One of these things is very much like the other

So, late, cryptic and probably way behind everyone else, I thought I'd do a quick post on the whole twuntfest that is the Coalition. Don'tworry, I'm not going to go into what others have said, far better, and elsewhere. Instead I'm going to offer a quote. It should probably be on the other blog, in fact, but even fewer of you fuckers read that one. Besides, there's an original anecdote in this one.*

The kind of crisis Friedman had in mind was not military but economic. What he understood was that in normal circumstances, economic decisions are made based on the push and pull of competing interests ... However if an economic crisis hits and is severe enough ... it blows everything else out of the water, and leaders are liberated to do whatever is necessary (or said to be necessary) in the name of responding to a national emergency. Crises are, in a way, democracy-free zones - gaps in politics as usual when the need for consent and consensus do not seem to apply.

- Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

The only addendum I'd insist on is that there is a consensus on this occasion - the consensus of the political class and the media. It's only unions, right-wing economists, centrist economists, and left-wing economists and those tiresome types who keep thinking we should try to build a better world rather than a worse one who don't agree.

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*True story, a friend who claims to have some kind of centre-left credentials announced her admiration for Ken Clarke yesterday, on the basis of the 'we're too poor to afford new prisons' policy. Just to be clear: he's not a nice man, he's a bastard standing next to a shower of cunts. There is a difference. And remember, if a Tory ever does the decent thing, it's either an accidental spinoff of something evil (in this case unnecessary and destructive public sector cuts), or just plain accidental. Stopped clock etc etc...

Just A Thought

Something that just occurred to me about the ongoing expenses scandal. I've not had much time to think it through so it may just be complete bollocks, but...

For the last 12 years, Labour have pursued obviously stupid economic policies. I think our PM liked to call it some variation on the words 'post neo-classical endogenous growth theory'

The repeated mantra appeared to involve an idea that the economy had moved away from 'boom and bust' and that it could be kept at a 'goldilocks' rate of growth. Now, anyone who is familiar with the way capitalism works would probably tell you that this is bullshit. Brown probably new it was bullshit, unless he really is that stupid.

But here's the thing: what if they didn't know? What if people who thought their personal money trees flowered all year round didn't understand that debt can't be magicked into being forever? What if they thought monetarism could actually deliver stability?

Can they really be that thick? I'd always assumed that they were a bunch of mendacious, warmongering, right-wing arseholes - it never occurred to me that they might just be a bit dim.

Is This The Most Unimpressive Headline Ever?

'Bank of England believes recession has probably bottomed out,' apparently.

Where Does All The Money Come From?

This is another event announcement, you lucky lucky people.

Do you ever wonder where all this money comes from? Does something irk you about people describing the rich as 'wealth-creators' but you find it difficult to place exactly why? Do you not have the months to set aside to read Capital?

Well, if your copy of The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx disappeared at the time your weird flatmate vanished, The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists now looks tainted by its temporary popularity with the muesli and rocket dinner-party set, and you haven't got the time to follow David Harvey's lectures, why not pop along to Northumbria Uni's Stage 2 this Sunday at 2 p.m. for a 'Socialist Sunday School' with Matt Perry on Marxist economics? Might be interesting, and it's only a quid.