The paper has also since been joined by eight economists, mostly from academia and the public sector, who have written a letter arguing the Chancellor should tear up fiscal rules that vow to get national debt falling as a share of GDP in five years’ time.
“A more responsible approach, which better reflects the significant long-term benefits of increased public investment, will require changes to our fiscal rules and to the mandate for the Office for Budget Responsibility,” said the letter, signed by luminaries including Lord O’ Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, Mariana Mazzucato, professor at University College London, and Simon Wren-Lewis, professor at the University of Oxford.
Who would ever imagine that lot arguing for more govt spending funded by borrowing?
Somewhere to the east lives a self-identified luminary with a serious attack of the sads because he wasn’t asked to be a signatory.
Mariana Mazzucato is the speaker getting off at WEF on controlling everyone’s water supply. Luminary? Unflushable object, driven mad by dreams of control of the internet of things
https://x.com/Risemelbourne/status/1709685526100627664
She looks exactly how I’d imagined, Ljh…
Lord O’ Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, Mariana Mazzucato, professor at University College London, and Simon Wren-Lewis, professor at the University of Oxford.
If the march through the instructions has reached the post of Cabinet Secretary we really are well and truly fvcked.
I’m all for the “long-term benefits of increased public investment” but the investments need to be in things that will bring that benefit. Pouring that investment into a hole in the ground is just going to increase debt that will be compounded by interest payments. Governments and academics such as these don’t seem to have a good record about where to put the investments. It’s almost as if it’s not their money being poured away but they get a few drops from the process.
As anyone running a business knows, there’s no such thing as “investment”. There is only spending. It may be wise spending or unwise spending but it’s still spending. And whether it’s wise or unwise, you’re only going to find out later.
As any stockbroker knows, an investment is something where you’re expecting the return of the principal.
Taking a flyer here, but the article says the economists are “mostly from academia and the public sector,” – anybody seen the names? Just curious, bit I’d not be surprised if they were ALL, as in 100%, from academia & the public sector.
If I’m right (could be wrong, I haven’t made my allowed single mistake this year yet), what are we to make of this? Is it a breach of journalistic guidelines (I can’t use the word ethics in connection with journos anymore) and what does that say about the author’s view of how others see academia/public sector types?
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https://www.ft.com/content/a8fcf263-8506-4b1c-aace-3d3d1743dc55
Lord Gus O’Donnell
Former Cabinet Secretary
Lord Jim O’Neill
Former Commercial Secretary to the Treasury
Professor Mariana Mazzucato
University College London
Mohamed El-Erian
Former Chief Executive of Pimco
Sir Anton Muscatelli
Chair of the Royal Economic Society
Professor Simon Wren-Lewis
Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Oxford
Professor Jonathan Portes
Professor of Economics and Public Policy, King’s College London
Professor Susan Newman
Head of Economics, The Open University
“benefits of increased public investment”
As soon as someone talks about “investment” in terms of public spending, you know they’re full of it.
An investment gives back an income stream of dividends. Where are the dividends in any public “investment”? Taxes?
Reminds me of one of my proudest put-downs to a Labourite 20-odd years ago:
Gordon Brown would go down the pub and invest in a pint.
Not strictly true, M. There are investment vehicles that return benefits at the end of the period of holding them. Or were. Not sure if would be tax efficient these days. It’s the expectation of the return of the principal makes them investments. That’s the reason for stock markets. You can obtain the principal +/- from a buyer. Other wise you’d be locked in as a part owner of the company. With government “investment”, you’re locked in as a part owner of HS2. And only a government could “invest” in jobs. Which are a feckin cost’. Nobody in business would invest to create jobs. Invest to destroy them, maybe.
To return to the actual subject of the post, to reprise a conversation in these comments a short while ; one of the major problems with the economy is economists. About as useful as tits on a boar. If economists were any good at economics, they’d all be wealthy. Not grifting for grants & living in rabbit hutches like one self described economist of minimal repute.