Final thoughts on the £28bn

I promise this is the last of it. If you have the time, listen to Osborne and Balls on their podcast discussing the £28bn U-turn.  I missed it, but Ed Balls apparently said that for U-turns to work, they have to be big and ugly, and that way the voters really notice, and that is

Orange tinted policies

Both from the Orange Book and recent acclaimed CentreForum publications you can see the real influence of proper liberal views influencing policy. Look at the Coalition agreement: The Royal Mail agreement – keeping Post Offices as they are, allowing the Royal Mail itself to have private investment – is rather similar to what Vince called

Rebalancing quietly taking place …

Well, what is this all about?  The trend in the gilt market: Recall two pieces of conventional wisdom.  One, the end of QE spelt doom to gilts.  Take away that one big sucker-buyer and they will fall out of bed*.  Two, if there’s a hung parliament, the great British Politician will spend months and months

So I get things wrong sometimes …

… or at least, that may be how things look soon if inflation continues doing what it has just done – rise faster than expected.  Because while my original points about base effects and so on are correct, it is no good if the actual index rises 0.6 points in a month like this.  Perhaps

If I were much, much brighter I would write posts like these …

James Hamilton has somehow worked out how much the higher oil prices of recent months might affect the US economy.  You can’t be purely mechanistic about it – the hit to disposable incomes caused by having to send $$$s abroad – but also look at consumer shifts, caused by asymetric reactions to oil price changes. 

Krugman to the Fed: proof that you can spring the liquidity trap

I’m not calling for Bernanke to go. But the debate about his reappointment reminds us just how much a single appointment can change financial conditions, on day one.

Icelandic dilemma

Icelandic defaulting throws up more issues than I can competently cover in a single post.

The government is smaller than you think

People who bang on about how high the public spending to GDP ratio has become are badly missing loads of different points. You can be liberal, economically, and still support a 40% state.

The Right and Economics

The contortions of right-wingers in trying to remain right in their diagnosis of the recession is breathtaking to observe. Admit you’re wrong, guys

The PBR: there’s really not much to say

Darling’s probable last Pre Budget Report was less illuminating or dramatic than expected. Hardly worth all the tweeting