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John McDonnell and economics

……removing the monopoly of the big six energy companies.

How can six companies be a monopoly?

And sadly, I don’t think this is just loose phrasing, it’s loose thinking.

Our cuts will be to the subsidies …., to the £93bn in subsidies to corporations,

Awa’ with the fairies he is.

12 thoughts on “John McDonnell and economics”

  1. Surreptitious Evil

    It’s not the fairies. Did you get this far?

    legislation to replace short-term shareholder value with long-term sustainable economic and social responsibilities as the prime objective of companies;

    Companies to be run to a govt 5-year plan based on the wibble-du-jour? (Or the no longer fashionable wibble of 4 years ago!)

    It’s some particularly malevolent breed of Orc. Possibly the svart alfar from Brisingamen?

    Even the Soviets did actually want tractors to be produced.

  2. I think ‘oligopoly’ was the word that he was looking for.

    I still do not understand the problem SJW have with the energy industry. If you do not like the way the big six energy companies run themselves and treat their customers, then switch your energy supplier to one of the new energy companies.

    That is what I did. It wasn’t hard. There are even web sites that will help you do it.

  3. @salamander, that’s easy. The first principle of SJWism is that it should take zero effort to live ‘correctly’. Anything else is capitalist conspiracy to defraud.

  4. Huh. So depreciation (which is 44 of the 93 he’s babbling about) is a tax subsidy. Who knew?

    Does this mean Corbyn is going to eliminate depreciation in the tax code and simply allow companies to deduct all building costs for plant during construction and deduct all equipment at the time of purchase?

  5. “I think ‘oligopoly’ was the word that he was looking for.”

    McDonnell doesn’t know enough to know there’s a word for what he’s talking about. I kind of think that’s the point.

  6. “How can six companies be a monopoly?”

    Because reasons.

    Which is why they should be replaced by a Government monopoly, which won’t be a monopoly, also because reasons.

  7. Difficult to give any of the “ideas” mentioned once I reached the “… on the successful German model,…”. bit.

  8. Competition law provides for a situation of collective dominance. We might ask if the evil big six were engaging in anticompetitive behaviour if: it was very hard for new entrants to enter the market or if UK retail energy prices were not some of the lowest in Europe….

  9. It’s more literate than yer man Richard Murphy but otherwise it’s the usual annual De Beers inventory in terms of gems:

    ‘This will include the introduction of an effective regulatory regime for our banks and financial sector’ – anyone working in financial services will tell him the level of regulation is the greatest it has ever been at any point in history – he wants to add more?

    ‘the introduction of a financial transactions tax to fund the rebalancing of our economy towards production and manufacturing.’ – Tim has nailed this so many times anyone still proposing it is either wilfully blind or invincibly ignorant – in the case of Mcdonnell it’s probably both.

    What cracks me up is the idea these beliefs and the Corbyn agenda are ‘revolutionary’ – to anyone familiar with the North Korean economy or Soviet history the feeling of deja vu really is uncanny….

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