so highly we should also have the courage to renationalise the creation of credit. Quantitative easing is a step in this direction - let's go further and take back the privatised right to create money.

Is there any way of stopping posters from riding their own hobby horses at such length on a thread of this sort? It does rather get in the way of a meaningful debate on the designated subject.

Concluded part 5.

Since the bonds for the National Debt are continuously being returned and re-issued, the effect of making a reduction in the rate of interest is likely to felt quite fast. The other group of investors, previously described as nervous, is encouraged to withdraw their liquid assets (see above) due to the greater security offered by the low-interest bonds. However, three aspects in adopting this policy are of significance. Firstly, it relieves some of the Government’s (and tax-payer’s) burden in servicing the national debt, thereby helping to balance the loss of national income due to the lower production activity. The Treasury wants to have as low a prime-rate of interest as possible, in order to reduce the interest leaking from its income. It can exploit the advantage of the greater security that the bonds offer compared to the average rate of yield obtainable by alternative investment. In times of slump the level of confidence of the investor in the stock-market is low, as well as the average obtainable yield. Consequently, even without the above considerations the prime-rate can be cut back. With investor nervousness being felt, this rate can be reduced to even smaller levels.

(In times of prosperity the opposite applies and the prime-rate is raised to be as high as the stock-market average yield or even better, in order to successfully compete with it. Due to the need to maintain the National Debt, most governments favour a slow rate of inflation, to reduce its effective magnitude whilst avoiding the alternative of regular deficit budgeting.)

Secondly, it indirectly influences and reduces the amount of interest being paid on new mortgages and on other loans, thereby easing the borrower’s difficulties, helping to avoid the risk of defaulting and encouraging the entrepreneur’s efforts. It reduces the degree of his/her competition with the banks for savings and investment money. The low interest may cause the banks to reduce the rate they take on steady mortgages and what they offer on new ones too, after they realise what the greater interest rates do to the general investment situation and to their own struggling mortgagees.

However and thirdly, there are limits between which this policy may be applied. For very small reductions in the prime-rate the effect on the tax-payer is of little significance, but if the reduction is too great or if it is introduced in large announced steps, it will drive the investors into taking their money aboard, where the interest rates may not (yet) have diminished to such a large extent.

3.4.3 To Stimulate Production by the Proper Use of the Land
Since the macro-economy eventually will recover from the effects of the slump, it is instructive to ask how this comes about and to take steps to speed up the process. This enquiry also brings us back to questioning the initial cause of the slump. As described above, the slump originates from speculation in land-values, where the inflated prices inhibit its sale and proper use. After the slump develops, the smaller sums of money still available for investment are attracted by the reduced land prices, which are all that the landlords (and banks) can now obtain. The indirect effect of the Keynesian initiative for new public-works is to make the land more productive and valuable, thereby encouraging land-speculation once again. As the prospects slowly improve, these two effects enable the building trade to gradually recover. The depleted prices of the land begin to grow during the new business-cycle, although in practice this process is protracted.

To better stimulate the recovery, the Government should progressively introduce a tax based on the value of the land. This tax drives out any speculation in the land and steadily lowers its price. The taxed sum grows more slowly as this value falls. No longer does it become worthwhile for a land-owner to continue to hold onto unused land for speculation in its value. Either he/she brings it into proper use or rents or sells it to somebody else who can. This easily defined tax disregards whether the land is built-on or undeveloped, nor does it depend on the use that the site in question is currently providing. Then the land-value ceases to be speculative and it self-adjusts downwards until the competitive costs for its ownership and use are stable. Thus land-value tax is an incentive which gives the entrepreneurs opportunities for producing goods at reduced costs. The numbers of unemployed workers decreases as the land monopolies are steadily eliminated.

Simultaneously, the national income rises due to this tax. After the financial conditions improve sufficiently and the Government income is partly restored, it is possible for it to reduce all the other kinds of production-based taxes on earnings, consumption and capital gains. These beneficial changes greatly stimulate the demand for goods and investment within the macro-economy, enabling it to overcome the adverse effects of the slump far more quickly than if it was left to recover by itself.
Whilst some of the other proposals to overcome the slump will have beneficial effects, they are of a secondary magnitude compared to this proposal, which is unique because it rapidly removes the effect of the slump and also attacks the cause of it, inhibiting the possibility of its recurrence.

Briefly:

Land Value Taxation (LVT) lowers production costs, raises demand and employment. Stops land speculation and associated corruption. Eliminates the need to keep land development plans secret. Only disadvantage is to the land owners, who don’t use their land.

References:

[1] “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” by John Maynard Keynes,
Palgrave Macmillan, 1936.

[2] “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt, Harper and Brothers,1946.

[3] "The Power in the Land" by Fred Harrison, Shepheard Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd., 1983.

Comment continued 4.

The newly increased demand and its opportunities are balanced by the smaller number of jobs that the Government now continues to maintain. Reduced taxation of the productive process cannot affect the total numbers employed.

The producer/worker/consumer/saver model on which Keynesian Theory is based is over-simplified and limited in its scope. It fails to properly represent the whole social system and also (incidentally) the implied time interval of this model is uncertain. With the inclusion of the negative multiplier-effect of the lost Government jobs, the overall benefit is zero. The writer (and others) has built a more comprehensive simulation-model of the system, where the overall multiplier is a few percent per annum and not the few hundred that was originally reckoned. Thus the Keynesian Theory does not work in practice.

The same situation arises when the Government borrows money from the public. Some of the money that the investors lend would otherwise be available for use in industry. With the new bonds issue, the industrialists do not obtain the same encouragement for their activity as when the investor’s choice was limited to the stock-market. The Government investment results in more employment there, but this advantage is in one place only and there is an equivalent reduction of investment and employment in the rest of industry.

Credit having been obtained by a bonds issue, the Government necessarily returns the interest to the investors on an annual basis, until the bonds are redeemed. Although the prime-rate of this interest is now reduced (see below), the coverage of this deficit raises the tax burden unless the money is loaned to the banks with the return of interest. The national budget must be balanced and the Treasury should explain where and how its new income is being spent. Money that is used for providing the new jobs cannot also be taken for servicing the loan.

Governmental short-sighted policies of creating new jobs do not consider the corresponding loss of work places elsewhere. Once Governments cease taking this myopic attitude, they will find that the overall effect is no different than without this policy being applied. The only way that jobs can really be created is by making available greater opportunities to produce and to earn (see below).

Even with the deliberate introduction of inflation and Governmental spending, the overall result is similar. In a remedial manner inflation weakens the monetary strength of certain parts of the system in order to strengthen others. After summing the total influence on both credits and savings, the true effect can be seen, although it now includes some time-dependency. The early effective gains by the creditors equal the later losses by the savers. Thus inflation does not help the whole system to regain strength over the long-term, although it defers some of the adverse effects of the slump to a time when recovery has hopefully begun. And it achieves this by a socially unjust redistribution of the purchasing-power.

A more-remote observer of the macro-economy at large would find that it has a natural means of autonomous control, where the real factor of influence in its operation is the value of goods being produced and traded and not the face-value of the money itself. Money is a medium of exchange that represents value, whilst intrinsically having none. After credit is given, it must subsequently be returned. With deliberate inflation, the purchasing-power of the cheapening money being circulated first rises and then falls back, whilst the overall rate of progress of the whole macro-economy is better maintained with a smaller short-term fluctuation resulting from the first shock of the collapse.

Consequently, after giving due consideration to a comprehensive model of the whole system, the direct methods are found to be incapable of overcoming the problems caused by the slump. This is with the exception of inflation, which is temporally effective, but it results in an unethical means of delaying some of the adverse consequences.

3.4 Indirect Ways of Helping the Macro-Economy
To have some lasting effect here a more profound Governmental policy is needed, of which the following are possible methods (with the comments being included here):

#1 to control the reserve-ratio of cash deposits held in banks,
#2 to reduce the prime rate of interest and
#3 to stimulate production by the proper use of the land.

3.4.1 The Control of the Reserve-Ratio of Cash Deposits Held in Banks
It is easy to blame the banks for allowing their reserves to become so low and (as collaborators with the land-owning investors and speculators) for being unable to determine when the land-value bubble is about to burst. Had the analysis been done properly and the degree of lending curtailed in enough time, the damage due to bank insolvency would not have occurred and the recession not progressed far beyond the real-estate business. But banks are too close to the action to be able to see the full picture. Their chief business-aim is to provide the investors with as much credit as possible without raising their reserves very far above the minimum, so it is difficult for them to decide how much money to store at any particular time. Some banks even find ways to disregard the minimum sum that they should be storing in their vaults and they are in big trouble at slump time. But even when the banks conform to this proportion, a "run on the bank" can still cause them financial embarrassment.

The National Bank has the power to supply credit to the banks at the “window of last resort”, when their individual reserves are running low. This facility is provided because the banks are obliged to return money to the savers at the end of its duration, without it necessarily being re-invested. But, there is a limit to how much of this kind of credit can be provided. The effect of the slump can easily cause this additional reserve to be exceeded and the window closes.

The reserve-ratio on deposit accounts is normally set by the Finance Ministry (Treasury), who should be able to anticipate when the stock-market is close to a sudden large drop in value. Unfortunately, the simulation methods for macro-economic forecasting have not achieved much success in showing when the land-market price-failure is about to occur (and as described above, its cause being due to a small random shock after a steady rise). The only method of slump anticipation which seems to work is to base them on an 18 year cycle, as claimed by the Georgist organizations, who understand better about how land-values vary [3]. However, neither the banks nor the Government are convinced of this and in common with other forecasters they cannot yet determine how big the effect of a particular slump will be.

The Treasury could instruct the banks on the necessary adjustments to be made to the reserve-ratio, but this is difficult to administer due to the technical problem of not knowing exactly the amount being held in the money reserves and the various sums and durations of the very short-term credits that the bank often use. Also, due to other smaller macro-economic regressions, it is hard to anticipate and identify which one is likely to be significant and how to frame the necessary legalisation.

3.4.2 The Reduction of the Prime-Rate of Interest
The theory behind this applies to the current group of national bond-holders (and indirectly to other savers too). After their effective interest rates have been cut, it becomes less worth-while for this group to invest in the Government bonds and they will be more inclined either to put the money into durable capital goods through the stock-market or to spend more on consumption; activities which are helpful in strengthening the demand and raising the amount of economic activity. Since the bonds for the National Debt are continuously being re

Why is Compass an organisation affiliated to the Labour party?

I think it excludes and would put off a number of people whose political ideals fit with those of Compass. These are people who may be members of other parties or none, who may belong to NGO's, faith groups or could be someone not involved looking for a channel to engage.

I, for one, agree will the aims of Compass and many of the proposals it has put forward. However, I could never dream of supporting a Labour Party who has turned it's back on the democratic left.

The Labour Party is hugely unpopular right now. Compass needs to ask itself whether it's main purpose is to bring people to the Labour party or truly to be an organisation of the centre-left.

Comment continued 2.

Then the greater flow of money through the banks allows them to return what they borrowed from the Government, which subsequently reduces the magnitude of the National Debt.

In the situation where big industrial concerns receive similar help from the Government, these companies may be aiming only to continue their operations--to employ large numbers, whilst still remaining inefficient and ineffective in their production. This is unacceptable and before this bale-out is executed the industry must show that it is not taking the credit merely to postpone its financial failure. Also it must present realistic plans about how it aims to become a stable and viable concern. This loan delays the alternate beneficial effects that would occur elsewhere in the system, although the situation may not be so critical there as within the specific industry that is being helped. Consequently this action and its overall result is worthwhile to a limited degree.

These solutions ease the effects of the slump only amongst certain industrialist’s, worker’s, and banker’s critical states. The Government should balance the distribution of these relieving effects throughout all of the system, other parts of which also badly need its support.

3.2.2 To Change the Amount of Taxation
Often it is thought that a reduction in the amount of taxation on earnings and purchases can stimulate the demand for produce and its consumption, thereby encouraging more employment. However this view is only part of the whole picture, because it simultaneously reduces the Government income and decreases the public expenditure elsewhere. In a reciprocal manner, the effect of greater taxation on personal income and consumption is that the demand for these goods is reduced. But instead of the sales income mostly going to the production sector, more of it would pass through the Government to its various ministries and newly installed employment sources. Thus for either kind of change, the distribution of the work output is modified but the total sum used for payment of its wages has not. Comparing both of these opposing policies, the altered demand for goods must be balanced against the modified supply of social services and public utilities. Hence, neither policy can stimulate (nor retard) the current overall rate of macro-economic activity; all that it achieves is a re-distribution of what each participant does.


3.2.3 To Reduce the Governmental Expenditure
The outlay of public money to the Government ministries is not a waste. Apart from tax-collection, these departments and offices provide a variety of necessary services, such as those for education, public health and various emergencies, without which the average citizen would not manage properly. He/she would need to pay more for the service than what the national (social) insurance covers. As implied by the above description, a new frugal approach on the part of Government does not change the total amount of money flowing around the system. It has about the same overall effect as that obtained when reducing the taxes and the progress of the national economy as a whole is no different. It is only the distribution of activity within certain of its sectors, which is affected.

3.2.4 To Deliberately Inflate the Currency
The national economy may be regulated in more than one way by this action. During normal times when only small changes to the rate of progress of the system are required, they are obtained by adjusting the National Deficit. Then some money either is withdrawn or is made available, the choice normally following the degree to which the national budget has been met. In years of prosperity, larger amounts of taxes are collected and there is a budget-surplus. Then this extra money can be withdrawn from circulation, with the cooperation of the National Bank who store (or destroy) the bank-notes, having reduced the National Deficit by selling back to the Government some bonds or Treasury Bills. However when there is reduced economic activity and the lower amount of tax collected results in a failure to meet the budget, the deficit is made up by the issue of new bonds or Treasury Bills in exchange for the stored money (or by printing new bank-notes). Here its influence enables the banks to increase their amount of credit for investment, thereby encouraging industry to be more productive. Normally these budget surpluses and deficits are a relatively small proportion of the gross domestic product (under 5% of the total) and when taken over many years, the average of the various resulting inflating and deflating effects is small.

However, when a slump prevails, the printing and distribution of larger amounts of new money also can be used for the courser regulation of the macro-economy. Then the Government directly spends this money to stimulate the level of macro-economic activity, without intending to introduce any later deflation to counter the effects. (Even after conditions improve, this opposing action would be likely to cause another slump.) There is reluctance to use this monetary instrument, due to the scale of the correction being much greater than when adjustments to the budget are being made, as described above. The effect of the inflation on the system no longer remains small and it is a dishonest way for the Government to temporally obtain greater spending-power and lower debt.

Inflation effectively taxes savers by reducing their long-term purchasing-power and spoils the amount of real interest that fixed-rate savings yield. It also cheapens the money that is already owed, so the Government, mortgagees and other creditors benefit after the inflation has caused the prices and wages to rise. (This applies to most forms of credit, unless the loan was linked to the cost of living or to a more stable currency.) The inflated prices also reduce trade with foreign countries making it harder to sell goods abroad, whilst the cheaper local money makes it easier to import them. This effect on international trade worsens the production situation at home, until the exchange rate of the local currency is eventually devalued and the amount of trading may return to its previous level.

The Government can use this income in the four direct ways for relieving the effects of the slump. These are for subsidizing pensions and/or production and keeping low the price of certain basic goods, for national projects by hiring building-constructional and other unemployed workers (their incomes minus taxes to exceed their previous doles), for keeping its ministries at full strength or for lending to the banks. The new money is injected at a steady rate and on a scale where it regularly covers the losses from some or all of the hardships listed above. Unless the effects of all four of the problems are restored in a uniform manner to their former conditions, the slump will not be fully relieved. Even so, the adverse and unstable effects of the inflation itself remain to be tackled. After the inflation has ceased, the additional money in circulation eventually causes the prices and wages to catch up. Consequently, this form of slump relief will not endure without it creating further distress.



3.2.5 Comments and Summary of the Direct Methods
By using of any of these four straight-forward techniques, the Keynesian School of economics claims that the resulting initial increase in demand causes more macro-economic activity to follow. There is supposed to be a multiplier-effect on growth, so that in the case of reduced taxation and greater personal income, it is thought that the consumers have more money to spend or invest and that consequently the total demand grows. But these claims do not consider the need to take money from one part of the system in order to supply it to another. The newly increased demand and its opportunities are balanced by the smaller number of jobs that the Government now co

Comment continued

2.3 Bank Insolvency
The multiple-credit structure of the finance-system is now under heavy stress. With slump conditions prevailing, some of the investors and speculators are defaulting in the return of their credit, due to their inability to sell the land and buildings even for the sums at which they were purchased many years before. In parallel with this, due to the reduced level of production and wages, savings are being withdrawn at greater rates, because the reduced average rate of consumption is still more than the reduced average rate of earnings. These effects add to the credit squeeze.

The use of fixed-term savings accounts, where the money is placed in fractional-reserve bank-deposits, provides the banks with credit and it usually circulates at a good rate. Only a small proportion of the savings, from which the banks previously borrowed, are stored in their vaults. The rest is credited to the newer investors (at greater rates of interest than the savers can obtain, which normally enables the banks to become rich). But now the banks have difficulty in calling in sufficient credit for its return to the savers, some of whom have panicked and are pulling out their loans in the form of cash or placing it in current accounts having greater liquidity. These banks are forced to sell their long-term holdings at reduced prices, in order to balance their income with the greater outflow, since they have no-one else from whom to borrow. Money demand can no longer be easily met by its supply and the short-term rate of interest on credit rises. The money starvation at the banks causes some of them to declare insolvency and to become bankrupt, which results in the return of the credit being deferred, if in the closing-down process these savings have not been lost.

The irony is that later when the slump begins to ease, much of the money that is now in the hands of the nervous savers will again need to find investment opportunities and it will be returned to the banks deposit accounts. So the bank crisis is temporary and is partly due to the psychological state of these savers.

2.4 Reduced National Income
Much of the money that is collected for the public purse comes from taxation. However the slump has resulted in less macro-economic activity of the kind from which these taxes are usually raised. Consequently in matters of national finance there is also a shrinking of available funds. The Government badly needs to help itself as well as the whole social system, to escape from the effects of this national depression.


3. DISCUSSION – ATTEMPTS TO OVERCOME THESE FOUR MAJOR DIFFICULTIES

"Business cycles" of this kind are not new to our society. Various suggestions have previously been made about what a Government should do to reduce the adverse effects of slumps. The following proposals and discussions about them are presented from a holistic Finance-Ministry (or Treasury) viewpoint, where the complete system is considered taking into consideration all of the affected parts, as taught by Henry Hazlitt [2]. Various attempts to restore the macro-economy are examined below, passing from what appears to be the obvious remedy, up to some more-complicated solutions.

3.1 Call for Price Reductions and Price Controls
Usually there is a delay until the depression is recognized by the Government. The reasons for this are purely political, but as soon as it is official the first Government response is to call for a reduction in the prices of commodities. This is followed by the imposition of price controls to fix the amount charged for the more basic consumer goods, with some of them being subsidised. In fact, many of these prices have already been cut, due to the reduced demand and the need for the smaller businesses to compete and remain viable. Some of the monopolistic concerns, particularly those partly owned or controlled by the Government, need to receive formal notice before their bureaucratic systems of organization can make these changes. The effect of the lower prices is to increase the quantity of goods being consumed, which has a small positive effect on the employment figures. But for this type of commerce, the amount of money in circulation scarcely increases, so this change does not directly result in a significant improvement in the value of goods traded within the macro-economic system.

Lower prices do ease the pensioner’s problem to a degree, although nothing more is done for them and much harm may yet be caused to their savings.

3.2 Direct Attempts to Increase National Income or to Reduce the National Expenditure
The Government wants to enact new statutes to give direct benefit to the ailing parts of the system be they pensioners, industrial concerns, workers or banks. However, to achieve this aim the Government must first increase its own income (which has recently declined) and reduce its spending (which has recently increased, due to the greater numbers of unemployed workers being paid doles, or subsidies). The proposed ways for reaching this preliminary objective are to:

#1 borrow from the public and raise the National Deficit,
#2 change the amount of taxation,
#3 reduce the Governmental expenditure and
#4 deliberately inflate the currency, by printing more money.

With the exception of deliberate inflation, these changes are regarded as being temporary and their effects can be stopped or reversed after the slump has passed. These four methods of modifying the distribution of the national finances are described in more detail below.


3.2.1 To Borrow from the Public and Raise the National Deficit
The National Bank with the cooperation of the Treasury offer for sale some new national bonds, as well as the continuing re-issue of recently redeemed ones. These bonds, which are guaranteed Governmental loans, can be purchased like the preference shares of a new public company and they are traded similarly, until their duration has been reached and their face-value is redeemed. The new low-interest paying bonds are presently regarded as being safer than other kinds of share-investment and they attract clients who otherwise prefer to hold their savings in current “mattress” accounts. The psychological pressure from this offer assures and encourages these nervous savers to re-invest. The interest on this loan is borne by the Government and tax-payers.

The expanded National Deficit enables the Government to pay for the execution of additional public works, thereby providing the employment which the building trade can no longer sustain. This activity also has a significant indirect effect, to be described in a later part of this work.

Alternatively the Government can use these sums to relieve the banks from their risk of bankruptcy. It returns to them some liquidity and allows them to weather the storm of heavy cash withdrawal. The recipient banks pay a normal or sometimes a high rate of interest for this special loan, so the Government and tax-payers are not penalized by the interest on the credit from issuing the bonds, whilst the favoured banks are obliged to service their loans. This action avoids the personal losses suffered by its remaining clients, after the faltering bank otherwise would have to declare bankruptcy.

Providing that these loans are obtained neither by greater taxation nor by inflation, they do not seriously damage the macro-economy, although it does slow down until the debts are cleared. It allows the banks to get past the difficult period, but if they default on their interest or fail to return their loans as arranged, then the public purse is raided once again. When the slump is past its worst point, confidence returns and the savers re-invest in shares. Then the greater flow of money thro

The essay says nothing about the various way that governments have tried to solve the problems associated with the economic crisis associated with the business cycle. This is not a new phenomena but the present policy (which was unsuccessful in the 1930's as the "New Deal") is again all that Obama has to offer, and after all the hoopla is over it will be unsuccessful for the same reasons. Surely we can do better than this.

In the following study, 7 different methods for governments to act are reviewed and only one is shown to have any real effect. This is the change that Britain badly needs.

HOW THE ECONOMY RESPONDS TO GOVERNMENTAL ATTEMPTS TO OVERCOME SLUMPS

1. INTRODUCTION

National economies are continuously undergoing change and are never completely stable. A good indication of the degree of this activity is the paper-value of the total share-holdings that continuously expand or contract in size and is called a bulls or a bears market. But in certain circumstances this fluctuation does not remain small and one particular part of the macroeconomics system has prices that steadily increase. This unstable behaviour cannot last for ever and eventually these prices stop rising and then suddenly collapse. From this catastrophe the shock spreads across the whole system as a depression develops. At the stage being considered here, this failure has recently occurred and an economic slump is in progress. The total value of share-holdings has decreased dramatically and the stock-market trade has significantly shrunk. Reductions in the demand for produce have led to much unemployment and the increased withdrawals of savings have resulted in some bank failures.

In the great slump of 1929, it was first believed that the best governmental policy is to do nothing, because the robust nature of the market economy causes it to quickly right itself. But even after some changes were introduced this recovery took almost 10 years. Today most economists believe that the adverse effects of slumps should be eased by taking suitable measures. However, the choice of which changes to introduce, for creating a beneficial effect on the national economy as a whole, is not so obvious as when in 1936 John Maynard Keynes [1] first began to prescribe them. Experience and deeper analysis of these and other proposals has found that all but two are ineffective, and one of these at best, is remedial for a limited time. The situation is more complex and a change that favours a specific part of the social structure does not necessarily improve all of it. The following analysis shows why Keynes’s proposals are mostly unsatisfactory and determines which action produces better results.


2. DESCRIPTION OF THE SLUMP AND ITS INFLUENCE

The origin of these slumps is due to speculation within the building industry and the dynamics of the supply and prices of building-land. With every other kind of traded item, the ability to use similar but different products avoids the dictatorial influence of a perfect monopoly. (This freedom is expressed in the natural self-regulation of prices, by supply always equalling demand according to Say’s Law. Neither over-production nor under-production results; competition always ensures that the goods are traded close to their optimum price.) However, as Mark Twain proclaimed "Buy land, they’re not making it anymore", and the number of building-sites is severely limited. Consequently the land-owning cartel is absolute—there is no alternate suitable path that demand for this resource can take.

The ensuing steady rise in the prices of housing reaches a level where the landlords, banks and builders decrease their participation and eventually stop investing or speculating in land-values. Builders no longer manage to sell their houses before they are completed and the land prices in the real-estate business cease growing sufficiently fast as to attract any speculators. Few investors or banks are now funding house-building, although it is not the cost of their construction which has dramatically changed but that of the land. At this stage in the business-cycle the system is ready to collapse and it takes but a small external shock to cause this. It inevitably comes from a different economic source, which has an independent effect on the community.

Recently and as an example, a sharp rise in oil prices causes the speculative value of out-of-town housing to fall, due to the greater cost of motoring to the densely-populated centres of industry, commerce, learning and recreation. No longer is it desirable to reside where the more expensive travelling adds to the house-keeping bills. The reduced demand for this kind of real-estate lowers its price (and its rent), but existing mortgage payments remain unchanged and cease to be compatible. With the awareness of the speculative loss, a significant number of foreclosures follow and bank insolvencies result, the houses being sold off cheaply. As credit becomes harder to obtain, the recession of the associated economic activity spreads outside of this sector of the community, unemployment grows and many more families are unable to pay their regular fees for the rental or mortgage of their more modest homes.

The news of bank loses from the foreclosures warns the savers, and many of them decide to transfer their money into non-interest paying current accounts or to withdraw it. The use of these sums by the banks is now inhibited, causing a “credit-squeeze” having high interest rates.

With less money being spent, the productive sectors of the macro-economy reduce their prices so as to encourage the purchase of more consumer goods. But this does not overcome the problems of high interest rates on loans nor return the monetary commerce to its former level. Consequently the system enters into a depressed state, with substantially less macro-economic activity.

These experiences and the places or kinds of individuals that feel them are described below. The logical arrangement of this dissertation is complicated by the combinations of the various parties involved, together with the different ways that they are affected. The hardships caused by the slump simultaneously influence the macro-economy in four basically different ways.

2.1 Decreased Demand for Goods and Less Employment in Industry
The curtailed programme of house-building, the diminished credit and the reduced purchasing by would-be householders and other consumers, result in less economic activity and smaller demands for many kinds of goods items. The unit cost of their manufacture rises, whilst the available sums for their acquisition shrink and lower outputs are the result. After trying to stimulate the demand by reducing prices, the managers in industry and commerce are reluctant to retain labour with little or nothing to do. So they shorten the length of the working-day, temporally lay-off some of their workers and eventually have to dismiss them. Many manufacturing concerns fail to provide dividends on their shares which fall in value, whilst some companies cannot even manage to stay in business. The level of unemployment grows. Petty crime increases, due to the rising levels of poverty and boredom.

2.2 Smaller Pensions
With pension funds, the process of saving and withdrawing is a continuous one. Some of the out-flowing money comes from contributions by younger subscribers, but much of the funding is taken from the dividends on prior investments made at the stock-exchange. After these have slumped there is less money available for paying regular pensions, even though some of the losses are spread by insurance. The managers of the funds want to avoid disproportionately high withdrawals and the result is that smaller sums are paid out. Consequently the pensioners have less income to meet their needs and they buy smaller quantities of consumer goods and services.

2.3 Bank Insolvency
The multiple-credit structu

If Compass wants to promote a new form of socialism without the faults of the pre-Thatcher state corporation model, why not shout louder about co-operative ownership. People are voting with their feet at the moment, opening accounts and transferring funds to the Co-operative Bank and smile from the banks they no longer trust. Unfortunately co-operatives rarely get more than a token acknowledgement on the left, as demonstrated in the Compass model.

I agree with much of the analysis in this article. Excellent title and presentation.

However dealing with the problems in the way you propose is strong medicine. And this kind of strong medicine will requires watering down (and perhaps some sweetening up) if it's to be swallowed by a population contaminated by the old ways.

This will probably mean working through the existing structures over the critical decade ahead and reining back on your more extreme proposals if you are to acquire the credibility to really make a difference in this period.

I also suggest you should be a little more discriminating about the groups you include under your banner, The Countryside Alliance is essentially a front for landowning foxhunters, Plane Stupid is now known as Plain Stupid after that ridiculous, counterproductive, green custard stunt, and the modern libertarians are effectively all about giving a free-hand to anti-social behaviour and terrorism.

If there's no going back that should include 'good old' adversarial politics. I despaired long ago of government seeing the writing on the wall and it's no surprise to me we're now in the state we're in. But now I have hope; not in politics but in our town initiative to localise food and energy production, which is receiving amazing public support. We seek no funding and have no committees, but this is a strength, and things are happening because everyone knows there's no time to wait for the politicians. It'll be long hard and slow yet we don't mind because, crucially, we're in control. In an emergency action's needed and as it's people that make things happen government should learn how to do some following instead of demanding the lead all the time.
One thing we're taking from the past, though, is mutuality and co-operation - they became so unfashionable, didn't they?

Making banks serve majority needs
The crisis has gone too far for tinkering with the system.
It’s not reform that’s needed but transformation!

The end of an age -

There sometimes occur events in history which call for unimaginable change. These occur with the sudden onslaught of economic crises which in reality are greater than realised by those involved. Those at the apex of society, both politicians and financiers, are paralysed by such situations, and then calmly acknowledge there is the need for reform, but they do nothing, or what they do is ineffective.
These are usually people who have experienced lifelong success and affluence, and because of this, they are not only incapable of effecting change but psychologically find the very idea incomprehensible. There is nothing surprising in this since uninterrupted success in life tends to bolster a conservative instinct, and so it should not be unexpected that resistance to change at the present time becomes a natural response in facing the unanticipated breakdown not merely of the credibility but the workability of the financial-industrial system.
We are experiencing such an episode of events during the present crisis. The complex economic system for sustaining the spheres of domestic life and work has hit the buffers, and there is no glib remedy for resolving the situation, although many may be obsessed by favourite panaceas which whilst settling one problem too often lead to the compounding of others.
These crucial events in history offer rare opportunities for the surging transformation of institutions and systems. They often mark the dawn of an era when the practicality of reform is not so much an option as a necessity for survival. This is because the pace of change is so accelerated by the pressure of circumstances that transformation is effected almost without the will or full understanding of those involved. And consequently, in the confusion which follows, the differing possibilities of such change may be justly questioned.
In the words of the political commentator, Martin Jacques, the present, “crisis has undermined all the ideological assumptions that have under-pinned government policy and political discourse over the past 30 years. As a result, the political and business elite are flying blind. This is the mother of all postwar crises, which has barely started and remains out of control. … The political class, from New Labour to the Conservatives, is standing naked. They are still clinging to the wreckage of their old ideas whilst acknowledging in the next breath that these no longer work.” (New Statesman, “The New Depression,” 16th February 2009.)
If that is the true measure of the situation, it nonetheless remains that the present crisis in all its complexity was predicted by the proponents of Social Capitalism more than two decades ago, and in the intervening period the SCN has produced in-depth analyses and constructive proposals in meeting such a challenge as we have today. This in conjunction with the practical concepts developed by many relevantly qualified individuals, often working alone, offers an exceptional opportunity for the timely politicising and promoting of such solutions. The voice of those who predicted the present crisis, and applied sufficient thought in formulating viable proposals for repairing our broken society, must be heard above those at the apex of the establishment who are only engaged in blindly tinkering here and there in the hopeless task of mending what lies in fragments.
There is little value also to be derived from the writings of our leading commentators in the broadsheets and weeklies beyond bland descriptions of what has occurred and justifiable indignation. Our journalists are no less astonished and confused by the events of the past months than our dazed politicians and permanent Under-Secretaries. There’s much vacuous talk in political circles about the need to make banking “less exciting” and the need to return to the gravity of a “grey suit” culture. By this is meant the turning back of the clock, possibly to the post-War 1950s environment of more personal banking when the circumstances of every customer were supposedly known to his local manager.
Such aspirations are both undesirable, and anyway, would be impossible to achieve. The very thought of returning to such a banking culture only arises through hopeless ignorance in responding to the present crisis. The harking back to such an era is either humbug, or attempts to put a sentimental gloss on the true underlying realities of such a seemingly cosy world. It should be remembered that in such an era as the 1950s the majority not only had no bank accounts but were not heavily involved in all the complexities of a borrowing and lending personal-debt filled culture, and where in addition, pensions and corporations were dependent on the vagaries of a casino economy.

How we reached this situation -

Whilst 60 years ago it was predominantly the upper-middle class majority whose interests were integrated into the centralised financial system of investing and shareholding (whilst the rest were dependent on the hand-to-mouth existence of a cash economy), today the entire population in advanced economies have become entangled, either directly or indirectly, in the machinations of high finance, irrespective of whether they choose to or not.
The difference of course is that whilst in the earlier period it was those who took direct responsibility for themselves through relationships in instructing their stockbrokers; today it is the indirect connections of the majority with the financial establishment, through pensions reliant on the success of equities in the market place, home-ownership acquired through building societies mutating into high-risk banks which inflate property values and adjust interest rates in increasing profits; or employment dependent on the decision-making of global corporations transferring labour from one part of the world to another without any consideration for the social consequences.
It might be argued (on false premises) that whilst in the earlier period the financial world was “elitist” and managed by the few for the few, in the latter period we have experienced the “democratisation” of the financial world where all have allegedly become “stakeholders” in the future of the community. This would be the benignly expressed opinion of the advocates of Thatcherism or Neo-Liberalism. The fact remains, however, that the shareholders in the elitist period where fully conscious and intentional capitalists, whilst those in the present era were cleverly baited with loans and other “goodies” into an inescapable debt-filled trap, the horrors of which they could never have anticipated. Towards the close of this paper we shall argue the need for a more “exciting” banking culture, but it will entail an “excitement” very different from that of the present day.
Today’s majority, therefore, are not so much “capitalists,” as the exploited victims of malign Rentier as opposed to benign Productive capitalism. Their nominal ownership of equity in their own homes, or their receipt of gratuitous loans in exchange for burdensome debt, may make them part of this financial system as it is, but not in reality the owners or controllers of that system except in an abstract and very nebulous sense. Nonetheless, Neo-Liberal or Neo-Conservative ideologues will insist on maintaining the illusion that the majority through their voluntary involvement with the centralised financial system – even if they merely sleep-walked into the situation – are part of the democratic financial establishment, as in their eyes, there is no other way in which working capitalism is comprehensible.
This is the received perception of all parliamentary parties in the world today, and because the financial or banking system is perceived more or less as a permanent or unchanging – or unchangeable sys

That the mainstream parties want to turn back the clock to a point when the boom was never going to lead to bust demonstrates the magnitude of their attachment to neoliberal globalisation, and the intellectual dislocation which the recession has caused to their belief system.

And that's the first fact we have to face up to: neoliberal globalisation is akin to some strange religious dogma which cannot be abandoned for fear of confronting a world without the support which dogma brings.

To deconstruct the neoliberal dystopia means confronting not just the economic policies, but the deeper changes to the human psyché which it requires.

I think Michael S Northcott best sums it up:

"The modern moral climate is then a construct of three assumptions: that the human moral agent is an autonomous
reasoning sovereign, that human economic exchange is a realm of contractual mediation between autonomous agents, and
that the social contract is relationally independent of the cause—effect mechanism of the cosmos."

('A Moral Climate' Darton, Longman & Todd | 2007 | Pages 70-71)

I don't buy into the author's Christianity, but I do buy into the view that human beings are much more than the "self interested utility maximisers" dictated by Public Choice Theory, and in any case, we should all know by now where this is leading: to the first time in global history a mass extinction has been organised by one of the planet's species.

The headline in today Indie warns us yet again:

"Carbon cuts 'only give 50/50 chance of saving planet'"