The banking crisis and credit crunch are the product of regulation and government policy and the way to get more safety into capitalism (which most people still accept as the way to go) is to insist that transparency and fear are the best policemen.
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Mind and body / TV and Radio on 7 December 2011. No comments.
Ian Hislop very nearly told us (When Bankers Were Good, BBC2) that Dickensian bankers were more moral than our own. A couple of literati on the Today show (BBC Radio 4, 7 December 2011) did actually say how awful and Dickensian our times are. (The inequality! The homeless!) So which is it? More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Mind and body on 1 December 2011. No comments.
We are routinely said to have “lost a decade” and that the loss is unrecoverable. I have no idea what this means. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Politics and campaigns on 16 November 2011. No comments.
The City faces a severe test from the sort of protest centred on St Paul’s. Whether it at last responds properly comes down to character, or its institutionalised cousin – professionalism.
The protestors are asking The City to explain itself, and (so far as this dedicated reader of the Financial Times can see) there’s been no reply. Where is The City’s answer to the question: Does The City do a good job? More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Mind and body / Politics and campaigns / RDN's media cribsheets on 26 August 2011. 2 comments.
I’ve been invited to the Greenbelt religious festival (27/08/11) to debate ” The Poor are Poor because the Rich are Rich?” It is arranged round a Methodist document, Of Equal Value: Poverty and Inequality in the United Kingdom. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Politics and campaigns on 9 August 2011. No comments.
Today’s rioters have parents who failed them. So it’s worth looking at what was happening to inner city black and white 10 year olds, in the early and mid 1980s. They were the first fruit of a primary school system which decided to abandon the idea of traditional education. You may say that this did not matter much, since they were about to go into a secondary system which was hardly better. But the rot was in. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Mr C's Makeover Politics / Politics and campaigns on 24 October 2010. No comments.
It is a famous mystery whether David Cameron believes in a smaller state and indeed whether this of any other beliefs matter to him or his politics. This weekend, we seem to be a little nearer a plausible answer. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Mr C's Makeover Politics / Politics and campaigns / TV and Radio on 15 September 2010. One comment.
Evan Davis lightly mentioned in Programme 1 of his Evan Loves Tax (BBC Radio 4) that on current plans the Coalition might (intends to?) end its first term with a 36 percent tax-take (as against total GDP). I always thought the Con-Libs were conducting an extraordinary coup, but this confirms it, if true. Here are two cheers. More »
Posted by RDN under Climate change / Economic crisis / Politics and campaigns on 25 July 2010. No comments.
I was asked to appear on Radio 4′s special programme BP: Beyond the horizon and the Macondo disaster. Would it transform the firm and the oil business? I’m clinging to the idea that it won’t much, but with one big caveat. Here’s the crib I prepared…. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Mr C's Makeover Politics / Politics and campaigns on 16 May 2010. No comments.
Just before I get too sunny, here are three areas where the country’s politicians, and the Tories not least, face real problems. They all centre on the country’s habit of self-deception. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Politics and campaigns on 16 May 2010. No comments.
I was often depressed and irritated by Gordon Brown, but he made a good departure (that matters in political life). Better still, substantial people are fighting for his reputation. Irwin Stelzer (the Spectator), Anthony Seldon (the Guardian) and Martin Wolf (the Financial Times) have all mounted defences of his record. This is luck on a large scale.
