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My word:

As readers of this blog are well aware, who gets what from economic globalisation is as much a function of the machinations of finance as any relative productive capacity in the strictest physical sense.

The distribution of rewards from economic globalisation appears to be going absolutely as anyone would have predicted.

The highly paid low skill labour has been, at worst, not gaining very much while the lowly paid low skill labour has been making out like gangbusters. The owners of the now more scarce capital have been doing well for themselves.

Given that we don’t think we will ever be adding another couple of billion low paid low skilled workers to the global economy that’s that done with. And given demography we expect the global labour force to be shrinking from here on in. At which point we also expect returns to capital to be lowering, returns to labour to be rising.

Really just absolutely standard stuff and fuck all to do with the machinations of finance.

35 thoughts on “Is it?”

  1. ‘Machinations of finance’ isn’t even a subtle codeword, it’s just a synonym for ‘Jewish plot’ when used like that.

  2. Lovely Ritchie comment from yesterday:

    “I’ll keep changing the world my way, because so far it seems to be working pretty darned well”

  3. “I’ll keep changing the world my way, because so far it seems to be working pretty darned well”

    2 options: Tory plant, or hallucinational self-delusion.

  4. Given that we don’t think we will ever be adding another couple of billion low paid low skilled workers to the global economy that’s that done with.

    I may be wrong but haven’t good chunks of places like India and Africa got quite a bit to go yet?

  5. I see Murphy’s new book Dirty Secrets has been released this month with one five star review on Amazon so far.

    Had I the stamina, I might buy a copy to give it an objective review. I don’t, so I won’t.

  6. “‘Machinations of finance’ isn’t even a subtle codeword, it’s just a synonym for ‘Jewish plot’ when used like that.”

    whut? Snowflake alert.

  7. abacab>

    3rd option, Ritchie’s a crypto-Nazi and has been doing a fine job of bringing ‘the Jewish question’ back into the mainstream.

    DHM>

    You have to understand the context. Ritchie is flagrantly anti-Semitic. He’s a lover of Nazi conspiracy theories, and openly endorses commenters on his blog who mention ‘finally solving’ the problem of ‘bankers’ or ‘tax avoiders’ or ‘you-know-whos (it rhymes)’ or any of a host of other unsubtle codewords.

    ‘Machinations’ is a synonym for ‘plots’ or ‘conspiracies’ or anything of that ilk – but I doubt you were disputing that bit. ‘Finance’/’financiers’ is a standard codeword for ‘the Jews’ with Ritchie’s sort.

  8. PF and Andrew Duffin,

    I think Tim has it more or less right, even with the increases in Africa and India the total working age population has either peaked or is very close to it.
    Lots of old people are clinging on but their grip on life is faltering.
    They will be replaced by the next generation of old people but all the while, the birth rates are plummeting across the globe.

  9. He’s the reason the world is as it is now?
    Great, we can blame him then. Now where did I put those hemp plants, sure I can find a….

  10. BobRocket

    My point wasn’t that we’ll add a billion or two extra but that they exist (within the current numbers), yet to be “exploited”?.

    ie, is there still a potential supply of very cheap labour, before Tim’s next point kicks in with regard to such labour becoming scarce and hence returns to labour increasing?

    Or perhaps I missed something?

  11. DHM>

    You have to understand the context. Ritchie is flagrantly anti-Semitic. He’s a lover of Nazi conspiracy theories, and openly endorses commenters on his blog who mention ‘finally solving’ the problem of ‘bankers’ or ‘tax avoiders’ or ‘you-know-whos (it rhymes)’ or any of a host of other unsubtle codewords.

    +1

    About the only thing Spud left out was a reference to the ‘volksdeutsche’.

    He’s Roderick Spode sans the ladies’ frillies.

  12. I’m about the last person to assume there’s racism, but even I have to wonder at “machinations of finance”. Especially when a socialist says it.

    To give him the benefit of the doubt, I think he just wrote that phrase because it sounded good when it popped into his head.

    I’ve seen people write things like “socially fragmented” to describe Britain after Brexit, but they couldn’t explain how it was relevant when asked. It just sounds impressive.

  13. DtP, I agree that the fat Prof has totalitarian ideas but I have never seen him write anything anti-Semitic. Nor does he consort with anti-Semites. And when he was at Auschwitz last year he did not deny that the Holocaust happened. He is deranged enough without people adding delusions to his load for which there is no evidence. Since it seems that you read his blog, perhaps you can find some clear evidence and show it to me. He does not talk in terms of the Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. He does not mention beards and hooked noses. He does not talk about Jews draining the blood of Gentile babies. He does not talk about Israel in terms of erasing it from the face of the Earth. Why do you conclude he is anti-Semitic?

  14. Aye, you’re right Dio. All jokes aside, there’s no reason to believe Ritchie’s an anti-Semite – which means he isn’t.

    I get annoyed enough by false accusations of racism.

  15. But why is capital so scarce? Genuine question.

    Before we get to the central banks printing money to make existing capital worth less, value-adding industries are simply not capital-intensive these days, in the way they used to be. So many people need a €1000 laptop to add many (hundreds of) times that value a year, not a €2,000,000 machine to add an amount of value that just about covers the depreciation on the machine.

  16. TW:
    “And given demography we expect the global labour force to be shrinking from here on in. At which point we also expect returns to capital to be lowering, returns to labour to be rising.”

    But robots. (There can only be so many nappies that need changing, so) the remaining human labour force could be priced downwards by competition from new waves of billions of low-paid highly-skilled denizens of the financial machine-nation.

  17. Further to Spud’s alleged anti-Semitism:

    That is what I find shocking about anti-semitism. Of course there will be Jews with whom I have disagreement. Why ever not? But to extrapolate such feeling to a whole community? That is not just bizarre it is obviously wrong and yet across politics in the UK at present we are seeing a tendency to do that. I condemn it from wherever it comes. This has no place in a respectful, civilised, society. The calls to stamp it out in all parties are wholly appropriate.

    OK, the writings of Murph are not necessarily the best guide to his beliefs but until someone comes up with a piece of blatant anti-Semitism, I call bullshit on DtP and Dave.

  18. Dave, you must have difficulty navigating real life without seeing an anti-semitic conspiracy.

    I’ll break that down:

    “Dave” – a demeaning form of David
    “you” – a deliberately demeaning pronunciation of Jew
    “must” – implying that Jews mustn’t
    “have” – they shouldn’t
    “difficulty” – playing down the Holocaust
    “navigating” – innuendo for putting all Jews in a field and gassing them
    “real” – Holocaust denying
    “life” – death to Jews
    “without” – highlighting the fact that Jews shouldn’t be within
    “seeing” – slang for spooning out Jew’s eyes
    “an” – short for annihilate Jews
    “anti-semitic” – anti-semitic
    “conspiracy” – Jews landed Diana on the moon, then ate her

  19. @Dio

    The funny thing with Murph’s quote is there’s still a bit of projection going on.

    That is not just bizarre it is obviously wrong and yet across politics in the UK at present we are seeing a tendency to do that.

    Across politics? The Tories and UKIP have lots of jew-haters?

    I condemn it from wherever it comes. This has no place in a respectful, civilised, society. The calls to stamp it out in all parties are wholly appropriate.

    Which other parties needed an investigation and, IMHO, whitewash?

  20. be. So many people need a €1000 laptop

    They say they need a £1,000 laptop, but they could easily do their job with one half the price.

  21. That is not just bizarre it is obviously wrong and yet across politics in the UK at present we are seeing a tendency to do that.

    Shit, obviously can’t deny Labour isn’t minging with it these days, so er, fling shit at everyone to distract attention!

  22. Although it could be that his political spectrum starts at Momentum and ends at the Liberal Democrats, so in a sense he may be correct.

  23. Yes, Cynic, the fat one has the fatal ability to destroy his own arguments inadvertently but the fact remains that the charge of anti-Semitism that Dave continually makes seems to me to lack foundation. If we denounce someone, please let it be for the right reasons, not on fabrications. No more showtrials might be my mantra, if I had sufficient awareness to need one

  24. Cynic, re Soapy Jo, I thought it was an attempt at a homoerotic version of the standard page 3 photo…. Except the G doesn’t show his moobs

  25. Possible headline:”Ambulance-chasing lawyer worried that Uber drivers are not paying VAT ” Give me work to finance my windmill.

  26. It’s relative changes in supply which will determine changes in who gets the dosh from production. So, yes, capital requirements in some fields have gone down, way down. So we could say the stock of capital has increased. But has it increased as much as adding 2 billion workers to labour? The general thought is no, it hasn’t. Thus we get a rise in the capital share of the economy, a fall in the labour share.

    Another wrinkle is that some of this is just measurement. Those stock options cashing in are obviously returns to labour, but they’re counted as returns to capital.

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