Chris Dillow
One of Rutland's leading Marxist economists
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- Strange how competition bids up salaries for bosses but doesn't bid down prices for customers. Anyone might think the system was rigged.
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- I admire those like @jdportes.bsky.social who bring facts into the migration debate. But I fear they are appealing for handball when our opponents are not playing football but rugby.
- Has anyone noticed how the defeat of the left has led to a golden age of liberalism, respect for democratic norms & rational policy-making? No, me neither.
- Typically brilliant piece by the great @brianklaas.bsky.social: www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-age-of.... Read it alongside Marko Tervio's classic paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
- He's either an idiot or a liar.
- I'm seeing lots of (rightful) criticisms of Labour's immigration stance. What I'm not seeing is the acronym POSIWID.
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- I know it's a weird question, but indulge this old fool. Might it be possible that our economic problems aren't wholly the fault of immigrants or the disabled?
- True. What the right means by "liberty" is the freedom for rich white men to oppress and exploit others, as I wrote here: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...
- I'm in That London for reasons. Whilst some things have improved since my day (the tube) the standard of menswear has slumped: kecks at half-mast & so tight you can see a chap's religion. Most wouldn't have been let past the door of any self-respecting bank BITD.
- How can Labour defeat a man whose biggest idea has been an abject failure; who endorsed the Truss Budget; and who has supported one of the most toxic political figures the western world has seen for decades? It's a real puzzle.
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- 100% this. If Labour wants to beat Reform, it must improve the economy & public services; it won't do so by culture war BS. This, of course, requires it to think & to take on vested interests.
- I had many problems with Blair, but his talk of a modern, open, knowledge-based economy was a breath of fresh air compared to this atavistic, closed-minded economically illiterate shit.
- The Labour leadership didn't defeat the left by talking about economic democracy, but it seems to think it can defeat the right by talking endlessly about migration.
- Blogged: Labour's (partial) bias towards manufacturing industry reflects an outmoded view of the economy: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...
- “'Devastating critiques' and 'debunkings' are a bit like thrash metal to me these days - I remember being a fan, and I can still appreciate the artistry but christ, too old for it, mate." @dsquareddigest.bsky.social is good as usual on how to read & critique: backofmind.substack.com/p/the-theory...
- (Christopher) Hitchens razor: what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
- Tricky. OTOH, playing music harms others (albeit mildly) & so, pace Mill, may reasonably be restricted. OTOH, bans on eg free movement & drugs suggests politicians don't use Mill's harm principle & are instinctively anti-liberty.
- Since it's Shakespeare's birthday, I'll unload a pet peeve - that posh ponces pronounce him wrongly: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlp...
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- If we're going to mark the sacrifices of the wartime generation, shouldn't we wait until VJ Day? And if we're going to mark VE Day, shouldn't we also commemorate the huge contribution of the USSR?
- A loss of tax-payers does not necessarily mean a proportionate loss of tax revenue, as I explained in a piece so old that Per Mertesacker was playing for Arsenal: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an... Heck, if the press will repeat old rubbish, I'll repeat old rebuttals.
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- The fact that it took markets so long to doubt this tells us little about economics but a lot about the ubiquity of the affinity bias.
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- True, Trump's a fool. But as I wrote here, politics is not merely a matter of asserting one's intellectual superiority. It requires an analysis of capitalist politics: why did this fool acquire power? stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...
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- It's, ahem, notable that the government seems keener to help the steel industry than universities, despite the latter having many more "good jobs": www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- Blogged: despite obvious differences the UK & US have a similar problem: in both, economic policy is subordinated to the demands of reactionaries & bigots: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...
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- This reminds us that measures to curb immigration restrict freedom. Libertarians - genuine ones rather than the narcissists and cranks who've appropriated the label - shouldn't therefore support strict controls.
- We're seeing now an advantage of strong trades unions & the threat of communism: brute fear stopped the rich & powerful in the west from being such stupid bastards.
- Previous stock markets crashes were all about mass psychology. This one is unique in being about an individual's psychology.
- Another uncertainty is that the size of adverse wealth effects from the fall in US stock prices depends on mental accounting: do investors see it as a 15% drop since Jan, or as still-decent gains in the last 2+ years? (Why yes, I do remember the Lawson boom of 88-89.)
- It might be good politics to say voters are never wrong, but the truth is that they often are - & also that voters' minds can be changed: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...
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- Very true. Here's what the rougher parts of Leicester looked like when I was a kid: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJh4...
