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Listed below are comments made by ExcellenceFirst between Tuesday, 15th September 2009 and Wednesday, 30th September 2009.

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Can banks plug the gap? 5:59pm on 30 Sep 2009 Comment 2 : CaledonianComment

I really think you would be happier if you were to allow yourself to accept that banks and bankers had very little option but to behave in the way that they did. The government-sponsored line that if bankers had behaved like normal human beings we wouldn't have got into this mess is a total myth. Bankers did behave exactly how any study of human behaviour would have predicted they would. Exactly the same as a completely different group of people would have behaved had they been put into the same position.

What the interventionist left did was to change the means by which they achieved what they deemed to be social allocation of resources. Instead of offering State guarantees or subsidies to attract more investment than was commercially justifiable, they sought to change the ground rules upon which commercial decisions are taken. They did this by removing the risk of failure, by making it known that major aspects of the financial system are too big to fail. In doing so, they expected to take away the need for much of the industry's hard application of rational risk-evaluation, and to make investment in socially desirable projects less dependent upon being backed by State subsidies. They expected, through changing the rules of engagement, that the financial sector would discriminate less between investments on the basis of risk.

Well this the financiers did, of course, because they had no other option. With no-lose bets on the table, of course everyone's going to clamour after them, and anyone who doesn't is going very soon to find himself out of a job. Moreover, the business for whom he works is very soon going to become a takeover target if they don't follow the herd into the valley of plenty.

The whole idea back-fired on the interventionists because they failed to appreciate that moral hazard is the lynch-pin that holds together the system of competitive resource allocation. Without risk of failure the only criterion for investment is the gross rate of return, and allocation by gross rate of return can only be highly inefficient. There is, of course, a serious argument that commercially efficient resource allocation is not socially optimal, and that therefore it's socially justifiable to take steps to redirect some of the commercial investment through subsidy intervention. But this is a far cry from the destruction of the entire mechanism by which the commercial market makes its decisions, which is what Clinton, Blair and Brown have done over the last 15 years.
Gordon Brown's monuments 6:49pm on 24 Sep 2009 What a hagiography.

Why should the other 19 nations of the G20 wish to be advised by someone who, it is said, the Cabinet Secretary refused to allow across the threshold of Number 10 as Brown's policy enforcer? Much of what she bulldozed through on Brown's behalf was plain wrong, and would have been shown to be wrong had she and Brown been able to accept the idea that there are minds in the world at least as acute as theirs, and actually far more capable because of their openness to contrary opinion.

That she should appeal to Brown is not surprising, as she seems to share his unwillingness either to show any respect for other human beings, or to abide by the conventions of adult negotiation. But that she could appeal to anyone else is mystifying.
The environment and the economy 4:16pm on 22 Sep 2009 "the entire global effort to combat global warming has had to be designed around a cap-and-trade approach to cutting emissions - not some form of global carbon tax."

I think you should point out that many hold the view that the linkage between emissions and global warming is unproven, and that attempts to quantify the effect, if there is one, are highly speculative. That instead so many represent these speculations as proven science is due to(1) that global warming hyperbole is just being used as a pretext to the goal of reversing the path of increasing human consumption and (2) that some see a golden opportunity to make money out of providing "services" to the anti-emissions industry.

I'm afraid that by being subsumed in the culture that treats the speculation as fact, the BBC is failing to pursue truth, and because of this will increasingly become irrelevant to anyone with an independently functioning brain.
The market price of cutting airline emissions 12:58pm on 22 Sep 2009 "But to state the obvious, no government will be re-elected on a platform that recession is good for us and should be prolonged indefinitely"

Perhaps not, but I would like to be given the opportunity of voting for a group of politicians who made clear that the current recession is deeper than it might have been, the destruction and disruption unnecessarily severe, and that the reason for this is that a booming economy was encouraged to go further and further down the route of unsustainability by an asininely short-term economic policy. A policy which, in its arrogant dismissal of all warnings and advice, displayed the depth of the hubris that has become embedded in modern politics.

Am I likely to get this from politicians steeped in the tradition of "It's not my fault"? I don't think so.
The axe begins to swing 10:15am on 18 Sep 2009 Comment 28 : muadib

"As to the contributors who childishly throw in Liebour and Gordon Clown: how very droll - and ironic coming from the party of Aitken, Archer and Hamilton."

I'm sure that it's just a mistake, but for someone so obviously keen on fair and balanced commenting, it's surely somewhat of an omission to fail to differentiate between the shoddy personal-advancement behaviour of Aitken, Archer and Hamilton, and the universal, institutionalised lying and misinformation that is the central political strategy of this government. I expect that normally you would check that your comparisons are valid before making them, but on this occasion a false one seems to have got through the net.
The axe begins to swing 07:50am on 18 Sep 2009 I think it would be prudent to take the public value programme with the usual large pinch of salt needed when considering government communications these days. Page 8 of this week's Private Eye sets out how Labour has wheeled out announcements of efficiency initiatives on a regular basis over the last few years. The reality though, as is the way of things with this government, is that the actual delivery has fallen way, way short of the spin of the intention.

Of course, what anyone with his head screwed on would have realised by now is that discretionary spending doesn't stay discretionary for very long. No sooner is a new commitment made than it begins to be woven into existing services in such a way as for it to very quickly become impracticable to switch it off when funding becomes tighter. We surely by now should have learned to anticipate this course of events before making high-sounding commitments in times of plenty.
The what and when of spending cuts 00:57am on 16 Sep 2009 Comment 106 : foredeckdave

Look, I'm not being pedantic.

Your original comment asserted that the link was indisputable. No qualification to the effect that this was your opinion, or that it was the opinion of some people. Absolute, unqualified, indisputable. Well this just isn't true. There are many, many people who would, and do, dispute the link, and there's no possible way of proving it one way or the other, so it's not indisputable, is it?

"Though if we wish to be pedantic then there are at least some who may ague with "undoubtedly a true statement"."

Well it is a true statement, isn't it? There are some people who believe there's a causative link - they may be right or they may be wrong, but they do believe there is.

Comment 107 : armagediontimes

Even if it is true that the current difficulties are the result of a surfeit of debt, is there any evidence to suggest that this debt is the consequence of a squeezing of the real earnings/GDP ratio? Are there not other factors that could have contributed to the debt explosion apart from the man in the street struggling to make ends meet? Are you sure that you haven't allowed Thatcher to become an idee fixe that you blame for everything bad that happens, as a matter of course? Like how every outbreak of unusual weather gets blamed on global warming, because global warming is BAD and therefore it MUST have a malign influence on everything it could even remotely be argued to have touched.
The what and when of spending cuts 9:29pm on 15 Sep 2009 Comments 103 and 104

I was really only asking whether or not foredeckdave wished to revise his assertion "That the seeds of the present disaster were sown in 1979 is indisputable". Because although it may be indisputable to him, and because there may be all sorts of other things that are indisputable, armagediontimes, I would respectfully suggest that the vast majority of people see little or no causative link between the events immediately following 1979 and the "disaster" of today. So, far from being "indisputable", the assertion is very much disputed by a very large number of people.

Had it been claimed that some people believe there's a direct causative link between Thatcherite policy and todays disaster I couldn't have complained, because it's undoubtedly a true statement. But not quite as punchy as one that claims the link to be indisputable, eh?
The what and when of spending cuts 7:46pm on 15 Sep 2009 Comment 98 : foredeckdave

"That the seeds of the present disaster were sown in 1979 is indisputable"

Is this a statement of fact, or of your opinion? Indisputable is a pretty strong word.
The what and when of spending cuts 7:36pm on 15 Sep 2009 Comment 97 : leftilkely

"You’re correct that I did not include commercial sector debt. That’s because it is less relevant, and because the UK’s combined debts are still lower than, say, Germany or the USA."

Powerful assertion. Could you let me know the source of the figures that would justify you making it?

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