30th September 2024
More money is needed and pensioners – or old codgers as a senior HM Treasury adviser calls them – cost too much and are in the way.
Solution? Accelerate pensioner deaths through a scheme of public policy measures – which have already made the news thanks to their being discussed at the highest levels […]
Report on Labour Plans May 2024
26th September 2024
Rachel Reeves wants to take Great British Energy and the NationalWealthFund ‘off-balance sheet’ to massage the UK’s national debt figures.
What this means was written up on pp. 10-13 of this report in May downloadable here: it is the aping of the European Fund for Strategic Investments or InvestEU, […]
14th August 2024
Introduction
Friends around the world must wonder if the UK has lost its mind, what with the Southport murders, the ensuing riots, the false predictions of 100+ ‘far Right’ protests on August 7th, the subsequent mass ‘counterprotests’, the praise heaped on ‘communities’ for standing up to this fictitious threat, and the subsequent repressive ‘justice’ […]
26th July 2024
This chart supplements the IREF article published on 24th July 2024 entitled ‘There is no European Financial Safety Net, and therefore no Global Financial Safety Net’:
https://en.irefeurope.org/publications/online-articles/article/there-is-no-european-financial-safety-net-and-therefore-no-global-financial-safety-net/Bonds issued by the European Stability Mechanism have to be 100%+ backed by callable capital from member states with a given credit rating for the bonds to enjoy […]
25th July 2024
Introduction
The Office for National Statistics data for the UK’s public debt in June 2024 was duly published, and there was a turnaround in the direction-of-travel, of sorts anyway.
June borrowing was another disastrous £14.5 billion, but this resulted in Debt/GDP being ‘provisionally estimated’ at 99.5%, when the equivalent Debt/GDP number in May was 99.8%.
How […]
15th July 2024
Introduction
Underline 21st July 2024 in your diaries.
This will be the publication date of the Office for National Statistics data for the UK’s public debt in June 2024.
Barring a turnaround in the direction-of-travel, the debt will exceed 100% of GDP.
UK public finances between January and May 2024
Debt was 99.8% of GDP in May, although […]
Callable ESM capital
8th July 2024
The ESM has a different legal mechanism for calling for more funds compared to the European Financial Stability Facility.
It is part-paid shares.
All Eurozone member states – including Croatia – are shareholders in the ESM, and they have subscribed to €708.5 billion of capital and paid in €80.6 billion of that. […]
Member state guarantees behind the EFSF and the resulting percentage of the EFSF’s bonds that are covered by guarantees of member states with different levels of credit rating
8th July 2024
The EFSF’s credit rating was recently lowered to AA-. This is due to the interplay between the credit ratings of the EFSF and of the EFSF’s […]
Labour’s plans for the economy
2nd July 2024
Labour’s plans for growing the UK economy have been highlighted as being based on fresh air by a group of prominent Remainers and Rejoiners:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jun/22/starmer-growth-plan-doomed-access-eu-markets-economists
Their argument is that Labour’s plans for growth are unachievable without a shot-in-the-arm from somewhere. That we can agree on. They contend that rejoining the EU […]
Headline in the Daily Express of the article in which the £800bn appeared
29th June 2024
Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan will be based around Great British Energy, the new entity which will have equity of £1.7bn according to the Fiscal Plan in the Labour manifesto.
Labour were stating until some months ago that they planned to borrow £28bn […]