Instead, the required responses have to build resilience in quite different ways. One way to do this would be to provide the support that this inflation would demand for those who are most likely to be impacted by it, who are those on relatively low incomes. So, pensions and benefits would have to be increased in line with inflation, and employers, including those linked to the government, must similarly be expected to deliver pay increases that would deal with any resulting price hikes. We cannot live through another cost-of-living crisis. That mistake cannot be repeated.
Increase pay and benefits, setting off an inflationary spiral.
Well done there Sirrah, well done there.
just posted this, we will see if Murphy prints it and if so what bollox he replies with..
“So, pensions and benefits would have to be increased in line with inflation, and employers, including those linked to the government, must similarly be expected to deliver pay increases that would deal with any resulting price hikes. “
Expect this forces corporate costs higher so companies with almost certainly hike up their prices. So you are creating an inflationary spiral. In a heartbeat this is the problem and risk of inflation getting embedded. Or to you also propose the State impose restrictions on how companies can set prices or the State restrict how much profit they can make? If so this will lead to unemployment as companies cut costs. Unless of course you propose the State restrict a companies ability to make redundancies. If so this will eventually make companies insolvent. Maybe then you propose the State take over their business. If this is so why not just say that up front???
I propose the opposite of part of his grand scheme:
For employees linked to the government pay would be decreased with increase in inflation, to provide a suitable anti-inflation incentive. Specifically for Bank of England employees the pay cut would be geared i.e. twice the percentage of the rest of ’em.
This policy would not apply in years of negative inflation when government employees’ pay would be reduced in line with inflation.
The long term benefits of this policy would be incalculable, including – in all probability – a substantial reduction in the number of government employees.
There would be a few exceptions e.g. the Poor Bloody Infantry. And any police force that demonstrably fulfils its duties i.e. none of them.
Have I missed anyone? I know: for these purposes all the pen-pushers at the Ministry of Defence shall be deemed to be honorary Bank of England employees as will all employees of the Beeb. Those who actually appear on-screen will be subject to doubled gearing.
@Stiv bators
Let’s see if he chooses fascism or communism.
Murphy’s somewhere on the Cvnt – Cretin continuum. I’m just not sure exactly where.
If everyone was given their own unicorn, everyone would always love one another.
Prices and Incomes Policy. It takes me back to the days of Barbara Chateau and Grim Calorgas, and Enoch Powell labouring to tell everyone that it doesn’t work, that rising prices are the product of inflation and not the cause. Am I missing something?
Spud’s latest is hilarious.
“Did people die from Covid because of the power of populist politics?
…
people died because of populist politics that denied the need for government action to tackle Covid because that did not fit the populist narrative that individual rather than collective action is always superior.”
Spud quotes approvingly from what is supposed to be a medical paper in the BMJ which criticises UK policy which , “…resonate with neoliberal discourses about individual freedom, personal responsibility, and restraint of the state” and concludes that “a more socialist leaning political discourse” would have been better.
A friend asked Spud whether things were better in China. But he decided not to answer.
We needed a Covid inquiry – but this isn’t it:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-needed-a-covid-inquiry-but-this-isnt-it/
by Prof Carl Heneghan
The Spectator consider this (rightly) to be such an important article that they’ve removed paywall restrictions. Obligatory reading (IMHO).