Wednesday, 28 September 2016






Demetrius said...

I wonder if he recalls the way bread was produced, supplied and priced in the Soviet Union? Or was he too busy shopping in the supermarket and spoiled for choice?

markc said...

In one sense he has a point; the free market isn't really free because of gubmint interference, messing, tariffs, stupidity.

If we really, really had a free market and a gubmint which didn't measure its own worth by how much pissing about they do, things would be motoring.

Sackerson said...

It may be a matter of timing. The prosperity has been built on debt that must eventually be repaid or defaulted, and meantime the cost has been structural unemployment, and static hourly pay rates for millions. The cost of Benefit Britain Low Pay Britain and will be seen eventually - it's already massive, when you add in *all* the costs. It is easy to feel wealthy while you're burning up the credit card.

Anonymous said...


Having been to Moscow during the Soviet era, it wasn't Tesco's but strangely if you shop now it's slower than Soviet those outlets.

Nowadays you have to provide your own bags, pack, remember your pin number, check if your vouchers for points, validity and whether they can be used on this week's special offer.

It's an odd world

Nick Drew said...

Having lived in Moscow, I recall that the state bakeries only produced bread on two days per week

A 4-day old bread roll from an open shelf is, how shall we put it, not anyone's idea of consumer paradise

andrew said...

Such is the nature of the times and society we live in that there are a good number of people who live at 'subsistence' level - by which I mean food banks etc.
We also live in the time when these people see TOWIE / Kardashians and (unwisely imo) want some of that.

They have been brought up and taught that they are just as good as anyone else and all the time experience tells them other people have it better - so something is wrong.

Just because you are a so-called professional economist/historian/campanologist does not mean you know more about these things than me.

Corbyn is speaking to these people, not you/me.

At the moment this is the bottom 10-20% and he has no chance.

In the longer term, if those predictions about automated cars and white collar jobs being computerised out of existence become true, his message may well ring a bell with a lot more people.

Anonymous said...

Globalisation is part of the problem, the free market is a game with rules and if you have differing rules in different nations, it becomes a race to the bottom. Trade agreements can mitigate, but they take time and, the greater the number of parties, the more pork barrelling.

Same with inequality, richer nations are importing poorer nations inequality, now we're wealthy enough to handle it, we're just not doing so.

A lot of it ties into the modern worldview where we only want the pros, and try to wish away the cons. Just look at how much people bang on about rights, but evade responsibilities. From politicians to proles we see the same pattern.

Corbyn very much appeals to those who've been hit by the imported inequality, as well as those who like the sound of his socialist paradise without thinking of any of the consquences.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Political points aside...

When you are writing, you put speech marks round things, the same way you put speech marks round 'moderate' Labour MPs, which tells the reader that you don't think they are moderate.

When you are speaking, you can either do the quote symbol with your fingers or use the phrase "so called".

What he means is that what others refer to as free markets are not, in his opinion, free. Whether he is right or wrong does not detract from the fact that is acceptable use of sarcasm.

Raedwald said...

Yep - markets are not free, knowledge is not perfect, barriers to entry are prohibitive and whole national and international regulatory systems favour oligopoly. If that's what Corbyn was saying, I agree. However, that's not what I think he was saying.

The efficient operation of capitalism requires truly free and open markets, regulation for only the most cogent and compelling reasons of public good, the absence of distorting subsidies and of State intervention for political ends. Given that Corbyn is a compulsive regulator, subsidiser, intervener and distorter of free and open markets, I suspect he really doesn't like true capitalism very much.

Global corporates and Socialists are actually in favour of much the same thing - the crushing of free markets, restricting capitalism and a melding of the antidemocratic State with the mega Corporations. I loathe them both.

Electro-Kevin said...

If he'd said "people are fed up with free movement" I think he'd be more correct. It's the free market in low skilled labour which has made people poor here.

The reason we have it ?

Labour had a supply/demand issue with poverty after the success of Thatcherism. So they imported more of it.

YOUR party's fault, Mr Corbyn.

Electro-Kevin said...

"So-called Islamic State" is a BBC-ism, because 'it has nothing to do with Islam.' (Is that correct punctuation, Mark W ?)

Jan said...

It's another fad along with starting every sentence with "So...." and saying "absolutely" instead of "yes".

I wonder if the people who start such crazes get a little buzz every time they hear someone use them?

Lord T said...

I don't know about people being fed up about the Free Market but I do know they are fed up with politicians.

Anyone doing anything about that?

BlokeInBrum said...

I think the boundary review is going to defenestrate a few of them at least.

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