Tag Archives: Irish News

Political propagandists and political murder in Belfast

Posted on by
1

Feeney 1imagesAs the political crisis generated by the killing of Gerard McGuigan by IRA members threatens to spiral out of control the politically weary population is invited to pick sides on what is to happen next, with seemingly everyone in favour of keeping Stormont while everyone knows it’s rotten.

This appears to put the onus on being able to blame someone else in order to defend a sectarian corner and the particular rights assumed inside the settlement.

The ‘right’ attitude to the killing has therefore to be asserted first, although it is of the least concern to the parties involved in yet another round of talks.

As a result a notable feature of reaction to the murder of Gerard McGuigan has been the propensity of nationalist commentators to ventilate on the synthetic character of unionist outrage at the murder.  In other words the outrage is fake – they don’t care about dead ex IRA men.

If that were the only point being made the response should be one of agreement.  Yes, unionists have ignored state and loyalist violence and have collaborated openly with paramilitary groups so their condemnation of republican violence is hollow.  They don’t care about dead IRA men and their actions since the latest killing is guided by purely party political calculations.

But that isn’t all there is to it.  The point being made by these nationalist commentators is that what has happened shouldn’t be allowed to upset the current political arrangements because the outrage is phoney.  Just as I pointed out in the previous post on this (that the new peace institutions are now the justification for ignoring the killing of others) so expressing outrage at the killing is also to be discounted because the main unionist complainants are insincere.

And the fact that this outrage is insincere means that this is a purely manufactured crisis that originates in unionist bad faith.  This bad faith is therefore the problem.  The perfidious British however have turned this around, as they usually do, in order to appease unionism.

So nationalists are invited by these commentators to believe that what must be discussed now is not what the danger is to those who fall foul of the Provisional IRA but how the institutions can be saved.  The British are happy to go along with this but add that this involves giving the unionists confidence.  But since this a purely subjective thing we are in the world of Humpty Dumpty – confidence means just what unionists choose it to mean, neither more nor less.

So yes, nationalists have a point about pandering to unionist hypocrisy but they have a problem when they allow this hypocrisy to become their moral compass by replying to unionist hypocrisy with their own.

They have a problem when they excoriate British pandering to unionist violence while turning a blind eye to Provisional murder.  So the outrage at the latter is fake – let’s ignore both it and the event that occasioned it.  Then we can have our equal and opposite hypocrisy.  Unionists complain about Provo violence but we will turn a blind eye to it and complain about loyalist violence.

In this way the sectarian perfect circle of hell attempts to trap everyone within it, everything and everyone is to be defined by sectarian division.

A prime example of this capture by sectarian division, involving capitulation to acceptance of reactionary political violence, can be seen in the regular political columnist in the largest nationalist paper in the North, Brian Feeney in yesterday’s ‘Irish News’.

So the police fingering of Provisional IRA members for the murder of Kevin McGuigan was “ill-considered”.  As I also pointed out before – I wonder would he therefore have considered well-judged the previous failure to finger the loyalist UVF for the attempted murder of a young woman in the same area.

Feeney had a previous column on the unionist invention of the 1960s civil rights campaign as an IRA plot, a fiction of course, but what had this to do with the real IRA plot to kill McGuigan, unless he wanted to claim it too was another unionist fiction?

Instead he goes along with the Sinn Fein line that what this is all about is unionist refusal to live in equality with nationalists: “This refusal to accept mere equality prevents them seeing themselves in the same light as nationalists and republicans.”

He appears totally oblivious to the fact that with this attitude of Nelsonian ignorance of IRA responsibility in murder he should really be writing that nationalists should now see themselves in the same light as unionists, united equally in the same light of sectarian blindness.

By such a descent into sectarianism are nationalist claims for equality to become nationalist equality in sectarianism, which is indeed the political project of Sinn Fein.

He then makes hay with silly and insensitive remarks about “the futile and fatuous attempt to abolish the IRA.”  How would anyone know “if someone has left the IRA? . . how would anyone prove they’d left?”

So does Feeney not want to see the end of the UDA and UVF?  Would Feeney be questioning as futile and fatuous calls for an end to loyalist paramilitaries if they had just killed someone?

Sure how would you know whether they or the Provisional IRA had gone away or not?

Well here’s a start.  You might have a chance of convincing someone they had disappeared if they didn’t kill those who fall foul of them.

Feeney complains that the leader of the DUP Peter Robinson needs to feel that he is “not bound by any constraints that apply to normal relationships.”  Leaving aside what counts for normal in the North of Ireland, does he not think such a remark might also be pointed in another direction?

It was bad enough when the British so openly overlooked and colluded in political murder by loyalists but their shameless excuses for the Provisional IRA and its supposed peaceful intentions complete the circle that working people in the North have to break from.  In this case nationalist workers should see through the muck apparently thrown at the British and unionists because it’s really being thrown in their eyes.  Who else is expected to listen to Feeney?

 

Jeremy Corbyn’s economics 2

Posted on by
Reply

o-JEREMY-CORBYN-THE-FACTS-facebookIt would appear that Newton Emerson doesn’t buy the view that quantitative easing might be about investment in real activities that promote growth but his disdain for the economic rationality of Corbynomics and his arguments opposing it are full of contradictions and holes.  So for example while he appears to see it Corbyn’s approach as dangerously radical he notes other, apparently more radical, alternatives such as giving out unfunded tax cuts or rebates, which have come from decidedly mainstream quarters such as George Bush or the head of the Financial Services Authority, who noted that the Bank of England had considered something similar.

The rationale behind Corbyn’s proposal is that the British economy needs sharply rising investment to boost economic growth.  This would produce higher levels of employment with people paying more taxes and taking fewer benefits, in the process reducing the public sector deficit and debt while realising better public services.

Newton Emerson however sees only the prospect of increased inflation because it would mean printing money and giving it to the government who would waste it, leading to rising prices.  He compares this unfavourably with simply handing out money through unfunded tax reductions (characterised as dropping money from a helicopter)or the Bank of England’s own quantitative easing explained in the first post, although he favours each of these for totally different reasons!

So, simply handing out money is good because “it is spent immediately on the high street” while the existing quantitative easing is even better because it “is a more effective and responsive version of the helicopter drop, where the cash is handed out under circumstances that ensure it will be hoarded by the banks.”  So if it’s spent that’s good and if it’s not that’s even better!

I don’t think I’m sticking my neck out very much by saying that most commentators think that the banks not lending the money but hoarding it, as explained in the last post, is a problem with quantitative easing as practised by the Bank of England and not a plus.

Of routeing the money through the banks, he says: “Better still, the moment prices start rising, the made-up pounds can be recalled and lending will instantly shrink by a factor of 20, reversing inflation in its tracks”.  Yes indeed, monetary policy usually takes around 18 months to two years but one that works instantly would be even better, except that if it worked by reducing lending instantly and by a factor of 20 the effect would be a catastrophic depression.

Emerson is right when he says that capital investment projects might take two to five years to get off the ground while the money paid on wages and to suppliers starts to be spent right away but this is an effect of any investment, state or private, so why is this only a problem with state investment?

If there were already an investment boom and a cyclical upturn that might shortly lead to overproduction and a glut of goods that cannot be sold profitably because of saturation of the market there would be a point to Emerson’s objection.  But preventing this would require some sort of economic planning, basically an end to capitalism, and he definitely doesn’t favour this.  In circumstances of a meagre upturn after a long recession it is unlikely there is constrained capacity that would lead to rapid inflation if additional money was pumped into the economy in the way proposed.

Emerson shines his Tory credentials by recalling the economic crisis in Britain in the mid-1970s in which deficit spending by the Labour party Government in 1976 led to the IMF being called in to give Britain a loan.  This shows that this sort of Keynesian policy leads only to inflation.  Four decades on, he says, the Corbyn supporters dismiss this lesson.

But his problem is two-fold.  What exactly is the lesson to be learnt and is the situation today the same as that in the mid-1970s?

The lesson drawn by certain advisors to city traders in the mid-1970s was that too much money was being created which was causing inflation and that Governments should target measurements of money supply to ensure that they do not exceed predetermined levels.  This monetarist policy was taken on board by the new Thatcher Government and dropped when it didn’t work.

But even his quoting of Labour leader Jim Callaghan in the 1970s ignores the admission in it that this policy had previously worked.  Post war recessions were shorter and less severe because of Keynesian policies.  Today’s critics of these policies now proposed by Corbyn ignore this, while Keynesians forget that it cannot solve underlying problems.  So yes these policies did lead to inflation, which increased over the post war period and eventually took off, but this brings us to the second question whether conditions today are the same as those of the 1970s?

The ‘money printing’ carried out by the Bank of England etc., which Emerson supports, is not free of inflationary consequences itself, it’s just that he fails to notice because they appear in rising property, share and other asset prices.  The policy of investment by the state at least promises investment in activities that support real production.

The Corbyn alternative is not madcap economics and is more supportive of working class interests than stuffing money into banks whose Directors were only yesterday appearing in parliamentary hearings explaining how they didn’t really know what they were doing.

Nevertheless the Corbyn policy of infrastructural investment by the state is limited in two senses and isn’t itself socialist.  First it’s investment in infrastructure where private capitalist initiative has failed.  The investment proposed is not therefore the sort that would be in competition with private capitalist production and in so far as it will be private capitalist concerns that pick up the contracts, such state investment will be a big boost for them.  Emphasis on state investment in infrastructure is something Corbyn shares with the many left electoral alternatives that have decried the desertion of old labour from its past.  They are pretty naked now it may be back.

The second way it isn’t socialist is that it is the capitalist state that is increasing its role in the economy not worker owned cooperative production, in which workers can democratically take the initiative and learn to run things themselves.  This could lay the economic and social grounds for a political challenge to the system as a whole where workers to decide they should own and run the whole lot.

There is nothing very democratic about current state ownership and the workers within it still answer to a boss.  The success of state led investment in efficiency terms is very much dependent on the developmental capacities of the state itself but when private capitalist intervention has failed it’s not a very strong argument for the likes of Emerson.

Like the rest of the shrill and desperate attacks from the right the local criticism of Corbyn doesn’t hold much water.  Others in the mainstream have recognised openly the limited radicalism in what is being proposed, which may actually be understood by those venting their disapproval.

Their opposition may therefore be motivated by fear that what is being proposed opens other more radical vistas for those seeking an alternative to austerity.  That this may well be the case is a reason why Corbyn should be supported.

Jeremy Corbyn’s economics 1

Posted on by
1

corbynimages (12)I hadn’t even gotten out of my scratcher yesterday morning when I looked at my mobile and the BBC news web site to see what was happening in the world, only to see yet another attack on Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for Labour party leader.  This time the Brlairite was Blair himself, looking skull-like and definitely not very well – all that chasing after money mustn’t be good for his health.  “Labour must come to its senses” he apparently said.  I didn’t read any more.

Corbyn has been criticised in just about every way imaginable, from the Mail prophesying a return to the “dark ages”, riots and intervention by international peace keepers, to the oh so condescending approach of Janen Ganesh of the ‘Financial Times’: that Corbyn’s policies, “eccentric” and a “joke” as they are, are not really the problem, it’s the “soft left” and Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper who are the ultimate problem.  Poor Jeremy, he’s either responsible for a new dark ages or he’s such a joke he doesn’t deserve consideration, even as a problem.

At the centre of all this dismissal is contempt and ridicule of Corbyn’s economic proposals for “quantitative easing for people instead of banks.”  Our local biggest daily ‘The Irish News’ had its own columnist to hurl his own critique, this time mixing both dire prediction and condescending ridicule.

The author, Newton Emerson, thinks that fewer than 1% of the population will understand “why Corbynomics is ridiculous” even though “it takes little more than an A-level to understand why.”

Emerson is normally an acute commentator on politics in the North of Ireland, frequently exposing the hypocrisy of political culture here and the rottenness of the political arrangements.  Unfortunately he has two problems.  First, when it comes down to it he actually supports the rotten political arrangements, and secondly, he gives every indication of having been educated in the dismal science of economics as taught in the universities.

He is undoubtedly correct that the general population is seriously under-educated in economics and this is a real problem for them identifying their interests in any debate.  On the other hand I don’t believe that Corbyn’s ideas are very radical and certainly not ridiculous, so going to university or doing an A-level really isn’t the answer.

So let’s see if we can understand what the issues are in this case.

Quantitative easing as practiced by the Bank of England involves the bank loaning newly created money (created as an electronic entry in the bank’s accounts) to a fund which has to pay it back, so theoretically it’s a loan and not just giving away newly created money.  This fund then uses these loans to buy government issued bonds (IOUs payable by the Government) that are held by pension funds.  These pension funds now have money instead of these bonds.

The theory is that these pension funds will then want to use the money to buy other assets from banks such as bonds to replace the ones just sold back to the government or buy other sorts of securities such as private debt instruments (IOUs issued by private corporations to raise money for investment).

The end result is that money has been created electronically by the Bank of England and it now rests in the banks which, it is hoped, will use the new money to buy debt issued by private firms that will in turn help them invest directly through the money just received.  This investment will create jobs and economic growth.   That’s roughly the theory anyway.

However, once the banks have the money they can do what they want with it.  They could buy bonds or securities issued by other countries; they could buy existing shares or securities which would give no more money to firms to invest but simply increase the price of these pieces of paper; they could buy commodities or property and cause inflation in these assets or they could simply sit on the cash.  In each case there would be no increased employment or contribution to economic growth.

Even if they bought newly issued debt from private companies, these too could decide not to invest the money in new factories, offices or equipment and instead do any of the above and join in the great speculative boom in property or share prices etc.  Many banks and companies appear to have done just this, which has made them richer but not helped economic growth.

In other words the ‘money printing’ that has been carried out has helped the banks and made the rich who hold financial assets richer by increasing their price.

Hence the alternative proposed by Jeremy Corbyn in which the newly created money, which is also in the form of a loan, is given to a State investment bank who then loan it out to state agencies which would invest in state-owned infrastructure such as “housing, transport , digital and energy networks.”  The objective would not only be to create jobs in the short term and promote economic growth, so reducing the debt burden, but also contribute to the longer term productivity of the economy, which is recognised as going through something of a productivity crisis.

To be continued.