Useless and out-of-touch Chancellor Phillip Hammond this morning warmed up for this week’s Budget by reminding us all just how useless and out of touch he is.
Asked on this morning’s Marr show about unemployment, Hammond claimed:
There are no unemployed people.
Marr had to remind him of the facts:
This Tory, who is supposed to be managing the nation’s finances, can’t tell the difference between zero and 1.4 million.
We have a Chancellor who is so remote and heartless that he ‘forgets’ 1.4 million unemployed people who – along with our disabled, our vulnerable and the huge numbers of working poor – are suffering appalling hardship.
If anyone thinks Hammond is going to announce a budget this week designed to do any more than fake an improvement in their situation, they need to watch this video over and over until the scales fall from their eyes and they resolve never, ever to even think of voting Tory again.
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https://media1.tenor.com/images/88597732c83b3d15a07cdc26bc334999/tenor.gif?itemid=7536878
That is all.
The sooner this idiot becomes unemployed the better.
Highly unlikely, there will probably be a nice private bank or company position lined up for him when his political ‘career’ is over. Look at Cameron, Blair, Brown, Osborne et al… revolving door is now de rigueur in the neoliberal Corporatized state.
And we all know that 1.4m figure is rigged as you can be on a zero hour contract and work just one hour a week and be classed as employed, no the real figure is much higher
It really is time the Tories took off their Alternative Reality headsets.
Seriously though, Hammond’s latest tosh is just further evidence of the cynical systematic destruction of the post-war settlement by this lot.
According to mainstream economics, ‘full employment’ is usually when about 5% of working population is unemployed … but they don’t worry about actually counting. It’s all about the level of Inflation … the NAIRU ( an acronym for non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment, and refers to a level of unemployment below which inflation rises). No need to try and understand … it’s errr bonkers. So the idea is that if inflation is low, the full potential for employment has been achieved … therefore, there is ‘full employment’.
Orwellian … and economics is in desperate need of a clean out. See #MMT.
Good comment.
” So the idea is that if inflation is low, the full potential for employment has been achieved … therefore, there is ‘full employment’.”
I was watching a film of a long talk by Prof Richard Werner in Dublin again yesterday and he presents charts showing interest rates follow the economy and are not a driver.
The modern neo classical neoliberal economic ideology also doesn’t include the financial sector (banks) in it’s models. I am no economist but even I can understand things are very wrong in economics and banks should be in service of society, SMEs and the productive economy as their primary duty.
Here is a discussion I posted the other day with Richard Werner and David Buik with Ross Ashcroft discussing the question ‘can a country suffer from a finance curse’?
https://renegadeinc.com/the-finance-curse-2/
British media need to take note that not hosting such discussions and alternative thinking and views is a major reason they are losing trust and audiences.
Other economists to follow are Steve Keen, Michael Hudson, Ann Pettifor and more. It is so crucial we counter the neoliberal fantasy economics that is so deeply embedded in education, political thinking and MSM.
To add an interview with Ann Pettifor that she did during the general election with a US alternative media outlet.
I am not suggesting these people have all ‘the’ answers but we must be questioning the status quo and thinking how we can change things, especially the economy and economic consensus so we can move forward, not continue to be pushed into what is disparagingly called a third (or second) world country with an extremely wealthy elite calling all the shots and the majority struggling or in poverty and suffering.
When I listen to Ann Pettifor everything she says relative to capitalist economy is more or less on the money.
My problem is that we must seek a new paradigm and Ann misses the point about wealth creation, it is people that create wealth and whilst she believes in providing the financial means to do it, she still hangs on to the belief that the private sector should ultimately deliver it, although through the mixed economy with some public intervention.
In essence the private sector has proven to fail and can never succeed, because of the small matter of “conflict of interest”, if we look back over the last forty years, whereas income growth for the very richest grew exponentially and since the 1970s with the introduction of Neo-Liberal dogma, where previously back to the second world war, peoples incomes ran in tandem with productivity, since 1970, that has been diverted away from the majority of people and continued to rise for the few. In short companies could after 1970 have paid higher wages for the work done, but chose not to, which is how they got richer and the rest of became poorer.
I asked Ann Pettifor in Bristol a couple of years ago, why it was that the Bank of England issued money to the private Banks (all printed out of thin air) that was then loaned to anyone with the ability to pay it back, when the Government, the owners of the Bank of England could just issue that money when and where it was needed.
Her reply was, that it was democratic.
Sadly I couldn’t have disagreed more, it would of course be more democratic to vote for a political party that would spend money into the economy where it would directly serve peoples interests.
My whole feeling about people like Ann is that they well understand how the system is broken, but can’t take that leap of faith in people to organise society for its own benefit, therefore some mythological body must stand between ordinary people and the means to achieve it.
Ann of course ignores something of course generations of socialists have long believed in. People do the work, create new ideas, invent all sorts of things, but can’t put them into practice unless they have the means, (capital) to sustain and fund their ambitions. Dyson is a clear example with everything that is wrong about the capitalist system, he wanted money to develop his ideas, he spent years trying to get established, created a new idea, and then when everything went his way, he Upsticks and takes his ideas to foreign country where he could exploit them to get even richer, at the expense of those that helped him develop. Noting he then outlined at a Reid lecture just how damaging to our economy those actions were, people later reminded him that was precisely what he was guilty of.
rotzeichen, I agree wholeheartedly that we must ‘seek a new paradigm’ and look at private banking and it’s misuse of the public privilege of money creation. Also as I said, I don’t believe any of these non mainstream economists have ‘the’ answer but I firmly believe these are the issues that need to be discussed in public, on public platforms and respectfully and openly. My previous understanding was that banks lend depositors money and the government is like a house hold and has to live within its means ie. run a deficit. I now believe both these previous beliefs are completely wrong.
“I asked Ann Pettifor in Bristol a couple of years ago, why it was that the Bank of England issued money to the private Banks (all printed out of thin air) …..”
Private banks also create ‘money’ in the form of credit out of thin air. They don’t get it from BoE except balance transfers in bailouts and QE. See the other video with Werner, he explains money creation really well and the accounting jiggery-pokery that is deeply embedded in bank credit creation practises and isn’t transparent.. BoE may be under some government control but ministers now appear to fully defer to it’s advice.. I agree with you, I do not believe the BoE is democratic or that it is fully under democratic control, it advises the government and lobbies on behalf of banking interests… it is essentially private.
Not agreeing is healthy and in my economic learning am looking at what all non neoliberal economists have to say…
I do see some inconsistences but I am aware that my depth of understanding is not great. Dogma is something we must flee…
we’ve had it for far too many decades already.
I posted Ann’s video because I think she makes many good, thought provoking and enlightening points, not because I think she has all the answers and a complete and ‘right’ view.
For the historical side and context of neoliberalism Michael Hudson presents the clearest picture for me personally.
Absolutely agree with everything you say, I personally believe MMT has the best interpretation of economic and financial matters, which must always be examined in an ongoing debate.
I do like Michael Hudson and and his explanation of what money is vis-a-vis Taly sticks.
It really is good to know that there are real seekers of the truth still trying to understand.
I have reservations with Richard Werner who is more like Ann in that they are good at identifying flaws but just can’t go that extra bit to see that if it is ok to tolerate the flaws of an imperfect system, that in the same manner should at least accept the need to try out a more transparent and genuine democratic solution, after all it’s how people work in the real world. Which seems to be forgotten.
I also forgot to mention, corruption is an important element in propping up capitalism.
Thank you for video I still like these people who have all added another dimension to the political discourse.
We are on the same page.
Werner is working actively to open a community bank to service the local SMEs and community in Hampshire, which is in the process of applying for a banking license. So he is very active in working towards one way to challenge the highly concentrated CoL banking structure. Profits to go back into the community and no bonuses.
Reblogged this on | truthaholics and commented:
Typical BS from the nasty party of swingeing cuts and rampant austerity while all too many grapple with whether to eat or heat! Yet, there’s plenty money in the kitty to bomb middle-eastern countries …
How can he not know how many unemployed people there are 😳😳?
He is counting 2.4 million on slave labour contracts as employed. No job security, pension, sick pay, holiday pay or recourse against unfair dismissal. He went further and said there was a high level of satisfaction amoung patients in the NHS. They realise that work needs to be done such as getting rid of wastage. He went further and said the deficit is coming under control where in reality it has risen steadily over the last 7 years. Alongside personal debt now standing at £1.4 trillion pounds. He also said we must embrace Brexit and the opportunites it presents. He obviously has not read the article in this morning’s Guardian written by Sir Martin Donnelly, the chief civil servant in Liam Fox’s Department for International Trade until earlier this year, Conclusion by this “expert” is that it is going to get a bally sight worse. Soi all in all 10 minutes of lies, lies, and more lies.
“They realise that work needs to be done such as getting rid of wastage.”
That of course is code for job losses, lower wages, increasing job insecurity and deeper cuts to public services. No mention of the increased costs of installing huge private rent seeking corporate model bureaucracies in public and civil sectors that are directing public funds away from the ‘coal face’ of services.
…and there are no poor people, food banks are a fiction, the NHS is safe in our hands, we have the best education in the world, properly funded, and our police and fire services are also the best in Europe. Our trains are cheap and efficient as is our power, gas and electricity and I just can’t wait to see what Father Christmas has brought me this year.
Heartless? Clueless more like!
Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
1.4 million may be the official figure who actually do sign. There are probably around another 2-2.5 million who aren’t counted. People who for example work 1or 2 hours a week unpaid counted as employed. It’s all how you collate the figures and they use smoke and mirrors
Is that guy on crack or something? “No unemployed people”???