Kwarsi Kwarteng - is this what's coming next?

[wotjusthappend]

This old BBC article from 2015 gives an interesting insight into Kwarsi Kwarteng's right-wing views on the welfare state:

BBC News - Turn benefits into repayable loan, says Tory group
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33092329

I will be voting Labour next general election they seem to be more understanding with the people on low incomes. Tories are destroying this country they simply don't care as they are out of touch.

Kwarteng used to work for this Odey hedge fund mob whose fund went up 145% in 2022. Ex BoE MPC member David Blanchflower has been advising his followers to short the pound.
Deutsche Bank (and others) are calling for a BoE MPC emergency interest rate rise next week to ‘reassure’ the markets. You’d have to laugh at the sheer front of it if you didn’t see the resultant human misery unfold before your eyes.

Meanwhile, an economics professor on LBC is now talking about a financial disaster far worse than 2008 with a crashing pound, businesses going bust, rising unemployment, rising inflation, rising interest rates and a housing market collapse. I feel Thatcher would never have done this indeed she was a great advocate for the Single Market in her day.

www.reuters.com/business/finance/odeys-hedge-fund-soars-145-bets-against-uk-bonds-sources-2022-09-22/

How is Odey anything but a criminal?

I fear you are right. It's hard to pinpoint where it all started to go wrong, but our disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the increasing financialisation of our society where the most hugely rewarded are the banks and hedge funds that game the system for the greatest profit. The 2008 financial crisis and the rise of printing money as a quick seemingly painless fix. Brexit and the consequential economic fallout (4% off GDP according to OBR), covid and the ballooning of the debt and finally Johnson/Truss UKIP rump Tories. It's the boiling frog scenario, you only realise it when it's too late.

Well, he almost was!

www.theguardian.com/law/2021/mar/11/hedge-fund-boss-crispin-odey-not-guilty-of-indecent-assault-judge-rules

How is our Chancellor?

I optimistically imagine that Mel Stride will leak the IBR analysis of the ‘mini budget’.

Assuming the Treasury Select Committee have sight of it? I know they’re not happy that the Government won’t publish it.

Kwarteng worked as an analyst for JPMorgan and Odey Asset Management after winning a scholarship to Eton and studying at Cambridge. He has carved out an image as a low-tax, free-marketeer Conservative who has long backed Brexit and pro-growth policies for financial services.

Bloody, bloody Eton all the bloody time.

allof
I wouldn't trust the electorate to vote this govt out. Brexit, then turkeys voting for Christmas again, or just no moral conscience for their less well off fellow man

^This

Also Schadenfreude, a strong need to feel better than, working class snobbery, and buying into 'the undeserving poor' mantra implemented by those who never have and never will be poor and are admired as 'betters'

Still reading the thread bur I agree so much with this. Early intervention improves outcomes, the earlier a need is identified then the earlier it can be addressed and supported. And I don't just mean SEN, I mean all barriers to a child achieving their potential.

I'd love to see a trickle up economy where an entire generation of children has the maximum funding given them. Properly funded maternity care, maternity/paternity leave, welfare system, postnatal support, housing, healthcare, EYFS provision for 0-5, schools, curriculum enrichment, childcare, play spaces, sports, pastoral care, mental health services, life skills education, apprenticeships, and so on. Just a fuck tonne of money thrown at their wellbeing and development. I'd bet that by the time that generation reaches adulthood and enters the workforce, the economy (and the country) would be in a far state than it is now.

It'll never happen because the magic money tree only appears when friends of the Conservatives need backhanders, sorry, contracts but it's a lovely "what if..."

economic instability

From what I've been reading,Instability is the greatest enemy of business investment for gains that would be realised over medium-long term. Truss's strategy seems to rely on business wanting to invest : they won't want to invest in this unstable environment. The Kwarteng policies would have best chance of success in a world with lots of stability, low interest rates, about to enter a boom period when there was lots of spare cash to try to think long term, for long term profits to be obtained by improving workplace conditions and staff skills.

This is a terrible time to try Kwartenganomics in UK.

Are you this hysterical all the time?

It would be great to have so much automation as you describe it. Low productivity is the main reason why our economy is struggling. But there is no danger of this said automation happening as our system is propped up by taxpayer subsidizing low wages for people. A legacy of the disastrous tax credits system.

We do have a shortage of labour right now, but that won’t last as net immigration is running at the same levels as pre-Brexit.

The welfare state will become smaller, mostly because it got uncontrollably big by the mid 2000s. The NHS has to change because the current model is unsustainable.

The main thing we are still missing is opening up of the economy to big investment and infrastructure projects. Private sector being incentivised to build big. The government has to realize that cutting tax has to be backed up by kick starting activity in the economy.

So long has we have irrational hysterical people coming out with hyperbolic nonsense on this thread, there can be no sensible debate.

The markets follow on from their best guess as to the outcomes for business not how good our NHS is or such like and as such are a brutal but quick readout as to the wisdom of the crowds of the global business community. As Dominic Cummings (who would know) has described Truss as “about as close to properly crackers as anybody I’ve met in parliament”.

He wasn't wrong and I don't remember in 2019 anyone voting for this.

So long has we have irrational hysterical people coming out with hyperbolic nonsense on this thread, there can be no sensible debate.

To be fair, that's pretty hyperbolic in itself.

So long has we have irrational hysterical people coming out with hyperbolic nonsense on this thread, there can be no sensible debate

well you’re out of luck then because life is measurably worse than when Gordon Brown left office for a heck of a lot of people with little to no reasoning or details as to what the plan is for where we’re heading, wherever that may be. There hasn’t been anything concrete over the entire term tories have held office.

Individuals have very little control over what healthcare, education and public services are available to them unless they have vast sums of wealth and are reliant on a stable government to protect the economic climate to enable individual ability to achieve security and independence. That group is shrinking. Fast. People don’t really do ‘sensible calm debate’ when their stability is threatened.

People warning of this are on a hiding to nothing, they’re not going to be believed until it’s experienced because of a misguided belief that such circumstances just ‘wouldn’t happen here’.

I heard that the UK workplace is LESS automated now than it was 10-12 years ago. Does anyone have firm statistics on that? That the lack of automation is undermining productivity.

Sept 2019 Parliament report:
The problem for the UK labour market and our economy is not that we have too many robots in the workplace, but that we have too few. In 2015 the UK had just 10 robots for every million hours worked, compared with 167 in Japan. By 2017, we represented just 0.6 per cent of industrial robotics shipments.

If your house is on fire then you need to scream FIRE !

It's looking increasingly like the markets won’t take it. The pound has fallen to its lowest level in almost 40 years, dropping below $1.09 and heading towards parity. The FTSE has fallen more than 2 per cent. Analysts now expect interest rates to more than double to 5.2 per cent next year.
Most importantly for the public finances, the yield on UK 10-year bonds, which mirror the Government’s borrowing costs, surged towards 3.8 per cent. They were under 1 per cent a year ago. It is hardly a surprise, with the amount of borrowing that the Government announced it would be pursuing today.

When the markets open on Monday it's going to be absolutely fucking brutal - they still have to get this budget through Parliament though that may not be a given.

Here's Truss talking unguardedly about how the work ethic is much better in China than here. As Rolf Harris (sorry!) used to say "can you see what it is yet".

Truss can dish it out but god forbid anyone criticises the cabinet.

amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/15/new-cabinet-office-rules-ban-speakers-who-have-criticised-government-policy

Damn, I was hoping for a speaking gig to vent my bile... back to ranting on internet forums then 😂

Nah, you go and join Steve Bray with his megaphone - enjoy yourself!

I love Steve Bray even dob him a few quid from tie to time a great British eccentric. His greatest moment was suggested by Hugh Grant !

So rich people get big pensions and those on low incomes end up with next to nothing? Because anyone on low income has no hope of building up a pension fund sufficient to live on in old age.

You seem to be making the mistake of assuming that as you were one of the winners of your generation then everyone else was. That simply isn't true as a generalisation and as rhetoric its ageist. Older women in particular are one of the biggest groups of people in this country living in poverty. Its also simply not the case that all over 70s own their own homes and are living it large - between a quarter to a third rent and many more are struggling to stay in modest homes bought in middle age /older years via right to buy. Less than 5% of them will have gone to university, most will have been at work since 15/16.

The "gold plated" pensions were the preserve of the C1 upward in old terminology and some public sector jobs (where T&C including modest index linked pensions were generally traded for pay).

There was a time when those on income support could study for free.

They would gain English and maths then go get better jobs or study an Access course, go to
uni and to become nurses, teachers, social workers. Now you can’t. On universal credit it depends on your work coach. Too hit and miss.

Exactly! There are masses of people who go on to repeat the benefits cycle, have children upon children and just continue the cycle. To a certain degree we are largely responsible for our own choices.