Tag Archives: UK Economy

Punxsutawney Phil Hammond, the UK chancellor, presented his Budget yesterday and declared five more years of austerity for Britain. As was to be expected. One doesn’t even have to go into the details of the Budget to understand that it is a dead end street for both the country and for Theresa May’s Tory party.So why the persistent focus on austerity while it becomes clearer every day that it is suffocating the British economy? There are many answers to that. Sheer incompetence is a major...

Britain has been a rentier economy extraordinaire, with the highest dependence on the financial sector of all major economies. And the biggest fall in productivity growth has been in this sector since 2007. Michael Roberts BlogBudget and BrexitMichael Roberts

Skyrocketing land rent in the UK. In just two decades the market value of land has quadrupled, increasing recorded wealth by over £4 trillion. The driving force behind rising house prices — and the UK’s growing wealth — has been rapidly escalating land prices. For those who own property, this has provided enormous benefits.... Open DemocracyIt’s Time to Call the Housing Crisis What It Really Is: The Largest Transfer of Wealth in Living Memory Laurie Macfarlane

Bank of England increases interest rates for the first time in a decade in order curb high inflation squeezing UK households Base rate lifted from 0.25pc to 0.5pc; Mark Carney will give a press conference at 12.45pm to explain the central bank's decision Bank of England last hiked interest rates in July 2007; interest rates fell to historic lows to help the UK economy recover from the financial crisis Pound plunges on currency markets on dovish commentary from the central bank The...

Apparently, whenever some poor economic news is published about the United Kingdom, journalists have to weave in their on-going gripe about the outpouring of democracy in June last year that saw the Brexit vote to leave successful. Its hysterical really. The most recent example is from the otherwise sensible Aditya Chakrabortty from the UK Guardian (October 17, 2017) – Who’s to blame for Brexit’s fantasy politics? The experts, of course. The story has nothing much to do with the June 2016...

After repeated warnings from BoE about the surging pace of lending to households, British lenders are planning the biggest cutback in consumer loans in nearly 10 years (BoE's quarterly net balance of lenders' expectations for the availability of unsecured lending over the next three months fell to -28.6 from -16.2.)... Zero HedgeBritish Banks Forecast Biggest Consumer Credit Collapse In 10 Years Tyler Durden

The title may be alarmist but the post is worth reading. David Graeber points out that the sectoral balances don't actually balance and asks why, since it is an accounting identity. When I first saw this diagram I was startled and confused. Was I missing something? Was there something about the math I didn’t understand? I passed the image on to two different economists and asked just that: isn’t there something wrong with the numbers here? You’ll notice that towards the end of the graph,...