Apologies if I've overlooked it but I don't think you've had anything to say about the protests in London over the weekend and I was curious about your thoughts. Given that, as you suggested in TDG, the bailouts have crippled our ability to have a welfare state, is there any point in protesting against the cuts? If not, what would be a more meaningful cause for civil disobedience?

thanks for the link. Similar indeed. Minister for public serveice reform?? Why not call it Minister for making people work for less or firing them, and be done with it?

Similar sentiments….

They fear it and are working against it, but they are damned by the greed shown by reduction of interest rates to near zero. Their lackeys in economics are busy hiding their vulnerability, but Steve Keen and Morgan Kelly show what they know!

The depression will be bad but survivable. Just remember that all but clearing banking is unnecessary. Pension funds can advance mortgage monies directly.

thank you for your kind words. This has become a really good place thanks to the always thoughtful contributions of those who come here. Like you, I am gratefull to them.

And thank you especially for the recommendation about WordPress. I will try to move. I promise. David Lloyd will surely never forgive me otherwise.

The question that came to mind was the potential difficulty in moving blog data from Blogger to WordPress, something I've not had to do. Well, it appears that it's not such a daunting problem as that.

As a newcomer to this blog, I'd like to take the opportunity to say how stimulating and instructive your blog is. Your posts address questions about finance, the present crisis in particular, that have nagged me for years and, while I've encountered few convincing sources that would enable me to grasp underlying, core issues in finance, I succumbed to the pessimism and sense of ineluctability that's served bankers so well, for centuries.

Hat tip to the numerous, knowledgeable readers who contribute, here, too.

Great place.

Cheers.

I really am most sorry that the system keeps blocking you. I will as you suggest, migrate teh blog to a better system. Any suggestions anybody? WordPress?

As for your points I find I agree with them. I am vehemently opposed to teh Free Market Globalizing project. I reject its articles of faith because it is a poisonous and inhumane faith.

What you suggest could work but not through the present organs of international finance and commerce such as the WT, World Bank or IMF.

I think this is a discussion we should take further.

Good to know why you have been so quiet Golem, it looks like you've been doing some excellent forensic work 🙂

For better or worse, the globalisation genie is out of the bottle. We're seeing some of the positive effects of a more open world in places like Egypt already. I don't see any way that we can turn back the clock to the time of tariffs and quota's. We can't win that argument, as your article points out it has been institutionalised and become an article of faith.

If we want to find a solution to this problem I think we need to globalise the standards of employment, environmental protection, animal welfare and product safety we expect in Europe. The solution is not to force the Chinese peasant back in to the field, it's to leverage our status as import markets to give them a decent wage and working conditions. Something like what we have in the West.

We need to propose new standards to trade that even the most cold hearted exponent of free trade will not be able to argue against. All we need to say is that we expect imported products to have been produced under conditions which we would consider reasonable in the West.

I can see two arguments which will be advanced against such a proposal. Firstly, that it will be impracticable to enforce. Secondly, that it is none of our business to demand other countries have the same labour standards as us.

On the first argument I think we can keep the system simple and not aim for perfection. Simply demand that the stated country or region of manufacture implement a minimum wage and humane labour laws. Then make sure the country of origin is accurate. Once the system has been in place for a while it can gradually be pushed further back down the production chain by demanding that an ever greater fraction of the component parts also come from certified countries or regions.

The second argument is winnable by asking whether the free marketeer believes we should accept the use of child labour or slave labour. If they say no (which they must to retain any credibility) then point out that they simply have a different threshold at which they consider a labour contract to be unacceptable and that it is up to the democratic majority in the importer country to decide what level of exploitation is acceptable in imported goods, not them.

He reported that Hans-Jörg Rudloff, The veteran German banker, who chairs Barclays' investment banking business, said : –
"We have provided living standards for our populations that are unheard of, which no one ever thought would be possible, for the past 50 years. People do not want to give up these living standards. Populations are not ready to voluntarily discipline themselves in more work, less rewards and less security."

I was particularly incensed by the word WE. Which I took to infer that they (the Bankers) were responsible for the past 50yrs standards of living and had nothing to do with the hard work of anybody else.
Banking and particular Investment Banking as recently brought the worlds economy to the brink of ruin and know it would appear we have need to stop being namby pambyed, work harder and longer.
Meanwhile they continue on as before with barely a heartbeat in between.
I would suggest they put their house in order before suggesting what we do with ours.

The article continued to say:
A Barclays spokesman swiftly swung into damage limitation mode: "These comments have been taken out of context and do not represent the views of Hans-Jörg Rudloff or Barclays."
Well now we know what some of our banking friends think. Its out fault and we need to change our ways. They of course need to do nothing.

It's great when you can make something theoretical, suddenly concete and personal. Thank you. Would you drop me an email?