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Listen to me!

One of my blog posts here has had 160 comments and counting. Therefore the government must do as I say.

Not to do so would be, and I say this candidly, an act of neoliberal sophistry.

49 thoughts on “Listen to me!”

  1. Yes, but how many of those comments are from neoliberal trolls, using a variety of fake names to see how much Leninspart nonsense they can get past the gatekeeper?

    Asking for a friend.

  2. Ha! Good to know Mr Worstall is keeping up with the aged thread. What was that 10 minutes from the suggestion of a celebratory post to the appearance of the same?

  3. Was it the aged thread? Well I never!
    Could have been the bumpy T-shirt one.
    Definitely need government policy on that.
    Managed inflation.
    And maybe some QE.

  4. I made one of those 160 comments.

    Have you read my blog? Please read my blog. Go on. Read my blog.

    Did I say I have a blog? Have you read it? You can comment there as well. On my blog. Which you can read.

  5. I’ve finally got it:

    QE is normal

    Deal with it

    It’s here to stay

    For a very long time

    He’s an Eastern mystic. It’s a form of Haiku. He’s the I Ching of Downham Market.

  6. Jolyon sometimes
    by Richard Murphy

    So Treasury review has to be done
    In Canada on date you suggest
    They found me. They aren’t alone
    FT agreed now is the time to invest

    Then there would be evasion charges
    Of Tories’ trade union bill
    I assure you, nothing changes!
    Feet firmly on the ground still

    They were facing big losses?
    All who rely on council services.
    That’s before we get to the buses
    There won’t be consequences
    An asset class to QE purchases

  7. Average earnings
    by Richard Murphy

    On your trust fund in the meantime
    It didn’t get far because …
    The boys were about 3 at the time
    I have said are limits on its use

    It. Now the hard bit…ting…n editing
    Sent to my publisher
    To decide what is worth publishing
    Me neither

    The government’s planned…
    The Sun” because of Hillsborough?
    I think I am using it as designed
    My favourite right now though
    Me to blog. Look what happened….

  8. Government’s planned
    by Richard Murphy

    Via You might like this + comments
    ” And he wants to be President?
    Which deals with all their points
    Not a good precedent

    Fine mess of this gov’t’s creation
    Thinkers influencing that debate
    Loose canon ” Excellent question
    Bring them into the welfare state

    Make it more secure, sometime soon
    Written. I accept that. Apologies
    On the chapter plan this afternoon

    I? He’s imposing misery on millions
    Is calculated in 3 ways for a start
    To think up research questions….

  9. (All generated by Poetweet. I think they capture the clear thinking and rational real world thought of the great man.)

  10. and you missed…

    “My most recent meeting as a practicing accountant was last night

    And I am a Professor of International Political Economy”

  11. I see two of Murphy’s vilest camp followers have re-appeared to make comments. The thoroughly repulsive Ivan Horrocks and the frustrated self-frigger Carol Wilcox, whose insanity can be seen in this comment:

    “Whilst listening to Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at the Labour Party conference I wondered how it would contrast with today’s tory equivalent. The contrast is stark – revealing Jeremy’s lovely nature and Cameron’s sneering smugness.”

  12. BraveFart

    Carol Wilcox is on the Facebook friends list of one of my friends – she is truly out of this world – Apparently Corbyn is ‘Not Hard Left’ – I will download a screen dump (time permitting) that can prove she contends this – in all seriousness ((she does not do humour!)

  13. Some people hate lawyers. Not me. I think we should kill all the accountants.

    Is there a more bigoted, petty, small-minded, useless caste of puffed-up priggish prats than the bean-countertariat?

    They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. They think being able to count and knowing what EBITDA means is the same thing as running a business.

    Accountants ruin businesses. As soon as a commercial organisation falls under the influence of the spreadsheet-fondlers, things start going to shit.

    Some examples I’ve seen in real life:

    * Some of the high performing sales people are making “too much money” (i.e. they’re making more than the accountants, because they’re selling too much). So the accuntants fuck up the commission plan to put a stop to that success.

    * Good salespeople leave, because – whodathunkit? – cash-hungry people respond to financial incentives.

    * Accountants respond to the alarming drop in revenues by forcing what’s left of the sales team to put up prices. Because it’s not as if customers respond to price signals, right?

    Another one:

    * Accountants note we’re spending “too much” on corporate hospitality. Easy way to save a bit of cash, right? Just give your biggest clients a cheap selection box at the end of the year.

    * So clients who used to spend millions fuck off to competitors who are prepared to take them on jollies.

    And they never learn. It’s as if that part if their brain was removed and replaced with Excel.

    Accountants should all be made to wear an abacus of shame around their necks, and locked away in a dark and smelly room with no furniture so they are forced to pee in plastic bottles and eat pencil shavings off the floor.

  14. Steve

    You’ve had your expense account cut again, haven’t you?

    Come on, admit it? Taking clients down the strip joint was it? Not the Bribery Act; are you sure? Oh, it was just blackmail legislation this time..;)

  15. Fred

    The “Joy of Richard” – the gift that keeps giving. A few successfully managed to play Matt along for over 100 comments!

  16. @Tim – I think PF has it. Perhaps “Ragging on Ritchie” should be renamed “The Joy of Richard”.

    It would at least make him think of Callmedave every time he comes over here to see what you’re ragging on him for this time 🙂

  17. “My most recent meeting as a practicing accountant was last night

    And I am a Professor of International Political Economy”

    I guess the correct definition of a professor in a British university is just neoliberal sophistry…

  18. Steve

    I don’t want to sound like an obsessive fan but you are spot on – again!

    Even in Operations (rather than Sales) – any attempt to introduce an incentive scheme, however successful, eventually floundered on th erocks that the Finance department used to represent. Getting high performing guys whose bonus was nearly equivalent to their salary? Don’t worry , we’ll change the terms of the scheme to make the incentive harder to obtain! And then we wonder why they leave and our staff retention figures are so poor?

    I’d probably say your suggestions might be a bit harsh but I will openly say in any management meetings to Finance’s face – ‘you should be seen, rather than heard’ , and the most effective accountants I have seen have always followed that maxim…..

  19. More seriously, re sales and all that – it’s not usually the level of commissions that causes problems (not sure what kind of companies you guys have been involved with?).

    Whatever commissions / bonuses get paid, and I’ve come across some very good (as in high paying) schemes, the key is simply to keep the best guys as “hungry” as possible.

    It’s no good them earning a bucket load over a year or two and then getting comfortable / losing their desire. Where they increase their outgoings so that they then “need” that extra commission, that works well.

  20. ” but I will openly say in any management meetings to Finance’s face – ‘you should be seen, rather than heard’ ”

    Sorry VP, but I have never seen a company operate like that, either from the outside or on the inside! Bad luck, it sounds like you’ve had some really quite horrendous experiences…

  21. From the other side of the fence: I’m quite happy that sales guys get rewarded handsomely.

    I couldn’t care less if they have no clue about finance other than remembering that money in must exceed money out.

    If they meet that then I’d be happy to sign off as much hookers and blow as they need. (Which may be why I’ve not been promoted as quickly as others…)

  22. “It’s no good them earning a bucket load over a year or two and then getting comfortable / losing their desire. Where they increase their outgoings so that they then “need” that extra commission, that works well.”

    hence the peer pressure to have an extravagant lifesyle amongst high-performing traders etc.

  23. GD

    Most people I know from “the other side” would agree completely.

    Givem the analytical nature of “the other side” as you call it, if the end result improves profit, then they would have to be really shit at their job to try and “break” that in any way.

    Most set-ups I’ve seen involved the profit generators (and that’s not always “sales”, it depends on the sector) sometimes earning as well as anyone (and including the Board), and for the obvious reasons that Steve rightly points out above; if they are good they will simply bugger off elsewyere otherwise, and then you’ve got a failed business.

    That’s what slightly confuses me about the comments above. I’m guessing (perhaps?) much larger corporates where there are layers of senior mangement and / or they may be more structured / less innovative?

  24. Van_Patten – thank you sir, I would gladly take you to Spearmint Rhino.

    PF – re: losing the will to sell. It’s really not usually a problem because salespeople tend to be greedy and spend money as fast as they make it, and because targets go up every year anyway.

    The problems come in when finance guys get control of the commission plan and mistake it for a tool to micromanage people. So it ends up becoming bloated and people spend huge amounts of time trying to calculate what they’re going to be paid and arguing with payroll – time better spent closing deals.

    The other incredibly stupid mistake they often make is capping commission. I can see the twisted logic behind it – “hey, we’ve just set a limit on one of our major costs! Trebles all round!” But in any new business dominated sales environment, that’s just shooting your own business up the bum.

    For if you cap commission, you just cap ambition, activity, and ultimately sales. The Laffer curve works here too.

    It’s not worth losing deals to save paying out a few percentage points of commission, but most of the accountants I know seem to think sales just happen as if by magic and forget that customers have a choice.

    Hence, arguing over a few hundred quid expenses on a client that just spent £2m with us. It’s madness.

    The way to deal with sales guys who’ve gotten fat and lazy is just to ramp up their target or realign their accounts base to make them work harder. That’s why sales managers and directors exist.

    I’m guessing (perhaps?) much larger corporates where there are layers of senior mangement and / or they may be more structured / less innovative?

    Exactly this. Also the inevitable politics, conflicting agendas, and hiding space for useless people you get in big corporates.

    And senior management ends up spending more time talking to itself than it does talking to employees and customers.

    GlenDorran – If they meet that then I’d be happy to sign off as much hookers and blow as they need.

    If I used LinkedIn, I’dd add you as a Righteous Accountant.

  25. PF

    There have been some clueless individuals and some challenging experiences for sure. Am glad you have worked in industries which have been forward-thinking enough to have jettisoned the conflict between Finance and other functions but it could be extremely draining and frustrating to have these discussions with people who hadn’t got a clue. The firm in question eventually got taken over and broken up so the confrontational approach was as fruitless as you rightly imply!

  26. “If I used LinkedIn, I’dd add you as a Righteous Accountant”

    Accountant? How dare you. I’m a far more exciting and interesting actuary. We get to use the extra buttons on scientific calculators that are off limits to accountants.

  27. More importantly, would you compliment me on my stunning photo? I wouldn’t run crying to the press.

  28. Bloke not in Cymru

    Agh the cost and value one, good accountants understand the difference.
    Mind you despite having accounting designations I haven’t worked in an accounts department for nearly 10 years and have been progressively moving away from the pure financial accounting side for even longer.

  29. > Steve / VP

    I don’t disagree with a word either of you have said there.

    “Also the inevitable politics, conflicting agendas, and hiding space for useless people you get in big corporates.

    And senior management ends up spending more time talking to itself than it does talking to employees and customers.”

    And I really don’t envy you any of that.

    > GD

    “I’m a far more exciting and interesting actuary”

    You guys are still feasting off that John Cleese sketch of 50 years ago!

    It reminds me of Cameron’s comment the other day, and his choice of words.

    Instead of “The Joy of Tax” by “an accountant called Richard Murphy” – the good professor was dismissed as “an academic called Richard Murphy”…

    On an entirely separate note, I’m guessing that the ICAEW whole heartedly approved of Richard’s new appointment at City.

  30. Just a note, doesn’t take accountants to fuck up. In a smaller business, often the owner-manager is the one thinking ‘I know, I’ll cut expenses by refusing to pay staff what they’re worth.’

  31. Basically, you have shit accountants. Don’t blame the rest of us just coz you’re saddled with a dickhead.

  32. Carol Wilcox is a very nice, witty and good natured woman who has spent a good part of her life trying to persuade the Labour Party to look at Land Value Tax again. With Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Andy Burnham(all land taxers) now in the Shadow Cabinet ,she should be congratulated on a job well done, not subjected to vile personal abuse on here.
    NB Tim Worstall is a land-taxer as also was his idol, Adam Smith, not that you would ever guess , since the whole Economic tradition of taxing land ,not work, has been suppressed, which suppression Carol Wilcox has played a very honourable ,patient, part in alleviating.

  33. Dbcreed

    She also seems to condone mass murder if committed on ideological grounds and is part of a movement (The communist party) which killed 100 million people so I’m sorry – Witty and good natured doesn’t spring to mind! And she is extremely abusive to anyone on this blog – Indeed she would turn us all over as Kulaks to whatever secret police thugs her regimes of choice employed….

  34. Fanny_Batter

    Only 100 million? I’m sure the Kecksmitter said it was 200 million.

    Anyway, have you got links to prove all those accusations?

  35. Lawrence

    You would disagree that 100 million died in the Soviet Union and Communist China. the work is called ‘The Black Book’ – available on Amazon? Good enough for you?

  36. To be called ‘out of my mind’ by someone as self- evidently misguided and intellectually obtuse as dbcreed I take as a great compliment.

  37. Lawrence

    On her Facebook feed she cheerily admits to being a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain – so hardly a libelous accusation there. And Communism’s record speaks for itself – do you really need me to link to prove it?
    She also has a slightly bizarre paranoia about the need to get the ‘Left gradation’ correct – so in her mid 1980s GLC timewarp neither Len Mccluskey nor Jeremy Corbyn (apparently) are ‘Hard Left’ – if I didn’t know she was a real person I’d assume she was like a Dierdre Dutt-Pauker style figure – breezily dis missing the murder of millions as justified on ideological grounds.Really beyond satire.

    As for being abusive to anyone on this blog – assuming the comments get through on TRUK – which thanks to the notorious comments policy they seldom do – she is one record as describing ‘Tim Worstofall’ and anyone on his blog as ‘Neoliberal Trolls’ – a description with which you no doubt agree but nevertheless it constitutes de haut en bas abuse as opposed to a coherent argument.

  38. V for Vasectomy

    The reason I asked for links is because I can’t find anything that states she’s a member of the Communist Party, nor the “breezy dismissing of the murder of millions”.

    As for abusing folk, if “worstofall” is your benchmark, then where does that put you and every single person on this blog?

  39. Lawrence of Beria

    I did mention It was on Facebook – check out the CPGB Facebook page and you will find her there. Would you be as sanguine I wonder if a prominent commentator here was a member of the BNP or EDL? Or in your relativistic world I presume there’s no issue with either?

  40. Sorry, VP, that’s still why I’m asking for a link. I’ve just trawled through the CPGB page and can find nothing there.

    Of course you may be confusing being a “member of CPGB” with “someone who has commented on the CPGB facebook page”.

    I await to be stood corrected.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if any of the posters here were a member of EDL or the fabulous Britain First (I’m not sure the BNP are still a going concern).

    I certainly wouldn’t be as dogmatic as you!

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