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economic crisis

The Mutual Way To Put Britain Back On Its Feet

by Phillip Blond 5

Phillip Blond's latest article from the Daily Mail

"...That new model could and should include an updated version of an old one: co-ops. A new, modernised mutualism is one of the ways we can escape the present economic crisis..."

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Adult Economics

by Toby Blume 3

Chief Executive of the Urban Forum, Toby Blume, explains the logic of intervention in a market where irrationality is sometimes rational

"...Although it is seen as acceptable to lose money in a declining market, failing to match profits in the midst of a bubble is regarded by financial institutions (and their investors) as a cardinal sin. So instead institutions blithely follow the herd in offering products they know to be of dubious quality. It may be rational for an individual institution to follow this path in order to retain their investors, but the overall effect is anything but rational. The only way to sort out these perverse incentives is through positive, measured government intervention..."

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Poverty impoverishes us all

by Phillip Blond 4

Cameron's Tories, unlike the left, recognise that we are in social as well as economic crisis

David Cameron wants to reposition the Conservatives as the party of the poor. At the same time, the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, talks of the coming fiscal nightmare - of the cuts and public-service pay freezes that will have to be made and of a future Conservative government operating in a time of severe austerity. Therein lies the difficulty for the new Conservatives: how to reduce poverty as well as enhance the general well-being of the population, while grappling with a crushing fiscal deficit. It is only by squaring this circle that the new Conservatism can flourish and grow - if, that is, the party is elected. Cameron's enabling Conservatism can, indeed must, walk hand in hand with Osborne's deficit-reducing budgets. Osborne and Cameron say they are committed to achieving both greater equality and economic equity, but because of the current situation - in the middle of a budgetary recession, and with unemployment rising - nobody knows how they can deliver on their ideals.

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Without a concept of virtue our politics and our banks are doomed

by Phillip Blond 0

The fundamental issue remains wholly unaddressed

In all the clamour and rage of the expenses crisis, the fundamental issue remains wholly unaddressed: that of the value system that allowed such abuses in the first place.

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Rise of the Red Tories

by Phillip Blond 0

The crisis is an opportunity to sweep away the rotten postwar settlement of British politics.

We live in a time of crisis. In such times humans retreat to safety, and build bulwarks against the future. The financial emergency is having this effect on Britain’s governing class. Labour has withdrawn to the safety of the sheltering state, and the comforts of its first income tax rise since the mid-1970s. Meanwhile, the Conservatives appear to be proposing a repeat of Thatcherite austerity in the face of economic catastrophe.

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