Originally Posted by
jackd
Hello Oracle,
QE – plenty of evidence that the QE following the crash led to a reallocation of resources by redistributing the money created to those who were already asset rich. Lots of pieces on line about it from the FT to the Spectator – take your pick. People with assets don’t really need more money.Perhaps you don't know as much about it as you think.
Lots of your other points I agree with (bet you didn’t expect that).
Public sector pensions? Yes, I’d agree they are better for your average employee than private these days.
People screwing the system? Yes, that happens in the public sector. Small beer compared to the money squirrelled away offshore in the private sector though.
School closures, as part of the overall lock down, yes that’s damaging the economy, as well as other things like businesses being told to stop trading.
Entire crisis overegged? We’ll never know. Is it better to be where we are now than suffer what happened in parts of Italy? Hindsight – that thing you get just after you need it.
You have called a few times for parity. A synonym for parity is equality (I bet you knew that). Another thing we agree on. There should be more parity in society, you are absolutely correct.
People relying on foodbanks would like a bit more parity too. As would zero-hour, low paid workers who have to top up their wages with UC to survive.
It doesn’t have to be achieved by a race to the bottom though. In the 6th richest country in the world, there should be enough money out there to try and give us all a fairer deal. Better pensions, better wages, a better health service, better job security, no need for food banks. Sadly, with the CV crisis, a fairer society is now even more unlikely. There will be plenty of money made out of it though but it won’t ‘trickle down’ to people who need it. Rees Moggs’ investment firm has been advising its clients on how to make ‘super normal returns’ off the back of the current market upheavals. That’s a nice thought.
Pie in the sky, wishful thinking, unaffordable! (the asset rich will tell us), but we have to start somewhere.
So there you go, I’m a ‘lefty trouble maker’. Yet here you are calling for equality. It’s a funny old world.
