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07 Nov 15:36

Is the Green New Deal the only plan in town for the post-Brexit economy?

by Richard Murphy

I persist in believing that if there is to be economic recovery in the UK post Brexit then something like the Green New Deal will be an essential part of the process.

The essence of the Green New Deal is a Keynesian stimulus. It recognises an essential truth, which is that the way to solve any government funding issue is to create well paid full employment. When you have that any government can fund itself without difficulty. Until you have that most inflation risk (excepting that from devaluation) is small.

The Green New Deal explicitly recognises that in an open economy the risk of the multiplier being dissipated by imports is high. That is why it focuses on local investment, in housing, local infrastructure, insulation, local green generation capacity and providing finance to the SME sector. Local investment spending has the highest possible growth impact on the UK impact.

In the process it creates jobs (and housing) in every constituency: this is blatantly about meeting the needs of people in the county, for work, income, housing, energy, transport and the capital for local enterprise.

By focussing on investment the Green New Deal makes clear that we need to balance the demands of future claims on the economy against those arising right now. We have turned a blind eye to climate change, our children’s future and the current generations’ legacies. This needs to change. The fundamental pension contract, that each generation has a duty to leave sufficient real capital so that the next can afford to keep those who made that capital out of the income thenext generation can earn by putting that capital to use, has to be reintroduced to the UK economy. The Green New Deal does that.

And we gave to be green, and can be. Wind, sun and the little exploited tide has to be the basis for our future energy.

But the Green New Deal is more than that. This is where the idea for a Central Invstment Bank, now used by Jeremy Corbyn, came from.

This too is from where the focus on addressing the tax gap for its social as well as its economic benefits arrived in Labour thinking.

And this is where Green (or People’s QE) was first to be found as a funding mechanism.

This then is a strategy that links together fiscal, monetary, social, economic, taxation, industrial and climate policy, with a good dose of localism thrown in. Few ideas can claim that. The Green New Eeal can.

And it is an ideal policy to manage Brexit. Devaluation will have happened by 2019. The rebalancing of the UK will then be needed. Government will have to create work or there will be none to be had. QE will be easier post Brexit. A focus on the UK is what Brexit demanded.

I remain unconvinced by Brexit. But I will think about what it means and how it can be dealt with. It’s time others did the same. The Green New Deal remains a significant offering in this arena.

Actually, come to that, what else is there? Has anyone else got anything that looks like a plan?

09 Feb 14:14

The View From Below -SynTalk

by dmf

“Do you hate beggars? Can one think of the above-below topography using both perspective as well as relationality? Is there an invisibilisation and dispersal of the hegemons? What does it mean to be at the very bottom? Is there a social responsibility of capital? Why does the below always have a hidden character, & why is there no giving of dignity to a full corporeal person? Why does a musahar woman own a broken-up dis-assembled bicycle? Are we as a society actively at war against the destitute – why? Are we actively creating destitution (& dispossession)? Is there always a dialectic unity between prosperity and misery? Who is the primary client of the state? How do you view taxes? Do we need to identify with the below? Is it possible to lose the above below through a new imaginary? What are the limits of solidarity? Is solidarity expensive? Why do moral arguments have so little traction? What is the universe of those with whom we are willing to share? Why are there The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas? It’s all the same people, right? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions, about destitution in a general sense, using concepts from human rights (Harsh Mander, New Delhi), social anthropology (Prof. Shalini Randeria, The Graduate Institute, Geneva), and social theory & literature (Prof. Kumkum Sangari, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee).”


20 Jan 17:29

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BradDelongsSemi-dailyJournal/~3/rBlnLkfd3CE/must-read-marc-dordal-i-carreras-us-banking-panics-and-the-credit-channel-evidence-from-1870-1904-the-empirical-st.html

by J. Bradford DeLong

Must-Read: Marc Dordal i Carreras: U.S. Banking Panics and the Credit Channel: Evidence from 1870-1904: "The empirical study of the effect of banking panics on the economy...

...has traditionally been difficult due to the lack of adequate data on output during the major part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This paper proposes an alternative approach by looking at the business activity of the banking sector. Using a newly digitized dataset on National Banks resources and liabilities, I argue that distortions to the normal activity of the banking sector are a good proxy for the impact of panics on the economy. Additionally, I propose a novel Instrumental Variables approach for identifying the effects of banking panics through the exogenous drops in deposits induced by bank runs. The results show a temporary but large effect of panics on lending activity of approximately 10 p.p. (on impact) and an average duration of one year.