tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post1752240237390623753..comments2024-03-28T04:29:22.717+00:00Comments on mainly macro: Are the UK floods Cameron’s Katrina?Mainly Macrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-69711228753041594952014-02-17T16:14:51.646+00:002014-02-17T16:14:51.646+00:00Good to see that this is getting some airtime e.g....Good to see that this is getting some airtime e.g. this morning's headline in Guardian placing the blame squarely on ideological austerityAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-61706207477801376532014-02-13T11:05:10.130+00:002014-02-13T11:05:10.130+00:00Peter Oborne in the Telegraph.
"Yes, the floo...Peter Oborne in the Telegraph.<br />"Yes, the floods are awful, but we must keep a sense of proportion". <br />{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10633669/Yes-the-floods-are-awful-but-we-must-keep-a-sense-of-proportion.html} chasdothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08543655053082927269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-16670555064012567202014-02-13T10:12:01.627+00:002014-02-13T10:12:01.627+00:00And today the BBC Today have an old Thatcherite ...And today the BBC Today have an old Thatcherite Lord Lawson climate change denial man along side a climate scientist: no Green politician who is not a London based Neo-Liberal , no younger person, no debate say between a West country LibDeM or a Labour person about what their plans are for the UK's future spending on holding back the rapid changes to our climate ( indeed experts are saying its arrived quicker than thought. <br /><br />Could you imagine Denmark, Sweden, Holland, France or Germany inviting onto their flagship news programme an old Right Wing politician from the 1980s; this is not an ageist rant its the BBC's elitism and deference to the old powerful clique who exercise so much London based influence. The idea of a Green person in the studio common in Europe but so, so unlikely in the BBC. Channel 4 news reflects the UK BBC reflects- well we know. Peter Carabinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18400411630743291924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-10378924618675027442014-02-12T23:50:37.791+00:002014-02-12T23:50:37.791+00:00Because the private media is owned by and/or depen...Because the private media is owned by and/or depend on ad revenue from the very rich.Patriciahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10065091571266527726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-21773941865484823532014-02-12T23:45:02.400+00:002014-02-12T23:45:02.400+00:00But global warming is causing such events to be ha...But global warming is causing such events to be happen more frequently.Patriciahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10065091571266527726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-72772567362230429352014-02-12T17:25:37.345+00:002014-02-12T17:25:37.345+00:00"2010/11 was down, but otherwise it's bee..."2010/11 was down, but otherwise it's been business as usual, and expected to go up over the next couple of years."<br /><br />Yes indeed. But one quite unnecessary year of cuts (approx. £100m) is quite bad enough.<br /><br />Though of course it can't be blamed for much of the damage.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-56971703701564389502014-02-12T12:33:48.091+00:002014-02-12T12:33:48.091+00:00"But conservatives/reactionaries never really..."But conservatives/reactionaries never really mean it when they say "small government"."<br /><br />Oh, entirely. It's well documented that opposition to "benefits" is actually opposition to "benefits that I don't benefit from", with a wilful blindness to the middle class benefits that they are getting, for example pension tax relief.<br /><br />In the same manner, you get more obvious cherry-picking from the right, who profess a belief in small government, but they're always in favour of large government when it comes to protecting their property rights, etc.gastro georgenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-58074515104041281092014-02-12T09:54:44.939+00:002014-02-12T09:54:44.939+00:00«Flooding is a consequence of rain. We've had ...«Flooding is a consequence of rain. We've had a lot of it.»<br />«In the South East instead clever speculators buy land in flood areas because it is cheaper than in dry areas,»<br /><br />To point out the obvious: in the photograph at the top of this blog post it is stunningly obvious that there are indeed plenty of high, dry areas nearby.<br />But let's blame the rain... :-)Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-34800620652925829412014-02-12T09:47:27.889+00:002014-02-12T09:47:27.889+00:00«Why does nobody want to cover this?»
Because the...«Why does nobody want to cover this?»<br /><br />Because they would offending their readers by pointing out that they speculated on property in floodplains, and then voting for cutting public investment! Surely not a good strategy to keep those readers as customers. The main marketing strategy of the media is pandering.<br /><br />Their customers would rather be told that they are innocent deserving victims of bad luck and the incompetence of one bad apple.<br />Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-81953746764914283532014-02-12T03:38:33.363+00:002014-02-12T03:38:33.363+00:00Great stuff, but it's shameful that the media ...Great stuff, but it's shameful that the media has mostly ignored this, entirely blamed Lord Smith (does anybody even know the CEO's name?) and it's left to economics blog to do the job and report this stuff.<br /><br />Why does nobody want to cover this? Hopefully they are just saving it for another day. At the minute all newscasters seem to be a bit giddy in their wellies, enjoying their time in the countryside like children on a school trip.<br /><br />As soon as Cameron said today in his press conference that "money is no object" when it comes to repairing the damage the media should have been asking hard questions about funding at the EA and the austerity strategy. They all seem fixated on whether Lord Smith will be sacked or if Patterson and Pickles have fallen out. Utterly tedious Westminster gossip.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-4983476673919510642014-02-11T21:14:05.447+00:002014-02-11T21:14:05.447+00:00«Just as ministers might have hoped that benign we...«Just as ministers might have hoped that benign weather would not reveal the folly of cutting back on flood prevention,»<br /><br />Our blog author does not mention this because of brevity, but this is such a *well established strategy* in the financial sector that it has even got its own nicknames: "capital decimation partners" or "pucking up nickels in front of a steamroller".<br /><br />It is an illustration of what I call Blissex's second principle of business: that every non-trivial fraud is a variant of under-depreciation (and almost always viceversa). Same for Right-To-Buy, or for buying cheap floodplain land for property speculation, for example.Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-87732601285760895602014-02-11T20:47:34.923+00:002014-02-11T20:47:34.923+00:00«many in the government have encouraged the idea t...«many in the government have encouraged the idea that recipients of the welfare state are either undeserving, or victims of a dependency culture.»<br /><br />I guess that this was not meant to be ironic, but it is: because by far the biggest recipients of the welfare state have been the financial services industry who got apocalyptic (and there is a good chance that this will prove nearly literal) supplies of free or nearly free funds, and their endorsers, the petty property speculators who have expected and received tax-free capital gains of £12,000/year over a small terrace house, and low low low interest rates to cash them in with remortgages.<br /><br />And it is easy to see the financial services industry as being quite undeserving as they destroy capital over the cycle, and the petty rentiers as utterly depends on the handouts they receive, because without those remortgages as per my previous quotes GDP growth would not have happened for 25 years. But surely not victims...Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-60385353402866259982014-02-11T20:40:45.631+00:002014-02-11T20:40:45.631+00:00«Flooding is a consequence of rain. We've had ...«Flooding is a consequence of rain. We've had a lot of it.»<br /><br />Exactly like fire is a consequence of heat! :-)<br /><br />«More than any winter in living memory. In fact this is probably a 1 in 150 year event.»<br /><br />Exactly like financial companies needing a massive bailout! :-)<br /><br />Isn't it amazing that 1-in-150 years events happen with regularity every 10-20 years? We must be really unlucky! :-)<br /><br />And even if they were 1-in-150 year events, what do you think flood defenses are for? To protect against normal water levels or against 1-in-150 year events?<br /><br />Consider flood prone areas like the Netherlands and the Po Valley; they have immense earthworks built over the centuries precisely to avoid the consequences of 150-year events. But they are areas where happy-go-lucky speculation causes enough horror that even idiots would rather err on better-safer-than-sorry.<br /><br />But what is difference between the floods we seen in the South East and the Netherlands or the Po Valley? It is that in the latter there is no alternative to building in flood plains: the whole place is a flood plain.<br /><br />In the South East instead clever speculators buy land in flood areas because it is cheaper than in dry areas, build on that and sell to either stupid or hypocritical aspiring ladies (and sometimes lords) of the mini-manor, who are driven by the certainty of massive tax-free profits, and when the floods happen as since time immemorial every 10-20 years they pretend utter astonishment and demand massive handouts from the government because being deserving, highly productive property speculators they are entitled to them.Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-73598968156432360452014-02-11T20:26:46.694+00:002014-02-11T20:26:46.694+00:00«many in the government have encouraged the idea t...«many in the government have encouraged the idea that recipients of the welfare state are either undeserving, or victims of a dependency culture. In contrast, flood victims are very visible, and a strategy of blaming the victims will not work politically.»<br /><br />Something that affects the South East middle classes, the ladies (and sometimes lords) of the mini-manors, and their all-important house valuations as collateral, and especially around the time the UKIP is set to split the tory vote, is far, far more important than keeping unemployed or disabled people, especially Notherners, in the luxury (cadillacs, t-bone steaks, --- sorry wrong country -- huge mansions with many empty bedrooms, handouts much larger than average family wages, ...) to which <br />they feel entitled.<br /><br />Besides the fall in collateral valuations consequent to the floods in some of the most high-valuation areas of the country may substantially further impair the fiction that UK banks are no longer bankrupt.<br /><br />«ironic to see the well-off in Surrey complaining about the inevitable impact of the move towards the small government that they've been voting for»<br /><br />But conservatives/reactionaries never really mean it when they say "small government". That is code for "less redistribution from productive high income makers to parasitic low income takers", because they think that in the current era the main role of government is to redistribute downwards.<br /><br />If the government were to adopt a progressive redistribution policy, from exploitative lazy workers to value-adding property rentiers, then they would be delighted to see a bigger government, as GWBush achieved in the USA, by spending more on property and business friendly parts of the budget, from security to lower taxes. Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-85498367347066107382014-02-11T18:56:18.098+00:002014-02-11T18:56:18.098+00:00Flooding is a consequence of rain. We've had a...Flooding is a consequence of rain. We've had a lot of it. More than any winter in living memory. In fact this is probably a 1 in 150 year event. What could have been done to prevent damage from this flood? Levees all along the Thames? Great concrete barriers all around Datchet? No, the truth is it's not just about money - it's about an interlocking set of sacrifices that we're simply not willing to make to defend ourselves against a 1 in 150 year event. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02644066798583301315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-62005923675690534632014-02-11T17:59:37.383+00:002014-02-11T17:59:37.383+00:00I voted DC in, but you are spot on. Climate scient...I voted DC in, but you are spot on. Climate scientists have predicted climate change induced increased precipitation due to ocean evaporation for years. The fact this disaster has affected the very 'home counties' people who voted for him will be very good in swinging climate sceptics around. I'm hoping an oil exec's home has been flooded, without loss of life of course. A bit like the Dick Cheney character at the end of The Day After Tomorrow film who admits (after the fact) that he/they got it wrong.Alex Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15659012268284697467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-1205876397203785882014-02-11T15:17:21.322+00:002014-02-11T15:17:21.322+00:00I feel a bit dirty saying it, but it has to be sai...I feel a bit dirty saying it, but it has to be said. It's ironic to see the well-off in Surrey complaining about the inevitable impact of the move towards the small government that they've been voting for.gastro georgenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-62219430758403088852014-02-11T12:55:48.436+00:002014-02-11T12:55:48.436+00:00Maybe people don't talk about the cuts because...Maybe people don't talk about the cuts because they can't see them in the accounts?<br /><br />http://a0768b4a8a31e106d8b0-50dc802554eb38a24458b98ff72d550b.r19.cf3.rackcdn.com/LIT_8472_6b598a.pdf<br /><br />2010/11 was down, but otherwise it's been business as usual, and expected to go up over the next couple of years.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-37269861717722128242014-02-11T12:02:06.008+00:002014-02-11T12:02:06.008+00:00A very interesting and insightful perspective. Tha...A very interesting and insightful perspective. Thank you.the domesticated explorerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11039744788624130221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-24416819489015555442014-02-11T10:11:17.709+00:002014-02-11T10:11:17.709+00:00I believe the EU and Environment Agency need to be...I believe the EU and Environment Agency need to be challenged on this. http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/devonseaglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02637463423116171963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-67705669220721718622014-02-11T10:02:52.290+00:002014-02-11T10:02:52.290+00:00If I remember rightly, the Coalition's austeri...If I remember rightly, the Coalition's austerity programme was begun in 2010 in the anticipation that if they cut first before other European countries they would reap some form of benefits in better growth: they did not anticipate other Euro countries cutting (let alone liquidity trap economics).<br /><br />Then Osborne switched to Plan B, which was to cut back on the cuts until after 2015 general election.<br /><br />Setting up quangos to take difficult decisions on the government's behalf and then blaming them for problems that occur nominally under their auspices has never worked politically: the government of the day always gets the blame in the end.<br /><br />It seems the issue of welfare spending on flood prevention could be important. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-7908384488425954322014-02-11T09:58:45.432+00:002014-02-11T09:58:45.432+00:00When newspaper columnists have columns published u...When newspaper columnists have columns published under really stupid sensationalist headlines that a moment's reflection should tell you is ridiculous, their excuse is that they do not write them, a sub does,SpinningHugohttp://twitter.com/spinninghugonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-66376201503277775672014-02-11T05:01:38.903+00:002014-02-11T05:01:38.903+00:00In any event I am pretty sure the point is that th...In any event I am pretty sure the point is that the government blaming the Eurozone crisis is an incorrect excuse aka lie. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-53572631881573681652014-02-11T04:59:37.990+00:002014-02-11T04:59:37.990+00:00Well the Germans have a plunging Euro to cushion t...Well the Germans have a plunging Euro to cushion their oversized export sector. Perhaps when global lack of demand kills their export sector, or the Euro collapses and kills their banks, they will not be doing so well.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-81294317367106142912014-02-11T02:12:20.838+00:002014-02-11T02:12:20.838+00:00Well said, Sir, well said!
By the way, if the Eur...Well said, Sir, well said!<br /><br />By the way, if the Euro crisis was to blame for the UK's lack of growth, how come it didn't affect Germany the same way? I fear you may also be believing the Government rhetoric on this subject...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com