There are many such ideas, and almost all of them challenge the neoliberal framework that has got us into this mess, and which cannot get us out of it. As Keynes argued in 1941, you cannot rely on markets in wartime. Nor can we do so now. Questions around rationing, regulation, price controls, capital controls, taxation, changing consumption patterns and many supply arrangements, as well as new forms of international cooperation, should now be on our agenda.
Someone else is at war therefore I get to shape the economy as I’ve always wanted to.
It’s Friday, so I get to shape the economy as I’ve always wanted to…..
Do we need to give him our scrap metals to build tanks yet? They could be melted down in the new steel plant TTK is proposing?
Recycle all those tins of Stella to make Spitfires.
Lots of metal in canal boats.
Ah, wartime salvage drives – some people here might be interested in this – whether the prototype first of the rhomboid-style tanks was scrapped or hidden:
https://tankmuseum.org/article/the-hunt-for-mother
Do the Iranians have any submarines left ?
Did they pre empt all this activity and are out there in the Atlantic as we speak ?
Apparently most of their fleet is now submerged
Any submarines they have in the Atlantic won’t be able to do anything because they will be out of fuel.
They’re short range, because long range didn’t make sense. Most of them wouldn’t have the legs to get to the Atlantic in the first place.
Even now the crafty Persians could be secretly landing hostile agents on our shores…oh wait…
Well, they will be claiming refugee status. Or asylum.
That still needs fixing.
I was hoping do do a roast chicken Sunday, am I going to have to look up the recipe for Woolton Pie instead?
Will Murphism join the list of Leninism, Stalinism, and so forth as one of the notorious sects of Socialism?
They’ll keep statues of him in a special park along with the other despots.
Government interference got you into this mess.
Does this explain the Left’s love of forever wars?
Government mucks it up. Solution? MOAR government. The economy isn’t dying fast enough.
‘Does this explain the Left’s love of forever wars?’
Thank you, Gamecock!!!
Bevan continued rationing after WW2, not because it was the best way to increase production, but so that money should not go to “spivs and speculators”, thus ensuring that legal incentives were quashed for years.
Potatoes were rationed in 1947…. Maybe a version of that should be restored….
Bevan continued rationing after WW2, not because it was the best way to increase production, but so that money should not go to “spivs and speculators”.
Is that right? I thought it had something to do with our great allies the Septics and their approach how we repaid the lend-lease debts?
Talking of which, why didn’t we charge them for Nimitz’s use of the Pacific fleet?
And meat didn’t come of ration till July 4 1954
Spot the “PLEASE BY SOME” sign! I take this as a joke on illiterate butcher’s. 🙂
Bread was also only rationed after the war…because we had to feed the Germans.
As for spivs and speculators, they love rationing, black marketeering aplenty.
FFS tankers not getting through the Straits of Hormuz isn’t U-boats sinking Atlantic shipping. Keynes was right in 1941, but that was big, proper war. Millions dying, food and fuel shortages. There is a level where government rationing things makes sense. You need people to be able to eat, you need the trains to prioritise moving troops around.
Petrol is up about 15%, which sucks, but a lot of travel is luxurious or can be done more efficiently. When petrol gets more expensive, it can be more efficient to take a bus, share a lift. Slightly less convenient but worth it. Or maybe you decide that you’ll leave the trip to see Wells Cathedral for a few months.
Statists love a crisis though, because they know they can extend reach and once it’s over, keep it. Railways were nationalised after WW2 because of war damage, government would get them back into order. Not an entirely stupid idea. But they’re still running them 80 years later.
Statists love a crisis though, because they know they can extend reach and once it’s over, keep it.
This. 100%. People keep wittering about what you mustn’t do in “these difficult times”. They’re always difficult times for someone, somewhere. So have that party.
There is never a right time to do something like this but there is a time when it is too late. – Friedrich Merz
Yep WB. It’s not the Battle of the Atlantic, nowhere near that level of existential crisis.
Ackshully, there was never a shortage of fuel; the Government rationed it so people couldn’t move about the place. I remember reading an account by an RAF bod who said they used to use 100 octane petrol for cleaning oil stains off hanger floors when there was an inspection coming…
This does sound like the Army I know and love.
Though I doubt that the poor old diggers loved civvie clerks like me!!
As others have said, Keynes was talking about total war. Yes you’ll get more tanks this year if you nationalize production and make only tanks, because you’re not making anything else.
You will however forgo any advances that would be made if someone had a car that now doesn’t because all the steel is now tanks and nothing is going to cars.
They don’t even follow Keynes if he said something they don’t like. For instance, QE and QT are IIRC something he proposed. The politicians love QE because there’s more money to spend, but no one ever implements QT because it means spending less.
Keynes was a crackpot. He said so much, some of it was probably correct. But mostly, junk economics. His views have persisted because he was government centric, The commies love him.
Questions on our agenda:
Rationing: No
Regulation: No
Price Controls: No
Capital Controls: No
Taxation Increase: No
Force Change in Consumption Patterns: No
Force Change in Supply Arrangements: No
Create New Supranational Authorities: No
There, that was easy. As Spud points out, you get to the nitty very quickly if you’re allowed to put questions on the agenda.
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