Look at that last sentence: economic and labour market suppression at the cost to most people in the UK is being used to beat inflation. We are paying the price.

So, what is not mentioned? That’s the fact that the excessive interest rates heavily promoted by the Bank of England are, of course, rewarding the City and the wealthy. Oddly, that didn’t make it into the press release. It would, of course, be indecent to mention that the Bank of England is structurally supporting growing inequality and economic precarity in the UK.

And so yesterday, the oppression went on.

CPIH is 4.1%. BoE interest rate is 4%. Real interest rates are zero. This is oppression apparently.

Precisely because of the misallocation of resources engineered by neoliberal business, and the false narratives of well-being that their marketing presents, there is a crisis in labour supply around the world, including in many sectors (farming included) in the UK, where there is a similar shortage of skills in most trades. The result is that the quite literal physical underpinnings of many markets are collapsing — and with those foundations gone, the very things on which capitalism was really built, which were highly skilled labour and the availability of choice at affordable prices, will disappear.
….
He may be right, but unless the rewards of that higher price go to those who actually produce coffee, then the higher price will solve nothing. We cannot afford to reward the producers of financial engineering any more; what we must ensure is that those who do the hard work in the world get fair pay. If we don’t, the coffee trade will be over, and with it, a great deal more of the economy as well.

The worry here?

The other issue is that as we have steadily undermined the value of productive work in supply chains around the world, the number of people willing to undertake such work is now declining, imperilling supply in areas where automation offers no alternatives. The implication of James Hoffmann’s comment — that coffee farmers are now ageing and unable to recruit young people into the arduous work from which they have earned their livelihood — is clear. Presumably, there are supposedly better alternatives available to the younger people who might have been coffee farmers, where, even if life is not easier in any meaningful sense, it might at least appear to be more superficially appealing.

Complete fucking twat.

That neoliberalism – you know, capitalism, markets, that sorta stuff – means that formerly poor economies are now not to poor. Wages and incomes are rising in poor countries. Therefore fewer people wnt to be coffee farmers – and cocoa farmers too. Because they’re low income, peasant occupations. And when the capitalist bastard builds a factor down in the valley offering indoor work, no heavy lifting, at higher wages, people don;t become coffee farmers.

This is a glorious story of the poor getting rich. The answer is that we’ll all pay more for our coffee beans or we’ll not have coffee. No intervention necessary – this is exactly what markets do and so very well.

But trust The Eage to get this wholly and entirely the wrong way around, eh?

The Sage takes on Krugman. He’s a baddie apparently. Because he doesn’t know his economics like MMT and so on.

Now yes, I know, we’ve all got our complaints with PKrug. But it’s vital to distinguish between the economist and the columnist. The second is largely the standard centrist D line. The first is extremely good work. That is, go after PK for his social views, why not, but not for his economics.

Spud decides to do this the wrong way around. He goes after the economics. Which is as amusing as watching the chihauha trying to shag the toe of the Great Dane.

Well done that man, vry well done.

I banned one person from commenting here yesterday for what I considered to be an English racist comment that suggested that English colonial rule in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remains acceptable because a case for the alternative had not been and making clear in that person’s Engish view that we are better off as a single country without showing any sign that they did in any way appreciate the views of those who think otherwise in the other countries in question.

In my opinion, that is a racist comment, and it is unacceptable to me.

To be English and shout “Bugger the Celts” is not racist by the same test.

Glad we’ve that sorted then.

Seventh, Scotland would not be liable for the national debt of the remaining UK. In international law, the debt is the responsibility of the so-called continuing state in the case of a split such as this, and the UK would want to take on that role, and all the agreements and entitlements that go with it, including membership of all the international organisations, such as NATO, of which it is a mmeber, and the UN, where it will not want to give up its seat on the Security Council to Scotpand. So, the only way Scotland could be liable for the debt would be by agreement, and unless the UK actually repays the debt (and it almost never has), then there is no reason at all for Scotland to accept any obligation to repay any part of it either. In other words, this is not an issue.

So, erm, rUK would also still own all government assets in Scotland then, right?