Signs of the Times

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

child poverty in UK

[aeolium]

And food poverty.

I have nearly finished rereading Little Dorrit. It really ought to be adapted again for the screen, as it's striking how its description of the rise and fall of the financier Merdle might so uncannily symbolise the rise and fall of the financial industry in the 1990s up to 2008, a century and a half after the novel was written. Here is an extract from the chapter in which Merdle's fraud has become apparent and he has taken his own life:

"Numbers of men in every profession and trade would be blighted by his insolvency; old people who had been in easy circumstances all their lives would have no place of repentance for their trust in him but the workhouse; legions of women and children would have their whole future desolated by the hand of this mighty scoundrel....For by that time it was known that the late Mr Merdle's complaint had been, simply, Forgery and Robbery. He, the uncouth object of such widespread adulation, the sitter at great men's feasts, the roc's egg of great ladies' assemblies, the subduer of exclusiveness, the leveller of pride, the patron of patrons, the bargain-driver with a Minister for Lordships of the Circumlocution Office, the recipient of more acknowledgement within some ten or fifteen years, at most, than had been bestowed in England upon all peaceful public benefactors, and upon all the leaders of all the Arts and Sciences, with all their works to testify for them, during two centuries at least - he, the shining wonder, the new constellation to be followed by the wise men bringing gifts, until it stopped over certain carrion at the bottom of a bath and disappeared - was simply the greatest Forger and the greatest Thief that ever cheated the gallows."

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

wonderful quotation aeolium

[Serial_Apologist]

wonderful quotation aeolium

Yes, it makes me think of the fawning Chancellor Brown speechifying at the Banquet of England.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

even he did not get near this!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

inequality is a choice not an economic necessity

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Blair & Brown's Triumph

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

graun 1 Hutton on the so called 'agency' problem ie corporate gangsterism; i thiunk he understates the evicdence that pay and perks have no discernible effect on performance

graun 2 the Spirit Level authors harden their already compelling case

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

One of the BBC's highest-paid executives last night defended his huge pay packet and said that his £320,000 licence fee-funded salary was at 'a significant discount'. Danny Cohen, the Corporation's Director of Television, even said that he could earn twice as much money elsewhere.

well what is he waiting for? bugger off!

and this lot too

[Serial_Apologist]

well what is he waiting for? bugger off!

and this lot too

Not to mention...

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/11/co-operative-group-chief-executive-euan-sutherland-resign

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

FOREX criminality, expect a saga ...

[amateur51]

By-the-by, this is becoming one of my 'must read' threads on the Board. - well done Calum!

[Serial_Apologist]

By-the-by, this is becoming one of my 'must read' threads on the Board. - well done Calum!

Quite an accumulation of evidence to put capitalism away for good, I reckon. What seems missing is means.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

hip hip high pay with the odd idea or two to stop it

First, more unequal societies tend to redistribute more. It is thus important in understandingthe growth-inequality relationship to distinguish between market and net inequality.

Second, lower net inequality is robustly correlated with faster and more durable growth, for a given level of redistribution. These results are highly supportive of our earlier work.

And third, redistribution appears generally benign in terms of its impact on growth; only in extreme cases is there some evidence that it may have direct negative effects on growth.

Thus the combined direct and indirect effects of redistribution—including the growth effects of the resulting lower inequality—are on average pro-growth.

IMF yep the IMF

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

40p is a Con trick too