Meet the new ‘mafia’ economics
A trenchant analysis indicts the abdication of state responsibility and the persistent belief in the power of markets to fix the current financial mess…
Economy
Economy
Capital in the 21st Century: the film and the book
10 October 2020
Anyone hoping for insight from the film Capital in the Twenty-First Century will be disappointed. Based on a book by French economist Thomas Piketty its politics and conclusions are anti-working class.
Seizing the future for Britain's workers
The dominance of finance capital has dragged Britain deep into debt, even before Covid-19. Rebuilding the economy after the ravages of the pandemic will require a completely different approach…
Rebuild the economy - create value
10 July 2020
The government's reponse to the coronavirus economic crisis lacks vision. It's up to the working class to provide it.
The search for profit - and the march to war
10 January 2020
Unable to reverse its falling rate of profit, capital is increasingly turning to adventures abroad.
The truth about the Irish economic 'miracle'
3 December 2019
A new pamphlet shows how the Irish government uses a financial flag of convenience to undermine the tax bases of other EU nations, notably Britain, France and Germany.
Can capitalism be progressive?
Joseph Stiglitz has won a Nobel Prize for Economics and established himself as a powerful critic of capitalism – but he still seems wedded to it…
Economy: Post-Brexit boom
A new study suggests that Britain will achieve a science and technology boom over the next two decades.
Future growth for Britain
3 October 2019
A new study from a French bank predicts a science and technology boom in Brtain over the next two decades. Unlike many reports into Brexit, it looks at the long term and predicts a positive future.
Euro finance shock - more to come
26 March 2019
The EU’s financial weakness from earlier financial crises reappeared at the end of 2018 after the European Central Bank announced that growth would be lower than expected and inflation higher. That was a dress rehearsal for what is to come.
Brexit and the world economy
18 March 2019
Brexit is about politics first and foremost. But with a global economic slump coming, it makes economic sense too.
Active policy for Britain
20 December 2018
In this book Professor Philip Whyman makes the case for rebuilding Britain as an advanced industrial economy by rejecting options that tie the government to EU control.
No pay, no productivity
Stop all this talk about higher productivity being the route to higher pay. In fact, the reverse is true: only when pay rates rise will capitalists be forced to invest…
A new vision needed
19 December 2017
This report from IPPR gives a good, detailed analysis of our situation. It rightly suggests we need a new economic approach, but says too little about what must be done to put things right.
How crashes happen
There’s only one way to avoid financial crashes: break the power of finance capitalism…
Economy: Brexit forecasts revised
The International Monetary Fund now accepts that its forecast of a post-Brexit vote financial crash has proved overly pessimistic.
Statement signals Brexit shift
Last year’s Brexit decision is starting to influence Britain’s economic direction, if Chancellor Philip Hammond's first Atumn Statement is anything to go by.
Real wages falling, says Governor
14 December 2016
Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, identified last week that real wages in Britain have fallen for the first time in 150 years.
'Owner-employees' fiddle to go
14 December 2016
The government has abandoned the attempt to spread the concept of “owner-employees”, introduced four years ago by the Coalition government.
Economy: EU-driven decline
The UK’s overall balance of payments – now known as the current account deficit – deteriorated sharply last year.
Network Rail: sleight of hand
25 April 2016
The government is revaluing Network Rail’s balance sheet in a transparent attempt to shore up its own crumbling accounts.
EU drives record balance of payments deficit
2 April 2016
The UK’s overall balance of payments – now known as the current account deficit – deteriorated sharply last year, thanks to a phenomenal deficit with EU countries.
Trade gap with EU widens
14 March 2016
The latest round of trade figures issued last week dramatically underlined the reality behind Britain’s unequal trade with the European Union.
Inequality, social justice and surplus value
You can’t buck economic laws. It’s not an accident that capitalism doesn’t distribute the results of labour equally.
Trade deficit on the rise, again
11 February 2016
The trade deficit rose again in the final quarter of last year, pushing above the previous year’s total according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday.
Trade gap widens
The latest official figures show that exports of goods and services fell in October while imports rose, leaving Britain in the red to the tune of £4.1 billion.
Rate threat
In Washington the US Federal Reserve is preparing to raise interest rates, even though this would destabilise already fragile economies across the world.
Here comes another crash
12 October 2015
The US Federal Reserve is preparing to raise interest rates, even though this would destabilise already fragile economies across the world – which are being told to prepare for a rise in corporate failures.
Not a real change
25 August 2015
This book by Christian Felber, an economist and university lecturer in Austria, outlines an “alternative” to the economic chaos and social suffering caused by financial capital. Some of his ideas are utopian; but there’s also stimulating thought about how to mitigate capitalism’s callousness.
No good comes from the rich
26 July 2015
All parliamentary parties hold the view that very rich people are good for the economy. By implication workers can only hope to have crumbs from the table. That’s never been a convincing argument – and this book from Andrew Sayer shows how the opposite is true.