Bolitics The New Condem Government

[tonyh29]

 

there is a strong case that Krugman's evidence isn't nearly as compelling as he would have people believe

Would you care to set out that case, please, Tony? Or are you just misquoting the open letter to Krugman from Reinhart and Rogoff?

I thought their paper was shown to have errors by a UMass student?

 

you think I'm going read and understand boffin talk on economics

 

I'd just read a couple of articles that suggested Krugman wasn't necessarily correct  ... hadn't heard about the Umass student  .. but lets face it if he's a student it's bound to be wrong

[peterms]

 

there is a strong case that Krugman's evidence isn't nearly as compelling as he would have people believe

Would you care to set out that case, please, Tony? Or are you just misquoting the open letter to Krugman from Reinhart and Rogoff?

I thought their paper was shown to have errors by a UMass student?

 

 

Yes, it was.  Part of the detail of the dispute is that other academics couldn't understand how R&R came up with their conclusions, which didn't seem to accord either with available data, or with common sense.  They accused R&R of not being open with their data.  R&R say they had made the data available - but it turns out, not the crucial part.  More here.

 

Long-story short, Herndon agrees that they did post links to their data sources, but never the spreadsheet, and that it was the spreadsheet that allowed the flaw to be discovered.

 

 

I know that the availability of data is a crucial point for academics, but for me the bigger point is that R&R were fully aware of the conclusions policymakers were drawing, they could see what policies were being enacted and that their work was a significant part of the justification for it, and yet they made no attempt to correct what they now claim was a conclusion going well beyond what they were trying to say.

 

I suppose it's only natural on a personal level that they should try to minimise the massive embarrassment they must feel, and also understandable that Osborne is reluctant to acknowledge that something he put so much store on, is simply wrong.  But it's less understandable for Osborne.  He's not an economist, there's no reason why he should have known their paper was shite, and it is correspondingly simple for him to say that he, like everyone else, can now see that the 90% gdp figure is not something on which to base an economic strategy.

 

The fact is he's happy with the approach he's taking, and the R&R stuff was never any more than a convenient justification for it.  But without that fig leaf of justification, what remains?

[snowychap]

I'd just read a couple of articles that suggested Krugman wasn't necessarily correct

Oh, I think a lot of people disagree with all of them.

They're probably both wrong and right (though not on all of the same things at the same time). I think both sides are prone to the odd vitriolic spat.

... hadn't heard about the Umass student .. but lets face it if he's a student it's bound to be wrong

Funnily enough, according to this article, that's what his professors said, too, until they discovered he wasn't.

[tonyh29]

 

I'd just read a couple of articles that suggested Krugman wasn't necessarily correct

Oh, I think a lot of people disagree with all of them.

They're probably both wrong and right (though not on all of the same things at the same time). I think both sides are prone to the odd vitriolic spat.

... hadn't heard about the Umass student .. but lets face it if he's a student it's bound to be wrong

Funnily enough, according to this article, that's what his professors said, too, until they discovered he wasn't.

 

 

meh he must have " pulled a Homer "  

[Demitri_C]

one thing i will say about this government is that they are destroying the NHS, what  a mess. they have invested over 100million on check in machines that GP's use which has caused complete chaos at where I work. They have reduced the amount of staff that work here for this crap. No wonder why many trusts are falling apart when you have complete mis-management of resources

[peterms]

one thing i will say about this government is that they are destroying the NHS, what  a mess. they have invested over 100million on check in machines that GP's use which has caused complete chaos at where I work. They have reduced the amount of staff that work here for this crap. No wonder why many trusts are falling apart when you have complete mis-management of resources

 

It's not mismanagement Dem, it's the intention.

 

Jeremy Hunt is one of a group of right-wingers who said several years ago that they wanted the NHS to be broken up and denationalised.  Referenced here.

 

He gets criticised for believing in homeopathy, but the far greater concern should be that we have a Secretary of State for Health who is on record as saying, in effect, that he wants to destroy the NHS.

[Risso]

That's tenuous even by your standards Peter.  The HP article even states that Hunt didn't write the chapter in question.

[peterms]

That's tenuous even by your standards Peter.  The HP article even states that Hunt didn't write the chapter in question.

 

He's a co-signatory to the publication.  Don't you understand that this means he supports it? 

[peterms]

Obviously a general political post rather than about the government:

Only £305k for Soames?  That would barely keep the chap in foie gras.  He must have a private income from somewhere else as well.

 

Meanwhile, the oiks are being taken off benefits.

 

...Linda Wootton, 49, was on 10 prescription drugs a day, suffering high blood pressure, renal failure and regular blackouts.

 

Yet Atos – the private firm carrying out the Government’s controversial work capability assessments – ruled she was fit enough to find a job after she was interviewed.

 

Cost-cutting officials sent Linda a letter telling her that her £108.05 a week employment and support allowance was being stopped as she lay dying in a hospital bed.

 

Her husband Peter said: “I sat there and listened to my wife drown in her own body fluids. It took half an hour for her to die – and that’s a woman who’s ‘fit for work’. The last months of her life were a misery because she worried about her benefits, feeling useless, like a scrounger...

 

 

[Risso]

Another Daily Mirror link?  I refuse to sully my PC's memory by clicking on it.

[coda]

Another Daily Mirror link?  I refuse to sully my PC's memory by clicking on it.

 

Here you go.

[Risso]

Ditto the Daily Mail, both as bad as each other!

[PauloBarnesi]

I read the other day in the Week that Elmbridge in Surrey (contains Weybridge, Cobham, Walton-on-Thames and Esher) population 110000, pays more in tax (average tax paid is £16000, nearly four times the national average) than Glasgow (population 600000) or Cardiff (population 400000). The article didn’t say if its the city or the wider metropolitan area, but its a very revealing statistic of the widening gaps in our society. Not sure what governments can do to change this and in the end if it should. 

 

The original article was in the http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/10068913/Elmbridge-Surrey-Life-can-be-taxing-in-Britains-Beverly-Hills.html

'>telegraph

 

Maybe one of VT’s main contributors actually lives here?   

Edited May 28, 2013 by PauloBarnesi

[tonyh29]

Not quite  .. I come under Runnymede ....  People from Elmbridge think we exist just to provide them with cleaning staff and manual labour

[PauloBarnesi]

Mr Magna Carta!

[peterms]

Another Tory resigns.

 

But if his offence is a breach of parliamentary rules (and "shocking" according to the Torygraph editor), then his resignation should not be from the Tory whip "to save my party embarrassment" but should be from Parliament, if the commissioner for standards finds that he has in fact broken the rules.  If he were to remain an MP in that event, he would be elevating the political convenience of the party above both principle and Parliament, if I can (unusually) link those two things.

 

Tony Gallagher @gallaghereditor

The Patrick Mercer details are shocking. All will be revealed in @Telegraph investigation tomorrow. A bargain at £2.

1:16pm · 31 May 13 · Twitter for iPad

 

 

Patrick Mercer, the former shadow defence minister, has unexpectedly resigned from the Conservative party in the expectation of claims over his links with lobbying companies.

 

The Conservative MP for Newark said he was resigning the Tory whip immediately "to save my party embarrassment", and would not stand at the next general election.

 

The move comes before a BBC Panorama programme due to be broadcast next week.

 

The resignation is another blow for David Cameron, who has promised but failed to clamp down on lobbying by and for parliamentarians. Two years ago Cameron described lobbying as "the next big scandal waiting to happen".

 

In a statement, Mercer said: "Panorama are planning to broadcast a programme alleging that I have broken parliamentary rules.

 

"I am taking legal advice about these allegations – and I have referred myself to the parliamentary commissioner for standards.

 

"In the meantime, to save my party embarrassment, I have resigned the Conservative whip and have so informed Sir George Young. I have also decided not to stand at the next general election."

 

Mercer's resignation initially sparked speculation that he was preparing a challenge to David Cameron's leadership. The MP has repeatedly criticised the prime minister and called for him to be replaced.

 

Mercer was sacked from the Tory frontbench in March 2007 after he suggested in an interview that being called a "black bastard" was a normal part of life in the armed forces. He added that he had met a lot of "idle and useless" minority ethnic soldiers.

 

A Conservative party spokesman said: "The prime minister is aware. He thinks Patrick Mercer has done the right thing in referring himself to the parliamentary commissioner for standards and resigning the whip.

 

"It's important that the due processes take their course."

 

 

[peterms]

Goldman Sachs banker hand-picked by Osborne for top job in new finance watchdog gave £400,000 to Tory party

 

• Richard Sharp, 56, made donations in decade up to May 2010
• 
  
• Appointed to Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee in March
• 
  
• Sharp's role on the committee slammed as 'wholly inappropriate'
• 
  

A former banker hand-picked by chancellor George Osborne to help police the financial system donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party.

 

Richard Sharp, a 23 year veteran of Goldman Sachs, donated £402,420 in the decade before the Conservatives returned to power in May 2010, according to official records.

 

He was appointed in March to the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee, the new watchdog set up to protect the public from another financial meltdown.

 

Last night Sharp’s role on the committee was slammed as ‘wholly inappropriate’.

 

One insider said the donations are likely to be scrutinised by the influential Treasury Select Committee of MPs, which will grill new committee members over the next few weeks.

 

‘The parameters against which these appointments are judged are independence and competence. So it’s likely this issue will be raised.’

 

There are no rules banning members from making political donations.

 

But in legislation published by the Treasury in January last year it said that the FPC may need to make unpopular decisions.

 

It added that ‘it is vital that such decisions can be taken independently of undue political influence.’

 

The Bank of England’s code of conduct also stipulates that members must demonstrate they have no financial or other interests ‘that could give rise to a perception that the individual concerned could not be wholly independent, disinterested and impartial as a member of the committee.’

 

According to official records, Sharp has made no donations to the Conservative Party since 2010.

 

But John Mann, Labour MP and member of the Treasury Select Committee said: ‘It’s wholly inappropriate for anyone giving a donation to any political party, particularly the party in power, to sit on that committee.’

 

Mr Sharp was one of the longest serving partners at investment banking giant Goldman Sachs - nicknamed Golden Sacks because of its lavish pay packages. He resigned at the end of 2006.

 

The 56 year old was one of four people outside the Bank  to be hand picked by Osborne to join the FPC, which is headed by Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King. Sharp receives a £55,000 salary for the part time job.

 

Others appointed included Dame Clara Furse, the former boss of the London Stock Exchange.

 

Welcoming the appointments Osborne in March he said: ‘The calibre and expertise of these four individuals shows we have also got the brightest and the best working on that committee.’

 

The FPC wields considerable power and has been charged with  spotting risks in the financial system to prevent future crises.

 

It has ordered banks to raise an extra £25 billion to plug a giant shortfall in their capital buffers designed to cushion themselves against future financial shocks.

 

Despite his long stint at Goldman Sachs, Sharp has been critical of bankers’ failings. 

 

In April he appeared in a fiery debate on banking on Channel 4’s comedy and current affairs programme 10 O’ Clock Live.

 

Asked whether the financial system was safe, he said; ‘Hopefully not – there would be a big problem if bankers felt they could run their banks and not feel the consequences of bad decisions.’

 

The Treasury and the Bank of England refused to comment on the appointment. 

 

But insiders said the government appointed a recruitment firm and advertised for the roles. Sharp was interviewed by senior Treasury officials, including cross-bencher Baroness Hogg.

 

 

[AVFCforever1991]

One of the comments:

 

I thought it was supposed to be a conspiracy theory that the mega-banks rule the world and own the political class. Yet they run the Federal reserve and have high powered positions in most countries...in what way is it a theory and not a conspiracy fact?

 

 

I mean, they aren't even trying to hide it anymore...

[villaajax]

 

Now there's a face you could just punch and punch and punch until it turned into a bloody pulp.

[TrentVilla]

I'd still keep going a little while longer.