The Pathology of Hot Spots

The best insights into the global malaise are to be found in commentaries on the Great Depression written in the 1930s. One of them, by a psychologist, identified “insanities” in the economic mechanism, evidence of a psychopathic process that required forensic scrutiny by pathologists. That the lessons have not been learnt is illustrated by hindsight […]

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Osborne’s Fraudulent Deal

IT’S the macho stroke that governments like to pull to persuade voters that they are acting “tough” in the public’s interest. Gordon Brown’s gesture was the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) back in 1997. George Osborne’s stunt is the Financial Policy Committee, which he calls “a new settlement between our banks and the rest of our […]

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The Next “Crisis of Capitalism”

Déjà vu! Gordon Brown shifted responsibility for delivering a stable economy onto nine hapless economists within days of being appointed Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1997. We know how unsuccessful they were in fulfilling their mandate as the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. Among the first of those unwise men was […]

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Into the Depression

WHEN I wrote Boom Bust in 2005, I used the word “depression” with care. What was going to happen would not be a recession. What we see unfolding, now, is the beginning of the mid-way phase of the depression. Prepare for the violence, in all its forms, in the Age of Austerity. Instead of adopting […]

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From Science to Séance

If we put up with a fundamental flaw in the foundations of our society, this must find its expression reflected in our knowledge. This in turn, would render us all vulnerable to danger. The fall-out from the Icelandic volcano illustrates my point.

Computer models used by the UK Meteorological Office projected the flow of the ash which resulted in a shut down of air traffic over Europe’s skies. Now, it turns out, the model was a construct of mathematicians disconnected from reality.

Five years ago the Bank of England invited the Met Office to participate in a joint exercise in modelling the real world. We now see how both the financial and weather forecasters don’t know what they are doing……

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Dumbed Down Economics

BRITAIN’S Rotten Parliament has now closed down so that the politicians can seek re-election and add yet further confusion to the economic mess. The last thing the voters should expect is clarity. Everybody’s doing the Pontius Pilate act – washing hands, blaming everyone else for the crucifixion of the Western economy. Alan Greenspan, the ex-Fed […]

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2010: The Inquest

2010: The Inquest by Fred Harrison The economic crisis that crushed Britain could have been avoided. Fred Harrison warned the Blair government in 1997 that house prices would peak in 2007. He alerted Gordon Brown – the Chancellor who became Prime Minister – that the housing crash would drive the economy into the depression of […]

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