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citizenthompson

Listed below are comments made by citizenthompson between Monday, 8th December 2008 and Sunday, 14th December 2008.

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Nationalisation and speculation: where will the dealers go? 8:18pm on 14 Dec 2008 praxis, yes, I must admit I have been resistant to patterning and wave theory in economic history, but the stats (though maybe they are selective too) do seem to stack up. Human intervention can and will, of course, make a difference to how it pans out but the basic need to shake out the generalised crisis of over-production and asset bubble inflation will lead to a long down-turn. Whether you wish to see it as a general theory of fixed waves or just a contingent reality which happens to follow a pattern is, as you say, a matter of taste. I am beginning to move towards the former and a lot of the predictions of those following Long Wave theory do seem to have been correct on the basis of the theory. Anyway, whatever, we are in deep shit.
Taxpayers to subsidise wage costs? 1:57pm on 13 Dec 2008 "At some point we need to just take the pain. " #14

Have you any idea what that will actually mean in terms of economic, social and political fallout? Someone else said we needed a thatcher figure to sort it all out. Fair enough but when she came in her policies were nto that radically rfree market and took a while to build up a head of steam. The problem now is that if we were to take a thatcherite route the scale of the slump is so much greater than in 1979 that the political fall-out would be immense. I don't know, maybe that is what is needed but fasten your seat-belts!
Madoff's indictment...as described by Nils...is 12:59pm on 13 Dec 2008 This is all turning into capitalism's 1989 isn't it?
What went wrong at Woolies... 4:55pm on 11 Dec 2008 have you seen in the picture above, just how many people are walking past rather than going in? What was that old saying about a 1000 words?
Nationalisation and speculation: where will the dealers go? 4:51pm on 11 Dec 2008 I agree praxis. I would like to see some mention of long wave theory in all this. The 50-60 year theoretical amplitude of the wave is pretty well precisely in accord with what is happening. We had the primary short recession in the late 70s, early 80'safter the long upward wave and after that an asset bubble supported autumnal boom in the 90s and early noughties which has now crashed into the traditional winter recession. My reckoning is that this will last some time, pulling down the economy until about 2020 (with the usual ups and downs of the business cycle taking place during that period) before we see another long upward boom like that from 1949-1979. Of course there are similarities with the last time this happened. The 1929 crash didn't really clear until 1949 but we had a massive war which provided the basis for recapitalisation that time. The shake-out of asset prices and reductions in wages will have to be similar this time but of course also the technological base of the economy has also changed, making it difficult to predict where the next boom might come from, but it will probably be some 4th wave of technological and informational innovation not yet fully developed. It's just a question of what happens between now and then really. But it's batten down the hatches time for now.
What went wrong at Woolies... 11:18am on 11 Dec 2008 Woolies was great for children and little old ladies who needed a CD of someone whom they had never heard of for a grandson they never saw but apart from that anyone between the ages of 12 and 80 would never have needed to go in there.
What went wrong at Woolies... 11:16am on 11 Dec 2008 well, why were you fifteen minutes late? Did you think that you were the only one who had thought of popping down to Woolies?
The airport protestors. 10:30am on 09 Dec 2008 ha'p'orths and pounds, shillings and pence? Isn't that a bit modern? Shouldn't this all be calculated in Groats? And well done on the selfishness front, way to go!
The airport protestors. 10:28am on 09 Dec 2008 lbeagle, that makes no sense. Of course, if we stopped all carbon emissions it would be minor compared to, say, China. But to say it would make no difference is obviously logically impossible (if that's what you mean by ha'p'orth). Not ceasing to do something because it will only make a small difference on a global scale is not really a sensible position to take: "I'll carry on beating my wife because there are some 3.2 billion women in the world and I only have one wife"-sort of approach. also, in the real, rather than hypothetical, world, were we to have taken such a decision then something pretty drastic must have happened which would mean that the bigger polluters would also have decided to stop. In any case, the slump we are now entering will more or less sort out the carbon emission targets I would have thought, just as Mrs Thatcher was the greenest politician ever in shutting down all that horrible industry. In answer to all the doubters then I would point to the reports of the eminent climate scientists at the Royal Society's website who are commenting on global warming http://royalsociety.org/news.asp?year=&id=3250 Even the most sceptical scientists there admit that there is a problem, and that even if there is no actual proof of human intervention being the cause then the probability is very high.
I am not a nutter on this though, science and technology, combined with a more frugal attitude to the world's resources in general, regardless of any uncertainty about cause and effect may well sort it out in time. We simply cannot ignore the problem though.
The airport protestors. 7:33pm on 08 Dec 2008 captaininvisible, I take your point about CO2 not being toxic, that is obvious. Its effects as one of the major causes of global warming are, however, pretty well universally accepted other than by those who refuse to accept it for either dogmatic or more sinister reasons to do with their own industrial needs. It always reminds me of British American Tobacco's campaign, which ran for years, denying the link between smoking and lung cancer. The evidence was clear to those who wanted to see and the case against CO2 is gradually becoming more and more clear. BUT, I must also add that I am not opposed to technological progress, the return to pre-industrialism which is supported by any in the ecology movement is not the answer, science is. But there really is no need for most of the flights which take place, and I am not green-eyed, G-Aylesford, I could easily afford to fly pretty well everywhere and buy all the consumer tat I could possibly want. I just choose not to.

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