Mark Blyth
@MkBlyth
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William R. Rhodes Professor of Int'l Economics @BrownUniversity @WatsonInstitute . Author of Angrynomics (17th June 2020), Austerity, and Great Transformations.
Joined May 2013
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Thought for the weekend:
"In 2007, on the eve of the financial crisis, the average Briton was richer than the average American. GDP per capita was $50,653 UK and $47,975 US. By 2019, on the eve of covid, the American figure was $65,280 while Britain’s was $43,070...
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I keep getting asked about my views on Scottish independence. So are it is. I'm for it. Why? Because the UK growth model is unsustainable and Scotland can do better than simply subsist on inter-regional transfers. This piece tipped me over the edge:
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...In the decade or so after the financial crisis, America grew roughly 30% richer, while the UK became 20% poorer. The prosperity gap from the US to the UK is now the same size as the gap from the UK to Greece."
Austerity did that - and will do again - soon.
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Thought for the day: Let's say rising wages cause inflation panic cause equity crash. So we have built a system where stability is a function of wage stagnation, and growth can only happen in assets, never in wages? Yeah - that'll work for most people...
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There's a line from Keynes that says 'if you can do something, you can afford it.' The UK has convinced itself over the past 15 years it cannot afford anything, with the result public and private investment has collapsed leading to general economic stagnation.
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Karl Polanyi once noted that whenever liberalism fails to deliver, its proponents argue that 'it just wasn't done right' and that, against all reason and evidence, even more of the same will produce the opposite outcome the next time we try it.
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The passing of Sean Connery is sad one for me. He paid for my first year at Columbia through the trust he set up. I used to joke that I was able to eat due to the profits of Highlander Two. Turns out it was Diamonds are Forever.
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Wondering just how far outside of the EU Brexit really put the UK? Try this.
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So how about everyone in the UK puts this on T-Shirt and wears it until the Tories finally exit through shame?
OK, they have no shame, but you get the point...
And don't blame COVID. It's been 'almost parabolic' since 2012. This is policy.
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Today's 'infographic paints a thousand words' goes to: (H/T to Mark Lockwood)
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It turns out the aristocracy did have one more move. Just change the rules of engagement so that numbers no longer matter. And make sure that you do so in the name of protecting free markets. This is the moment when Irony meets Hypocrisy and has a love child called Shameless
In light of current market volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AMC and $GME. Read more here.
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Everything that is Wrong with the Folks who Run the World in One Picture
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Remember that time when we could have locked in all the financing that was ever needed to do the Green Transition at a negative real rate? Yeah - we pissed that one again the wall too:
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First, something serious. As ever
@adam_tooze
nails it. It really isn't just a few weeks or months off-track and then back to normal. Is it? Come on...be honest. Or at least read this:
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I've been getting a few DM's saying "why are you not weighing in on the bank run?" The answer is simple. I don't know what's going on and neither does anyone else. Here's why? We live in a world where opinion is instant and analysis takes time.
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Yes! $GME is
@angrynomics
in the stockmarket. But really, its what Napoleon figured out. The elites have the tactics and the weapons but no numbers. If I give everyone weapons, f**k tactics. I have numbers. And if I do, no aristocracy is safe:
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And now, having posted that, I can tell you I will not be spending the next two weeks in Twitter-tizzy with either Nationalists or Unionists. So don't expect lengthy defenses or otherwise. I've got work to do.
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A picture paints a 100 words episode 1 million. This year, I will personally pay more tax than T-Mobile. Meanwhile their CEO gets about 300 times more than me, most of which will be tax sheltered. The one thing we all have in common. Everyone knows the game is rigged.
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Yip. A decade of buybacks and customer abuse, and now they want a bailout. Why? Because we allow private companies to act as critical public utilities. Can we please end the 'efficiency of the private sector' BS please?
We are back in 2008-9, already hearing peremptory calls to save the rich as crisis hits, while the rest suffer worse, without implicit government guarantees. Tim Wu (
@superwuster
) calls it out in advance in the case of the airline industry.
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My feelings about Diego (yes, the greatest, I am old enough to have watched those world cups, no debate) in this. God rest the genius.
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And so it begins. Smelling Trump's blood in the water the GOP begins the austerity incantation - despite their being zero pressure on rates years out. The class specific put option is being readied again...as if stuffing people's unemployment wasn't enough...
My latest oped: Even if we took every penny from every billionaire in America, we’d barely pay down a tenth of the national debt. The only way to solve this crisis is to tackle spending — and that needs to start now.
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I just found this mini-documentary that
@_michaelbrooks
made with me as narrator. Basically, he took an interview he did with me and animated it. Its really quite cool:
Enjoy (15 mins).
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Just when you thought you couldn't see anything more obviously self-incriminating. But the people who do incrimination brought you this...
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If anyone on this feed likes my talks, this is possibly the best one I have ever given. Lincoln Nebraska Oct 2017. It rocked. Talk and Q and A both get into real issues.
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Just in case anyone needs a reminder as to why Austerity is a Dangerous Idea, just as they start to think about it again in relation to covid expenditures, there's this:
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Remember the days when taking half a million bucks from an industry, and then passing legislation that only benefits that industry, while passing the costs onto everyone else, would be called corruption? Today its just lobbying as usual:
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Watching the election. When you hear a reporter saying that the Democrats in Texas are already looking forward to 2024 you know that they have been caught on the wrong foot. Dems. Only talk to each other. Only listen to each other. Only recruit from Ivys. Result?
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And for those who always wondered if 'trickle down' taxation was a bad idea, but needed some seriously sophisticated stats to be persuaded of the case - Voila:
Yeah - its bollocks. It goes to the top, stays at the top, and does sod all good.
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Eight years ago I wrote a book saying austerity is exactly the wrong response to a debt crisis. They went ahead and did it anyway and the results were disastrous. Today the IMF finally said the same thing loud and clear.
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To take one example, the average UK worker is £14k a year worse off than they would have been if wages had stayed on the pre 2008 trend. This is not an accident. It is a direct result of Tory policy. They were in charge for the whole period.
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Ah the boomers. They took it all and then said 'let them eat avocados.' H/T
@CooleyOnEurasia
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Since I intend to shut down completely for a wee bit, I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone on here who is kind and thoughtful to others a Happy 'Whatever Holiday you Prefer'.
See you in the New Year (unless something really really amazing comes up...)
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So that's where all those high prices went...
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And so Boris now rules the land of Brexit. Quick prediction of next 12 months. Hard Brexit cushioned by massive tax cuts. Pound slumps, deficit blows out, Gilts hardly move. All of this is balanced with another round of welfare cuts. The poor are the ultimate Brexit backstop.
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Just in case you need an infographic for robbery, there is this. BTW. My real effective tax rate is eight times Elon's.
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This is quite brilliant. Watch it. This is why I spent so much time studying economics ideas and the people who wallow in them. Those ideas are not only a way of looking at the world, they are a weapon to change it, usually for the worse.
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No surprises again. The G7 douse themselves in Champagne over the 'please give us a little' tax agreement that is so gameable game players are outraged. Right after signing up the UK decides to try and get an exception for financial services. FFS - that's who you would tax!
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Brilliant piece. Encapsulates so much of what has gone wrong and it just at Boeing. Well worth a read. Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing - The Atlantic
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Some folks at Brown asked me to given them an overview of the work of
@BJMbraun
on Asset Manager Capitalism. So I did, throwing in a few of my own extensions, observations, and puts. If you want to know why Blackrock et al rule the world, give me 20 mins:
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Altogether now..."We all live in a legally sanctioned Kleptocracy!"
Happy Inverted May Day, where socialism really is for capital while capitalism is for the workers.
Exhibit one:
This basically says "Fed will buy anything, go for it." And they did.
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While I applaud this endorsement, does anyone else get the irony of the original shock therapy neoliberal economist now backing the one candidate pledged to be its antidote?
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A thought for the weekend...
"last year China built more offshore wind capacity
than the entire world had in the previous five years. The previous leader was the UK, with 10GW of installed capacity. China built 1.5x that last year alone."
How's your transition going?
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I am forever grateful and honored to now be a patron of the trust itself. I look forward to making my journey possible for the next generation of Scots:
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That's a pretty succinct summary of 12 years of Troy rule. Apply pro-cyclical austerity in a slump and crush growth. Deny it has any bad effects. Try massive unfunded tax cuts. Panic. Reapply austerity and hope this time it will be different.
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Happy Labor Day. In celebration of America's toiling classes, here's a pic on who owns equity in the US from the FT. As you can see, its certainly not workers:
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I am beginning to wonder if Truss-o-monics is really just "We know we are on our way out so let's take the last of what's left on the way out the door!"
Almost two-thirds of the personal tax cut gains go to the richest fifth of households, who will be better-off on average by £3,090 next year. Strikingly, almost half will go to the richest 5 per cent, while the poorest half of households will gain just £230 on average next year.
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And yes, Austerity brought the Nazi's to power. It really did. No doubt Europe will repeat the same mistake again in about two years when it slams on the fiscal breaks once more:
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This is brilliant. Scroll left till the end. Wealth inequality to scale:
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And then there is this. 30 years of political economy research into the UK distilled into 1000 words of damning indictment. Note the bit about robots. No one gets to say skill biased technical change again...ok?
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I just found out that Michael Books died.
Am shocked and saddened. A bright light in a dark time. I always felt better after chatting with him. A real loss.
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Pic of the day. Why the US Growth Model really can't do shutdowns, reason 72. US small businesses have, at the median, cash to last them 15 days. It used to be 90 days. But the was a long time ago in an economy far far away. From JP Morgan Research:
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Sometimes things are really quite simple...
Why do we have a shortage of truck drivers and warehouse workers? It's a deep mystery
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The IMF just reviewed Angrynomics and they liked it. A decade ago I doubt would have been the case. That tells me that to paraphrase Keynes "when the facts change, minds change." It also makes me a wee bit more optimistic that I was when I woke up today.
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Other sentences I didn't think I'd say. Great piece in Time magazine on why the $5 trillion upward redistribution of everything in the US to the >95% has nothing to do with skills or automation. Its all political choices:
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Why do we like Bernie, even if sometimes he says stuff we disagree with, and sometimes we go "no, that is totally wrong?" (or at least I do)? Because sometimes he damn well nails it with a capital N. Here is Nail
#1
:
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This week in "stupid at a species level" we find that baked in climate change damages are six times current mitigation costs to deal with those damages. So any rational society would immediately pay them. Right? You know the answer:
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The payoff to paying back debt in the middle of a recession to boost investor confidence continues to pay dividends. Try this:
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So here's a depressing read about what the past 40 years obsession with markets and metrics has done to the UK's Universities and teaching therein. A shame. I had a great education there because it was really hard to get a decent grade. Now?
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Watching US sport leagues shutting down through folks forming coops for childcare all says that what Tocqueville saw as the American capacity to self govern is alive. It a shame that the Federal State we need to help that along is run by total science denying nutters.
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Now we know why they had to be stimulus 'checks' and put through the banking system. So you could pay your debts to the banks and take any change that is left over. Their hidden bailout is your stimulus checks:
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If anyone has any doubt that the interests of the elite and the rest of us are absolutely not aligned, read this:
Just think, you bail the financial sector with taxpayers money and then they do this to taxpayers in return.
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So there's a general belief that the Trump tax cuts 'sugar highed' the economy. Not so. Investment didn't go up, buybacks did. Wages, as usual, went nowhere. Effective Corp tax rate fell 48% to Irish levels. Capital Wins. Always.
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It's all in the framing. Inflation drives wages drives inflation, yet wages are up 1.6%? Profits fall because of inflation, yet profits are up 49% for the median US firm. Now, how does jacking rates help again when its driven by price gouging oligopolists?
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Pic of the day: Oh the irony of Neoliberal Elites constantly banging on about "skills" as the way to reduce inequality. Despite trying to push anyone breathing into college, guess which countries suck the most on basic numeracy and literacy?
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New Guardian column up. Hirschman as a guide to inflation worries. Enjoy.
Why does inflation worry the right so much?
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And here's the sum total of my summer reading list...just FYI.
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You know your society is in trouble when it's best days ahead lie in an imaginary reconstruction of events 40 years ago.
It's like folks in the 60s arguing that we should go back to the 20s.
Or, in the US, that we should rule like the 1880s to avoid the problems of the 2020s
very excited to hear about our new policy of finding oil in the north sea, presumably also great news for the Norwegians?
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A sign for the times...As the UK prepares for 'Austerity 2.0' and the BoE admonishes greedy workers for trying to get a pay raise, its good to know that local democracy still flourishes. From Camden today. UK local elections:
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For the less concise, and way more ranty version, I give you, Dave Portnoy....
Emergency Press Conference - Everybody On Wall Street Who Had A Hand In Today’s Crime Needs To Go To Prison
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So I just read the book behind his piece. It ties together using inequality, falling productivity, with lower growth and investment. The answer is we have created an economy of rents. Most important book since Crashed. Get it when its out:
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Inflation wars update - still all quiet on the western front despite billionaires suddenly caring about the impact on the poor. Honestly, you can set your clock by it. The only time a billionaire even mentions the poor is when they are inflation-clucking:
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You know when crypto folks say "its not the coin, it's the Blockchain that matters," and how we have all been taking part in the 'blockchain revolution' for the past 15 years and next to nothing has happened? Here's a great explanation as to why:
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But this misunderstands what austerity is. Its not about debt sustainability. Its a class-specific put option that the state writes on the incomes of the bottom 80 percent to bail out the assets of the top 20 percent. Missing that part explains why politicians will keep doing it.
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The short and the not so sweet of it...
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Interested in the origins of how the UK became a consumption and debt driven economy? And how those who designed it in the 1980s knew it would produce some version of 2008 eventually? Read on:
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Now just remember everyone. Lower taxes on the rich mean more investment and more growth for everyone. Even Liz Truss knows that. Oh. Hang on. Uuugh.
Tax cuts for the rich lead to higher income inequality. But they do not have any significant effect on economic growth or unemployment. Evidence for 18 OECD countries over 1965-2015 in this new paper published in Socio-Economic Review:
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My only line on the election
The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neo-nationalism has just begun
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If you ever wonder what happened the the capacity of the British state to provide even basic services read this and weep. We sell the right to do everything that needs doing to whoever makes the lowest bid and we are surprised by the result:
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Osborne kicked the bottom out of the UK welfare state a decade ago. This is the result. Austerity. The gift that keeps giving:
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Maybe, just maybe, there is something important about this venue publishing this essay....maybe:
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Reasons I will always like the UK - sign outside a London pub:
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So there's a very cool newsletter type thing called 'The Polycrisis' that's all about the political economy of decarbonization. Its kinda awesome. If you are like me and want to know more about this stuff, this is one stop shopping:
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And as expected the answer to the UK housing crisis is the reinstatement of feudalism. Yeah to intergenerational debt.
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And here's a really good piece from Brett drawn from the book on how the UK gave north sea oil away for peanuts and entrenched rentier capitalism in the UK in doing so. Realy worth the read: .
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A bit off topic, but when I was a lad there was a show called, "The Six Million Dollar Man." Today, Sam Allardyce got $8,137,800.08 (min) for NOT managing Everton Football Club next year. So, I'd like to declare my availability as a crap Premier League manager next year.
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Very sad to see this piece in the FT today.
If Labour gets elected the currency will collapse, but when Johnson pumps the deficit to cushion Brexit after he wins it will be hailed as good policy. Project Fear all over again.
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As ever,
@adam_tooze
talks more sense about Russia in a five min read than the entire US punditocracy does in a year. Well worth a read:
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Picture of the day from Llewellyn Consulting. Gross World Product went from 18 to 77 trillion since 1980. Massive Growth. Where did all the money go? Right to the top.
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The second piece is by George Packer in the Atlantic on why the US really is a failed state by many measures and why that matters:
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