Tag Archives: economic policy

Bill le Breton

What Japan did while we were sleeping

By Bill le Breton | Fri 5th April 2013 - 8:51 am

"2 x inflation in 2 years, 2 x monetary base, 2 x amount bonds purchased" “2 x inflation in 2 years, 2 x monetary base, 2 x amount bonds purchased”The overnight news yesterday from the Bank of Japan spelt out its serious intent to double the monetary base – the type of monetary easing, a l’outrance, that I have been arguing for at LDV, and elsewhere, for a number of years now.

The announcement followed the declaration back in November by the then leader of Japan’s opposition that when elected he …

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 38 Comments
Bill le Breton

No braking at Gambon – a monetary policy guide for petrolheads

By Bill le Breton | Fri 22nd March 2013 - 11:48 am

If you had to choose a person from the following list, and only this list, to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, would you choose James May, Jeremy Clarkson or Richard Hammond? Tough choice, but go on: indulge me!

The last time I wrote here, I predicted that the Quad had reached a turning point on monetary policy. I did this not on the evidence of Vince Cable’s New Statesman article, but on a report in the Financial Times that Osborne was set to change the regime imposed on the Bank of England.

Well, …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
David Thorpe

Opinion: the UK has many economic lessons to learn from Ireland

By David Thorpe | Fri 25th January 2013 - 2:51 pm

When various commentators and critics of the coalition’s economic policy cast around for alternative solutions, not many look to Ireland for a model to follow, but perhaps they should.

My native country’s economy is in the sort of doldrums which make the current UK growth and employment rate look utopian, but the economy formerly known as the ‘Celtic Tiger’ is healing itself and there are many lessons for UK policy makers to learn. This year growth is forecast to be 1.8%, double what the UK can expect to achieve, while the country was recently able to return to the bond markets …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 12 Comments
Chris Richards

Opinion: Are we valuing the right kind of growth?

By Chris Richards | Fri 14th December 2012 - 2:18 pm

Our economic system is built around the indicator of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It measures how much we have produced as a country over a period of time. It does this by adding together the market value of what we have produced. As a result, an increase in the market value of what we have produced signifies that our economy is growing. But should it?

In the grand scheme of human history, GDP is relatively new. It was created to allow the US to better understand how to develop

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Posted in Op-eds | 15 Comments
Geoff Crocker

Opinion: The Conflicts of Economic Policy

By Geoff Crocker | Tue 2nd October 2012 - 8:45 am

Nick Clegg’s conference speech committed Lib Dems to manage debt out of the economy and implement a fair tax regime. But the objectives of economic policy often conflict with each other.

Let’s take it that there are three objectives for current economic policy:

  1. to reduce deficit and the debt it accumulates
  2. to inject demand into the economy
  3. to have a fair tax system

In the following table, I’ve had a try at evaluating recent and proposed economic policies against these objectives.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 53 Comments



Recent Comments

  • User AvatarEddie Sammon 19th May - 10:56pm
    Same goes towards investigating phone hacking.
  • User AvatarEddie Sammon 19th May - 10:52pm
    It's not all that bad if the Sun don't do a full page apology in this pretty much none story. I'm not an anarcho capitalist...
  • User AvatarCllr Mark Wright 19th May - 10:44pm
    If only we could have some l kind of judge-led inquiry into media lies that could come up with some kind of solution to this...
  • User AvatarEddie Sammon 19th May - 10:33pm
    I think we can and should become a more equal world, my point was to say I don't think there is anything wrong with making...
  • User AvatarDavid Evans 19th May - 9:56pm
    "... judging by the lack of internal criticism of Clegg and co by their grassroots activists." Well that seems to sum up perfectly how much...