Nice to hear from you as well.

Sorry I haven't joined in th e discussion till now. One of my children gave me a splendid summer cold and I have been feeling as if my head were stuffed with cotton wool and bees.

I would like to agree with you whole heartedly about the sheer idiocy and dishonesty of "comparative advantage". Few doctrines have done so much harm. There it lies like a curse at the heart of globalisation.

I am glad you mentioned it. It is one of my pet hates. I was also just this last couple of days, thinking of writing something on it in the context of how it is long past time when we have to oppose globalization.

Perhpas now you bring it up it will spur me to get it written.

So thank you for posting your thoughts and joining in.

>>>>…China will force the issue, convert all their dollars into commodities, gold and land. The US dollar will collapse, and take UK & all of Europe except Germany's friends with it.<<<<<

We in the U.S. should be so lucky. Back in February the American economist Dean Baker wrote:

>>>>>By pushing up the value of the dollar against the yuan, China makes U.S. produced goods less competitive both within the United States and internationally. This is a major cause of the U.S. trade deficit. In addition, because it increases the trade deficit and lowers GDP, China's currency policy also raises the U.S. budget deficit.<<<<<

Ultimately, the value of the dollar is supported by the United States economy. Our economy, over here, is not going to thrive until we dramatically reduce our annual trade deficits. (And don't get us, we friends of Avedon, started on the failure of the doctrine of "comparative advantage" in the modern world.)

Thank you for commenting. As hyou say, pumping monery into penthouses helps no one. But if we want to spend more we will now fave problems because of the size of our borrowiungs and the amount we have already printed. We can do a little more of both but it will have consequences.

The answer in my mind is not therefore to say, sorry no spending on ordinary people, now we must cut everything – the answer is to take back what we have given the banks. For example we could close the asset insurance sceme, sell government shares, mark bank 'assets' to market and once the banks are valued at zero, step in and purchse the lot for the nation at the going price…of very little indeed.

Then we would have some money to spend.

We cannot get out of this without a show down.

Injecting money at ground level makes money circulate through the real economy and keep it healthy. Injecting it at Penthouse level just makes a big pile of stagnant money overburdening at the top and making the economy stagger and teeter even more.

Austerity programs such as Cameron is promising will starve the economy even more. The only answer is for government to find ways to put money into the hands of ordinary working stiffs, the unemployed, the underemployed, and poor people so they have it to spend.

One way to do that (after forgiving the debts that so many people were defrauded into taking on) is for the government to create jobs itself and hire directly. Social spending creates more jobs for the pound than anything the private sector is prepared to spend on.

That's for the kick-start, but the next step would be changing the law to force corporations to prioritize honest dealing with consumers, employees, and the health of the company and the community, over investors' and CEOs' personal wealth.

Job insecurity is destructive to the economy. Therefore, the conservatives who create job insecurity should be treat as what they are: vandals, criminals, and traitors.

…good men do nothing…
I reckoned the bank nationalisation option, or takeover and placement of outsiders into management was the way to go when the whole festering mess became too big to hide.
I wasn't fearful of the ATM meltdown, but I did fear that these useless banks would liquidate every manufacturing company just out of stupidity. So many clients of mine had their overdrafts cut as soon as they paid in funds.
We are still owed money by (barely) solvent clients for eighteen months now. It now takes well more than double the old average time to get paid than it used to.
The banking sector -particularly in the UK, has never been in the risk business. Lemmng business yes, esp. when BofS started lending money to any muppet in a suit and a BMW and every other stupd bank followed suit.) The old saying -they'll only lend to you if you don't need the money- was so true.
Now we expect them to lend to industry. It just won't happen. Perhaps the new community banks might have done so, or perhaps they would have been more of the same.
I wrote a long time ago about the idea that life only evolved to the exotic sophistication (?) that we have done on this planet, was because of the continual upheaval and change. A cracked planet with huge continental movements, ice-ages, meteor impacts (no KT extinction was not a meteor, it was one of our moons), forced all life forms to adapt, evolve, and survive. Today is no different. We need ongoing revolution and change. Any time someone has too much dominance, you get trouble.
The financial players had well over a century of complete power. They were never challenged, and invented ever more complicated ways to keep the secrets of their success and the ear of fools in government.
Of course, now that they have nearly run out of ways to steal our money and our profit on our labour (yep they will steal your pension and your taxes), their greed and laziness can perhaps be challenged.
But who, you say, can foment the resistance. It certainly isn't the mainstream media, bizarre as that must seem to any sentient being.
And there isn't a thriving alternative financial system ready to step in with a better way.
We have two hopes.
One, the people will figure it out, and see the fraud being prepetrated against them. They will abandon a respect for (or fear of) the law. They will withold their taxes, and pull out their cash. The system would fall in days.
Two, China will force the issue, convert all their dollars into commodities, gold and land. The US dollar will collapse, and take UK & all of Europe except Germany's friends with it.
Three, we grow to not mind the slavery………

I cannot believe the way the past couple of years have gone. I certainly knew that feeding the financial market with my pension money was never going to pan out right. I also knew that I should buy the right properties at the right times. I also know to buy gold now (or last year).
Everything else (short of leaving the country -and I have a couple of plans for that too-) I haven't had the time to sit calmly and work out.

I just have the tiniest thought that Mervyn King might actually know how to navigate around his QE, bank insolvency and hyper inflation risks. Problem is, limping through to the other side wouldn't do us any good.
The blood-letting is very important, and has to happen.

Keep writing, stunning stuff.
I can't keep up with all the info. on so many websites. Wait 'til they try a full court press on our freedoms in the blogosphere.