Inflation (Debate)

Mon 20 Nov 2023, 10:53 (last edited on Tue 21 Nov 2023, 11:38)

The Chancellor probably does know the difference (cognitive dissonance can take you only just so far ...) but that won't stop him taking credit for it as if it were all their own work.  

If you look up Star Power (the game) you'll find accounts of a 'game' that brings home to the participants the forces through which the 'haves' come to justify their ownership of life's goodies as a consequence of their own virtue, and the 'have nots' come to realise that the only way of surviving in this harsh world is to try to outdo one another in subservience to the 'haves.'   We used to run it for MBA students (and others) in South Africa as a prelude to working on busting apartheid.  

Or you could try JK Galbraith's The Culture of Contentment (1992) in which he shows that until Reagan/Thatcher the 'contented' in society were outnumbered by the 'discontented' and so it was in their interests to throw the discontented a bone or two (remember the French Revolution etc) but that after Reagan/Thatcher the contented outnumbered the discontented and so politics morphed into 'Read my lips ... no new taxes' and so on.  

Or there's Robert Kennedy's talk at Harvard when he was asked where he was going to get the money for all these social programmes and he said 'From you' and went on to the point where they cheered him to the rafters. 

'The difference between Wellington and Nelson as leaders was that Wellington could call his army "the scum of the earth, enlisted for drink," but Nelson couldn't because he was on the same ship.'   I wish I knew who said that.   

I can send you my own write-ups if you like.  Life's tough for this elderly hard-wired liberal.   

Mon 20 Nov 2023, 09:27

Which is more inflationary?

Disposable income tax cuts to the poorest in our society to allow them to eat and heat.

Or, inheritance tax cuts to the wealthiest, restricting the supply of housing and capital and allowing the owners to increase the cost of the use of those assets in restricting supply? 

Is the Chancellor confusing inflation caused by external events e.g. war and pandemic with inflation caused by the Government e.g. Brexit and introduction of supply chain frictions?