Monday 28 April 2008

Elliott and the Hollow Man





Larry Elliott, writing in today’s Grauniad, suggests a way “from the edge of the economic abyss” for Brown.


"... if he was really brave, he could say that the recent fall in the value of the pound and the impending drop in house prices are entirely welcome developments that will assist in the long overdue rebalancing of the economy. The productive side of the economy has suffered grievously from an over-valued exchange rate, which is why the trade deficit is so high. Rising house prices have encouraged over-consumption and resulted in a massive inter-generational transfer of wealth from young people to their parents."

There’s a flaw in this, Mr Elliott and it appears in your first five words ...

ND

16 comments:

Old BE said...

He is half right, because while rising prices are a problem, they aren't nearly as damaging as falling prices.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Well spotted! It should be "... if he were really brave..."

Old BE said...

Mr Brown needs to read that book written my his namesake. I forget it's name now...

CityUnslicker said...

I can't see how wealth has been shifted from the young to the old. i am the first to bang on (CU passim) about how the post-war generation has pulled up the ladder.

This is not quite the same as taking the wealth; it is not sharing fairly which is a different point, albeit with the same end.

GB is so lame, he would not even face Nicky Campbell on BBC 5 live today!

Novlangue said...

I don't blame him. Young Campbell is even more irritating than Sir Menzizz.

Bill Quango MP said...

Jack Straw did pretty well on 5 live considering the rather poor hand he had to play.

Even the super impartial BBC had to wait 20 minutes until one of the Labour spAds remembered to call in with a positive point.

Poor Jack.. 20 mins of 'why won't you listen to the people' , 1 min of 'you're great' , 20 mins more of 'I voted Labour in the past but never again.'

I think I need to start picking out a decent seat on the government benches.

[I like one in the sunlight, but near the door]

Steven_L said...

You can't see how wealth is shifted from young to old?

Who do you think is going to spend the next few decades paying back all the money that GB printed and spunked around the economy, which went some way to inflating house prices, whilst supporting the final salary pensions of all the extra middle-aged local government bureaucrats he used it to employ?

Half of them will bugger off to Spain, paying no tax here, and not spending anything in our economy either!

Every local council in the land is choc-a-bloc of middle-aged, over-paid bureaucrats plotting how to do so little they get pensioned off asap and spend their loot as we speak.

CityUnslicker said...

Steven_l - Oh no, you are quite right. What I mean is that they have not made us poor today directly through their selfishness. It will be our futures working to pay off their debts - just as you say.

They have robbed our tomorrow; but not today (albeit we are getting there fast with higher taxes)!

Richard Elliot said...

Completely off topic, but I am currently in the US and there are quite a few adverts on TV for "America's own energy resource, clean coal".

They are making the point that it is an area where America and be energey independent from the rest of the world and it isn't any worse than any other fossil fuel.

I know this is a favourite topic of Capitalists @ Work so I thought I would drop it in.

Nick Drew said...

Richard - thanks for this and, as you said, we are quite keen to get the facts out on coal, the main ones being

- China and India want electricity and They Are Going To Have It. Whether anyone likes it or not, coal worldwide will - with 100% certainty - be the largest source of fuel for electricity for as far into the future as anyone can see, check out the
IEA's World Energy Outlook


- therefore practical approaches for addressing coal burning should be the most pressing issue for environmental policy and, as we noted here, there are fantastic gains to be had by shifting, over time, to the new coal technologies. A largescale move from old coal plant at 30% thermal efficiency to new plant at 45% will do more for CO2 reduction than any other single practical measure you could name.

And that’s without carbon capture & storage (CCS) which looks a lot further off. But since you are in the USA I will mention something interesting I learned when I was last there in Feb: over 90% of US coal plant (which tends to be built near the coal mines, for obvious reasons) is within a short distance of geological formations suitable for CO2 storage. Handy, eh ?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Stephen L has outlined the straight cash transfers from young to old, just as important is the house price bubble (now bursting nicely, thank you very much) which is another massive transfer of wealth from today's FTBs to the downsizers, heirs, BTL-ers who have sold out, sell-to-renters etc (i.e. in a nutshell, to me).

Nick Drew said...

It's complex. My kids, who in earlier times (= 2 years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Gordon Brown was the Genius Chancellor) would have been busting to 'get on the property ladder' ASAP, are doing very nicely biding their time and renting at pretty reasonable rates. There is no shortage of really good rental stuff for them to choose from, including for upsizing as they will want to do in due course.

If they judge the bottom correctly (5 years from now, I'm guessing) they stand to do very well - and off to the races again!

Timing is everything

Old BE said...

I bought at the top at a huge multiple of my income. I shan't be moving for a while.

CityUnslicker said...

I rent too; well interest only mortgage. by the time they ask me for the final payment it will be about a day's wage at the rate we are going...

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