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Election 2010

Call me Holey Czar

Monetary Policy

Thursday, 25 March 2010 14:46

The budget doles out £100 million to fill potholes in roads. We could spend that in Grimsby alone. But it’s for the whole country so I’m offering my services to set up a Holes Hotline with me as Holey Czar.

Reaction to the Budget

Monetary Policy

Wednesday, 24 March 2010 15:13

Alistair Darling is a calm, dour, dependable Scot so I didn’t expect to be excited by his budget. I wasn’t. Good things come in small packets. Like aid for industry, a tougher approach to tax evasion, and a heavier duty on the cheap cider the kids are getting sloshed on.

Letter to Mervyn King January 2009

Monetary Policy

Thursday, 29 January 2009 12:09

29 January 2009

Mervyn King Esq

Governor

Bank of England

Threadneedle Street

London EC2R 8AH

Dear Mervyn

Our advice this month is short and sharp. Don`t hesitate any longer. Reduce interest rates by a further 1% to boost demand, stimulate the economy and cut costs for an over-leveraged nation which has the highest level of personal debts in the advanced world.

What`s happening is not just a blip on continued growth which justifies mini measures of the type the MPC prefers. It is the bursting of a major bubble. This threatens major recession, even depression, and makes it essential to take strong action and throw every lever to growth.

Letter to Mervyn King November 2008

Monetary Policy

Thursday, 27 November 2008 11:38

Dear Mervyn

We urge the Bank to take further the process it began last month with a substantial further reduction of interest rates. Cut rates by two per cent to take them down to the low level appropriate to an economy in recession. Low demand, recession and a steady wind down are the dominant trends. Deflation is more of a threat than the inflation the Bank has for so long been obsessed with. You will eventually take rates down to the low level necessary: pundits think you`ll be there by early 2009. Much better to act quickly before things degenerate any further.

Letter to Mervyn King

Monetary Policy

Wednesday, 01 October 2008 15:36

01 October 2008

Mervyn King Esq

Governor

Bank of England

Threadneedle Street

London EC2R 8AH

Dear Mervyn

The Bank and the MPC are in danger of making themselves irrelevant. The prolonged and obstinate failure to reduce interest rates is an abdication. That and the fact that the Bank also had to be literally pushed into boosting liquidity in the way other central banks have done indicates that it has no understanding of the scale of the problem. To stand unshook amidst a bursting world, preaching about moral hazard may have been a noble position for a central banker in the l920s. Today it is a futile abdication of both responsibility and good sense.

Read more: Letter to Mervyn King

Letter to Mervyn King

Monetary Policy

Tuesday, 02 September 2008 09:10

Dear Mervyn

Our advice this month remains the same as the last few months, viz: reduce interest rates substantially so we won`t repeat arguments which are as obvious as they are right.

Read more: Letter to Mervyn King

Letter to Mervyn King

Monetary Policy

Friday, 01 August 2008 12:58

Dear Mervyn

The need for the substantial reduction of interest rates which we have been urging on you for some months is now not just increasingly essential but long overdue. A 2% bank rate as in the US seems very appropriate to us, but we know the preponderance of Nervous Nellies in Financial circles and we always want to appear statesmanlike, “sound” and responsible we’ll simply recommend a substantial reduction to you this month; 5% is higher than the rate in major economies and far too high for ours. You must reduce it.

Read more: Letter to Mervyn King

Letter to Mervyn King

Monetary Policy

Thursday, 29 May 2008 09:49

Dear Mervyn

Our advice to the MPC has long been to reduce interest rates which have been too high for too long. The Bank made a pathetically small and excessively belated move in this direction at the start of the year. Then it stalled as if palsied by fear and doubt. It still seems to be in that condition because the initial reduction was not followed with the urgent and substantial interest rate reductions the economy needs.

Read more: Letter to Mervyn King

Letter to Alistair Darling

Monetary Policy

Friday, 25 April 2008 12:15

25 April 2008

The Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP

Chancellor of the Exchequer

HM Treasury

1 Horseguards Road

London SW1A 2HQ

Dear Alistair

I`d appreciate an urgent response to some of the questions which have arisen in the ten percent tax saga plus a comment on the processes.

Socialist taxation?

Monetary Policy

Monday, 21 April 2008 10:19

Here’s how we redistribute taxation as a Socialist Government

The proposed abolition of the 10% income tax band <http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/apr/20/tax.tradeunions> hurts the poor and has quite rightly attracted widespread condemnation. The government claims that the restoration of the 10% band would cost around £7 billion and the predictable response <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7357085.stm> is that we can't afford it. Here are twelve ways that the government can finance the restoration of the 10% income tax band. They can also help the worse-off citizens by raising personal allowances <http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/tax_expenditures/table1-6.pdf>, which the Treasury's own figures show would cost around £4.3 billion for each 10% increment.

Robbin' Hood

Monetary Policy

Monday, 21 April 2008 10:11

I’m flooded with protests about the abolition of the 10p tax band. They’re right. We are taking from the poor to give to the richer. The compensation via tax credits isn’t and will be fiddly and will produce no gratitude.

Letter to Mervyn King

Monetary Policy

Monday, 31 March 2008 10:36

31 March 2008

Mervyn King Esq

Governor

Bank of England

Threadneedle Street

London EC2R 8AH

Dear Mervyn

We are concerned that the Bank, by its failure to respond to a deteriorating situation by reducing interest rates and boosting liquidity, is losing touch with reality. It either does not understand the situation or puts a desire to stand “unshook amidst a bursting world” before action as a means of sustaining a confidence few now feel.

Read more: Letter to Mervyn King

Letter to Mervyn King

Monetary Policy

Wednesday, 23 January 2008 16:40

23 January 2008

Mervyn King Esq

Governor

Bank of England

Threadneedle Street

London EC2R 8AH

Dear Mervyn

The Bank should reduce interest rates by one half of one percent this month. That should be as part of a progressive programme of rate reduction to bring British rates to American levels, or preferably below, over the first months of 2008. That programme should be announced now to give a certainty to markets which the Bank`s usual policy of fidgeting rates up and down can`t.

Read more: Letter to Mervyn King

Letter to Mervyn King November 2007

Monetary Policy

Tuesday, 06 November 2007 10:47

Dear Mervyn

We recommend that the Monetary Policy Committee should reduce its base rate by l% this month. Our last recommendation was for a reduction of one half per cent. This month the reduction needs to be greater because it`s clear that the Bank does not realise either the seriousness of the credit squeeze being imposed on the country or its consequences. Indeed after the Bank’s mistakes in August over liquidity and the Northern Rock there appeared to be a touch of sulky defiance about last month`s refusal to budge or to follow the wiser stance taken by the Fed and the Eurobank.

Letter to Mervyn King October 2007

Monetary Policy

Monday, 01 October 2007 14:15

Dear Mervyn

No point in recriminations about the Northern Rock crisis, though if it dents images of omniscience and demonstrates the virtues of sympathetic flexibility it can serve a useful purpose. Our last submission warned of the need to boost liquidity and to reduce both interest rates on interbank lending (as the Fed did to relieve the constipation of the system) and interest rates generally to relieve the pressures on the borrowing public and particularly on the sub-prime sector in its British form.

Letter to Mervyn King September 2007

Monetary Policy

Monday, 03 September 2007 17:26

Dear Mervyn

September traditionally marks the start of a new political and economic season after August’s hibernation. That makes new thinking appropriate and time for the MPC to listen in a way it hasn’t up to now. The Bank is moving obstinately down the wrong path to higher interest rates and a credit squeeze. This will be applauded by the financial interests which dominate your counsels and who have already applauded your stealthy progress towards ever higher interest rates and who are currently using their platform in our ignorant media to predict confidently that rates will again go on.

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