Ann Pettifor

Why the EU’s leaked document has got me in a rage

By Ann Pettifor – Posted March 16th on Labour List

Together with the Prime Minister of Greece, Mr. George Papandreou, I am going to give evidence to the EU’s Special Committee on the Financial Crisis in Brussels this Thursday, March 18th.

So today’s leaked report from the EU, arguing that Labour’s plans for cuts to public spending are not “ambitious enough”, has got me really het up.

Labour, it appears, is just not ambitious enough about its goals for cutting investment and exacerbating unemployment. It does not have punitive enough targets for cutting benefits to the poor and services for the mentally ill and frail.

In the “imbecile idiom” (to quote Keynes) of today’s financial fashion, the EU, it seems, would prefer for unemployment to rise, for people to live in hovels, and for government “to shut out the sun and the stars” – so that we conform to an arbitrary number set in Frankfurt by a group of bankers, under a pact unwisely signed by an earlier British government.

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6 thoughts on “Why the EU’s leaked document has got me in a rage”

  1. YOU TELL THEM, ANN!!!

    Just don’t let them try to pacify you with platitudes and false promises they have no intention of keeping. The powers that be, imbecilic as they are, really DO need to hear from someone like you that they have got it all wrong – they caused the crash in the first place after all!!

    The problem is, though, that I’m afraid they will all close their ears because they don’t like being shown for the infants they really are when it comes to understanding economic strategy! I have read enough of your posts and your book, Ann, to understand the idea of Bank money and government spending. Perhaps our politicians should be made to read them too?

  2. I agree with Brian’s comment about reading your book. I would add Steve Keen’s Debunking Economics. The entire scene is sickening. I am as enraged as you are. Unlike yourself, I am finding it difficult to write without expletives. So I shall go away and try to compose myself.

    larry

  3. At least you have Joe Stiglitz on your side. Why don’t the two of you get closer together? If anybody criticises you, ask who saw this coming TEN YEARS AGO, and is therefore most likely to be proven right in another ten years.

    They say that “history repeats itself”. This is very true now. The situation now is uncannily like the early 1930’s when everybody laughed at Keynes. The Tories need to read a biography of Mellon, the right-wing US Treasury Secretary at the time, who made a bad situation much worse.

  4. Pingback: We can afford what we create « flowing motion

  5. I have two questions.

    1. How long would it take? Is it possible to lay out financial projections by month, quarter, year? I understood this is what is being asked for by EU, credit agencies, etc.

    2. Do we have a model of “what we can create”? We have the gross number of unemployed and we only have to wander into a British business or organization to recognize the make work that goes on (compared to small businesses, anyway). Where is the unused potential? What creation do you envisage? How would funding be targeted at the right sectors? Or do you envisage easy credit for all enterprises and survival of the fittest (or those able to grab cheap money and run).

    I’m glad for the clear explanation. Thank you. The questions came up once I started to marry your phrase ~ we can afford what we create ~ with my own views (I am a business psychologist) and I realized that I want more.

    I did retweet your post too! Good luck with your election.

  6. I have two questions.

    1. How long would it take? Is it possible to lay out financial projections by month, quarter, year? I understood this is what is being asked for by EU, credit agencies, etc.

    2. Do we have a model of “what we can create”? We have the gross number of unemployed and we only have to wander into a British business or organization to recognize the make work that goes on (compared to small businesses, anyway). Where is the unused potential? What creation do you envisage? How would funding be targeted at the right sectors? Or do you envisage easy credit for all enterprises and survival of the fittest (or those able to grab cheap money and run).

    I’m glad for the clear explanation. Thank you. The questions came up once I started to marry your phrase ~ we can afford what we create ~ with my own views (I am a business psychologist) and I realized that I want more.

    I did retweet your post too! Best of luck with your election.

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