tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69184381501835300092024-03-19T06:10:08.113+00:00setting up a shopshopping cart software, economics, UK manufacturing: a blog with a terrible nameVeganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-64822337245503211122023-12-27T20:37:00.018+00:002024-01-12T16:34:00.015+00:00Shopping Cart Software: why did I choose Thirtybees and should you?<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>I was just going to write to someone what shopping cart software I use, because it's more specific than talking about what kind of website writing skills I can explain or can't explain. More useful to anyone wondering what to do themselves</i>.</p></blockquote><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://Thirtybees.com">Thirtybees.com</a> ecommerce software is...</span></h2><p></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">On web servers' one click installers: Softaculous, Fantastico: not Installatron</span></h3><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>These list loads of free software that you can install on your server at the click of a few buttons, if constraints like space allow. Its an alternative to buying an online service like Bigcommerce where the software, software maintenance and hosting are all bundled together and you pay £20 a month or so but it probably works first time. The people who run the service can lock you out of all the detailed features and let you access them for more money, or they can make something impossible for no reason, but they probably provide some sort of help email address and they probably make sure that the thing works as described. This is rather attractive. When you install your own software and something obscure goes wrong, suddenly you are the one who has to find out why.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>The main installers are</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><a href="https://softaculous.com/apps/ecommerce/thirty_bees">Softaculous.com/apps/ecommerce/thirty_bees</a>, </p><p><a href="https://netenberg.com/fantastico-scripts.html">Fantastico</a>, and </p><p><a href="https://installatron.com/apps">Installatron</a> - the only one that doesn't list it. A few web hosts have their own cut-down installers which just install one or two programs, like Zacky for Attractsoft sites, and Thirtybees isn't on those. The other chain of free web hosts, Byethost, uses Softaculous so you can install but the program is too large to work on their cut-down-limited bit of server space. If you want to run shopping cart sofware on free hosting, I am not sure the choices but Litecart looks likely to work. It is much more limited in what it can do but might be worth a try. It doesn't allow pages of free text by default, and there is a charge for some of the modules which takes away the "free" bi </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><a href="http://Veganline.com">Veganline.com</a> was installed from Softaculous and at first there was space to install a backup copy but some kind of bloat has made this trickier now. There were 104 products at the last glance, many of them like vegan shoes available in up to twelve different sizes so there is a potential for bloat. It's also possbile to have a backup of the site from years ago and loose track of it, and to have un-needed versions of photos for eah of your products. If you take revolving pictures - say twelve - of your proruct from two angles then this can be a lot of pictures. One module called database cleaner claims to find unwanted photos and zap them. I am tempted to take the risk.</p></blockquote><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Small enough to run on cheap hosting, but not free hosting from Attractsoft or Byethost. Also uses free modules</span></h3><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Hosting.co.uk is the shared server I use @ £36 a year or £3 a month </b> if I remember right, without VAT and when I signed-up there was simple pricing over time. It looks as though this has changed and that £3 a month is now an introductory offer with all the hassle of changing servers when the deal runs-out. </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"> A secure server would have cost me more without a messy work-around with Cloudflare that would need a separate page to explain. There is another server that might cost a little bit more and have a secure server ready to use - I would have to check on <a href="https://forum.thirtybees.com">https://forum.thirtybees.com</a> . The trouble with some of the other cheap ones is that the price goes up after a year and you have to do all the hassle again so I am not sure the cheapest no-hassle price. I know that the cheapest domain price is usually from Cloudflare although I used Penguin-uk. Where were we?</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><b>Modules on Thirtybeees are often free</b>. Stripe payments, a basic shopping cart (as you would expect on shopping cart software) are free. So Thirtybees is a cheap option,</p><p>Magento, for camparison is one of the biggest most bloated shopping carts but you pay in the need for a bigger faster server. It has tables within tables in its databases which are slow. It is a bit of a pig. The free version is a rare version of an expensive paid service that most people use.</p><p>Wordpress with the Woocommerce shopping cart plugin is the most common starting point and might have some wonderful cheap or free module because so many people use it. It is said to be rather slow when uesd for a large number of products. When I tried to use it in the 2010s there were several shopping cart modules available, each charging a lot for basics like a payment processing service, so it didn't seem as free or finished as it first looked. I don't know if that has tot any better. </p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Not great at integrating your Ebay items with your Amazon items or Etsy: it needs paid modules and there's only one or maybe two</span></h3><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>If there is free software that can synchronise sales on Ebay and Amazon and maybe Etsy and more, that's worth knowing. Forget Thirtybees until you have got the hang of the software and please tell me about it, as I think that Ebay Amazon and Etsy are where the money is. If you can have your own site on the web that gets customers too, better still but it will be hard to find.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">Thirtybees and most or all shopping carts don't synchronise with Ebay of Amazon by default. </p><p style="text-align: left;">There is about one paid module that is meant to integrate to Ebay but I have not made it work yet, and one for Amazon, and I don't know what else. If you are selling several things a day then there are more choices because you can afford say £15 a month for some hosted service that's meant to integrate everything with everything and have a message board for help, but if you're selling one thing a week you can't afford anything so expensive and there aren't many options. </p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="color: red;">Not great at running on smartphones without a paid theme or some editing</span></h3><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>The free default formatting or "theme" is cluttered on smartphones. Most shopping cart software would have a "responsive theme" that simplifies formatting if the screen is narrower than so-many pixels, and I don't think the Thirtybees default does. I doubt that many of the others do. They were written to be given-away for free with the chance that someone could make quite small amounts of money by selling add-ons, so if they were written before people searched on smartphones, I guess they stay that way. Some time I hope to re-edit by hacks on Veganline.com so there isn't a great beadcumb bar kind of thing that takes up most of the screen on a smartphone. </div></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Number of paid modules: mysterious</span></h3><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Ideally the software shouldn't need paid modules, but if it does, and it's Wordpress, there are hundreds. Thirtybees is based on Prestashop 1.6.1 which had a lot of modules, many still available, and those for Prestashop 1.7 can probably be adapted for a fee but it is all a bit mysterious till you ask and get a yes or a no. Prestashop also tries to sell plugins by one or two dodgy firms that are best avoided or at least paid by credit card so you can maybe get a refund, so the subject of available modules is murkey. Generally the range of Prestashop 1.6 modules still available is reducing, but Thirtybees has made a lot of things free that Prestashop charges for, so you might not need any modules at all. I am still learning about the EU cookie law module and whether I need a paid one </p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Good at having features that I didn't think of until I had the site started</span></h3><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">When checking e-commerce software, it's good to see whether "postage rates" or "payment" are paid extras because these essentials sometimes are.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">Making a product out of stock when the last one sells - that's an obvious one but some ways of selling online don't allow it. If you have a remote-hosted cart like Paypal running on free server space like Blogspot then you can't automatically track stock </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Space to override the style sheet code is good. If you have something like that in the back office, or somewhere easy, you can replace all your changes each time your site goes wrong and you have to replace it from old notes. I've made loads of changes, mainly to cut out what I don't need, such as the bit of the site that needed every customer to log on and register. Now, with my style sheet changes, none registers and I hope that more of them buy vegan shoes instead. </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">Stock control with subleties like saying what site a product is on, or giving a warning when the last one or ten are left in stock, can be a big thing. Thirtybees tries to do for free. A previous version of the software called Prestashop tried to do this and then added a warning to shopkeepers not to use those features because they were too buggy and too many people wanted too many differnt things. </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">Thirtybess is more sensible than Prestashop. It tends either to do something and work, or not do something. You don't see dozens of people on the forum all asking about the same bug, and click on their web sites to see that they have gone out of business maybe because of a Prestashop bug. </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">Selling something with a variable length - thre's a module for it. It's called "customisation" and most software will let the buyer send a message or even add a size but not much else. I forget why size and variable length are different. Oh: I remember! It is that you have to turn-off the idea of stock if your sizezs are just ways of cutting something, but you have to turn it on again for the next product. I forget the reasoning now and would have to look back at old forum posts. </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">Adding a page of text about the product or just a blog or explanations - that ought to be part of a shopping cart but sometimes isn't. I don't think Litecart has it. </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">Importing data from another piece of software as a .csv file is sometimes expensive or tricky. Thirtybees sort of allows it I think.</p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Good for changing the code</span></h3><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">There are three initials for this kind of software - I forget what they are - but they mean that formatting code like CSS and a couple of other types of code are kept distinct. If you want to change the code for a sales page, you can probably see some of the logic to how it works or find someone cheap who can make sense of it for you. There is probably a forum post from years-back by someone who tried something similar. You can cut the bits of a sales page that you don't want, or add bits. You can have different kinds of sales page for different kinds of products and choose them from the back office. </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">I don't know how good or bad other software is for changing the code; I just know that I have managed it on Thirtybees and it is meant to separate code into categories to make hacking easier.</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Not good for Schema.org tags but probably none are and you can try to hack</span></h3><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">This is a bit like trying to get your products on ebay and amazon, but for google bing yandex or whoever. They accept product feeds of formatted data to say what you can sell and there is a free feed module for Thirtybees and Prestashop for Google, but better to use tags round the product on the page itself. Search engines can read the page too. They have already done it but Schema.org tags are their preferred way of being directed to data.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Schema.org</b> tags are work in progress. They are not well explained on the Schema.org web site and they often change. A good way to work out what's needed is to find a site like John Lewis that uses them for your kind of product, and feed their most similar web page into <a href="https://validator.schema.org/">https://validator.schema.org/</a> . This shows you what tags they used. Then you have to try to understand them without sufficient examples on the Schema site itself, and try to tweak your default sales page to include the tags. Quite likely this involves having different kinds of page for different kinds of product. My belt pages still don't work on https://validator.schema.org/ but the shoe pages do. Thirtybees lets you choose a different template sales page for a different kind of product. </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Anyway the result is that if you type some unusual search into google that finds one of my pages, google might show the products along the top of the search. I don't know how easy other shopping carts are to hack in the same way and guess that because rather tekkie people like Thirtybees, then it has evolved to help people like them and me.</p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Conclusion: I don't have much of a clue but Thirtybees looks OK</span></h3><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">There are a dozen or more shopping cart programs on sites like Softaculous and I didn't test many of them. For example I am in the UK and a UK-based one is Cubecart. I have done very little to try to compare with Thirtybees. It would take a long time. I just experimented with Magento, Wordpress, Prestashop, then moved to Thirtybees and struck lucky. Someone helped me for free to overcome some problems, maybe caused by bad concentration, and I was hooked. The forum seemed so positive and practical, The odd tekkie bits like whether you can choose to use template 1 or template 2 for belts chosen in the back office all seemed my kind of thing. So: happy but clueless or some better word like not completely accurately clueful in all situations.</p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="http://Veganline.com"><span style="color: red;">Veganline.com</span></a> for vegan shoes online is the example mentioned above. It sells vegan shoes boots belts & jackets made in democratic welfare states like the UK, where it's based.</i></h3><p><br /></p>Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.comUnited Kingdom55.378051 -3.43597327.067817163821154 -38.592223 83.688284836178838 31.720277tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-58394945964320074902020-03-26T10:59:00.000+00:002020-03-26T10:59:06.406+00:00Ventilator and mask production<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://planb4fashion.blogspot.com/2020/03/uk-government-forms-for-medical-and.html">planb4fashion.blogspot.com/2020/03/uk-government-forms-for-medical-and.html</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
...links to the forms to tell UK government about any </div>
<ul>
<li>ventilator parts you make, or </li>
<li>mask production capacity that you have. It also asks about office hotel and industrial space, transport, social care, and food.</li>
</ul>
The questions on the forms are copied-out on the page, so you can see them without having to go through an online form writing "test" in each box just to see what the questions are.<br /><br />Above my head are the instructions for helping with <a href="https://opensourceventilator.ie/">https://opensourceventilator.ie/</a> or their collaborators - this picture is from one in Canada. Their web site says that they don't expect these to be used in the mainstream; they are more for backup and countries without health systems.<br /><br />The idea of a Slack Channel is new to me but maybe not to engineers.<br />The idea of a control panel and computer control will be new to everyone for each model. I don't know if there is a way of making a more mechanical machine that is more self-evident in the way it works, with a pendulum perhaps.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJcMo4uSUIMbnrAdyYB7JDA4Uqk25Mhyphenhyphene2V_7l9RBEydZi_C5yBjWFBJo25FIBr0lrYqHOJtl51fDGQIS9Gv2oNU5N12lTvpf2XzdObET8HIc8keKg6FCyq0Q6oxlUTg7jB3X-ylRSM6MU/s1600/images_current_concept.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="1600" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJcMo4uSUIMbnrAdyYB7JDA4Uqk25Mhyphenhyphene2V_7l9RBEydZi_C5yBjWFBJo25FIBr0lrYqHOJtl51fDGQIS9Gv2oNU5N12lTvpf2XzdObET8HIc8keKg6FCyq0Q6oxlUTg7jB3X-ylRSM6MU/s640/images_current_concept.png" width="640" /></a></div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-71584009891090700742018-07-31T19:47:00.007+01:002019-11-16T11:00:24.574+00:00Cheap car hire in South West London & other ways of reducing servicing costs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
moved to<br />
<a href="https://shoekeeping.wordpress.com/2018/07/31/cheap-car-hire-in-south-west-london-other-ways-of-reducing-servicing-costs/">https://shoekeeping.wordpress.com/2018/07/31/cheap-car-hire-in-south-west-london-other-ways-of-reducing-servicing-costs/</a><br />
<br />
<br />
This year, I own a car as well as sharing one, and feel like a grown-up. <br />
<br />
Other people say this about having children. Well, cars are better behaved than children and I make mine work entirely on the rent scene to make money, which is legal for cars but probably not for children.. Here is the proof: a cheap car hire in South West London SW14 8BP near East Sheen, which is a road called Avenue Gardens. If you check the price it's probably cheaper than car hire from a garage- a price in the thirties per day.. Hiyacar's calendar only shows on the smartphone versions of their site but the web version has a search function that knows what day the car is available.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/codes/LYXWPGWW"><img alt="Car club or car hire in South West London, East Sheen, Richmond on Thames" border="0" data-original-height="988" data-original-width="1391" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq2vRfJluoWDUOeNJly6BuaxNDd_zfjxpskfm25MKHTs_rTnU4qBzCdBVpnvbwEJ3SRi4IC3vdAHEfaqcKjqCptzOdU0QpF7CtGlXLzGn9UOpWoHGGgqkEmqXZrgrdYNOk-46bLl0lbBGH/s320/IMG_0002.JPG" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/rent-a-car/3963-21224-peugeot-108-active-s-a-in-london-sw14" title="car hire near me in East Sheen, Richmond, South West London, near Barnes and Mortlake stations">Hiyacar.co.uk/rent-a-car/3963-21224-peugeot-108-active-s-a-in-london-sw14</a> <span style="color: red;">Discount link</span><br /><a href="https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/codes/LYXWPGWW">Hiyacar.co.uk/codes/LYXWPGWW</a><br />Hiyacar's app can help you take photos of the car before and after hiring, and store them on their servers, so that you have proof of previous damage or empty petrol tanks or any of the things that might crop-up. They're generally more hi-tec than similar agencies.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>There was a link to Easycar but they were like a budget airline to deal-with, and wound-down. Turo of the USA and <strike>Drivy</strike> Getaround of the US and France can both insure car trips in the UK. If you want this car via <strike style="font-size: 18.72px;">Drivy</strike><span style="font-size: 18.72px;"> Getaround</span>, just let me know and I'll re-activate the listing for the day you want.</li>
</ul>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/codes/LYXWPGWW"><img alt="Small 4 door" border="0" data-original-height="930" data-original-width="1536" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1aH5fxvQIs5012S3LeQgmNdHfKkEt4A8MIwEu_rUAI9DPGS34gGCqsB3rxFtv9SfttJ3X91C4myku50T50lTnnzy4bfAaOgU4VcYJDow8bo3sT2rAWzPPD_badxltU8qOmsCZecT8fL7p/s320/IMG_0005.JPG" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/codes/LYXWPGWW"><img alt="hatchback" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVx1fETkRQsR82IDeODmSU2jZ_2F5ofF6WTqjOKKwfcsujgiMsMGkPI-gB5ekFx_dSx9GKL5_ty_voCk3XNrLQn-xbeQ04tYQ3RyGAofhy706Fze3Tw8ucLEV4dTpX2Edz6HywNNKonPWG/s320/IMG_0006.JPG" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/codes/LYXWPGWW"><img alt="automatic with fabric seats" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkIyGtkGP7PL48KNdNoFWhc6AmkZMedv9McEniEtvXmCWPPxElUCAErwUPsgR1_ri3ixVdL_38_CFElOiAsF49YRZ3e2SQjcqWBGRoXML3YFs7Wg6EobCDsJAR2WVICjMeEd0orxAX9nS1/s320/IMG_0007.JPG" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/codes/LYXWPGWW"><img alt="built-in radio, bluetooth, and miles per gallon estimate which usually says over 48" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMJyPUOceQnt521Gk0PhMZvg2dOIieuyvDQP4yNUQBbmGzjCCpFUAqsw9HqifkfqsANfFj8xIfJrZmAt0EHnTa90x-dXTlX-STb7tXYM8_g5IIXtposqrmjZ1ZMsdp2-DJne8HjTwt8ibk/s320/IMG_0008.JPG" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/codes/LYXWPGWW"><img alt="split rear seats" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9lqNLhq9DLEiUKo0RAKxF8cTV4Khaj-11niN9wtcKRCDxCfm_xqRbojZ-OcACYRCegeINuiv_FeNQfk0ktgNczhswWS6hA7A1YS2woSHi0fngvdFFNl_yAzBSpJcsXgNiqLWG-NzCWqm/s320/IMG_0012.JPG" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/codes/LYXWPGWW"><img alt="similar to a car club with a remote controlled key safe and low daily rates, but no membership fee" border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="1436" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGTPwbDiOMTajm8Di7Yg6EeweIMxuzGsbPvfrF2-InPeCLItDyNHI4C-9LVSFE8Mua6-OvHUku-6_fXLoFMZISUyCC0TCsBbSFWoJ2ndf0AMNGI2jd0StQwBkRIE9n9qg6jYVwgwpM0A37/s320/IMG_0001.JPG" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</h3>
As the miles mount-up on my mum's ex-runabout I realize what a careful choice she made in getting one of those three-cylinder Toyota / Peugeot / Citroen 5-door hatchbacks with zero car tax and next to no maintenance. I also realize that other people do a thing called car servicing and I made a list of some of the servicing and MOT prices people pay. If you rent a car, you don't have to bother; there is no catch. If you own a car you have to think of something.<br />
<br />
In theory, each car servicing deal deal comes with its own list of points covered, and nearly all of them are "check", as in "check steering gators". I had to google what steering gators are, but remember from my car maintenance adult education class circa 1988 that there were timing belts to check, timing adjustment to fix at "top dead centre", and spark plugs to sandpaper and bend to the right distance between prongs, using a special booklet of metal sheets at different thicknesses. None of this is mentioned in the prices; it doesn't seem to be needed so much on modern cars, except perhaps as a way of getting money back from a below-price offer by upselling over-priced parts to a customer like new oil or spark plugs or wiper blades. Peugeot dealerships have the price list on a web site and it is several tenners for the smallest thing. Fifty quid to change the dust in the carpet. It's a rip-off.<br />
<br />
As I chase bargains I realize that I chase something odd. <br />
<br />
Other people chase something odd too. Other people look for the same genie and get caught-out when Servicingstop or Fixter offer MOT and services at less than the cost of collection and delivery that's part of the deal. Then Rogue Traders or the BBC or The Guardian do a report on how mechanics have over-charged for un-necessary work in order to make-up. They would, wouldn't they? So do Halfords and Kwik-Fit according to threads on moneysavingexpert.<br />
<br />
Then I look for mechanics on Dealzippy and Groupon willing to stamp a service document and clear my conscience about safety checks, when all they have done is "check". I think that if the car is well checked, then I can get it done by a mechanic or do a DIY job if it is the sort of thing you see in a Haynes manual. Even the <a href="https://www.mot-testing.service.gov.uk/documents/manuals/class3457/">minimum MOT list</a> is mainly "check". A bit like the routine for checking fire extinguishers in which landlords are meant to check that a fire extinguisher has water in it by lifting to check weight, and tick paper; that's all. Or those Portable Appliance Checks that big organisations do on the kettle plug, to say that it has been inspected by a qualified kettle plug inspector.<br />
<br />
Most of the car checks are simple and simply mean "look at and tick". This in a private place, without witnesses, and without time to do the job carefully, money to employ the best mechanic, or a video to get proof of doing it. Really, what I'm chasing is a garage with a postal address and a rubber stamp that says "serviced", rather than a mechanic, and even that small overhead costs money. I don't want to pay what it costs, so I scheme about going-in with the car and supplying my own spares and somehow hoping that a mechanic can check the car, pay for a garage building and stamp my MOT and service record for next to nothing while paying commission to Motoreasy or Groupon and maybe even collecting the car. Motoreasy are cheap on MOT but expensive for servicing so I guess that's how they make-up. Maybe the service garages on Groupon can just stamp the service record for what they earn, while repeating the MOT safety check.<br />
<br />
The system is not all glum. A lot of people pay about £168 - call it £170 - to an independent garage for MOT and service (according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/nov/08/dealer-or-local-garage-car-service">The Guardian</a> in 2014 quoting whocanfixmycar) plus any vital repairs and parts, and it's too much to pay but there is a living in it for good independent garage mechanics. If you leave your own oil, filter, wiper blade and brake pads in the car they can't over-charge you for using their own if they decide to do the work.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://bookmygarage.com/">Bookmygarage.com</a> lists prices from independent garages. They don't charge the garage a referral fee for the service - they charge the garage a £170 monthly subscription - so there's less incentive for a garage to get cheapskates for a one-off rip-off and more incentive to try to get repeat customers. They can also put the details online because they loose no referral fee by putting it all in public. But £170 is still an amount of money. For me, it's about eight days' car hire for a car hired two days a week. For a garage that services several cars a month, that's one car's takings used-up just to pay for the listing and they probably pay for other directories and referral agents as well, such as Whocanfixmycar who charge the garage £10 for referral and £60 for listing.<br />
<br />
Here is my solution. Suppose someone makes a car pit and stand in a public place, and allows anyone to drive their car onto it and see the steering gators from underneath, maybe in some way that allows them to wobble the wheels to check for looseness, and turn them to check for brake tightness and squeeze the be brake pads to check thin-ness as well as checking of tyre tread for thin-ness. And puts a poster on a wall saying what has to be checked for MOT and servicing. And provides some automated way of logging on to car diagnostic systems to that, quite often, the driver can double-check what they see on dashboard lights against results on some app like Torque or whatever. And allows any checks to be recorded on camera for free in some public archive that renters and buyers can see if they want for free. <br />
<br />
The solution would make the checking process record-able and do-able for the cost of the time for someone with the right kind of skills. For about half the population, or something like that. A lot of skilled people who are rich in money but poor in time would continue to use garages for MOT and servicing, maybe paying for collection and delivery, but those with general skills and middling money and middling free time could do the work themselves. A lot of other people are poor in skill or health. They might have a lot of trouble parking in the right place and using the robots and sticking to the facts, but the public place and the chance of asking passers-by to help or to walk-past and learn as a by-stander would all help - it would be a free first guide to car servicing for any teenager who wanted to study further.<br />
<br />
There is a lot of detail to be worked-out. When I google things like "mobile car service trailer", I don't see the thing in my mind; I see a scissor-lift on a trailer, but I am sure the problems are solvable. I suppose that breaking and car tread could be checked by a robot for example. Once the problems are solved, all that is needed is for a Ministry of Transport delegate to sign the MOT for - what price? - £20? £10? Maybe changing the oil for something filtered from the last similar car. That would be a decent service at a decent price.<br />
<br />
Oh there is an even simpler system. If the government MOT website did the same as Bookmygarage.com, that would save £170 a month out of your local garages costs, but I am not sure if government ministers and civil servants are the best people to do it.</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com27Avenue Gardens, London SW14 8BP, UK51.4659565 -0.2587785000000621951.46472 -0.2613000000000622 51.467192999999995 -0.25625700000006219tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-2282602507095686372018-02-22T19:59:00.000+00:002018-04-02T19:01:07.086+01:00Emission Zone Consultation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I filled-in the form that says <i>"do you want to pay more tax by being fined for small contraventions?"</i> At the top it says</blockquote>
<h3 id="cs-consultation-title-in-banner">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">Have your say on changes to the <br />
Ultra Low Emission Zone & <br />
Low Emission Zone</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There is some evidence here<br />
<a href="http://content.tfl.gov.uk/mts-supporting-evidence-challenges-opportunities.pdf">http://content.tfl.gov.uk/mts-supporting-evidence-challenges-opportunities.pdf</a><br />
<br />
There is a form here<br />
<a href="https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/environment/air-quality-consultation-phase-3b/consultation/confirm_submit">https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/environment/air-quality-consultation-phase-3b/consultation/confirm_submit</a><br />
<br />
<br />
A lot of people fill-in these forms and write <br />
<span style="color: red;"><i>"yes: I want to be part of a big bossy system without thinking of better options"</i>.</span><br />
Shitbags. Which may sound rude but that's what the people who want more fines and rules and zones think of the typical person who gets fined, and of course they get fined themselves now and then as well because we all do by mistake.<br />
<br />
So this is what I wrote on the final <i>"further comments"</i> section:<br />
<br />
I am against everything!<br />
I need to write a more careful response based on the headings of your evidence document, but I probably won't, or won't be well informed, so here is something off the cuff.</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">PLANTING</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I think there must be a lot more to be done to trap particles in plant leaves, because I see no new hedges or schemes at all. No honeysuckle, no virginia creeper, nothing. I can't remember the name of the <a href="http://thegreencity.com/how-a-flower-can-help-cities-to-reduce-their-air-pollution/">dutch plant developed for the purpose</a>, with a name that's a pun on dope smoking, so I googled and saw that "plants to reduce particle pollution levels the most", "how do trees reduce air pollution", and "pollution preventing plants" are common searches and guess that there are plenty of expert advisers who could suggest the best possible plants to use as hedges while something is planted anyway, perhaps in pots to remove when a better plant can be found to make a hedge on the central reservation of Edgeware Road or the crash barriers of Westway.</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">PARKS</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I hoped to see something about the need for safer parks with more wilderness and undergrowth - something that happens at near zero cost. What I see day to day is councils cutting-back undergrowth to prevent gay cruising and suit the tastes of politically active local groups, such as Friends of Barnes Common or Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery (set up under Mayer Rahman). I'm told that Hyde Park has police patrols at night to prevent or reduce cruising after dark, despite the cost to the police budget and the effect of gay cruisers in making parks safer places. I think I saw that the Royal Parks still discourage cycling for no reason at all in some cases as well. Hampstead Heath, run by the City Corporation, has teams of people on public money cutting back the undergrowth to discourage gay cruisers, all paid-for out of our taxes and reduced public services.<br />
<br />
So I think there is a need to embarrass and arm-twist councils and the Royal Parks into spending less money on this, promoting wilderness that is good for the environment, and promoting gay cruisers as people who make the streets and parks safer at night.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">VEHICLE TYPES</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What scares me is that a visitor or somebody without the internet who is not clued-up will face a big fine by mistake, just for driving an old banger because unable to afford something new. I think a lot of us have been fined or had a near-miss for driving in the congestion zone by mistake.<br />
<br />
I am scared that tired international lorry drivers of travelers or Uber drivers or Hermes delivery people will end-up facing fines, and that the people who can't make a living as mini cab drivers will make even less of a living because of higher costs and difficulty of complying with the system.<br />
<br />
I don't have an immediate solution but some kind of first warning system, by which those who broke the rules were given free advice on how to comply with the law, with a possible extra tax on all drivers related to a particular company or customer if <br />
it's believed that that system encourages new drivers to try to use ignorance and poverty as ways of competing more cheaply.<br />
<br />
I don't have an immediate response to the types of vehicles allowed to congest, except to say that I don't understand, so that maybe the problem is one of presentation. If the rule where presented as "electric only - and a long list of detailed exceptions", then I might take to it more.<br />
<br />
(PS That's one of the scares among other more obvious ones like the zone getting to where I live and me having to pay more.) </blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">PATTERNS OF STUDY, or TOURISM</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I suggest that a lot of the jobs done in central London are pointless. The person who comes to your table at a pub and says "how was your soup?". The person who changes your bed linen in a hotel. The tourist who stays in the hotel without realizing that Cardiff would be cheaper. The visiting head of state, entourage, and police. The culture or sport event like the Olympics (promoted by the Foreign Office to promote Soft Power abroad., as imagined by someone paid more than double the average wage by the Foreign Office, who lives in the home counties when in the UK and does not much use UK public services.)<br />
<br />
There is a list of the top 20 degree-awarding colleges by numbers of international students they attract. It's easy to get a number of international students at these colleges in London, I think, and the number is about the same a the number of long distance commuters who commute between regions the UK in or out of the London region. It is a number with the same number of noughts after it. So, a system to encourage international students to go to Lampeter or Coleraine or West Highlands and not the usual boring courses that home students avoid in central London would be good all-round. Maybe the people who promote these courses should co-operate with those from Ireland who do the same thing.<br />
<br />
All of these jobs could be discussed more in some way that I don't know off-the-cuff but maybe a series of lectures and discussions or TV programs. </blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">GLOBAL SOURCES & VAN DELIVERIES</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I glanced at the evidence document and saw that the pattern of buying things from China or an intermediate warehouse, rather than from a walk-in chainstore that imports from China or even one that buys from the UK, is likely to lead to more van deliveries over time, with emissions and congestion attached, and so a need for more zones and taxes.<br />
<br />
There are different ways of responding to this.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">GLOBAL SOURCES & VAN DELIVERIES: </span></h3>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">reducing the value of the pound to increase home production</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I suggest that the government needs more ways of reducing inflation than simply waiting for the Bank of England to put the exchange rate up (high interest rates leading to high exchange rates) and killing-off UK manufacturing. The effect is for more people in the UK to seek service jobs that are traditionally based in the south, London, Edinburgh, and not the North East or Gwent. So I think it is in Londoner's interest for more ways to be found of reducing inflation when the Monetary Policy Committee thinks there is a danger of it. The job is to un-pick their reasoning, encourage debate, and put to the problem to the public as part of that debate. Oddly enough, some of the economics courses that attract international students to the centre of London are no good at that. That's why the LSE is the second least popular degree-awarding institution on the Guardian University Guide's list by student feedback, second only to University of the Arts.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">GLOBAL SOURCES & VAN DELIVERIES: </span></h3>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">promoting services like click and collect</span></h4>
<blockquote>
I suggest that the regional government of any over-crowded city should try to advertise click-and-collect services at local newsagents and such, as a way to prevent people expecting a delivery at home when they might not be in, so that someone on low wages has to keep driving round and ringing door bells.</blockquote>
<br />
That's all I can think of off the cuff.</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-3687640086392523032018-02-12T22:41:00.003+00:002018-10-21T10:22:29.447+01:00budget<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<i>London Economic Development Strategy consultation </i>- <br />
</h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: x-small; font-weight: normal;">(including the Cultural & Education District (CED))</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">The Mayor's Budget ... is now open for consultation until Thursday, 12 January 2017.</span></i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Please email your responses to: GLAbudget a t london.gov.uk</i></span> My response was an earlier, shorter draft of this page - https://archive.is/zFYd6 ,</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">two responses </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">1</span>. how to get more self-critical lobby documents, </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">2</span>. reconsider the partners for the cultural and education district, currently London College of Fashion, University College London and Saddlers Wells.</div>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">1. Introductory quotes in the Greater London Authority budget: response with <br />
a suggestion down the page.</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<i>At the same time, I am determined to help London’s future economy grow and create new jobs and opportunities for Londoners. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>That is why I am investing in skills, and supporting new and innovative businesses to invest in London.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>In addition, I will continue to invest in London’s cultural and creative offering, and in particular the Cultural and Educational District (CED) in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
Mayors tend to shake a lot of hands and maintain a high media profile. And represent the public to just a few public services, such as regional transport. So any Mayor of any big town will end-up on a round of meetings and activities about the less factual, more lobby-related things. I don't know which Mayors personally make many decisions and which rely more on their officials, but each Mayor certainly nods when decisions are whisked-past at <i>"meetings with senior officials"</i> days or <i>"briefing"</i> in the diary - a diary which is now published for the London Mayor:<br />
https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/governance-and-spending/sharing-our-information/publication-scheme/mayor-londons-diary and a similar format <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/gla_migrate_files_destination/9462-1.pdf">here</a><br />
<br />
The harder any Mayor works, the worse the result can be because nobody lobbies for the obvious.<br />
<br />
Mayors want to do something about obvious crowding problems like</blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>high rising housing costs as a proportion of earnings. </li>
<li>long commutes, </li>
<li>pollution, </li>
<li>rough sleeping, sofa-surfing, lack of B&Bs or landlords who take housing benefit, silting-up of hostels, lack of social housing, etc </li>
<li>retention of staff in social services or emergency services. </li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
But the conventional wisdom of people who have meetings is to favor something. Arts, tourism, inward investment, higher education, sport, fashion (whatever that is), and particular institutions involved. The meetings are not blatantly to bribe or even to lobby, but they put the Mayor face-to-face with a bunch of people and under pressure to understand their concerns and the great benefit that trade / institution A B or C does for taxpayers and voters, often acknowledged in a speech and sometimes regretted in hindsight. Gordon Brown did this kind of thing for Lehman Brothers. I am sure that
politicians have done it for the National Tennis Academy. So I have rather
cynically called people "lobbyists" on this round of meetings that each
Mayor attends.<br />
<br />
Each lobby group wants to crowd more people into town. None puts a price on crowding
or crowding-out. Instead they have slick-looking dossiers of figures to say that <i>"Fashion contributes £26 billion to the UK economy"</i>, or <i>"International students contribute £26 billion to the UK economy"</i>. These phrases find their way into Mayor's briefings.<br />
<br />
Nobody invites the Mayor to a media event to talk about Housing Benefit, or Income Support, or the basic insurance-like services which are depleted with each extra piece of spending on Tennis or Dance.<br />
<br />
Nobody invites the Mayor to a media event to talk about over-crowding, and how to lower the profile of London as a destination, reduce tourism, reduce international study, reduce inward investment, reduce un-necessary jobs, making way for housing or workshops or social care.<br />
<br />
The harder a Mayor works to help these lobbyists, the more damage is done.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Suggestion: the GLA London Mayor should get more self-critical lobby dossiers, and consider them more critically. Here's how.</span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>hire critically-minded economists at GLA economics</li>
<li>guarantee them independence to state their opinions direct to the public and tell the public how to check facts on any statements received by the Mayor; I don't know how. Something like the Monetary Policy Committee</li>
<li>promise to put any economic lobby dossiers to them for comment, and put the documents to the public for comment at the same time</li>
<li>ask the public to point out any sentences designed to deceive. Journalists might respond. Any phrase like <i>"world class"</i> would risk ridicule in the tabloids before a mayor had to read it, and so after a while the Mayor would get better documents.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
With luck, the mayor could stay in bed and good self-critical ideas would be pushed under his or her door, without phrases like <i>"world class"</i> in them.<br />
<br />
For example the Mayor's budget states that four of the world's top four universities are in London, such as London School of Economics (LSE), and I am sure that their web sites agree. But LSE students on their economics degree give it the worst student feedback of any economics degree at any of the 83 institutions offering economics degrees in the UK. Bottom, according to Unistats. It is a degree with two years of someone's choice of theory followed by one year of application, with the option to study Game Theory but no option to study how to fund the NHS for the next fifty years. I pick this example because I did an economics course years ago, but I am sure there are a lot of example of unpopular institutions presenting themselves to the mayor as popular institutions.<br />
<br />
Any Mayor needs a way to avoid the tiring round of engagements with groups who lure-in to a conventional wisdom and say things like "top university" instead of "bottom university" or "popular" instead of "unpopular", or "world class" and <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html">"international student"</a>, whatever they mean. Any Mayor would do better to stay in bed and have better, more self-critical information provided by institutions and pushed under the door.<br />
<br />
I have a link to Unistats data about London School of Economics somewhere here:<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html</a><br />
<br />
I think the same kinds of points could be made about any of the consultations that the Mayor does, so I will concentrate mainly on the Queen Elizabeth Park project.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">2. Response about Cultural & Education District, Queen Elizabeth Park<br />
Suggestion: the Greater London Authority should scale it down and look for popular colleges to work with instead of the chosen ones - London College of Fashion and UCL</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
University College London, University of the Arts' London College of Fashion, and Saddlers Wells dance company are to share a very expensive new development near the Olympic site. I have not followed the story...<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/02/london-olympicopolis-culture-hub-stratford"><br />
theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/02/london-olympicopolis-culture-hub-stratford</a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Any 18 year-old who looks for higher education courses will know tables like this, mainly the ones that compare by course title. This is from The Guardian University Guide, first table quoting all the combined courses at each college, sorted by "satisfied with course"<u><b> worst first</b></u> . Expand the image or search yourself on Guardian University Guide if you want a closer look.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwbVZQBkPJYZloTZW6-yQQ4l-i2lInyxWemkVe6XoNqFsKjaFfWK8fL9SC3_ieCP7c4AYQ9jzfn5I9Ko0xcOOjqsCcklioZiibnGFZFC0B7d-M6GEbuNvt-WTnVvh20NLdlowMvBNRjPBO/s1600/all-courses.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="University of the Arts scores least for student satisfaction among degree awarding colleges" border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="1120" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwbVZQBkPJYZloTZW6-yQQ4l-i2lInyxWemkVe6XoNqFsKjaFfWK8fL9SC3_ieCP7c4AYQ9jzfn5I9Ko0xcOOjqsCcklioZiibnGFZFC0B7d-M6GEbuNvt-WTnVvh20NLdlowMvBNRjPBO/s400/all-courses.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="right"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
(University College London is more middling, with 84.2% satisfied with the courses and 86.0% with teaching)<br />
<br />
<br />
I suggest trying to attract the colleges with best student feedback and best chance of creating jobs, which are probably midlands colleges and probably have less staff time and money to bid, or discuss, or build. A more modest, low-risk idea like using some existing buildings would be much more likely to attract them, as would a promise to deal only with the colleges that students like, and to cap the cost of bidding and discussing.<br />
<br />
I think the method of choosing UCL and London College of Fashion should be published, cancelled, and that a more rational method of choosing colleges should be found and consulted-on.<br />
<br />
If there is no way to scale-down the project and exclude London College of Fashion, maybe it would agree to be taken-over by another college with a different management and no Nike connections as part of the scheme.</blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">London College of Fashion : the charge sheet.</span></h3>
<hr />
<blockquote>
University of the Arts and UCL make a lot of money because they provide courses with bad student feedback, as you can see on the table above. When a big famous city-centre institution has an unpopular course, the places still fill because international students who don't check Unistats take the places, and those from outside the EU pay about double the fee, so the college makes a lot of money. That's why these two colleges can afford staff to lobby and to apply for grants and suggest grand development deals and provide PR to make themselves sound like the best colleges, when the table shows one of them as the worst college for student satisfaction and just a shade better for graduate employment. <br />
<br />
To read <i>"London College of Fashion"</i> as part of a scheme <a 10="" 2012="" 2015="" a="" about="" accessories.="" after="" also="" and="" arthur="" became="" better="" building="" businesses="" by="" can="" clare="" clients="" co-founded="" co="" common="" connections="" consulting="" continues="" decade="" department="" development="" director="" ethical="" fair="" fairtrade="" fashion="" for="" forum.="" foundation="" gap="" global="" grow="" henry="" her="" how="" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6918438150183530009#" in="" including="" industry="" initiative="" international="" is="" matching="" men="" money="" mouth="" objective="" of="" on="" organic="" other="" over="" platform="" poor="" professionals="" purveyor="" put="" quality="" research="" resources="" right="" s="" she="" shirts="" specialising="" strategise="" successful="" superb="" sustainable="" tesco="" the="" think="" title="
Clare Lissaman
Director, Common Objective and Arthur & Henry
CO - Common Objective University of Oxford
London, United Kingdom 500+ 500+ connections" to="" trade="" trading="" traidcraft="" twin="" where="" with="" work="" years="">to promote UK employment around East London</a> is a bit like reading about grants to Kids Company or contracts to Carillion; they have form. </blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>London College of Fashion graduates have mediocre to bad employment prospects.<br />
</li>
<li>London College of Fashion students give lowest marks to their college for satisfaction<br />
</li>
<li>London College of Fashion's knowledge transfer partnership scheme is used to promote a course: <i>"we don't do bespoke"</i>, the person told me; <i>"I'll let you know".</i></li>
<li>London College of Fashion provided office space and helped claim grants with a company called Creative Connexions, designed to introduce UK designers and manufacturers to Chinese or Indian rivals. It was borne of political initiatives and received 80% of the Higher Education Funding Council's budget for special projects in the first year or two. So UK taxpayers had to pay to put themselves out of work, just as UK students had to watch their government funding be sent to China. Creative Connexions and other LCF offices like Own-IT and UAL Ventures did a seminar called <i>"making it ethically in China"</i> in Manchester, just up the road from JJ Blackledge wallet manufacturers who went bust that weekend for lack of support in the home market. So, if London College of Fashion had never existed, there might still be a wallet manufacturer with all its automation called JJ Blackledge providing good jobs in Manchester. </li>
<li>London College of Fashion did another bit of government business a few years ago, with Department for International Development in some rather boundary-less cross-departmental scheme that will never be accountable, leading to a web site that still warns people not to buy British made products on ethical grounds, and, at its peak, got huge amounts of column inches for its idea of "ethical fashion", meaning whatever they wanted it to mean and not fashion made in the UK, at a time when I could list the particular UK clothing and footwear manufacturers that were closing. </li>
<li>There is a fishy relationship to Nike, who sponsor the department at LCF.<br />
One director at Ethical Fashion Forum happened to be Nike's freelance consultant who vets ethical compliance reports sent to Nike from their contractors in the far east. A "highly regarded independent consultant on ethical trading, fair trade and corporate social responsibility" , according to the PR that went-out in the name of Ethical Fashion Forum. She did this interview for example.<br />
<h4>
Adam Vaughan, journalist:</h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"If we can generally guess what the problems are, can we shop by country, picking good ones and bad ones? Usually you can see where a product was made."</i></blockquote>
<h4>
<a href-="" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" title="
Clare Lissaman
Director, SOURCE Consultancy
Clare is one of the UK’s foremost experts when it comes to ethical sourcing and supply chains. A trained social and environmental auditor, she has a breadth of knowledge and experience in the challenges of building up sustainable supply chains and the ins and outs of standards and certification.
Clare has worked closely with many of the worlds leading fashion retailers as well as smaller businesses in relation to supply chain strategy -and delivered training all over the world. She is an inspiring speaker and expert facilitator.
Alongside this, Clare is Co Founder of award winning sustainable menswear brand Arthur and Henry, and is on the Steering Group of the Decent Work and Labour Standards Forum.
Clare has particular expertise in sourcing from Asia and is fluent in Chinese, which she read at Oxford.
Follow her on Twitter @clarelissaman."><br />
Clare Lissaman, </a><br />
Nike consultant with government funding to promote Ethical Fashion Forum</h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"I don't think you can compare countries. You're just as likely to have a sweatshop down the road here in London in the east end as you are in China, India or Bangladesh. One of the best factories I've come across in the world was in China. One of the worst factories I've come across in the world was in China."</i></blockquote>
<br />
I think this is odd, because sweatshop employees in London have access to benefits including a health service and a functioning legal system with an emphasis on individual rights, so it is clearly not true that a factory in China is the same as one in London, and consumers should know the difference; London College of Fashion has helped divert London taxpayers' money into a scheme for reducing London employment and promoting Chinese employment at Nike factories.</li>
<li>Nike's sponsored department acts as "secretariat" to the All Party Group for Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion, set-up by another consultant who had been nominated for peerage by someone at the Greater London Authority. There was another all party group on clothing, but this new one is a rival. It's fishy isn't it?<br />
<br />
</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
I made separate suggestions a few years ago for improving the way London Fashion Week might help. and can repeat them if asked - just email<br />
<br />
John Robertson<br />
2 Avenue Gds, London SW14 8BP<br />
shop a t veganline d o t com<br />
responding to a GLA request for comment on the Mayor's budget</blockquote>
------------------------<br />
<br />
16/2/18<br />
Just today I heard that the education secretary wants to tweak the maximums that colleges are allowed to charge for fees, maybe allowing more for engineering and dentistry and (not reported but possible) less for English Literature or Law which are much cheaper to teach at the usual staff ratios. If this is unpopular, I don't see any choice but for her to follow-through, because there are so many more degree-awarding adult education colleges and so many of them can simply not teach engineering or dentistry or mechanical engineering, leaving the traditional courses short of cash.</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-79688080531506320492018-01-16T19:34:00.003+00:002018-10-21T10:22:31.624+01:00international student course satisfaction<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;">International students take economics courses with the </span></span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">worst student feedback in the UK and in the </span></b></li>
<li><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">most expensive parts, so these </span></b></li>
<li><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">courses make most money because non-EU students pay double fees.</span></b></li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"> <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/httpswwwgovukgovernmentconsultationspro.html">I wrote a long set of notes for a government consultation</a> overlapping with this page, but this one starts with a table of evidence.</span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Click on the number under "degree" for each college to see student satisfaction on Unistats about each course.<br />
</span><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
Statements like <i>"International Students contribute £X &Y jobs to the UK economy"</i> are based on work by Oxford Economics or London Economics who work for corporate clients like Universities UK; they are not paid to be impartial. </span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"> <a href="http://bit.ly/reportmethods">Bit.ly/reportmethods</a> is a link to Oxford Economics' methods. They do not count the costs of a more over-crowded city, nor of colleges like London College of Fashion which actively hinder the UK manufacturing economy while claiming taxpayer grants for the work. This page doesn't mention the Oxford Economics report, but does give examples about the London College of Fashion. Another post suggests they <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/02/budget.html" title="London College of Fashion will have a vast new campus on the Olympic site">shouldn't help with the Cultural & Education District at Queen Elizabeth Park</a>.</span></span></span></h4>
</blockquote>
<span style="color: red;"><b>Sources</b></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
see "footnote on sources" below. The number of international students in the first column links to the unistats page for that college's degree course, with student satisfaction reports for things like <i>"course is intellectually stimulating"</i> that add-up to student satisfaction scores.</div>
</blockquote>
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">"Satisfied"</span></b></span> <br />
<blockquote>
The final column is a Complete University Guide rank, by student feedback score, of each institution out of 83 recent providers of economics degree courses. It exaggerates differences between courses with similar feedback, but clarifies the point that most of these are the worst courses. The Guardian University Guide gives about the same result.<br />
The other columns are examples of detail. <br />
<br />
About half the students who fill-in a national student survey are simply trying to be loyal and polite, so scores below 50% are rare. Students tick boxes on an "agree ... disagree" scale to survey questions. </blockquote>
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">"Stimulated"</span></b></span><br />
<blockquote>
<i>"The course is intellectually stimulating"</i>, or worth study at all.</blockquote>
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">"Interested"</span></b></span> <br />
<blockquote>
<i>"Staff made the subject interesting"</i>, or made the best of it. Central London courses are probably taught by staff who have done long commutes to get to work.</blockquote>
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">"Applied"</span></b></span> <br />
<blockquote>
<i>"Opportunity to apply what I had learned"</i>. A course in economics without application is clearly pointless. Apart from anything else, you can't tell which theories are worth study until you need to apply them. And I mention a shoe-making course in which 29% of students thought they'd get to apply the skill more than they did.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;"><b>"?Gap"</b></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, and LSE were reported in news articles above with a £9,000 lobotomy theme, but I see no degree for Glasgow or Edinburgh, so there is a gap. I have put data from a financial statistics course in the list for Imperial.<br />
<br />
A gap could mean that a college closed its course. Smaller and regional colleges, with fewer international students, sometimes re-define and re-title their courses to avoid the bad feedback that a previous version of the course had, I guessed when writing a <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">star courses</a> post about the worst-reviewed courses a few years ago.</blockquote>
<hr />
<h2>
<a href="https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Research--Policy/Statistics/International-student-statistics-UK-higher-education">Top 20 largest recruiters of international students 2015-16</a></h2>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> most mainstream economics degree - click the number under "degree" to see student feedback stats</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> overseas students national student survey of all students<br />
degree grad. total stimulated interested applied satisfied (1-83) <br />
UCL <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007784FT-UBEECOSING05/">7,860</a> 7,115 14,975 72% 92% 65% 79 / 83</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Manchester <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007798FT-206">5,950</a> 6,970 12,920 74% 76% 59% 78 / 83 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/04/economics-students-overhaul-subject-teaching" title="EDUCATION AND UNLEARNING is the report to google - this is a news story about it">protests</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Edinburgh 5,085 5,695 10,780 81 / 83 no degree<br />
Kings College <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10003645FT-UBSH3SSWE/">4,115</a> 4,785 8,900 ? ? ? 70 / 83 new course</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Sheffield <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007157FT-L100/">4,595</a> 3,930 8,525 64% 81% 74% </span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">40 / 83</span></span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Warwick <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007163FT-U-L100/">4,520</a> 3,920 8,440 80% 89% 77%</span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 64 / 83 <br />
Imperial College <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10003270FT-G1GH">4,550</a> 3,970 8,520 45% 62% </span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> see notes</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Oxford 5,760 2,300 8,060 ? ? ? PPE Ec/Hist</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">LSE <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007158FT-100">4,635</a> 2,280 6,915 60% 74% 52% 83 / 83</span></span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Birmingham <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10006840FT-K0160">4,670</a> 2,945 7,615 66% 81% 58% 45 / 83<br />
City, Uni of L <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10003270FT-G1GH">4,320</a> 3,180 7,500 57% 82% 52% 60 / 83</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Southampton <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007158FT-100">4,050</a> 3,175 7,225 66% 83% 52% 72 / 83</span></span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Glasgow 3,845 3,790 7,635 no degree</span></span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Coventry Uni <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10001726FT-53/">3,540</a> 6,175 9,715 93% 100 98% 5 / 83</span></span> <br />
Uni of Nottingham <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007154FT-L100">3,170</a> 4,070 7,240 79% 81% 75% 6 / 83<br />
Cardiff Uni <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007158FT-100">3,285</a> 3,825 7,110 46% 69% 52% 73 / 83</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Leeds <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007795FT-L100">3,825</a> 2,760 6,585 89% 92% 77% 38 / 83</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of Liverpool <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10006842FT-BSC_EC">2,075</a> 5,235 7,310 71% 78% 62% 56 / 83 </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Uni of the Arts, <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007162FT-10237">2,035</a> 6,425 8,460 50% 62% 71% 3 / 3 Footwear</span></span> <br />
<br />
Non London<br />
London 55,270</span></span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
Complete University Guide combines all measures of student satisfaction, including non-academic, to rank 83 universities teaching economics degrees<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/universityguide">theguardian.com/education/universityguide</a> lists Univerity of the Arts as having the worst student feedback of any university across all courses. knocking London School of Economics off bottom place.<br />
<br />
<br />
University of the arts is 73rd out of 81 for satisfaction in "art and design" and 3rd out of three for "footwear"<br />
<br />
The second column links to a unistats page for each institution from which satisfaction levels for stimulated / interested / applied are drawn.<br />
<br />
</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Cardiff' Economics Professor Patrick Minford wrote that "</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>we would mostly eliminate manufacturing.... But this shouldn’t scare us".</i> His students would rather eliminate his course. which</span> has a 46% stimulating syllabus - the lowest. Imperial's Financial Statistics score one point worse, as financial stats courses tend to do.</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
University of Liverpool also teaches a Business Economics degree which scores in the mid 50s for student feedback.<br />
<br />
International students per institution are quoted from the Complete University Guide. A footnote links to any free available data about the proportion of international students at each college from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Breakdown by course is not offered.<br />
</span><br />
<br />
<hr />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Reasons for picking economics and fashion / footwear courses.:<br />
<br />
I comment on University of the Arts Fashion courses and the footwear example because they are close to something I know about.<br />
I comment on Economics degrees next because I did an economics degree.<br />
I haven't worked out a broader picture of subjects I know nothing about.<br />
I haven't worked-out how to link student satisfaction with the proportion of international students on every UK university course, and these two linked to rent levels<br />
There's a footnote about what data is available for free: you could probably do a lot better than me if you are deft with spreadsheets, but the information by course and international student proportion is not available for free. You could try asking on Whatdotheyknow.com as a freedom of information request maybe.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/jul/03/universities-dont-understand-how-international-students-learn"><span style="color: black;">This Guardian article</span></a> shows me how little I know about the subject, except <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">my own particular background</a> which would take too long to explain.</span></h4>
. </blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">London College of Fashion, University of the Arts<br />
- scores 73 / 81 for art & design subjects, 3 / 3 for footwear, <br />
- diverted Higher Education Funding council money from knowledge transfer partnerships in the UK to factories in China.<br />
- acts as "secretariat" to a group in the House of Lords<br />
- gets funding from Nike<br />
- gets funding from each London Mayor to show Chinese-made fashion, reducing airtime and column-inches for UK-made products (as part of the preparation for London Fashion Week, shared with other fashion colleges).<br />
- attracts unhappy students to the most crowded expensive part of London<br />
- charges £17,500 a year tuition fee to overseas students</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A separate problem is University of the Arts, London College of Fashion, which is in the wrong place - central London. Clothing and footwear manufacturers are often in small towns - typically in the midlands - or sometimes North and East London. There are inner-city ones in Manchester Leicester and Northamptonshire. <br />
<br />
I would like a London fashion college to do a few things which it does not do.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>quantitative data about clothing and footwear manufacturing</b><br />
I would like to compile a complete list of clothing and footwear manufacturers, based on income tax and VAT data, maybe with help from government because tax data is exempt from freedom of information requests under the revenue and customs act. London's British Fashion Council, like London College of Fashion, publish no such list. If asked at a public event, their staff will say something like <i>"personal recommendation is the best way to find a factory"</i>, and talk about <i>"sampling"</i>, which is the same as manufacturing but more expensive. Lists like <a href="http://www.letsmakeithere.org/"><i>"Lets Make it Here"</i></a>, sponsored by the Department for Business, are opt-in lists which manufacturers are expected to discover and sign-up for. <br />
<br />
This is relevant to migration. I imagine that migrants with English as a second language and craft skills want to be part of manufacturing industry, rather than doing customer service jobs. There was some evidence that I don't have to hand about the huge number of people in Tower Hamlets who wrote manufacturing trades like sewing machinist on visits to the jobcentre or when claiming benefits. <br />
<br />
This is relevant to economic estimates of how money trickles-through the UK economy and whether it turns into good jobs or tax revenue. Oxford Economics' "Value of Fashion" report finds no recent input-output data to estimate how the money trickles-round the UK economy, and uses 1998 data about footwear factories to try to estimate how things like the wages of British Home Store staff might be spent on UK footwear. I happen to have a list of UK footwear manufacturers from 1998 and more than half of them are crossed-out with a closing date, after the exchange-rate regime made life impossible for them in the 1980s and 1990s. So the data that leads to statements like "Fashion contributes X billion to the UK economy", is flawed data. The report is also written very much to please the client, I think. Not the taxpayer who pays British Fashion Council, but the clique of politicians and appointed staff who organise British Fashion Council. So rather some other assumptions are made. "Fashion" is a slippery word. It can mean fashioning or choosing a fashion. Oxford economics chooses clothing and footwear retail of far-eastern products through chain-stores like British Home Store or Primark as the biggest part of their word "fashion", and estimate huge benefits about, say British Home Stores tax contribution, which we now know to be untrue because the taxpayer had to bail-out the staff pension.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>I would like the college, or someone, to encourage shared work spaces available by the hour for lasting of footwear or cutting of uppers, so that Londoners could try making shoes, but the college has not done that in an affordable way. There are some odd things that other people have done, but nothing from London College of Fashion itself. However there is money from private sponsors and central governments Higher Education Funding Council that might be spent on this. It is diverted </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Run courses for Londoners who want to fashion things, as the name of their college suggests. That would include cheap short courses in how to sew or do accounts without an accountant, working-up to career courses in pattern cutting, machine maintenance and improvisation, and manufacturing. You would expect them to use government money for knowledge transfer partnerships as the name suggests, but the person they employ for that has no fashion experience outside the college and uses the scheme to promote a course.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
London College of Fashion have a history of closing technical courses, I have noticed over the years as I glance at the footwear courses they inherited from Cordwainers College. I went on a short evening class and found it over-priced and un-supported by anything like a maker-lab for London business or a Knowledge Transfer Partnership or even access to the library for ex-students or for people in the industry. The administration appeared to be deliberately bad at describing it to students in an attempt to run it down, and they succeeded; the second part of the course usually didn't run, I was told, for lack of applicants. A remaining footwear course - the first on their list is a full time degree - is ranked third out of three in the UK for student satisfaction and all London College of Fashion courses are ranked 73 / 81 for art and design, sharing the bottom of the league table with some other recruiters of overseas students, Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities. <br />
<br />
I think that a survey of students and graduates from London college of Fashion would show that they can study dress design without being well qualified in pattern cutting, or dress manufacturing, or web design and sales. Even if they are good at finding manufactures to work with, they still have to find a way to sell clothes. <br />
<br />
If University of the Arts' London College of Fashion was interested in helping UK-based students begin manufacturing, it would host maker-spaces for people to start manufacturing, and short courses for people in the industry already. I see no sign of that. It does not even allow local manufacturers to use the library, unless they ask for an invite with a maximum of one invitation per day. There is someone there for knowledge Transfer Partnerships, but he has a background in film and says "we don't do bespoke"; he seems to use the system to promote a course rather than help businesses.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
University of the Arts is also a lobby group, a major receiver of government grants, and a rather covert political organisation. It has several spin-off organisations, so outsiders find it hard to know where the boundaries of the organisation are and how much it overlaps, for example, with British Fashion Council or, in the past, with the London Development Agency or the All Party Group for Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion. Sometimes the boundaries are confusing to people who work there. A PR agent for London College of Fashion was at a Department for Business consultation about export promotion. She said it would be great to have the kind of money given for the Asiana Design For Life project in Kenya - there was a lot of of government money for that - but she didn't know which part of government it came from. I guess it was the Department for International Development. Another project was a series of seminars called "<a href="http://archive.is/4traY">Making it Ethically in China</a>", advertised on the college website with badges from "Own-it", "UAL Ventures", "Creative Connexions" and "London Development Agency". I did a freedom of information request to London Development Agency to ask why their badge was on it and the reply was that they didn't really know; maybe it was a mistake.<br />
<br />
The Centre for Sustainable Fashion, a college department which acts as "secretariat" to the all party group, lists a rather frightening list of sponsors and successes in obtaining grants from taxpayers<br />
http://sustainable-fashion.com/about/funding-and-partners/ If these have a pure motive for paying professors, then it is a pity that London-based manufacturers and sewers and sellers cannot have the benefit; the project is a cuckoo for funding. If these funders have a mixed motive for paying professors, I guess it is to remove the interests of UK manufactuers from the discussion and to insert other discussion points like whether a piece of clothing can go in the compost bin, or whether the long supply chain can be audited, or whether the audited factory might be just slightly better than an un-audited factory next door in Bangladesh or one that fails the audit.<br />
<br />
The party line (I argue on other web sites) is pro-globalisation, anti-welfare state, and anti UK manufacturing. It was founded by someone recommended for the House of Lords by a former Mayor of London. <br />
<br />
There is also a party rhetoric - a series of presentational tricks - originally worked-out by Futerra Communications and pushed via an organisation called Ethical Fashion Forum. <br />
<a href="http://veganline.com/fair-fashion.htm#ethical-fashion">http://veganline.com/fair-fashion.htm#ethical-fashion</a> explains in detail how the presentational tricks work.<br />
<br />
London College of Fashion is also good at getting endorsements from London mayors, who authorise spending on London Fashion Week. This is the latest one in an interview with Vogue, doubtless placed by a PR and lobby group. The odd thing is that Khan does not seem to have read unistats reports about London College of Fashion, even though I sent them to him. He also thinks that people coming to London, reducing space for other things, is good, which is not what property prices, homelessness, and transport over-crowding suggest. He also uses a cliche - state of the art - suggesting that he has been primed to give a certain answer.<br />
<br />
<i><b>VOGUE</b>. <span style="color: red;">London is home to some of the best fashion schools in the world, many of which are oversubscribed - what will you do to address this</span>?</i><br />
<i><b class="bb-strong">SK:</b> It's great that so many people want to come to London to study fashion. We are blessed with some of the world's most famous institutions like the London College of Fashion and Central Saint Martins. I always love visiting the University of the Arts. But being popular brings with it its own challenges - and to cope with that, we need to support our fashion schools to expand. The mayor can help with this - from sourcing land, to supporting them through the planning process and making sure that in large developments we find space for new state-of-the-art premises. The fashion industry will have a friend and ally in me at City Hall.</i><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/people/mayoral/sadiq-khan/register-of-interests">Khan declares no corporate sponsorship</a>, so I imagine he hopes for public benefit and perhaps a bit of publicity rather than money by being a <i>"friend and ally"</i> of Chinese fashion manufacturing promoted at London Fashion Week and bad courses in overcrowded places. He doesn't mention the people who would have got press coverage for making products in the UK if London Fsahion Week was not subsidised to promote products made in the far east and China.<br />
<br />
It seems odd that an institution called "University of the Arts" incorporating London College of <strike>Printing</strike> Communication, St Martens College of Art, London College of Fashion, and footwear courses taken-over from Cordwainers College, should be on the same list as red brick universities teaching economics. But they say they share a "big picture", and I guess this is a picture of markets in very efficient equilibrium, un-troubled by issues of like whether a country has an NHS or girls secondary schools or unemployment pay, untroubled by human rights, and so keen that products should be bought at the cheapest place this market suggests, which one of their lectures says used to be Canton near the coast but moves further and further inland as wages rise. (The video is no longer online but we taxpayers paid for it to be made by Own-It and London College of Fashion, who are both the same thing, and showed a fashion graduate who sold fur products, initially made in the UK but, she said, paid for with various special knacks to make that profitable before she took her business to China). <br />
<br />
University of the Arts was lead contractor with various red brick London Universities to the Higher Education Funding Council money to put UK designers and manufacturers in front of Chinese and far-eastern manufactures, in hope of benefiting both sides. They got the grant. It was called "Creative Connexions" and ran for a few years from 2005 onwards in hope of future commercial continuation.. This is a quote from the funding bid.</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/creative_connexions_brief_and_bu_2#comment-7512">https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/creative_connexions_brief_and_bu_2#comment-7512</a><br />
<blockquote>
<i>"Key Project Partners</i><br />
<i>The core partnership is strategically complementary and has a track record of designing, managing and delivering on major publicly funded projects including large--scale research projects and knowledge transfer under HEIF 2. It brings together</i><br />
<i>● <b>University of the Arts London</b> (the lead partner) </i><br />
<i>● <b>LBS</b> [presumably London Business School]</i><br />
<i>● <b>School of Oriental and African Studies </b>(SOAS) </i><br />
<i>● <b>Kings College London</b></i><br />
<i>● <b>Centre for Creative Business</b> (a UAL/ LBS joint venture)</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>The partnership features universities recognised as leading UK institutions with 5/5*research grades, which through well established networks are already very active internationally in student recruitment, course delivery and knowledge transfer. The partners are well known to each other, have very good working relationships and share the ‘big picture’ with respect to their strategic international development."</i> - funding bid for Higher Education Funding by University of the Arts<br />
<br />
The funding bid shows how these institutions are known to government departments and each other from their shared recruitment work, and how they do it. They make irrelevant statements, such as research intensity which is not very relevant to undergraduate courses, and they make misleading statements such as "recognised as leading", for courses at the bottom of league tables for student satisfaction. So I suggest that some method of making them write more clearly to prospective students and funders would be a good thing.<br />
<br />
I believe that London College of Fashion and its associated companies help UK industry and taxpayers as a Cuckoo chick helps the other chicks. It begs for grants and government help with an enormous beak, which I imagine is a PR department and I know succeeds alongside Greater London Authority's London Fashion Week and associated <a href="https://planb4fashion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/graduate-fashion-week-and-fashion-scout.html">Graduate Fashion Week, and Fashion Scout</a>, and UAL Ventures Ltd (standing for University of the Arts) which ran Creative Connexions to promote Chinese manufacturing in the UK. Another UAL Venture was a group of seminars called "<a href="http://archive.is/4traY">Making it ethically in China</a>". <br />
<br />
I don't know if Cuckoo chicks attack other chicks in the nest or just crowd them out like this - a conversation between a journalist and a Nike contractor described as an ethical fashion expert and working with a trade association that gets taxpayer subsidy. I do know that London College of Fashion tutors make similar points to the Nike consultant here:<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Adam Vaughan, journalist:</h4>
<i>"If we can generally guess what the problems are, can we shop by country, picking good ones and bad ones? Usually you can see where a product was made."</i><br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Clare Lissaman, Nike consultant who got the interview because of UK taxpayer support for Futerra Communications' "Ethical Fashion Forum". </h4>
<i>"I don't think you can compare countries. You're just as likely to have a sweatshop down the road here in London in the east end as you are in China, India or Bangladesh. One of the best factories I've come across in the world was in China. One of the worst factories I've come across in the world was in China."</i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
I single-out London College of Fashion because it does so much to damage UK manufacturing and crowd-out press coverage of UK manufacturers, but there are other bad art and design courses too at the bottom of the Guardian league table, and they are also colleges with a lot of international students: Edinburgh and Glasgow.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Economics courses that are a danger to the economy because some people take them seriously</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You can read a detailed 2013 report about Mancherster Uni's "unlearning"<br />
<a href="http://www.post-crasheconomics.com/economics-education-and-unlearning" title="
“It is time to rethink some of the basic building blocks of economics”. These are the words of Andrew Haldane, Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England, in his foreword to this report. Economics is in crisis. The profession is under attack from the media, employers and the general public. The economists we are producing are not performing the tasks society demands from them. The Financial Crisis is the obvious example of the current problem but by no means the only one. Worries about climate change are escalating to crisis levels. Massive wealth inequality is creating a backlash from think tanks, journalists and academics alike. Unemployment in Europe and beyond is motivating ordinary people to demand answers from the powers-that-be; the powers-that-be then continually defer to economists to provide these answers.
Economics, Education and Unlearning looks at what we, PCES, believe to be the problem; economics education. If economics education isn’t fit for purpose, it will not produce the skilled economists we need and society will suffer as a result. A rethink of the discipline is required or else failures in economics, such as the Financial Crisis, will inevitably be repeated. The support of Andrew Haldane, demonstrates how important this issue is to those who run our economy. We also enjoy the support of prominent economists from across the political spectrum including Lord Robert Skidelsky, Ha-Joon Chang and Stephen Davies. The push for change within economics is gaining momentum. Articles published about PCES in the Guardian were in their top 5 most read articles of the day and received up to 17,000 shares on Facebook, as well as starting a debate on the blogosphere that reached as far as Paul Krugman. We have since been discussed by the Financial Times, the Economist, the Times, the Washington Post and the BBC among other organisations. This report marks the next step in a debate about economics education that has caught the public imagination.
">http://www.post-crasheconomics.com/economics-education-and-unlearning</a>/ <br />
or more generally... <br />
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/24/students-post-crash-economics">theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/24/students-post-crash-economics</a><br />
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/28/economics-students-neoclassical-theory"><br />
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/28/economics-students-neoclassical-theory<br />
theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/09/the-econocracy-review-joe-earle-cahal-moran-zach-ward-perkins</a><br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04svjbj" title="At universities from Glasgow to Kolkata, economics students are fighting their tutors over how to teach the subject in the wake of the crash.
">bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04svjbj </a><br />
<br />
... and find that these are largely a set of cheap-to-teach short courses based on wrote-learning; only 11 out of 48 options at Manchester mentioned the word "critical" in their descriptions, and few other universities are much better. Even the protest group regards teaching of theories-before-application as normal - they just want more different theories. The idea of starting with a factual problem, and for students to make-up their own theories or pick-out the most useful, is not mentioned. University College London says it's starting the system; maybe results haven't shown-up in the student satisfaction scores yet.<br />
<br />
Standard in my English degree, when I studied English and Economics at Keele, but not in Economics. Standard in a thing called Nuffield Physica A level that I did at the start of the 80s, but again not in Economics.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Here are some problems with economics teaching. </span></h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>The lack of public administration on the economics syllabus relates to the idea of UK economics graduates becoming "ambassadors" for Britain; they become ambassadors for the country in the textbook, which is more like Bangladesh with its sweatshops. I don't see this point made anywhere else than here. </li>
<li>The problem of wrong theory taught and</li>
<li>without critical thinking is mentioned in the guardian and BBC reports, with Manchester as an example. <a href="https://veg-1980s.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html" title="Keele economics after funding cuts of a third and unemployement about a quarter after economic mismanagement in the 1090s ">My own experience in the 1980s was not much better</a>. <br />
</li>
<li>Theory not applied - a problem noted from unistats scores which I quote below. </li>
<li>It's often done in high-rent areas, particularly central London, with the effect of increasing rents and transport over-crowding.<br />
Other common features of the colleges that have large numbers of international students are my own impression . (I wrote another blog post about low-scoring degree courses called "<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">star courses</a>" a few years ago) </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">public administration not mentioned in economics courses</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Economics courses include macro-economics. Macro-economics courses do not normally mention half of the economy, that runs insurance-like services which people use at some points in their lives and pay for through their working lives. There is no discussion of why these industries tend to end-up funded from tax or compulsory insurance payments in Europe, and what happens in countries with much less public service like Bangladesh (the answer is that they have vast families in hope of family support). Instead, if you study the history of economics teaching, or if you had a 1950s McArthy-era American teaching you face to face, you discover that macro-economics teaching alarmed college sponsors in 1950s America. They boycotted the first textbook that mentioned Keynesian demand management during the 1930s recession. Eventually it got on the syllabus, but compulsory national insurance didn't; that was a step too far for republicans, and there are misleading definitions of "public goods" and "merit goods" taught instead. So economics graduates are not ambassadors for the UK when they move away; they are ambassadors for 1950s America, and likely to retain sweatshops in places like Bangladesh that put people in the UK out of work.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Wrong theory</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Evidence for damage to the economy is obvious - the Queen asked LSE lecturers why none of their theories predicted the banking crash and got no answer. There are some other points.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Uncritical thinking</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Critical thinking is needed everywhere. It's vital. But the minister's letter to the migration advisory committee is full of cliches and conventional wisdom held by lobby groups, suggesting, I think, a lack of critical thinking. In contrast, a Department for Business report on international students found that the expectation of critical thinking was something that attracted them to study in the UK. There is also a web page by the University and College Union which graphs the average staff student ratio in higher education colleges in similar countries to the UK, and puts the ratio at about highest or lowest (highest students to lowest staff) in the UK. I guess this is important if someone is going to take the time to write "this is an unexpected opinion but..." on an essay, or hold a tutorial group, or remember a students' name in that tutorial group.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">theory not applied</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Economics or finance-related courses are common choices for international students, but it's hard to imagine any course like that being useful if not applied, and the courses score badly for that. So when a statement is made like "contributes X jobs to the UK economy", there are not many people with the skills to <a href="http://bit.ly/reportmethods">apply the maths and the stats</a> and refute the statement. When I check the current University College London page for economics <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate/degrees/economics-bsc-econ/">https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate/degrees/economics-bsc-econ/</a> .. it states that <i>"The department's fundamental premise is that students should learn how to do economics themselves, rather than just learn how the academic staff or other economists do it."</i>, so there is a chance that student feedback scores will get better soon as this new system sounds good. I also read that overseas students are charged £20,000 a year, I guess just for tuition and lectures, so the economic theory of how UCL digests these huge amounts of money is probably not taught. </blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">common features of colleges with high numbers of international undergraduates</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The same list of colleges / quangos / grant artists / cuckoos / bureaucracies / institutions / corporations have bad student feedback on unistats for their economics courses, which is no surprise given the syllabus I read on the University College London web site for economics: it is not fit for purpose. So I think that success at filling places with overseas students masks failure to provide a good economics course to any student. I pick economics because it is a course I studied myself. It is also a marmite course: when you dislike it, you know that you dislike it. I pick overseas students because the consultation picked that group. It's interested in population in places like central London or Oxford where there are a lot of people, but the market failure in selling economics courses is the same for students who...</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>look at the college more than the course when applying<br />
</li>
<li>have no idea of the ratio of teaching staff to students on their course, or even whether it runs tutorials and how many people are on each one. This data doesn't get listed on Unistats for some reason</li>
<li>are impressed by research intensity which doesn't improve their degree course</li>
<li>mistakenly think their degree is a trade qualification, or </li>
<li>read words like "vibe" and "buzz" on college prospectuses and think they'll get it on a Monday morning in rush-hour in a town centre. I'm thinking of a London College of Fashion prospectus I read in about 2005, which hardly mentioned the syllabus at all and didn't mention the staff ratio.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
The consultation briefing paper notes that Indian students numbers are falling off; maybe they've learned to read the Unistats scores.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Jottings and ideas about economics degrees done by international students</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Most of the colleges are ones which were well-known 50 years ago. If they were hotels, they would be called "The Grand". Most are in city centres - mainly London - where 55,700 extra people extra people crowd-out other housing, transport users and businesses. Oxford is just as expensive. I suspect that Unistats no longer quotes housing costs next to each course as it used to - or maybe I've missed the link or it's on another web site, but it's another point which overseas students miss. Most colleges on the list are proud of their research record, suggesting that they are more interested in paid research, consultancy, and postgraduate teaching than degrees - except as a source of revenue.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">No course: Edinburgh, Glasgow would rather stop teaching economics than teach properly</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The first two were mentioned in a Guardian report alongside Manchester and LSE as teaching courses so bad that students wanted to protest. One of them - probably Glasgow - assigned all first year teaching to the online robots that come with the textbooks and will mark test results. Students called the year a "£9,000 lobotomy". Now it looks as though the colleges and existing staff would rather give-up teaching economics degrees at all than run them properly. A year or two ago I did check student feedback for the degree courses, which existed then, and found the feedback bad. </blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Economics degrees at University of Newcastle </span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Newcastle University has some of the lowest unistats feedback scores, probably for running a discredited "BSc" economics degree. In its favor, I guess that rents around Newcastle are low because of economic mismanagement by UK governments over the years, which I doubt the course mentions. 47% of students thought that staff made the subject interesting, and only 50% thought the course allowed them to apply what they had learned, so calling it a science is a bit odd. I mean: in Biology you look at biological things with microscopes and rulers as well as learning someone's theory, don't you? You don't just learn wrong theory and get told you'll have to do a postgraduate course to learn what a real dandelion looks like.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
</h4>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Coventry University economics degree course looks popular - an exception</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
An exception to the pattern of bad feedback is Coventry University, which has a high proportion of overseas students and gets good student feedback for its economics course.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Notes for a response</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The gist of a response is that it is bad to rip-off economics students, particularly those from a long way away who haven't checked the course and the student feedback. A second point in the response is that there is no benefit to luring people into very expensive town centres - not for them or from other people in the town centres. A third point is that some courses are really bad. For one historical reason or another, they teach misleading facts, useless theory, or un-usable skills. And that is before the college management decide to tweak the staff ratio so the course makes a lot of money to spend on something more eye-catching or on sales and PR. So these courses should be allowed to close for everybody's sake, rather than used to con overseas students into thinking they're worth three years and <strike>£9,000</strike> fees in the high teens each year. Universities UK are keen on overseas student places, http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2014/international-students-in-higher-education.pdf - p38 ... but I don't see how further overcrowding in London can boost employment, nor how they calculate their figures. They quote Oxford Economics, who wrote a discredited report (I think) called "The Value of Fashion", <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Suggestions</span></h4>
Visas require some online tick-boxing by prospective students, so they tick a box to say they have checked...</blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>faults to look-out for on courses like the one they have applied to</li>
<li>student feedback for the course applied for (not for research quality if it an undergraduate degree for example, but the actual course)</li>
<li>economics degree applicants should understand that compulsory social insurance is a good way of explaining most of the things that the public sector does, and that an economics degree without a public administration element is worth avoiding. </li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
That way, the bad economics courses might die a rapid death and be replaced by something sane. Just in case anyone reads this far, here are notes in progress about bad economics courses and how they keep themselves going by luring-in overseas students. It needs reformatting and some of the columns are just cut-and pasted out of Complete University Guide; they don't help. </blockquote>
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Footnote on sources:</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Research--Policy/Statistics/International-student-statistics-UK-higher-education">https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Research--Policy/Statistics/International-student-statistics-UK-higher-education</a> quotes these colleges as having highest numbers of overseas students, and says that finance and business related subjects are most popular.<br />
I take the examples of economics and of footwear, because I have studied similar courses so can try to explain the data.<br />
<br />
The first three columns are numbers of overseas students, with a link to recent unistats feedback on the first column. <br />
<br />
My choice of Economics might not be typical of <i>"business and administrative studies"</i> courses that I read are popular with international students. I don't yet know how to do a fuller comparison of the percentage of international students on all UK courses and student feedback on those courses, or either of those compared to rent in the areas where students live and study. There is a footnote on free data available.<br />
<br />
I mention Universities UK's report by Oxford Economics on my long post of notes in progress: <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/httpswwwgovukgovernmentconsultationspro.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/httpswwwgovukgovernmentconsultationspro.html</a></div>
</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Footnote on data: </span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I emailed the Higher Education Funding Council asking if they had free data linking student satisfaction to the percentage of international students on each course, for example each undergraduate degree course in economics. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>I can confirm that we do have some free data available on our website which should help answer your question. The most recent data we currently have published is 2015/16, and there are some free tables to download from this page: <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/publications/students-2015-16"> https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/publications/students-2015-16</a> The one you may be particularly interested in is <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/files/student_1516_table_F.xlsx">Table F: Percentage of HE students by subject area, mode of study, sex and domicile</a> We only really categorise courses by the subject taught, and the breakdown in the above table is the highest level of detail. Another table with a more granular breakdown of subject can be found here: <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/file/6551/download?token=rWGoQgTX">Students by subject</a> although this is just a count rather than percentage. Further tables can be found on this page: <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/key-tables">https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/key-tables</a></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.i-graduate.org/services/international-student-barometer/">International Student Barometer</a> is a site I discovered after writing this post. I haven't checked what's free and public on the site and what you have to pay for</blockquote>
<blockquote>
I see that my choice of economics wasn't neat. Somewhere I saw a reference that said they most study <i>"business and administrative studies"</i>, a heading including these sub-headings. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Business studies</li>
<li>Management studies</li>
<li>Finance</li>
<li>Accounting</li>
<li>Marketing</li>
<li>Human resource management</li>
<li>Office skills</li>
<li>Hospitality, leisure, sport, tourism & transport</li>
<li>Others in business & administrative studies</li>
<li>Broadly-based programmes within business & administrative studies </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
There are probably pages on the Guardian University Guide, Complete University Guide or others for all business and administrative studies scores together by college, and results might differ a lot from Economics scores, because Economics is a rather troubled subject with a history of dis-satisfaction.<br />
<br />
Within these categories I happen to know that University of East London's Hospitality and Tourism course had one of the lowest graduate employment rates of any UK degree course, when these things were more easily searchable on the Unistats site in about 2015.</blockquote>
<br />
🖨 For a printer-friendly version of this page, try the "text" option from a recent cache on Google or Bing. That's from the downward-pointing arrow next to the link on search results. Or a cut-and-paste to a word processor. </div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-35672424215010296382018-01-01T17:04:00.003+00:002018-10-21T10:22:34.406+01:00 Migration Advisory Committee call for evidence: International Students<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Impact of International Students in the UK:</span> <span id="goog_88741596"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_88741597"></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/739092/Impact_intl_students_CfE_1of3.pdf">Call for Evidence Responses</a> - part 1 of 3 - page 217 from "Individual C" it says.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><br />Introduction: some suggestions with reasons further-down.</span></h4>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html" title="table of data showing economics course feedback scores for the colleges with most international students, showing that most have the worst student feedback.">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html</a><br />
shows economics courses with worst student feedback getting most international students, and so making most money because some of the international fees are much higher. <br />
<br />
This response is made without funding and without great short-term memory so it rambles under some of the headings. Thanks for patience in reading the bits that ramble, particularly because I've just written something quite rude and the theme continues. My name and address are at the end, with archive links to pages that caught the 26th January deadline for evidence to the Migration Advisory Committee.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Lobby data doesn't mention "crowding" or "full" next to student migration<br />
The Greater London Authority changes it to "agglomeration" </span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Lobby data is commissioned by lobbyists from Oxford Economics or London Economics.<br />
<br />
Crowding is my word for housing & transport overload that could be mentioned under most of the headings below. For housing, or tickets, or space in the congestion zone, or polluted air, or tiny bits of space shared with too many people. As someone who lives in a crowded city, I don't think it works very well. Any provider of services finds it expensive to hire staff and space in crowded inner cities, and so harder to run services. Meanwhile there are disproportionate needs for staff to run parts of the housing and transport systems at inefficient maximum capability, just as health and social care are run at maximum capacity everywhere. It would be good to read about why immigration is bad for cities that are full from the most full city - London - but any statements are hard to find.<br />
<br />
The Greater London Authority publishes speeches from the Mayor and reports from GLA economics. Unfortunately they report what lobbyists tell them, except lobbyists don't mention "crowding" or "full", while the GLA mentions "agglomeration".</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">International students often take courses with bad feedback, in expensive areas like London</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10004063FT-L101-UBEC/ReturnTo/" title="Complete University Guide subject ranking by satisfaction, January 2018. The Guardian guide puts them second worst, ahead of University of East London. The link is to the course Unistats page">London School of Economics' economics degree students are least satisfied.</a></li>
<li>University of the Arts students are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/universityguide" title="From The Guardian Universities Guide I clicked University League Tables and sorted by satisfaction">altogether least satisfied</a>..</li>
</ul>
If both colleges closed, the world would be a happier place.<br />
Both teach in the most expensive areas of London. <br />
Both do a lot of business with government, for example through London Fashion Week, <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/02/budget.html">working with the Greater London Authority on the Queen Elizabeth Park Project</a>, or teaching students on Chevening Scholarships, so governement departments could be making the problem worse or have a chance to make it better.<br />
<br />
I don't have the spreadsheet data or the skill to link every course's feedback with the proportion of international students on that course. The data isn't free and I am not deft with spreadsheets, but the example of a troubled subject like economics at the colleges that take most international students, most often in financial subjects, could say something about all the other courses that international students do. By chance a lot of international students from the far east study at London College of Fashion and other University of the Arts colleges, putting them in the same league table of colleges with most international students which is nearly the same as the league table of colleges with least satisfied students, as you can see on (<a href="http://archive.is/JWMpT" rel="nofollow">archived page</a>)<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Afterthought. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When the Migration Advisory Committee published their report, with access to paid-for data and some quite nifty regression skills, they read the evidence a differently.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/739090/Impact_intl_students_annexes.pdf gives the result in Annex D. The difference is partly that they measure satisfaction on the "overall" measure rather than "intellectually stimulating", and they measure all courses rather than the extreme ones like business studies courses in central London. Beyond, that, I have not quite caught-up.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">How to help international students find better courses in cheaper areas.</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">The Higher Education Funding Council</span> </h4>
could restrict funding to colleges that advertise badly abroad, and restrict funding to one or two colleges that work directly against the interests of UK taxpayers, UK students and UK manufacturing like London College of Fashion that ran a Creative Connexions project and published <a href="https://issuu.com/shomil/docs/growing_sustainable_fashion_economies">course material and case studies</a> about fictional organisations related to <a href="https://planb4fashion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ethical-fashion-forum-why-dig-what-dirt.html">Ethical Fashion Forum</a> for the Department for International Development. I think that a record of publications that are untrue, and of hosting a Creative Connexions project designed to reduce UK manufacturing, should be a big factor in whether the college gets further funding. I think London College of Fashion should not get further funding from UK taxpayers via the higher education funding council. I don't know if any can be clawed back. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">The Advertising Standards Authority</span></h4>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
has already required six colleges to withdraw vague and misleading claims: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/universities-comparative-claims.html </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">The British Council</span></h4>
service to promote higher education can be changed to offer course advice rather than promoting colleges. I understand that the British Council is largely funded by the Foreign Office and it might get a Department for Business grant for this work. At the moment it offers an extra service to colleges that pay more. I think this should stop, because it encourages the promotion of colleges over courses and so promotes bad courses.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Home Office</span></h4>
visa application systems could have an online form with a few questions, to check that students know what syllabus they have applied to study, know the Unistats feedback and the relative housing costs, and have not seen too much vague language on the prospectus. <br />
The form could ask prospective students to cut and paste the syllabus from Unistats or one of a list of sites that compile the data. The same idea could be taken much further and maybe staff at Unistats could advise how - for example a check that applicants know the common faults of each type of course according to impartial staff, who might say it doesn't lead to a job in the form applied-for and that some other combination is better, or graduates and drop-outs, who might say that it's boring or list things they wish they'd known when they applied. "London is expensive and anonymous". Things like that.<br />
<br />
The Home Office could do this for all applications backed by colleges. The college would then have to tell the applicant how to fill-in the form, and avoid using vague words on their prospectus.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Foreign Office</span></h4>
<i>"The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is once again the top destination for 2012/13 Chevening Scholars, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office has reported" - <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/website-archive/newsAndMedia/newsArchives/2012/10/Chevening.aspx" rel="nofollow">LSE web site</a></i><br />
<br />
Cease Chevening Scholarships to <br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>economics courses that don't mention the welfare state, or </li>
<li>courses with bad student feedback or </li>
<li>courses taught in the most crowded areas.</li>
</ul>
The current system is that people from other countries get student grants which are not available to UK taxpayers, to learn how to mis-manage the system which UK taxpayers pay for, take-up space in city centres while they are doing it, and then go home to other countries and run them just as badly.They are part of the critical mass which keeps these awful courses open.</blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">What impact does the payment </span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">of migrant student fees </span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">to the educational provider have?<span style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><h4>
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Migrant fees from outside the EU are about double per head, with double impact.</span></h4>
</li>
<li><h4>
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Migrants are worse at choosing courses, so the worst course makes the most money.</span></h4>
</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Any other group of students who are easily-led or mis-led have the same bad effect, but students who pay double fees have a multiplied bad effect. Everybody looses including the student, home students sitting alongside, anyone who would benefit from better educated students, or another educational provider looking for students and a chance to do a better course that's more interesting to study or teach. So even the people who teach Economics 101 at London School of Economics suffer a bad impact from migrant students, because they loose a chance to teach a more interesting course in a cheaper area. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/small/cab-66-31-wp-42-547-27.pdf"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Social Insurance & Allied Services</span></b></a> <br />
<br />
Take the welfare state as an example of something probably not taught on the worst course like London School of Economics' Economics degree, but more interesting to teach at another course to more interested students in a cheaper area. The standard LSE course takes two years to get to the point, during which you are taught how to be a computer. Then in year three you can take various courses which don't include how to fund the welfare state. You can take a course in Game Theory but not how to keep a hospital open. That topic is banished to minor courses with more obscure names - maybe Public Administration nor something like that, as though you would know at the age of 18 to apply for a course in public administration and economics, if it exists.<br />
<br />
If a course began with problems that other people face, told students what theories were available, and let them choose the relevant ones, then a lot of time would be saved, leaving time to teach what students wanted to study. <br />
<br />
I think this bad teaching influences our politicians. If you ask one how to fund the NHS, they don't know what to say. The Prime Minister was caught with the question and said <i>"people are getting older"</i>, and I doubt many prime ministers could have answered better. A bit like a rocket scientist saying <i>"it just goes pop and there's mess everywhere". </i>Or a brain surgeon.<br />
<i></i></blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><h4>
<span style="color: #0b5394;">There is a table of data showing economics course feedback scores for the colleges with most international students, showing that most have the worst student feedback.</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html</a></span> <span style="font-weight: normal;">(</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://archive.is/JWMpT" rel="nofollow">26/1/18</a> )</span></h4>
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html"> </a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">What are the fiscal impacts of migrant students, (including student loan arrangements)?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Crowding costs are the obvious urgent problem, but not mentioned in lobby data.</span></h4>
I think the fiscal cost of public services rises more per head as crowding increases, as a curve, so it is less per head in Lampeter and more per head in London. I think the data funded by lobby groups via Oxford Economics or London Economics is silent here, as you would expect. London Economics does do some work to try and price public services per head in different constituencies, but only has two zones for health spending, and has a theory that some categories of public spending are much higher in Wales for example, so I don't think their figures help and they don't state how the figures are worked-out.<br />
.<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Take housing</span>. </h4>
Housing is more expensive to manage if it is scarce and expensive than if nobody cares about a months’ vacancy or qualification for a special needs waiting list. There used to be some hotels around Argyle Square and Gower Street that might take a guest on housing benefit and advertised in Loot. I expect the guest had to be convincing at some kind of interview and provide lots of ID, but they did it, making a lot of social housing provision unnecessary. Now that housing benefit is harder to get and housing costs in Camden are about the highest in the UK, I doubt you can still get a hotel room on housing benefit. Gower Street is also the main address for London University; prices round Gower Street and Camden and London are increased by London University's trade<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
</h4>
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Take transport.</span></h4>
I guess rail journeys cost more per ticket at capacity than at half capacity. Signaling, unsocial hours, and emergencies cost more at full capacity. Journeys cost more than the ticket price if one emergency stops a line from working for an hour, as they do in central London. As the limits to capacity are tested, it becomes clear that money cannot buy more tube tunnels, cubic meters of air to disperse exhaust fumes, linear meters of traffic lane or parking space, seats in existing transport, miles of commute that commutes are willing to endure. There are congestion charges in London but some streets are still too polluted by EU standards. So all services in central London have to beat the cost of harder deliveries and harder commutes. And transport is one of the more measurable factors, along with housing prices. <br />
<br />
There are plenty of less measurable fiscal costs to the numbers of public sector staff needed, the stress to them, the cost of staff turnover or bad staff, and the fiscal cost of extra wages paid to make-up. The fact that shortage occupations include emergency medicine and old-age psychiatry suggest, in part, that not enough people are trained but they also suggest that not enough people want the job at any wage after a few years in post, quite likely because of strains related to overcrowding, lack of social care in overcrowded areas, high staff turnover among colleagues, and so-on.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
</h4>
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Take lobby data about international students: a repeated point</span></h4>
Lobbyists fund data. <br />
Universities UK finds reports from Oxford Economics; other lobbyists fund London Economics. Lobbyists want taxpayer funding or student fees, so they don’t pay for data about overcrowding and its fiscal costs, obviously. Not obvious to elected mayors of London or ministers, but obvious. Mayors and ministers have a puppy-like enthusiasm for trotting-out this stuff out in speeches after going on a visit and shaking someone's hand.<br />
<br />
So as taxpayers, we read claims of benefits and have to un-pick them, un-paid, to state the costs to officials & politicians. If we send these opinions in, as I did to Sadiq Khan about a different way of funding London Fashion Week, we might get an acknowledgement from their secretaries, or might not, and then we see their next speech with the puppy-like enthusiasm for lobby data because I suppose they have met someone in person and shaken their hand and believed every word.<br />
<br />
The Mayor of London uses taxes to fund some economists directly. Their office is called GLA Economics. I hoped they would have a report on crowding of housing and transport, and so the need to have less visitors to London as students or tourists or arts audience or lured-in tech employees or any other category.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/research-and-analysis/economy-and-employment/">https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/research-and-analysis/economy-and-employment/</a><br />
<a href="https://data.london.gov.uk/gla-economics/">https://data.london.gov.uk/gla-economics/</a><br />
This is an example report: <br />
<a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/research-and-analysis/economy-and-employment/economic-evidence-base-london-2016">https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/research-and-analysis/economy-and-employment/economic-evidence-base-london-2016</a><br />
Their web site does mention rising population, pollution, an a graph of median earnings falling against housing costs over time. This looks like an argument for less crowding. <br />
<br />
Next to these chapters are other pages about the need to bring more business and visitors into London: an argument for more crowding. This is the clash between evidence and policy that I do not understand, and seems so blatant that I do not know how to argue against it except by stating the obvious point about over-crowding under every heading. On a closer look, it seems that the mayor has come back from a lobby meeting, dropped-in to the GLA Economics office, and told economists to cross-out "crowding" or "full" and write "agglomeration". I have the odd quote below.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
</h4>
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Fiscal cost of crowding: </span></h4>
(could be repeated under "how much money ... spending ... impact ... regional")<br />
<br />
This is the most important point and could sit under several headings, including fiscal costs of governing an over-crowded expensive town like London with staff on Inner London Weighting, Congestion charges, long commutes, excessive staff turnover, extra services like traffic control and congestion charging, extra costs of running services over without spare capacity for housing or social care, and so-on. Some of this is a personal cost to the person who tries to work for Haringay Social Services or such; some of it is cost to the taxpayer, and some is cost to the people who try to use these creaky services run by temps from all over the place. I pick that example because it is described in the Victoria Climbie Enquiry's report.<br />
<br />
The briefing paper notes a report on education healthcare and social services spending, which are not much used by people of student age.<br />
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/257236/impact-of-migration.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/257236/impact-of-migration.pdf</a><br />
<br />
I think it's obvious that the crowding ads to the cost of those services. They have to be run without enough beds, bedsits, flats, transport seats, meters of traffic lane, parking spaces, or cubic meters of air to disperse exhaust fumes. This makes each service, from social care to education to housing, more slow and stressful to manage. There is a congestion charge. There are 24 hour traffic monitors trying to keep traffic moving even so, and people working full-time on the cameras that catch people on certain yellow box junctions when the traffic jam strands them there. All these extra public services have fiscal costs, even if those costs are funded by traffic fines or tickets<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, reports from lobby groups have nothing to say.<br />
Oxford Economics mention no costs, if I remember right. I have linked to the part of their report that states working methods. <a href="http://bit.ly/reportmethods" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/reportmethods</a><br />
<br />
London Economics does mention some costs or "fiscal impacts". One of their reports costs public costs and benefits by parliamentary constituency, and if there is a vital part that I have missed it is in how they cost public services per head in Westminster or Coleraine or West Highlands. Their main report is more national.<br />
<br />
Costs of Hosting International Students<br />
⦁ Funding Council Teaching Grants<br />
⦁ Costs of Student Support<br />
⦁ The Other Public Costs of Hosting International Students<br />
⦁ Total<br />
⦁ Other Public Costs for Students and Dependents <br />
<br />
This is the only lobby data I have seen which mentions higher costs in Gower Street, Camden, London, than in Coleraine or West Highlands. The calculation is rough, and opaque. It calculates that health costs £729 in some regions and £529 in others - there are only two bands. General public services are cheap in London, it estimates, at £84 compared to £159 in Wales. The calculation is kept private. So I don't think that lobby data helps any more than GLA Economics in making sense of the cost of crowding<br />
<br />
.<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Fiscal cost of scholarships to international students:</span></h4>
Most international students are over-charged by the colleges, but some are subsidised by the taxpayer through scholarships, I understand, even though the same taxpayer no longer gets a student grant themselves.<br />
Source<br />
<a href="https://study-uk.britishcouncil.org/options/scholarships-financial-support">https://study-uk.britishcouncil.org/options/scholarships-financial-support</a>.<br />
The Great China scholarship fund is worth a million pounds says and the Great India scholarship fund looks similar. There is an EU Erasmus program which I don't understand. The Chevening Fund is for students "personally selected" by British embassies "Funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and partner organisations", meaning that it is funded by removing money from the welfare state.<br />
A million pounds pays for 1890 average peoples' health costs a year at the lower rate, according to London Economics prices, but Oxford Economics says that this is only a tiny percentage of the public service funded by taxes on international students' spending. For example they spend a lot on transport - London Economics has a pictogram. They have to spend a lot on transport because some of them have courses held in London's Oxford Street. I am getting confused.<br />
<br />
If you are not a courtier but just live in the UK and pay taxes, I understand that you can only get a student loan for fees and maintenance, charged at 7%, repayable in installments if you ever earn an average income. The government pays interest at a much lower rate, but does not pass-on the saving and ministers have stated that the scheme makes no money; it makes a big mark-up but the system is expensive to run and a lot of people don't ever make an average wage with which to repay their student loan.<br />
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Fiscal cost of unraveling the statements</span></h4>
There is no government grant for un-ravelling the statements made by Oxford Economics or London Economics for public-funded organisations that want more taxpayers' money. I think that's a bit unfair because they use taxpayers' money to pay for the reports:<br />
<br />
<i>"The economic activity and employment sustained by international students’ subsistence spending generated £1 billion in tax revenues in 2014–15 – equivalent to the salaries of 31,700 nurses or 25,000 police officers"</i><br />
<a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2017/economic-impact-international-students-final-WEB.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2017/economic-impact-international-students-final-WEB.pdf</a><br />
<br />
London Economics did similar research for one sponsor and something called the "Higher Education Policy Institute", (registered charity number 1099645) named to confuse by the look of it. They ran a dinner event with the title<i> "challenger institutions: useful competition or unhelpful disruption?"</i> and invited a minister or MP along. So they are probably the same bunch as the other sponsor, Kaplan, which is a crammer that wants to be called a University and gets a fiscal subsidy for the PR by calling it a charity.<br />
<br />
London Economics' account of jobs created does not mention jobs lost as a result of so many students studying bad courses in crowded places. London Economics' estimate might make sense at Coleraine in Northern Ireland, or the West Highlands, or in County Durham. Areas where there are empty bedsits, and if this isn't always true, then the less measurable claims of benefit make-up. Maybe students add variety and connections and bring skills, or maybe they make businesses viable that would otherwise not be viable, such as cheap clubs and venues that local people can also use. Unfortunately I think that most areas are more crowded than this.<br />
<br />
The most crowded area is London if you measure by property prices.<br />
<br />
Universities UK's report from Oxford Economics quotes this about London:<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> £1327m </span> off-campus expenditure<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> £2.714bn </span> export earnings.<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 8,855 </span> jobs created by spending (it doesn't say on or off campus)<br />
<br />
There are no notes and queries attached, which is a worry. <br />
<br />
A politician or a civil servant could simply take these figures as given. Just as a lot take the cliches as given - <i>"world class"</i>, for example. Manchester University economics students have noted the lack of critical thinking allowed on one of the very courses that attracts a lot of international students and supplies graduates to the civil service or parliament.<br />
<br />
I doubt any of these figures helps.<br />
<br />
Off campus expenditure would be spent by other people in London who would be allowed-in if international students were not there. The people priced-out, who commute-in. They would also be less tired and more enterprising, maybe talking to children more or sleeping or doing a more fun job with lower prospects or earnings or hanging around clubs and bars and venues. People who do whatever common people do.<br />
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Fiscal benefit of VAT and other taxes on the supply chain for off-campus spending</span></h4>
This requires modelling that is not easy for most of us to challenge although I would welcome a chance if there's any need for specific feedback, or if anyone with more up-do-date skills wants to do it with me.<br />
<a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2017/the-economic-impact-of-universities.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2017/the-economic-impact-of-universities.pdf</a><br />
... is the report commissioned by a lobby group<br />
... <a href="http://bit.ly/reportmethods">http://bit.ly/reportmethods</a> is the part that quotes their reporting methods <br />
<b><span style="color: #0b5394;">including student loan arrangements?</span></b><br />
(I don't know any relevant evidence to send to the migration advisory committee.<br />
<br />
There could be a chance for UK students to build their student loan into the state national insurance scheme, so that, if they have a high income throughout their lives, maybe they get a state pension years later than someone who has worked in mining from the age of 16 for example.<br />
It is frustrating that UK government cannot afford student grants to people in the UK, but does grant them to people in China or India as part of a scholarship scheme, and does still grant research work to universities in large amounts)</blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Do migrant students help support employment in educational institutions?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Crowding can be mentioned under each heading, </span></h4>
...such as long commutes or high local housing costs.</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">How much money do migrant students spend in the national, regional and local economy and what is the impact of this?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Crowding can be mentioned under each heading. </span></h4>
Housing spending will crowd-out other potential users of the land, or the specific floor space if students rent privately. <br />
Transport spending will raise the congestion charge, or crowd–out other users of public transport </blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">How do migrant students affect the educational opportunities available to UK students?</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">To what extent does the demand from migrant students for UK education dictate the supply of that education provision and the impact of this on UK students?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I take these together, under Quantity, where I state that I'm confused, and Quality, where I state some examples that come-around again other other questions.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #45818e;">Quantity.</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
A couple of reports note international demand for courses otherwise harder to run.</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So far as the quantity of teaching goes, I think the reports make sense, but they have not said why these courses lack a critical mass of home students - maybe because of faults in schools or bad choices made by prospective students, or lack of wealth among home students. </div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>Quantity of numerate home applicants - overlapping with points about quality</b></span></h4>
If UK schools don't provide numerate applicants for courses, there is a work-around:<br />
<i>"Abandoning Economics because of an inadequate supply of numerate applicants ignores the availability of first-year modules to improve students’ mathematical skills, something which universities are expected to do much more now"</i> - <i><a href="http://www.keeleucu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/Alternative-Plan.pdf">A Management School for Keele</a>, 2009, Keele University and College Union, p38</i><br />
<br />
Better still, there could also be ways of teaching a technical course with mathematics taught in context, as needed, to solve real problems, rather than taught for its own dry sake in the first two years of the course, including maths that doesn't get used.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Puzzlement</span></h4>
<br />
The reports suggest that post-graduate study is strategically important. But. How could home students possibly afford it? Why aren't their first degrees sufficient to teach them to study by themselves without further help? What does it mean for their job prospects when applicants from wealthy backgrounds have two degrees and they only have one? Does a first degree get dumbed-down and un-critical in a college where so many students are postgraduates? Do the conventional wisdoms about how the world works get influenced by the wealthy. international backgrounds of so many students? How does an employer distinguish between a rich but useless person with two degrees and poor useful person with one degree? Who empties the bins while so many young fit people are on courses?<br />
<br />
Lobby reports don't clarify, despite repeating their point often.<br />
<blockquote>
<br />
<i>"Graduates entering employment predominantly move into management, banking and finance and the civil service."</i>, according to University College London economics department, and I find that rather frightening when I think of the problems of economics teaching in the UK.<br />
<br />
I simply quote some paragraphs, to show the arguments I mean, before moving-on to <br />
<br />
<i>A further benefit for UK HEIs from the presence of international students has been cited as their role in achieving critical mass for teaching on some courses, including some which may have declined in popularity with home students. In some STEM subjects especially, the proportion of international students may be relatively high in some institutions, and without the presence of those students the course would become unsustainable, thereby reducing the range of courses available to UK students at certain institutions. The make-up of some course groups reported by the alumni supported this view. Any such reductions of course availability could have potential long-term impact on the UK stock of strategic skills.</i><br />
<i>These issues also arise in relation to postgraduate research study. </i><br />
<i>- BIS (2013)<u> The wider benefits of international higher education in the UK</u></i><br />
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-higher-education-in-the-uk-wider-benefits" rel="nofollow"><i>https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-higher-education-in-the-uk-wider-benefits</i></a><br />
<br />
The same point is made for Universities UK by Oxford Economics several times in different parts of their report<br />
<i>International student fee income accounted for 13% of sector income in 2013–14, and demand from international students can support the provision of certain strategically- important subjects in the UK (eg engineering, technology and computer science, particularly at postgraduate level where around half of all students are from outside the EU).</i><br />
<i>Universities UK (2014) International Students in Higher Education</i><br />
<a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2014/international-students-in-higher-education.pdf" rel="nofollow"><i>http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2014/international-students-in-higher-education.pdf</i></a></blockquote>
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Quality: I said this under "impact" but it could just a well go here,</span></h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><h4>
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Migrant fees are about double home fees if non-EU, so have double the impact.</span></h4>
</li>
<li><h4>
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Migrants are worse at choosing courses, so the worst course makes the most money.</span></h4>
</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Any other group of students who are easily-led or easily mis-led have the same bad effect. Everybody looses including the student, home students sitting alongside, anyone who would benefit from better educated students, or another educational provider looking for students. <br />
<br />
Take one example. Economics students are often not trained in how to fund the welfare state. That syllabus is banished to an obscure degree subject called Public Administration. So, if you ask an MP about funding the NHS, they don't know what to say. The Prime Minister was caught with the question and said <i>"people are getting older"</i>, and I doubt any of the last few prime ministers could have answered any better.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4>
<span style="color: #0b5394;">There is a table of data showing economics course feedback scores for the colleges with most international students, showing that most have the worst student feedback.</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html</a></span> <span style="font-weight: normal;">(</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://archive.is/JWMpT" rel="nofollow">26/1/18</a> )</span></h4>
</blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
International students choose by college rather than by course</span></b><br />
<br />
A student might decide to study economics, and then choose a college by things like a web site that says "world class", "foremost", "vibrant buzz", rather than checking what kind of syllabus the college teaches and how satisfied previous students were. Politicians seem to make the same mistake in allowing business deals with these colleges and quoting their lobbyists word for word.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One graduate, Pok Wong, is taking Anglia Ruskin University to court over its false claims of graduate employment prospects, and the Advertising Standards Authority has required six universities to change their prospectuses, according to https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/student-anglia-ruskin-university-mickey-mouse-degree-pok-wong-tuition-fees-a8250441.html </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The colleges and The British Council advertise by college rather than by course. And international students say that they choose by college rather than by course. The Survey of Graduating International Students found that<i> "recognition of UK qualifications, the university reputation and the language"</i> were important. On the other hand, there was no question about the course itself, so a different survey might get a different result. <br />
<a href="http://www.cpc.ac.uk/docs/2017_SoGIS_Technical_Report.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.cpc.ac.uk/docs/2017_SoGIS_Technical_Report.pdf </a><br />
<br />
I guess that home student applicants choose by college rather than course as well, but are getting more sophisticated with help from Unistats and the spin-off private sector sites, and other students' own rueful feedback scores on courses like LSE Economics. In a way, students are getting a vote about how their courses are going to be run. Meanwhile, more and more institutions are getting degree-awarding powers. The parental role of institutions in trying to provide courses that applicants should apply-for is replaced by a market force to provide what the student does apply-for, and maybe regrets later. Like a very boring course in how to be an astronaut, which doesn't lead to an astronaut job at the end because it doesn't teach how to make a space ship. There are lots of courses like that. Fashion design for example.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Engineering or Computer Science courses</span></b><br />
<br />
I wrote a blog post called "<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html" title="the least satisfied, most bored & lowest-paid UK graduates in 2014">star courses</a>" about the courses with the worst student feedback and the least related employment for graduates. One such was a group of Portsmouth University graduates in Petroleum Engineering, if I remember right, who did not have the resources to drill for oil once they had left the university at the age of 22 with no savings. I don't know of any survey which says why so many Portsmouth Petroleum graduates have poor job prospects, but guess there's a common theme in most of them that the scale of operation, and the technical tools, make it hard to apply the skills except by getting one of the rare jobs on an oil rig at the other end of the UK.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, there are shortage occupations for the more technical product designers. So there is a problem to be un-picked about how some engineering courses are popular because they help get a job, some are unpopular in hindsight because they don't get a job, and what can be done. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
If I could find the lobby quote, I think it would say that international students help "particularly at post graduate level" and I have to ask: why can't they study at home without paying fees to a college? Maybe they loose more than most.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b><br />
Some examples of courses which get a lot of international students and a lot of bad student feedback.</b></span><br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"> Leeds College of Health, circa 1996.</span></h4>
I was myself on a distance learning course, advertised as part of Leeds University but in fact run by Leeds College of Health, a mental health training organisation which was unable to provide any contact at all with tutors, and lost its last one, I think while I was on the course. I think it collapsed at that point. (A successor organisation exists for addiction studies and it, too, has closed to new students "following a review" - http://www.lau.org.uk/training/courses.htm I find it un-nerving that Leeds University still allows its name to be used by some related organisation )<br />
<br />
What I noticed was that most of the distance learning students were from Pakistan, and another large proportion were paid-for by a health trust in Yorkshire. I suspect that these two groups of students were less likely to complain, and less likely to know what to expect, than a self-funded student. I suspect that's why the course survived as long as it did and my chances of study were reduced instead of increased, because someone could have set-up a proper college and I could have found it if Leeds College of Health had never existed. And so the demand from those migrant students and employer-funded students reduced the supply of education to me, with a bad impact on how well I did my job and on my job prospects. Current unistats data would single-out the course and force closure a little sooner than in 2002. <br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"> Manchester University Economics degree, quoted in 2013</span></h4>
<a href="http://www.rethinkeconomics.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Economics-Education-and-Unlearning.pdf">http://www.rethinkeconomics.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Economics-Education-and-Unlearning.pdf</a><br />
<i>100% of marks awarded by multiple choice exam for both Principles modules in first year.</i><br />
<i>UK Micro and Macro have 90% awarded by multiple choice exams and the other 10% is an essay. However, this essay is only 1,000 words long and students get 100% for handing it in on time. This means that many students don’t widely research the topic or fully engage with the material.</i><br />
<i>Micro and Macro Principles are a delivery of neoclassical theory and students are expected to learn the theory by rote. </i><br />
<i>There is no mention of what school of thought is being taught or that there are any other schools of thought. It is presented as facts about the world which leads to the possibility of students believing that these ideas represent indisputable truths </i><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #0b5394;">The largest recruiter of overseas students - UCL - now claims to have improved its syllabus:</span></b><br />
<a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0917/180917-core-economics-teaching" rel="nofollow">http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0917/180917-core-economics-teaching</a><br />
The news has not reached their page on the complete university guide for 2018 admission<br />
<a href="https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/courses/details/16439574" rel="nofollow">https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/courses/details/16439574</a>.<br />
<br />
If graduates are produced who don't look things up or think things through, and haven't quite got the right skills for self-employment, there must be an effect on the demand for graduates. One measure of this, I think, is the number of people who do post-graduate courses that I know very little about.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Example of bad quality offered to international students: <br />
University of the Arts London College of Fashion Footwear degree</span></h4>
Last I heard, Clarks asks students to design some prototype uppers each year, but not the soles because those require engineering which the college doesn't teach. Meanwhile, one of the shortage occupations is "product development engineer; product design engineer" under an engineering heading. <br />
<br />
Anecdotal examples that human rights and democracy are not much mentioned by<br />
Lobbying of mayors such as Khan: <i>" It's great that so many people want to come to London to study fashion"</i>. I disagree, but the effect of un-democratic lobbying is greater, I think, than the democratic pressure to make london a less crowded place to live,</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">What is the impact of migrant students on the demand for</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">⦁ housing provision</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">⦁ transport (particularly local transport)</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">⦁ health provision</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
Crowding is the main point here. </span></h4>
The Planning Act prevents building to meet demand; Britain is overcrowded in most places. British manufacturing shrank more than manufacturing in similar countries, I think, during a period of high exchange rates from 1979-2009. That left the jobs disproportionately in the areas where service industries are common, rather than in Belfast or Tyneside <br />
<br />
So there is a lot of overcrowding in London, quite a lot in most areas, and just a few tiny bits like Coleraine or West Highlands where migrants are a help.<br />
<br />
Extra crowding, I believe, can only add to fiscal costs, even without thinking of data.<br />
If taxes have to pay for roads, for example, then they might as well pay for rails, and so there is a fiscal cost to peoples' long commutes to London. There is the fiscal cost of running transport very near to full capacity, with the extra traffic monitoring work that has to be done, and the cost to travelers of the congestion charge. There are fiscal costs of a less efficient workforce, more stressed and tired because of long commutes.<br />
The fiscal costs of housing rise with over-crowding too I think. There is the fiscal cost of housing benefit has to rise with rent. Emergency housing schemes like council homeless persons units have to make extra use of hostels and B&Bs to house homeless people because more suitable space is not available, and increased rough-sleeping because people who are willing and able to use a room or a hostel space on housing benefit are not able to find one.<br />
<br />
The fiscal costs of running public services have to be higher in a crowded area. The market price for a care assistant from an agency is likely to be higher in London. People on formal public sector pay scales are likely to be on London Weighting or Inner London Weighting. <br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Transport specifically: stating the obvious</span></h4>
<br />
GLA economics publishes an estimate of the numbers of people who commute between regions, mainly in-bound, mainly long-distance, mainly to London. It is a big estimate.<br />
<br />
GLA also publishes numbers of London international students.<br />
<br />
Both figures have the same number of noughts after them; they are the same order of magnitude. So if there were no international students in London next year, and no home students filled their places, there would be a lot less commuting.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Housing specifically: stating the obvious</span></h4>
<br />
a general point based on easily-available data from <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23234033">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23234033</a>, which maps UK housing costs.<br />
<br />
One bed flats in Camden range from £1,457 to £1,625 mid-market to £1,842 for more expensive Westminster and Kensington are slightly more expensive. Generally, the cluster of institutions that attract overseas students have their central buildings in Camden and central London.<br />
<br />
The example I looked at - Footwear design at London College of Fashion - has a library and teaching space above British Home Stores in Oxford Street, and uses a former school at Golden Lane in Islington. One of their halls of residence - Cordwainers Court in Shoreditch.- sounds as though it is one of the fixed assets sponsored by past generations to help UK shoemakers study.<br />
<i><br />
</i> <i> "Standard rooms (shared bathroom) are £154 per week for 42-week tenancies, (£6,468 in total) and £150 per week for 50-week tenancies (£7,500). These rooms are approximately 12 m2"</i><br />
<br />
I don't think economists need to add-up all the rent paid by students and declare it a good thing, arguing that it trickles-around the rest of the economy.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">A general point about crowding-out by study as well as tourism and arts</span></h4>
<br />
I think that the opportunity cost of this space being used in such an overcrowded part of London is that other rental is crowded-out, just as tourist hotels crowd-out other people from London, or the Royal Opera crowds-out people from London with the bad effects of homelessness, high housing costs, long commutes, and a reduction in variety of London services which is hard to explain economically, but seems associated with high rents. I don't think this would matter if the students<br />
⦁ enjoyed their courses,<br />
⦁ got value for money by being stretched, stimulated, interested, career qualified etc<br />
⦁ benefit the rest of us as much as anyone else who might end-up in central London.<br />
The evidence I can see points the other way on each point.<br />
<br />
The London College of Fashion charge for overseas students is £17,500 a year, which is a lot for a course that doesn't teach you to run a shoe factory, learned alongside UK students paying £9,000.<br />
<br />
In contrast, there are two shortage occupations on the home office list - <b>"2126 ... product development engineer, product design engineer"</b> which are in demand as well as <b>"2219.... prosthetist"</b>. These similar skills are clearly not much taught at London College of Fashion, or hard to practice after graduating with the skills taught, or they would not be shortage occupations.</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">What impacts have migrant students had on changes to tourism and numbers of visitors to the UK?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Crowding needs a mention under every heading.</span></h4>
</div>
There is no room on the Piccadilly Line for more tourists at rush hour.<br />
Most areas of the UK are overcrowded and short of housing, and migrant students study in the most overcrowded areas with the least housing, so if they increase tourism, it might well be in the areas that have too much tourism like London.<br />
<br />
Reports including <i>The Value of Fashion</i> by Oxford Economics list extra visitors to London prompted by London Fashion Week. Each extra visitor causes more crowding on the tube.</blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">What role do migrant students play in extending UK soft power and influence abroad?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Long after the close of the call for evidence, I read how nasty and expensive the visa application process has been: <a href="https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-pernicious-politics-of-immigration.html">https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-pernicious-politics-of-immigration.html</a> <br />
<br />
Combine that with the extortionate fees charged to non-EU students, and you are likely to disgruntle some of the applicants. The worst example is applicants who got a place at London Metropolitan University, took part of the course after paying high fees, and were then given 60 days' notice to leave and a "task force", whatever that is. I doubt any of these students crop-up in research about graduates' warm feelings towards the UK because they are not easily tracable via facebook links provided by an alumni office - one of the methods used to research the role migrant students play in extending UK soft power and influence abroad. Nor do any or the people who apply for a visa and don't get one, but think they are over-charged or badly treated. Or people who drop-out. <br />
<br />
The question could be re-framed: how can UK government services be fairer and nicer to people abroad? How can our government not offend people for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
Getting back to Department for Business research, I found the results unclear.<br />
<br />
The Department for Business research asks about their interest in <i>"british goods"</i> and <i>"british brands"</i> interchangeably. <br />
<br />
Goods made in Britain are good for the economy, helping money circulate and providing a wider range of UK jobs to job applicants who want a wider range of jobs. <br />
<br />
British brands may not even be owned in Britain and are unlikely to be made in the UK. <br />
<br />
The research found no great take-up of either goods or brands by graduates, but the interchangeable use of both words suggests the problem: international students are not keen on a society in which taxes are earned to pay for public services.<br />
<br />
I think there is potential for greater benefits among the fifteen categories listed. If every migrant student had to understand the principal of national insurance and similar schemes, the faults of countries without such schemes, and the difficult of trading between the two kinds of country, then I think more of the worlds' countries would reduce poverty sooner and fewer would compete unfairly with the UK.<br />
<br />
There are fifteen categories of soft power listed on one report, without much evidence available for success or failure in any of the fifteen categories, so to avoid rambling I say nothing more.</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">If migrant students take paid employment while they are studying, what types of work do they do?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
?</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">What are the broader labour market impacts of students transferring from Tier 4 to Tier 2 [student visa to ex-student visa with rights to apply for skilled work related to the course] including</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">- on net migration and</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
? </div>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">- on shortage occupations?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Shortage Occupations: <br />
need for research on why they are unpleasant jobs, and spending on solutions already known</span></h4>
I think each shortage occupation deserves research on why it is such an unpleasant job that not enough people want to do it for long enough, or to train to do it, even when the pay is high and job agencies have the vacancy ready to fill. Not quite an answer to this consultation, but a point worth making. In some cases, like emergency medicine, I think the answer is well-known. A lack of social care, mental health services, and hospital capacity make the job frustrating and stressful. The answer is clearly to spend less on another shortage occupation - classical dancers and choreographers - and more on social care or mental health services.<br />
<br />
There is clearly a need for NHS managers to know more about why nursing is an unpleasant job, I am told by a nurse. She says the clinical nurse specialist job is turned into a production-line job with one diagnosis and one small role and no chance to use experience and training. I don't know what more junior nurses on shift work in wards think, but it is worth asking. <br />
<br />
I used to do social work social work jobs and found them, the line managers, and the offices a little bit like the ones described in the Victoria Climbie Enquiry.<br />
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/victoria-climbi_-inquiry">https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/victoria-climbi_-inquiry</a><br />
It strikes me that if there is some way for a course to test whether a social worker is intelligent and honest, that should be the only sort of course to justify a student visa. <br />
<br />
I think social work is an unusual job in that the people who most think they can do it are the least good at it. So the current system by which rather desperate marginal universities will give anyone a chance is not a good system; it gives a false confidence and career advantage to the least able. A bit like the masters degrees in public administration done by more senior social workers who want to run departments.<br />
<br />
I knew a social worker on a postgraduate course at Kingston Uni who was shocked by the other people on the course, and thought that they were just interested in the job for the power. Maybe they were the same people who cropped-up a year or two later at the Victoria Climbie Enquiry, with their effect of making the job unattractive to saner applicants.<br />
<br />
Suppose there is a country where it is more often hard to judge whether student visa applicants could become social workers with these qualities...<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>polite in UK terms, not giving direct instructions to the client </li>
<li>respect the idea of an insurance like service pre-paid by the client through taxes, </li>
<li>help where possible instead of just assessing, for example in looking up benefits rules or fitting a stair rail<br />
<br />
and are<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>intelligent, </li>
<li>honest, </li>
<li>able to look things up with a history of doing it, able to do it at an interview </li>
<li>able to think-through messy problems and simplify what if anything can be done. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I wrote "suppose", but if there is a country where student visa applicants are harder to judge, where a college might get an applicant who is just plain barmy, then visas should not be allocated in that country, even if some applicants are perfectly good. Until someone can devise some extra special tests to allow the sensible ones to get a visa.<br />
<br />
Ideally, social work employers would know how to select job candidates. That wasn't the case at Harringay Social Services when they hired Carole Baptiste. If the Migration Advisory Committee can find out where <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2002/jan/15/childprotection1">Carole Baptiste</a> or other employees of Haringay Social Services got their qualifications, I think that would be a good piece of work and help to prevent bad social work courses from running in future - I write with sympathy for the social worker at the bottom of the management hierachy, on whom everything was first blamed, who got no commitment from any of her bosses to give opinions or help or even run an office or write a sensible job contract.</blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Whether, and to what extent, migrant students enter the labour market, when they graduate and what types of post-study work do they do?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
?</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">In addition, the MAC would like to receive evidence about what stakeholders think would happen in the event of there no longer being a demand from migrant students for a UK education.</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">The economy...<br />
<br />
<br />
Other exports would have to increase</span></h4>
<br />
The effect would be the same as an end to any other export, such as oil or financial services.<br />
<br />
The pound would fall until some some other export - something else - became more competitive and made-up, which would quite likely be goods rather than services because easily traded. Import substitution would work the same way. For example, I have just bought a cheap car tyre which was probably from Asia. If the pound falls a lot lower, I might be offered a UK-made re-tread next time.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Government can make exports easier</span></h4>
<br />
There is no list of “something else”; there is no directory of UK manufacturers taken from income tax & VAT data. Manufactures are at a disadvantage compared to educators, who's degree courses are all neatly arranged online. Such lists can't be compiled for manufacturers from tax data, because the Revenue and Customs Act restricts use of tax data for other purposes. Government can make exports easier by changing the law and helping directories of UK manufacturers get the most complete possible data. At the moment it's easier to log-on to Alibaba and find a footwear company in China than it is to find one in the UK, which will probably be very lean, keep a low profile, and stick to some niche market.<br />
<br />
I think an advantage to manufacturing exports over service exports is that they tend to export from regions that have lower property prices, shorter commutes, no congestion zones, and less crowded public transport. Whether people enjoy manufacturing jobs is another question - it depends on the person and the job - but other advantages are clear.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>The effect on the local economy of any crowded part of the UK, such as London, would be to reduce crowding. </li>
<li>And the effect on remaining students would be increased integration </li>
</ul>
.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">The effect on students:<br />
UK students might integrate with each other more</span></h4>
<br />
English schools are not designed to integrate different types of English pupil. An increasing number are faith schools. A proportion are private, and a higher proportion of university students are privately educated. The private schools have a contingent of pupils from overseas. Anecdotally, the schools that retain a little capacity for boarding find it filled mainly with pupils from Asia. My old boarding school, Wellington College, now has a branch in China. So an ex boarder from Wellington like myself at the age of 18 would know more about wealthier Chinese people than people in the council school down the road. I expect that there is some self-censorship among people at Wellington about human rights abuses in China, the lack of democracy there, and the difficulty of a country with no welfare state trying to trade with a country that has one. That last point might not even be stated, and if I went from Wellington to a college like University of the Arts with its big Chinese student population, the pattern would be repeated. If I went on to become Chancellor of the Exchequer I might sign trade deals and encourage ownership of nuclear power stations and airports that don't seem to be in the interest of the UK.<br />
<br />
When I was 19, the differences between people at college were to do with class, region, skills, and different kinds of shared general knowledge. People had done quite well at ignoring religion in order to make it go away. Now, there is increasing segregation on religious grounds that also happen to be racial but also show in the wearing of veils, the avoidance of alcohol, and I suspect sexism, homophobia and mis-treatment of animals. there's also a resurgence in Catholic faith schools. I hope that students at UK universities find-out more about segregated groups just as previous generations found out about people from different classes, and I guess this is more likely if there are more people from the UK in each university.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Future MPs might learn a little more about people in the UK</span></h4>
<br />
I am constantly surprised by the way MPs seem to know very little about the country where they stand for parliament, assuming that local people are mainly interested in the issues around them (Susan Kramer MP at a public meeting), or that they prefer points to be expressed as emotions rather than arguments (David Lammy MP on Genfell), or that ordinary people cannot understand economic arguments. As a result, populists are left to make the popular arguments. If UK school children and students were better integrated, I think that would help the ones who become MPs be better MPs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>An example is TTIP free trade agreement</b></span></span> that Hilary Clinton was in favour of, as was Cameron, without thinking it worth debating or important. The presumption was that ordinary people don't need to be told what graduates and post-graduates have worked-out for them. A big indicator of voting for Trump was being a non-graduate. A big election issue was that he's interested in industry, and spots any unfairness of trade with China.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>An example is Brexit</b></span>. A big indicator of voting Brexit was being a non-graduate. Graduate MPs seemed to have trouble catching-up with the issues of migration between very different countries, and of the cost of belonging to the EU organisation. So populists made the arguments instead.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>An example is Ethical Fashion Forum, Creative Connexions, Making it Ethically in China, and the cluster of related activity</b></span>. The cluster was funded in secret, with Ethical Fashion Forum miraculously getting a chance to exhibit at The Crafts Council and the V&A with help from the British Council as well as getting funded by Business Link to give lectures on how to run a business. Officials met in ministries and worked-out with Futerra Communications how to set-up something that looked like "social proof", as Futerra put it, rather than a project by Hilary Benn MP at the Department for International Development and then Defra. The presumption, again, is that non-graduates wouldn't understand the need to close UK manufacturing.<br />
<br />
(Something similar is likely to happen again: Nike have a "nothing like a Londoner" ad campaign, which suggests that their sponsored department at London College of Fashion has cooked something up with the Greater London Authority.)<br />
<br />
I think that if future MPs mixed more with other UK students at university, they might be less surprised and surprising.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Effect on London and crowded areas: increased diversity</span></h4>
<i><br />
"International students bring many benefits to the UK, which have been well articulated in recent years: they bring diversity to campus life and enhance the student experience for ‘home’ students" - Oxford Economics for Universities UK (2014) International Students and Higher Education</i><br />
<br />
I don't know where to find evidence for increased uniformity in expensive, gentrified areas like London. A reduction in music clubs, gay bars, odd ethnic restaurants, and independent businesses. A reduction in things that people can only do if they pay low rent. A tendency of councils and development agencies to try and gentrify deliberately in underhand ways. I think the evidence for this is often anecdotal; I don't know where to look for something quantitative.<br />
<br />
If a lot of London colleges closed, I am sure that would slow the increase in London living costs and I hope that would be good for diversity.<br />
<br /></blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">impact of migrant students depending on the institution and/or subject being studied –</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">do different subjects and different institutions generate different impacts?</span></h3>
<hr />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Suppose there were no more non-EU international students next year.</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
<br />
I think that would be a relief in overcrowded cities like London, but a worry to institutions with most non-EU students like the LSE, London College of Fashion, and their lobbyists. <br />
<br />
There would be an immediate drop in income from non-EU students' higher fees, forcing a reduction in back-office and facilities spending on things like lobbying politicians, applying for research grants less likely to be received, paying lawyers to fend-off complainants, vice chancellors' salaries, as well as more obvious facilities. The institutions claiming to be most impoverished would find a lot of money for lobbying: meetings, marches, letters to <i>The Times</i>, speeches in Parliament, but real people wouldn't notice any difference. Colleges that take a lot of home students have, a lot of them, already shrunk a lot since trying to charge £9,000+ fees, so the process is nothing new. <br />
<br />
There would be immediate cuts in provision of courses which are not much applied-for by UK students, like business studies in central London, and most of the courses would not be missed. Other courses would have to compete for less qualified and more picky home students, for example by responding to student feedback to get better Unistats results. Only 37% of LSE economics students think the college takes any notice of student feedback at the moment. London College of Fashion doesn't offer any workshop space to use by the hour or cheap practical training for selling shoes.<br />
<br />
I think that courses in expensive areas which get bad student feedback would close more than ones in cheaper areas with good student feedback, so the likes of Coventry University would continue to grow while LSE might shrink. Home students wanting to study in central London would have more choice because of lower entry requirements. At the moment, you have to study rather intensely as a teenager to get the A-level results for a place at LSE, and it would be good if that changed.</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Benefits to Londoners of less competition for central government grants</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">A report on the London Development Agency began by saying how many billions of pounds it had spent over several years, but that worklessness remained a problem in London. The same can be said of education funding. The cuckoo organisations claim large amounts of money from one arm of government or another - such as the Higher Education Funding Council - but there is no adult education course to help londoners sell their stuff on a Wordpress site with options to try Magento Prestashop or Drupal. There is huge expenditure by the Greater London Authority and the Department for Business on London Fashion Week, but few courses for Londoners who want to learn how to set-up a clothes factory or a shoe factory, and, if they did, some of the factory space was knocked down for the Olympics. It would be good if a new generation of fashion and footwear colleges worked by supplying factory space and training any users who wanted to be trained.<br />
<br />
If the large lobbying cuckoo-like organisations had less money to bid for more grants and to lobby, I think there might be more money for other things. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
Some examples could be headed</span><span style="color: #0b5394;"><i> "closing this course would increase happiness all-round and raise more tax at the same time"</i>.</span></h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">This expands on examples made above under other questions, headed "quality"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">How do migrant students affect the educational opportunities available to UK students?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">To what extent does the demand from migrant students for UK education dictate the supply of that education provision and the impact of this on UK students?</span></div>
I answered <span style="color: #0b5394;">with example paragraphs about Leeds College of Health trading as Leeds University, Manchester University Economics Degree, and London College of Fashion<span style="color: #0b5394;">, which comes-up under several headings.</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"> Fiscal cost of damage done by badly educated scholars: a strange example </span></h4>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One graduate obtained funding from the Department for International Development, that also co-operated very closely with London College of Fashion so that it was difficult to see where her project, called Ethical Fashion Forum, began and where London College of Fashion ended.<br />
<br />
The graduate claimed to be a dress importer with a business called "Juste", and author of a book called "Can Fashion be Fair?", as well as an award winning architect. On a closer look, it turns-out that "Juste" was a college project that never traded, run as evidence to be awarded a taught masters degree in international development by Oxford Brooks University, close to Oxfam's offices, often studied by ex-Oxfam volunteers. I don't know why Brooks Uni awarded a masters degree for a fake dress import business, to someone without a first degree in architecture or anything else, but imagine it was to please a funder; I imagine that international development students are funded by something like Chevening scholarships. So the idea of British "soft power" meant a particular sort of British interest represented by a stooge.<br />
<br />
Certainly the student who went-on to found Ethical Fashion Forum as a kind of front for UK government interests, as did EU-funded online course materials by London College of Fashion, which quoted her as a "case study", alongside Pants to Poverty, who shared a public-subsidised office at Rich Mix on Shoreditch.<br />
<br />
I said you don't have to think critically to get the grant. If you don't believe me, I'll send you some qutoes from the masters degree thesis at Oxford Brooks. She claims that people in the UK made their own clothes until international trade allowed them to enjoy fashion. She mixes-up the East India Company with the British Empire, but not with Nike. She backs-up her opinion with a quote that looks fake, on a web site that looks as though it never existed, from an academic who generally states different views. One thing that's clear in her opinions is that she is opposed to UK garment production and she repeats the point on her Ethical Fashion Forum site, using a series of rhetorical tricks.<br />
<span class="caps"></span><span class="caps"></span><br />
This particular student has cost millions of pounds in lost revenue from the companies that she has helped close in the UK, by diverting attention from UK manufacturers. <br />
<br />
For example, while Pants to Poverty, who shared her office, promoted themselves as "ethical", Manchester Hosiery that made T shirts and underwear in the UK went bust, was bought out of receivership, and went bust again due to lack of interest from customers. It made T shirts and underwear on high-tec machines that wove them to shape from yarn and could produce more cheaply than T shirts with more sewn seams in them. <br />
<br />
The same Ethical Fashion Forum team promoted a seminar of about 50 clothes buyers headed "buying from co-operatives". They didn't mention UK co-operatives.Within a month or two, Equity Shoes of Leicester had gone bust and was closed by the receiver because of lack of interest in UK-made shoes. Equity Shoes was a 100 year-old worker co-operative in a high unemployment area. <br />
<br />
And then there was the seminar "Making it Ethically in China", funded by the taxpayer through the higher education funding council, that promoted Chinese production with speakers including a fur-dress importer, a Nike consultant and Terra Plana. It was held within a mile of JJ Blackledge, a cheap British PVC wallet manufacturer, that went bust the same week. Just a few orders might have encouraged them to keep going.<br />
<br />
I do not know how to estimate loss to the UK economy caused by this covert operation of Dfid, British Council, and scholarships for students who agree with them. I understand that when companies call in receivers, there is usually a statement of reasons why the company failed. A study of these reports, and interviews with former directors, might show that a little encouragement, by universities and government, of firms that pay UK taxes and reasons to buy from them, would go a long way in keeping more of them open and make a positive difference to tax revenue while reducing the costs of benefits and services to stressed people or deprived people.<br />
<br />
To save you clicking on the link, I add the email which I got inviting me, as someone in the footwear trade, to the event.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<i>Own-it Event:<br />
Making it ethically in China -<br />
A practical guide for fashion and textile designers</i></h4>
<i>Sourcing materials or manufacturing in China should be considered seriously if you want to compete in a global market and keep production cost low. Many do not think that China should be your first port of call if you have decided to build your brand on a sustainable business model in which worker's rights are recognised, the materials used are environmentally friendly and your carbon footprint is as small as possible. However, China has started to acknowledge the need for sustainable business practices in the production of textiles and clothing, and has set up the Sustainable Fashion Business Consortium in Hong Kong in 2008 to promote just that.</i><br />
<i>Own-it, Ethical Fashion Forum and Creative Connexions have invited a panel of experts to discuss the current situation in China, how designers can source manufacturers and material that meets their ethical standards and how they can monitor compliance. A lawyer will speak about important clauses in manufacturing or licensing contracts concerning IP rights and confidentiality, as well as what to do when you are faced with counterfeits that are cheap, unethically sourced and damage your good name.</i><br />
<i> Date: 28.10.09 Time: 6-8pm followed by drinks and networking until 9pm</i><br />
<i> Location: Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 7LP</i><br />
<b><i>Cost: Free (paid for by taxpayers and paid for again by loss of tax after UK factories close as a result of this)</i></b></blockquote>
<hr />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="color: red;">Fiscal cost of colleges which actively damage the UK economy, sustained by fees from international students and UK Higher Education Funding Council grants.</span></span> </h4>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">The international student industry has a cuckoo-like ability to claim grants from UK taxpayers which I think should mainly be meant for the UK population.</span></h4>
<br />
My example is London College of Fashion, working with School of Oriental and African Studies, and Kings College, both parts of University of London. It adds a couple of its own off-shoots to the list as well: Centre for Fashion Enterprise and London Business School. It is hard to know the boundaries of this cluster of institutions.<br />
<br />
It won a bid for 80% of the Higher Education Innovation Fund promoted help by universities to business until 2005, when it was used for a different purpose, which was to put UK-based designers or anyone from the UK in touch with Chinese manufacturers.<br />
<i><br />
</i> <i> "The Creative Connexions project (originally called "Creative Capital-World City") received £5 million of funding from HEFCE via the third round of the Higher Education Innovation Fund bidding process ("HEIF 3"). This funding was allocated to the University of Arts in London which was the lead higher education in the project bid. This represented just under 80% of the total project budget which was £6.275 million. "</i><br />
<br />
I think the covert use of this tax money is so opposite to the overt, and so opposite to the interests of UK taxpayers, that I think something special should be done.<br />
<br />
⦁ The institutions should not be awarded any specialised grants for higher education for the life of this government and a suggested fifteen years total; they should receive only the standard higher education funding per head that any other college gets. <br />
⦁ The names of officials & ministers who signed for the payments should be published, and similar funding bids and grants likewise.<br />
⦁ The process should be published, step-by-step, date-by-date, that led to the grant.<br />
<br />
Another example is the cost of promoting UK colleges overseas by civil servants at the Department for Business and the British Council, which I don't think benefits UK students or taxpayers. When these colleges are in over-crowded parts of the UK, I think the spending is directly opposite to the interests of UK taxpayers. It is as bad as spending on the Olympics, and it is more like corruption than proper government spending.<br />
A third example is a pretend fashion industry, centered on London Fashion Week and a couple of feed-in fashion shows, which is good at getting column inches but not so good at promoting UK manufacturers. It is as much to do with manufacturing and UK jobs as a Eurovision song is to do with music you would want to hear or play. I believe that London Fashion Week exists in competition with UK manufacturers, particularly for column inches of media coverage.<br />
<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Footwear, London College of Fashion, part of University of the Arts</span></h4>
<br />
I was a stake-holder in the UK footwear industry, selling dozens of pairs every day or two with a commitment to promote UK manufacturing. Unfortunately, bad health got in the way. I suffered very slight encephelopathy or bad concentration after an accident. You can probably tell by my rambling style of writing. But I keep the old web site running and keep in touch with events. I blog as planB4fashion.blogspot.co.uk and on veg-buildlog.blogspot.com as well as on my own website, Veganline.com<br />
<br />
When I became ill, I looked on the net for business support of adult education that might help me. For example my short term memory got too bad for me to learn how to set-up an online shopping cart to sell shoes. I could probably do it with subsidised help, or as part of a class where other people did it together, but no such class exists. I expected to see classes run by London colleges with titles like <br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>"automate your book-keeping without an accountant", or </li>
<li>"manufacturing course suits this workshop space available by the hour" </li>
<li>"sell with Prestashop, Magento,Wordpress, or Drupal".</li>
<li>"product photography for ebay and small ecommerce businesses",</li>
<li><br />
</li>
<li>"make shoes or clothes without workshop space"</li>
<br />
<li>"how to make trials and top-ups of clothing and get a factory to do larger orders"</li>
<br />
<li>"try your clothes in a market for four weeks and see if they sell: share a stall" </li>
<br />
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I don't care who teaches the course if they're competent and I can afford them. but London College of Fashion trains a lot of footwear and fashion graduates, and they need these services just like anyone else.
London College of Fashion runs some footwear courses, but no knowledge transfer partnership system works to help small businesses in London. The Knowledge Transfer Partnership person at London College of Fashion has no background in fashion or footwear, and uses the job to promote a course.
I did find a cluster of taxpayer-funded activity centred around London Fashion Week, London College of Fashion, and Ethical Fashion Forum. A cluster of overlapping organisations and groups of people claiming various government grants in order to promote Chinese or Bangladeshi or Kenyan goods at the expense of goods made in the UK. I found that a significant grant from Greater London Authority went to London Fashion Week, which is a PR organisation that fashion colleges try to infiltrate for their graduates but has as much to do with making clothes as Eurovision has to do with making music.
I believe that if London College of Fashion closed, the world would be a happier place.
Something else would supply the informed demand for good courses - probably the universities of Leicester and Northampton for footwear degrees. Kingston has a better-reviewed course for design.
I believe that the network of grant-claimants, claiming European Social Fund grants or working with the Department for International Development or the British Council or the Cabinet Office or the Higher Education Funding Council or the Greater London Authority would stop applying. That would leave the grants now paid towards London Fashion Week, for example, to cease. Maybe a replacement would spring-up in the midlands, representing the works of UK factories rather than graduates of fashion colleges and a few other applicants who do not state where their products are made. Either way, there would more more column-inches and air-time for people who make things in the UK and argue the case for goods made in a democratic welfare state. I think this would be great for the economy and particularly for non-graduates who want to do manufacturing jobs.
I believe that the covert operations of this lobby would be discouraged, or at least have to be privately funded. Operations like the online course materials from London College of Fashion with their completely false "case studies" of businesses which had never existed, like Juste, a fictional dress import business run by someone who became a front for another bogus organisation, Ethical Fashion Forum (the industry voice for ethical fashion) which had little to do with fashion businesses, ethical or not, and promoted free trade with Bangladesh.
<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Example of Manchester University Economics Degree.</span></h4>
I think this course would probably close, as it should, and UK students would find other universities willing to provide better courses. I quote a student report on year one, as taught about 2013, on this page, to illustrate that it puts theory first and doesn't mention public administration.
<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Example of Cardiff University Economics Degree</span></h4>
This is what their professor wrote about free trade deals with countries that have no welfare state and so lower costs:
<i>"Over time... it seems likely that we would mostly eliminate manufacturing, leaving mainly industries such as design, marketing and hi-tech. But this shouldn’t scare us."</i>
I would like
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007158FT-100">https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007158FT-100</a> - unistats marks it down
I would like to repeat the quote back to him, but with <i>"bad economics courses"</i> instead of <i>"manufacturing"</i>. Here are some stats about the Cardiff economics degree.
<b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3,285</span></b> international undergraduates (<b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">7,110</span></b> including international post-graduates)
<b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">73/83</span></b> on the Complete Uni Guide league table for student feedback, with students
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>46%</b> </span> stimulated by the syllabus,
<b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">69%</span></b> interested by teaching
<b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">52%</span></b> applied what they had learned.
Other universities have shrunk considerably in the past few years, so a good course in a shrunken university will have plenty of space in lecture theatres and halls of residence and teaching rooms. I think that they have more chance of changing, if it brings-in students. They have a history of running more unusual subjects. There are also universities taking-over at the top of league tables for student feedback for economics - Coventry, East Anglia and DeMontfort - which could expand.
The important point is that students need to know more about the course and think less about the institution as they apply, so that students who would have gone to Manchester don't go to another bad course instead.
I think better economics courses would produce better voters, civil servants, politicians, and people in business. For example, past economics courses have not prepared us for the funding of the NHS over the next decades as the population gets older. The systems have not been set-up. I think this is because of bad economics teaching in the past, in colleges full of ex-pats and ex-private school pupils, staffed by people who use a US style syllabus with its silence about public administration.
<br />
<hr />
https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Research--Policy/Statistics/International-student-statistics-UK-higher-education, presenting data from a spreadsheet called Table 3 here
<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">University of the Arts with its London College of Fashion courses</span></h4>
is a big recruiter of international students. I have a run-down footwear business in London and keep track of what they do. They teach a footwear degree. They also have a long-running problem with their associates promoting a different sort of footwear or fashion to the sort that I have produced in the UK.
My sales points are that the footwear contains no animal products and is made in a democratic welfare state with a good human rights record.
Their sales points - if I take Terra Plana for example - are that the brand's intellectual property was borne in the UK, wherever it is held now. I think the brand is defunct after a web site quote saying that "China is arguably more democratic than the UK", and stating that footwear production is only possible nowadays in China. I sauntered into their shop once, and asked, after a while, why the brand was promoted as "ethical". The assistant said I should look at the web site. But this is a brand promoted by UK taxpayers at the expense of companies that have had to close like Manchester Hosiery, Equity Shoes, Remploy Uniforms and others.
Similar companies put great emphasis on whether their shoes can be put in a compost bin and promote this as the only ethical test available. I don't know if Terra Plana shoes can go in a compost bin.
I say "they" because I have no detail about who in what ministry asked for Terra Plana goods to be displayed at the V&A, the Crafts Council, and British Council exhibitions, or why David Cameron wore a pair; I am up against something organised, but I don't often know who organises it and how much the organisation overlaps with London College of Fashion.
They are my rivals in a way, trying to persuade the public to buy fast-changing designs made in China.
Some international students come from countries which offer free or cheap education to people from the UK. I know so little about this subject, that it is best to pretend nothing. Obviously, the deal that a UK student gets when studying in another country is relevant to the deal a student from that country should get when studying in the UK, and if that country offers free education to people like me, I think my taxes should offer students from there similar deal, or at least a cuddly toy or a "thank you" note, if they come over and pay high fees for a bad course in an expensive town, even if they do increase over-crowding,
<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Agglomoration.
Words like <i>"crowd"</i> or <i>"full"</i>, <i>"expensive", "long commute"</i> are replaced by <i>"agglomoration"</i> by the Mayor of London, after speaking to lobby groups and GLA econonomics.</span></h4>
There is clearly some kind of hotline between London College of Fashion and various mayors of London of different political parties, including this most recent one Sadiq Khan. I keep coming back to this lobbyist hotline, but there seems to be a whole switchboard of them.
<i>
"The Mayor’s</i><i> Brexit Advisory Group provides regular high-quality advice on the priorities for different sectors and organisations. In July this year, the Mayor hosted a summit of London business and university representatives, public service providers and migration experts to discuss what a future approach to migration should deliver"</i>.
I think maybe he should ask someone on the bus instead of asking lobby groups. The next paragraph sounds like Alan Partridge as well.
<i>London’s higher education institutions are world-leading and a huge benefit not just to the London economy. They are a ready supply of top talent, and responsible for innovations that benefit business, science, health, and living standards in the widest sense. However, the inclusion of international students in the annual migration target has been a costly mistake - it has affected the reputation of our higher education sector and the UK as a welcoming place. This comes at a time of increased global competition for international students, talented academics and researchers. It is clear that the Government should reverse this mistake as a matter of urgency.</i>
There is a sentence about how wonderful the worst-reviewed UK courses are - apparently they are among the best in the world. And then finally there is a statement about the word "full"; how can more people make a full place better? One answer is to cross-out "full" and write "agglomeration".
<i>The capital’s success is based on its openness – to people, trade and ideas. London has responded to globalisation and made use of its competitive advantage in a number of specialisms. It is the world’s leading city for business and culture and is a major asset for the whole of the UK. London’s agglomeration enables innovation, market opportunities and business growth at a rate that many cities cannot match. However, London’s international competitiveness cannot be taken for granted. [...] The UK’s future approach to migration will be a key determinant in whether London remains at the top, or loses investment to New York, Singapore and Paris. </i>
So <i>"agglomeration"</i> is that thing that you see on the Picadilly Line at rush-hour: loads of happy talented people encouraging each other to do more together than they could do apart, more than the people they crowd-out, and more than if they were not in a crowd. I haven't seen it myself.
<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith answered questions from Vogue for the mayorial elections. I had sent a statement to Khan about London Fashion Week as he started his campaign, but he didn't reply.</span></h4>
Vogue Q5. London is home to some of the best fashion schools in the world, many of which are oversubscribed - what will you do to address this?
SK: It's great that so many people want to come to London to study fashion. We are blessed with some of the world's most famous institutions like the London College of Fashion and Central Saint Martins. I always love visiting the University of the Arts. But being popular brings with it its own challenges - and to cope with that, we need to support our fashion schools to expand. The mayor can help with this - from sourcing land, to supporting them through the planning process and making sure that in large developments we find space for new state-of-the-art premises. The fashion industry will have a friend and ally in me at City Hall.
ZG: In the next few years, the mayor of London will get control of further-education funding in London. I want to channel funding into London's growth industries, and fashion is definitely high up the list. Kingston College, in my current patch as an MP, is one of the most successful fashion schools in the world. I want to export that across London.
Vogue Q9. London Fashion Week, London Fashion Weekend, and London Collections: Mens are major attractions throughout the year - do you plan on working with the BFC on these events and if so, how?
SK: Absolutely! I really enjoyed David Koma's show at London Fashion Week this year. I know what an important part of London's calendar it is. It's really broken through in the last decade and our designers have been recognised internationally, from big brands like Burberry, Paul Smith and Alexander McQueen, to smaller ones like Christopher Kane and Mary Katrantzou. I will work hand-in-hand with the British Fashion Council to make London Fashion Week even bigger and better. I'll also use the role of mayor to sell London abroad, travelling to new and expanding markets to promote the city's crown jewels including the fashion industry.
ZG: Absolutely - these are flagship events for London, a chance to show off our city and its brilliant designers to the rest of the world. As mayor, I will protect the financial contribution that City Hall makes to these events, and I will be enthusiastically promoting them - in government and across the globe.
This response to the Migration Advisory Committee is from
John Robertson
2 Avenue Gardens
London
SW14 8BP
0208 286 9947
shop [at] veganline com
(<a href="http://archive.is/JWMpT" rel="nofollow">archive.is/JWMpT</a> archives the page with table of economics courses ;<a href="http://archive.is/3Q0D3" rel="nofollow"> archive.is/3Q0D3</a> archives this page at about the time of the 26th January call for evidence and they got a word-processor version of this page by the deadline)
<br />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">Footnote about how London College of Fashion works closely with government</span>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>"The case studies are based on the information provided by the companies and have not been verified of investigated"</i></span></h4>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://issuu.com/shomil/docs/growing_sustainable_fashion_economies" rel="nofollow"><img alt="https://issuu.com/shomil/docs/growing_sustainable_fashion_economies" border="0" data-original-height="633" data-original-width="488" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJtD0U_7zJQ41Yp7Z1ojhcWZBaJbLwDwwVHDZiXrziqPaL9Pv6l3HEC8ol7XZHjpQYeELrXXIzm1uQhrPGoWXbY-0BZzOw8sagp6QYd5B6E1bKH4HQNj0EO4wyhzevf3XjFbd-N96gNCpL/s640/london-college-of-fashion.jpg" title=" Discalmer The views expressed are not necessarily those of the funding body. The case studies are based on information provided by the companies and have not been verified or investigated Acknowledgements Department for Enterprise and International Development (now Centre for Sustainable Fashion) at London College of Fashion BGMA Centre for Fashion Technology. Bangladesh Project Partners Department of Enterprise and International Development at London College of Fashion and BGMEA Institute of Fashion Technology give special thanks to principal funders of this project, Development Partnerships In Higher Educaton (Delphe) the British Council United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNDO), and the companies featured In this publication. Suggested citation for the report: Parker, E. (2011) Crowing Sustainable Economics: A Collection of Entrepreneurial Case Studies in Bangladesh and the UK, by Hammond. L. and Higgtnson H. London College of Fashion." width="492" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"The case studies are based on the information provided by the companies and have not been verified of investigated"</i>
That's an odd thing to read in a college textbook. Like <i>"we made this up to get a grant", </i>and it was written by a consultant on UK taxpayer funding. <a href="https://archive.is/laFrI">She mentions it on her CV and blog</a>: <a href="http://lynnehammond.uk/?portfolio=growing-sustainable-fashion-economies-a-collection-of-entrepreneurial-case-studies-in-bangladesh-and-uk">
</a>
The screenshot is one of London College of Fashion's publications listing fictional "case studies" of fashion companies, to be promoted by government departments at the expense of real UK fashion manufacturers in getting PR, recognition as ethical brands, or orders. A typical list would be Ethical Fashion Forum, Sari Dress Project, Juste, and Pants to Poverty, dropping <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/the-dirty-truth-about-camerons-green-trainers-7207560.html">Terra Plana</a>, from the list after bad publicity about their Hong Kong supplier. This particular publication mentions Juste and Ethical Fashion Forum. I don't know if the Bangladeshi firms are fictional.
The example of <i>Juste</i> is another college project that never traded, done by someone from Zimbabwe studying at Oxford Brooks, and probably on a Chevening Scholarship. The example of Sari Dress Project seems to be another college project, possibly sponsored by the Sri Lanka government at the time. A graphic design student got her name on the web site as author, but officially it is by staff of London College of Fashion. <a href="http://pantstopoverty.org.uk/bond.html">Pants to Poverty</a> was real, but only in the sense that the Ethiopian girl band sponsored by Dfid is real; it never made pants or profit and it helped put UK manufacturers out of business. <a href="https://www.britishcouncil.org/partner/track-record/development-partnerships-higher-education">Development Partnerships in Higher Education</a> must have been real because it cost taxpayer £15 million.
The example is about ten years old but the pattern continues, with plans for the college to help develop parts of East London appearing in the Mayor's proposed budget for the next few years.</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com7Migration Advisory Committee, 2 Marsham St, Westminster, London SW1P 4DF, UK51.4958863 -0.1296926999999641331.0463808 -41.438286699999964 71.94539180000001 41.178901300000035tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-20417255975623212622017-08-10T11:52:00.002+01:002017-09-11T19:23:50.338+01:00https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article-times-misleading-makes-me-so-mad-kate-hills<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The usual story from the likes of London College of Fashion, Monsoon, Ethical Fashion Forum, or this time New Look. Kate Hills, who wote the blog post, has used the same tactic against me when I try to wrestle free information about UK T shirt manufactuers from her...<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article-times-misleading-makes-me-so-mad-kate-hills">https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article-times-misleading-makes-me-so-mad-kate-hills</a><br />
<br />
As Kate Hills says, if you look hard enough in the UK for a factory which will employ people under the minimum wage, you will probably find one. If you pay enough for a UK factory to pay a minimum wage, or you increase the lead time and order size and you pay your bills on time you will find loads more which New Look claim not to have heard of.<br />
<br />
If you want to know more about New Look, you can find their bad reviews on Ethical Consumer:<br />
<a href="http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/scoredetails.aspx?ProductId=275703">http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/scoredetails.aspx?ProductId=275703 </a><br />
<br />
The firm has had trouble getting financial backing recently, and has trouble keeping on good terms with its financial PR companies, working through <a href="http://www.prweek.com/article/1005423/new-look-poised-hand-corporate-pr-account-tulchan-communications">three</a> in quick sucession.</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-80042582405599599052017-08-08T19:30:00.003+01:002018-10-21T10:22:35.956+01:00Do not invest in Bondora | P2P lending<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<fieldset>
<b>P2P lending</b><br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html </a><br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/04/just-invested-few-tenners-in-primestox.html" title="Primestox.com review">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/04/just-invested-few-tenners-in-primestox.html</a><br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/08/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards-bondora.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/08/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards-bondora.html </a> </fieldset>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Bondora review: do not invest in Bondora<br />
<a href="http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/4853/invest-bondora">http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/4853/invest-bondora</a></h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_FbceRBVeIVTZCW2BlMxqBQHP_7P4Gwjvw8r0wujV2UNxjkhGfTiJEv3qon9qvNRRsTylN5fSyCBmQAsTipndXEGfYv84eb7_tRh2rCes0J4n6ws0-GlrMn6tCFWM3pelQBpxZZJIHH0V/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Fintech awards: Bondora (ex Isepankur)" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_FbceRBVeIVTZCW2BlMxqBQHP_7P4Gwjvw8r0wujV2UNxjkhGfTiJEv3qon9qvNRRsTylN5fSyCBmQAsTipndXEGfYv84eb7_tRh2rCes0J4n6ws0-GlrMn6tCFWM3pelQBpxZZJIHH0V/s400/temp.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Glad that not many of my loans turned-out like <b>Bondora loans</b>, with worse returns than Funding Circle a few years ago or early Zopa personal loans. Worse than Bitbond. I could be wrong, but my <b>Bondora login</b> screen writes my account as worth €4,160 except that I can't withdraw it. The amount I can withdraw is €0 (worth €4,160 in <b>Bondora</b> money). If I click "sell loans", a high figure for salable loans appears sometimes, and then with a few clicks corrects itself to zero, so I can't withdraw <b>Bondora</b> money and I can't sell <b>Bondora</b> money, and I can't eat it or live in it or anything else either.<br />
<br />
While <b>Bondora</b> write €4,160 on the account, <span style="color: red;"><u>profit is minus €834</u></span> (suggesting 8% or 9% bondora returns with the <b>Bondora portfolio manager</b>). Meanwhile they are happy to take card payments and pay commission for referrals. I imagine that a lot of people borrow on their credit cards to lend, and for some reason, nobody has written articles about what a scam the whole thing has become after a promising start before the firm tried to expand very quickly into new lending markets like Spain and <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bondora#/entity" nofollow="" rel-="">relied more and more on equity finance companies</a> to buy them out. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/4853/invest-bondora">http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/4853/invest-bondora</a> has dozens of Bondora trading reviews from people who have lost money on the site, but for some reason there are no search results saying the same thing from newspapers and website claims look impossible to justify. There is another thread for the technically-minded showing just results: None of the technically-minded people look pleased.<br />
<a href="http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/4340/general-bondora-statistics">http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/4340/general-bondora-statistics</a><br />
<br />
I don't see ads from Bondora so I can't forward them to the UK advertising standards authority - they do a lot of web and PR stuff and those Trustpilot reviews you can get done, but I'm surprised that it isn't sombody's job in some country to get the claims changed or just stop Bondora taking-on new loans. There are loads of very good euro P2P lending sites that loose trust because of their neighbour.</div>
<br />
If you would like to nominate <b>Bondora</b> and their equity finance backers (who don't invest in the loans themselves I think) for the <b>Fintech award</b>s, please add a note saying "not seriously". </div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-77009989094820956242017-07-28T19:18:00.001+01:002017-08-14T19:45:17.325+01:00Sons of Divine Providence T/a Orion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Council funding over £500 is public nowadays, as spreadsheets.<br />
<br />
"<b>Sons of Divine Providence T/a Orion</b>".looked a bit frightening. Like Jimmy Saville with knobs on. Scroll down to tbe bottom of this blog post and you will see what I mean, even though <a href="http://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/1-101653213">inspectior's reports are good</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
The Royal Borough of Richmond upon Themes is the council that paid <b>The Catholic Childrens Society</b> to provide schools counselling services, just after that organisation ceased being an adoption agency to avoid prosecution. They would have been prosecuted for refusing to talk about gay fostering and adoption or allow it. Richmond council didn't give much information about that:<br />
<a href="https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/schools_counselling_contract_awa">https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/schools_counselling_contract_awa</a><br />
<br />
Suspicious about <b>Sons of Divine Providence T/a Orion</b> (but not keen to do a load of work digging I don't know if this spending is down to someone who needs social care, and their guardian. It could be that a faith-group enthusiast is responsible for someone with learning difficulties, and asked the council to fund this particular care home. So I don't know if the choice of care home has anything to do with the council.<br />
<br />
Suspicion led to prosecution and judgements aganist the mayor of Tower Hamlets a few years ago. I was interested in Tower Hamlets Council because they helped fund a bunch called <i>"Ethical Fashion Forum"</i> along with<i> "Ethical Fashion Bloggers"</i> and a cheap office for another bunch called <i>"Pants to Poverty"</i> at a building called <i>"Rich Mix"</i>, which was an arts centre and small workshop letting space apparently, built at headling-grabbing cost on the site of a nearly identical building which was knocked-down to make space. Each of these organisations was something other than it first seemed; none was much of a trading company or trade association or a group of bloggers. After all, why would a group of bloggers have an office address? Each group was influenced, I think, by an advertising agency called Futerra, which was keen on free trade at the expense of producers in democratic welfare states and their potential staff, often in Tower Hamlets according to unemployment stats from jobcentres..<br />
<br />
Part of the time the council was controlled by Mr Rahman, trading as THF, a political party. These are paragraphs from the court judgement that removed him.<br />
<br />
<i>"In essence the allegation against Mr Rahman is that considerable money was paid to organisations (including media organisations) operating within the Bangladeshi community by way of grants, with the corrupt intention that those who belonged to or benefitedfrom those organisations would be induced to vote for him and for THF"<br /><br />"It is said that undue religious influence was exercised so as to convince Muslim voters that it was their religious duty to vote for Mr Rahman and THF"</i><br />
<br />
I have got about half way through the judgement and may not ever read to the end, but it suggests why a council should back causes associated with a faith group in order to boost the vote, and do it in un-stated ways. A council might write <i>"thinning"</i> to claim a woodland management grant to reduce <i>"invasive speces ... knotweed"</i>, when everybody knows they want to stop gypsies and gay people using a piece of park, and there is a stonking-great 2m height restriction built to stop caravans getting in and a ginormous ground clearing operation, applied only to areas used for cruising, to make gay people more vulnerable to crime and to discourage them.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Barnes Common, Friends of Barnes Common, and the anti-cruising clearances</h3>
Richmond Council claimed a £40,000 grant for thinning woodland in order to protect native grassland and prevent invasive knotweed on the south side of Barnes Common. Action not wanted needed or done. Spending is on the north side. The council's client organisation, <i>"Friends of Barnes Common"</i>, said half of this after a training session from a group at Tower Hamlets Cemetry, where they went for a walk-around and introduction to techniques for reducing cruising. <br /><br />They spent £60,000 on "regularising" a car park with floodlights on masts which happen to shine in to the cruising area to annoy and endanger the gay cruising taxapayers of Richmond upon Thames.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Funny what councils do isn't it? I thought they had a duty to provide social care, education, social housing, and maintenance of minor roads with the taxpayers' money they get. To be fair to them, I saw another payment to "Eagle House School", which is some wierd place I had to go when I was 8-13 years old. I wouldn't recommend it to future generations any more than - from the look of it - I would recommend this bunch. Both probably pass care quality commission tests and I checked that <a href="http://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/1-101653213">this one does</a>. But it looks like Jimmy Saville with knobs on, saying something very strange about parents and funders that is nothing to do with what's best for someone with learning difficulties.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUxGBYA3SyYiSq5fTq1-tlCZPFko_rqOwBmxR7aaCXUt-b2vOC_AVDavtasd0sNJAedYo_K5lE6IwKCC4A69emrw2qIip4pIJhTnJcNvyz23jhRjlZNLBU8Wdt0aHy4tF4MROGzvbAHq2w/s1600/Saint%252520logo%252520W%255B1%255D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Sainthood is obviously stupid and promotes people like Jimmy Saville" border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="623" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUxGBYA3SyYiSq5fTq1-tlCZPFko_rqOwBmxR7aaCXUt-b2vOC_AVDavtasd0sNJAedYo_K5lE6IwKCC4A69emrw2qIip4pIJhTnJcNvyz23jhRjlZNLBU8Wdt0aHy4tF4MROGzvbAHq2w/s1600/Saint%252520logo%252520W%255B1%255D.png" title="Sainthood is obviously stupid and promotes people like Jimmy Saville" /></a></div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-32004697675847154002017-06-16T17:06:00.004+01:002018-10-21T10:22:37.539+01:00Grenfell Tower - get on board<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a alt="Get On Board - the slogan used by Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation when making decisions like choosing flammible cladding at Grenfill Tower" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpaO5heG0nF98DGyPXg0_Xllxlg-I_BBnJWEJT-Q63QUYEABjJQ2IMbK12HjOYNtcKBcrTNwZl8UqtwiDdRGTN0xE8qn9wVMiNzVOCzfY-JfLMLJ62Rr2Q2CcP5QpbbDjwLn33RDSvxdwR/s1600/164003_tmo_live_part_2%255B1%255D.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="500" height="451" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpaO5heG0nF98DGyPXg0_Xllxlg-I_BBnJWEJT-Q63QUYEABjJQ2IMbK12HjOYNtcKBcrTNwZl8UqtwiDdRGTN0xE8qn9wVMiNzVOCzfY-JfLMLJ62Rr2Q2CcP5QpbbDjwLn33RDSvxdwR/s640/164003_tmo_live_part_2%255B1%255D.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grenfell Tower's Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation: Get On Board</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I used to work just over the road from Grenfell Tower on a housing and social work job. Scroll to the bottom for an anecdote headed "<span style="color: red;">anecdote</span>" that might make you laugh. From that, I learnt nothing about Grenfell Tower directly (one or two tenants moved to council flats next door but not in the tower) but a lot of the evidence is obvious about the causes of the fire, </div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>cladding not sprinklers</li>
<li>housing associations management, not "residents listened to" or "fire regulations" directly</li>
<li>what an inquiry should talk about, if there is a need for one at all </li>
</ul><div style="text-align: left;"></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Polyurethane Cladding</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">Everyone has seen fire damage on tower blocks, which effects one flat and just possibly the one above or two floors above, if cinders have got in through a window. It follows that the problem is not directly about sprinklers, even if they would have helped. Everyone has also seen the smouldering cladding on TV, so that's where the problem lies.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Housing Association Management </span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">Meanwhile, The Guardian writes that a load of people are in Kensington Town Hall chanting "we want answers" while The Independent thinks they are shouting "we want justice" - it must be hard to tell who should ask what question to who. Kensington Council is ground landlord to a specialist housing association that spent £10 million on polyurethane cladding. A small amount of extra spending would have bought inflammable cladding. It's as simple as that.<br />
<br />
One thing I did learn while working for a housing organisation was how completely dotty they are, obsessed with procedure and hierarchy that forces staff to act a bit like MPs, stuck between residents and a procedure that says they have to be consulted about decisions already taken. While procedure is important, the theory behind what they do is almost secret and has to be picked-up gradually with luck. Each member of staff has a different theory to what the organisation is meant to do. Grenfell Tower was slightly simpler because it offers permanent housing, but some of the complications are the same.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Examples.</span></h4><br />
Should a supported temporary housing organisation exist to help <br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>past residents with resettlement and opportunities to come-back to a club or for advice</li>
<li>future residents</li>
<li>just the ones in the building who make a fuss?</li>
</ul><br />
If a junior member of staff somehow gives a senior member of staff a funny feeling of unstated disagreement, is this a question of <br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>facts, polite disagreement, action according to who's job it is to decide what</li>
<li>bad attitude and an excuse to discourage a potential rival?</li>
</ul><br />
Should the funding of the organisation be<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>described in a contract in the director's safe, which nobody else is allowed to see?</li>
<li>presumed by everyone concerned in their own way, often conflicting? For example people could agree that it would be good for a volunteer to do something, but need more information about whether taxpayer subsidy or rent covers something done by paid staff.</li>
</ul><br />
Should fire safety information be<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>evidence based with training to anyone who needs it based on records of past fires and clear facts?</li>
<li>left at the discretion of fire safety officers who speak to the maintenance manager about fire regulations that don't exist or are very hard to look-up?</li>
<li>oddly enough, an ex employee of the housing association has written an article for The Guardian - <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/16/worked-kctmo-nightmares-burning-tower-blocks">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/16/worked-kctmo-nightmares-burning-tower-blocks</a> . Her experience is a little less frustrating in some ways. She got a job after university; I faced all this in the 80s and had to work-up to the privilege of a housing job or a housing support job. Housing support workers were paid less and that was my job title. She also got some kind of clear training about fire by default. I had to talk about fire safety because team meetings required it, so I asked for proper training and eventually got it, from the firm that supplied fire extinguishers. An unusual success but true. The ambivalence is the same. Is the job social work? Or letting agent? Or an awful mixture of the two under glaring management scrutiny by people who shouldn't really be in the job, but were somehow allowed to cash the subsidy cheque.</li>
</ul></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><ul style="text-align: left;"></ul><br />
Should consultation of residents assume<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>that all residents want the same thing, to be determined in a meeting, and <i>"get on board"</i> as the picture suggests?</li>
<li>that every tenant will want a slightly different thing, often overlapping? For example most might think plastic cladding flammable, some might not care either way if sprinklers are installed, others might think it a waste of money and a few might not want the things in their flats while they are tenants, whatever happens outside. That's not a <i>"get on board"</i> answer.</li>
</ul></blockquote><blockquote>You get the gist that nobody would want to work for a housing organisation for long and staff turnover is high. Meanwhile a group of residents is encouraged to use vague language and to feel disappointed. I disagree with The Guardian's statement about a similar group:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i></i><br />
<i> "Residents are not ignorant: they have to live in buildings like this one every day, hoping for the best in the knowledge that this home is the only one they have. Grenfell Tower’s tenants may not have been <a class="u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/14/grenfell-tower-fire-and-cladding-dangers" title="">experts in architectural cladding</a> – who is, apart from the people you entrust with the safety of your home? – but they were well aware that their building didn’t have an adequate fire-alarm system or procedure for evacuation in the event of a serious fire."</i></blockquote>The truth is that residents have different levels of ignorance, and the tricky bit is to inform and educate about background detail, and that's something that could be done on the .gov.uk website or anywhere similar; it doesn't have to be done by every single landlord. Just today, someone added a note to this page <a href="https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire">https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire</a> to say that planning permission was for less flammable cladding. That's the kind of fact that residents need so that debates can be reasonable and not break-down into phrases like <i>"doesn't listen"</i> or <i>"justice"</i>.<br />
<br />
If I lived in a tower block, I would not vote for fire practises, nor go-along with them if introduced. I would be the one who left a pushchair next to the lift and got cross with an official who sent a letter. The truth is obvious. It's plastic cladding that spread the fire, and sprinklers would only use-up scarce time and money, so making the choice of cheap cladding more likely.<br />
<br />
There another bit of ignorance that politicians and media encourage. It is a view of a religious people who like to come together in shared togethery-ness, and have no need for the Social Fund or whatever it is called now, or Housing Benefit, or the council's duty social worker or duty to rehouse in emergencies. No politician went to visit Work and Pensions staff trying to deal with emergency claims, but a few visited </blockquote><blockquote><br />
No wonder there is a group of people making a fuss about sprinklers that wouldn't have helped, and a group sitting in the ground landlord's lobby chanting "justice" or "answers" as loudly as they can. If there is a public enquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire's cause, that's what it will find out. An organisation with high staff turnover, low availability of facts, and shelves full of tenant consultation notes and policies as their name - <a href="http://www.kctmo.org.uk/" title="Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation TMO, 0800 137 111, 292a Kensal Road, London, W10 5BE - managing landlord for Grenfill Tower">Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation</a> - suggests. If you check their web site at this difficult time, you see just such a message, as a pop-up that all new visitors have to acknowledge.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />
<fieldset><i>We have published a new cookie policy. It explains what cookies are and how we use them on our site. To learn more about cookies and their benefits, please view our <a href="http://www.kctmo.org.uk/cookies">cookie policy.</a><br />
<br />
If you'd like to disable cookies on this device, please view our <a href="http://www.kctmo.org.uk/cookies">information pages</a> on 'How to manage cookies'. Please be aware that parts of the site will not function correctly if you disable cookies.<br />
<br />
By closing this message, you consent to our use of cookies on this device in accordance with our cookie policy unless you have disabled them.</i></fieldset></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">what an inquiry should talk about </span></h3><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Planning permission was for one cladding; the suppliers' receipt was for another more flammable one.</b> That's the whole thing sorted with just some background stuff to find out about</li>
<li><b>How members of housing association staff thought plastic cladding was OK</b>.<br />
This is the same as asking: how do people who wish they could get a better job end-up making a decision when bombarded from all sides? What is it that makes the job difficult and short of applicants? What allows the Machiavellian applicant to get the job? Why are people writing about the need for sprinklers, which would reduce a tight budget, when more expensive cladding (or none) is obviously the answer?</li>
<li><b>How fire laws, law-like rules, and evidence could be made more search-able and well-written.</b> To the point where any builder or housing association worker or tenant in a consultation meeting should be able to start looking them up, even if they give-up and ask advice later in the process. This is more important than whether laws and law-like things are up to date on plastic cladding, I think that private sources of information and negligence law should work almost by themselves, even if nobody updates things like ministerial guidelines for decades.<br />
<br />
If evidence of past fires and injuries could be linked to the same sources of information, so that someone in a meeting with colleagues about cheap cladding, under pressure from all sides, could point to previous fires, that would be ideal.</li>
<li><b>How people who are fair and who respect facts could be hired info public-funded management jobs</b>. This I think requires a way of getting a reference from previous junior colleagues, as well as the senior ones who might be Machiavellis or just desperate to be shot of the person they give a reference for.</li>
<li><b>How people are so ignorant of facts that they invade the wrong building, claim they are being lied-to about facts which nobody can yet know (the death toll) and generally believe that making a noise helps.</b> I think the rioters are the problem as well as the cladding-choosers and their management.</li>
<li><b>How to get breathable air to a flat that has toxic smoke wafting about.</b> Sprinklers wouldn't help. A long fire-proof hose in each flat might help, either to climb down or to breath through.</li>
<li><b>Finally there is the issue of dignitaries and camera units coming to film and shake hands with people called "community leaders" in one case.</b> There was a report today that a local catholic priest was praying for victims of the disaster. I hope it made a concrete difference, but in the UK we have a<br />
benefits agency with <br />
hardship payments, we have <br />
duty social workers, <br />
housing benefit, and the <br />
council's duty to re-house people made homeless by disasters. <br />
<br />
All of these are important and more likely to have any effect than what the BBC reports, which is priests and shared togethery-ness. So the enquiry should enquire why no politician could be bothered to visit the benefits agency and no public sector information worker put-out statements about how benefits are meant to work. The result could be better understanding by claimants about what they've paid for, better understanding by politicians about whether the system works, and less of this pretend system by which people pull-together and post random jumpers to local churches in case that helps.</li>
</ul><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Anecdote - skip to para two if in a hurry</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq"> As it happens my employer - London Cyrenians - rented cheap space off the building where Grenfell residents met politicians or spent an emergency night or two, a building built as a church, with basements and balconies sub-let to social work and education agencies, and still working for faith groupies in the middle. Our office was in the left-hand balcony, where Victorian architects planned for so many more faithful to congregate that two tears of seating would be required. Maybe they expected even more and left room to build more balconies. By the 1950s or 1960s, someone must have guessed that this was not going to happen and built partitions with frosted glass and lockable doors to make a lettable office space.<br />
<br />
One day the boss was a way for the weekly stupid team meeting. We heard music. <i>Lead Kindly Light Amidst Encircling Gloom ... Leed Thou Me On ... </i> something like that. So we sang along, as you do if trying to bond with colleagues.<br />
<br />
This was a real funeral for some faith-groupies, apparently. The director told us a day or two later, just in passing. There was nothing else to do or say</blockquote><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul><hr />related post about London Housing Trust:<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/06/london-housing-trust.html" title="London Housing Trust">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/06/london-housing-trust.html</a></div><br />
John Robertson now works at <a href="http://veganline.com/" title="vegan shoes boots belts and jackets mainly made in the UK">Veganline.com for vegan shoes online</a></div>Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-48448053062076027552017-04-13T10:32:00.004+01:002018-10-21T10:22:39.458+01:00Primestox.com - I have just invested in a new P2P lending site<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<fieldset>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">P2P lending related pages</span><br />
</h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li> <a href="http://bit.ly/rebuildingsociety" title="type /stats after the url to see performance and loan statistics - free to sign up as a lender">Rebuildingsociety</a> business & asset finance<br />
</li>
<li> <a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance" title="P2P invoice finance">Investly</a> invoice finance<br />
</li>
<li> <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html</a> another post on this obscure blog<br />
</li>
<li> <a href="http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/8588/primestox-company-platform-stock-finance">http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/8588/primestox-company-platform-stock-finance</a> Place for comments on the P2P independent forum for now<br />
</li>
<li> <a href="http://veganline.com/" title="Boots with comfortable microfibre tops and three layer soles that mould to the shape of your feet - made in the UK">Veganline.com for vegan shoes on-line - author's advert</a><br />
</li>
</ul>
</fieldset>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<fieldset>
<b>P2P lending on this blog</b><br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html </a><br />
https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/04/just-invested-few-tenners-in-primestox.html<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/08/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards-bondora.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/08/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards-bondora.html </a> </fieldset>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuurF17cP3cg9bjnpDWuMQDRKqkE4W5xUorllrfjVpJ-0czdCQ9uOBj0RIuk_pzbcgvgnBWMo1oQRg_AkwtJfJWQkbNH445uCL_jcWlWQyklfU_g7i6BJdFkcc5VgN9j_OQf2EPFEeVF0n/s1600/temp.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Primstox logo copied for a review of primestox.com" border="0" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuurF17cP3cg9bjnpDWuMQDRKqkE4W5xUorllrfjVpJ-0czdCQ9uOBj0RIuk_pzbcgvgnBWMo1oQRg_AkwtJfJWQkbNH445uCL_jcWlWQyklfU_g7i6BJdFkcc5VgN9j_OQf2EPFEeVF0n/s400/temp.png" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
Just invested a few tenners in <a href="http://primestox.com/" title="P2P investment in food stock - UK based">Primestox.com</a> , a P2P lending outfit that has trappings of sanity like a nice web site. It has high annual percentage payback rates on very small short-term small investments if all goes well, and next to no references from other web pages. So I decided to invest about £100 yesterday, and write this referring page which I revise now and then. There's also a link to a <a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance" target="_blank" title="P2P invoice finance market">P2P invoice finance company</a> further down which might interest the same businesses, and a <a href="http://bit.ly/rebuildingsociety">P2P business capital company</a> which is good for secured loans on equipment. I don't know why I wrote "capital" rather than "finance" but I think it looks good for larger amounts.<br />
<br />
( Update February 2018 - Every Primestox deal has paid on time or early, one or two have posted freebies, and the system has worked exactly as described. Most of the deals have sold-out within hours, so the rates on offer are dropping. Below 12% it is harder to get P2P lenders interested quickly because sites like Lendy and Fundingsecure offer that much for bridging loans; at the moment Primestox offers are about 18% with free card processing. )</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">The Primestox contract</span><br />
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.primestox.com/faq">primestox.com/faq</a>/ + a brochure or ask customerservice@... or the formal version: <a href="https://www.primestox.com/terms-and-conditions">primestox.com/terms-and-conditions</a></blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Investors have a right to a parcel of food on default</span><br />
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The firm finances food for investors, and, being a P2P platform, investors own the food. Other P2P systems are a bit theoretical about this, but not Primestox, where it is a point of pride and and spelt-out in some detail, with inevitable gaps. The food is financed over about three months allowing its manufacture, sale to a shop, and payment back to the manufacturer or importer. Each investor owns the right to an individual parcel of food, with free delivery, if the process goes wrong. A pound of flesh for example. The earlier deals have been branded, upmarket, and valued at a near-retail price somewhere like Waitrose. More recently there have been bulk spice imports as well.<br />
<br />
There is no link from one lender to one physical piece of food until the parcel is made-up, but it's a safe bet that a food company will have food to spare if not money, and there is a more general link between one batch of loans to the food company and one batch of food produced.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">A way of funding food production before it is produced without borrowing</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.primestox.com/producers/" title="Food Producers
Are you
Fulfilling a large purchase order? Carrying stock? Importing food? Farming?
1.
Call PrimeStox
Tell us what you need. Talk to a representative to establish whether your company and offer is right for us 0207 846 0153
2.
Consider listing
Find out how much you could raise and which products we would pay for. Determine how long you'd have the funds.
3.
Get paid and get going!
Make an advance sale to PrimeStox. Get paid and get growing. Accelerate your growth. Pay only market rates. Get a marketing boost. ">primestox.com/producers/</a> is the new producer's page or ask producers@...com<br />
+44 (0) 207 846 0153<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/355x355/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/j/u/jumbo-porridge-oats-25kg_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="sack of oats picture - wholesale food" border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="355" height="200" src="https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/355x355/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/j/u/jumbo-porridge-oats-25kg_1.jpg" title="" width="200" /></a>I'm not a producer and pick this up from examples under each past loan, headed <i>"the proposal"</i>. The gist of it is that you pre-sell some of the product before it's cooked - while it is a sack of oats for sale at a supplier's warehouse, worth so much less than the finished product that you can offer a very attractive rate of return to a few investors. These are some notes from a proposal, with the adjectives left-out.<br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>Fund the production of ... snacks.</b><br />
Oat, Almond, Carob, Seed, Apricot, Brazil Nut main ingredients for chewy or chunky squares<br />
Packed in retail cases of 20.<br />
Sogud will produce of 4 varieties x 70 cases (280 total)<br />
<br />
<b>Product Review</b><br />
Good<br />
<div class="item">
<div class="head">
<b>Location</b></div>
<div class="desc">
Lanarkshire, Scotland</div>
</div>
<div class="item">
<div class="head">
<b>Producer</b></div>
<div class="desc">
<a href="https://www.sogud.co.uk/">Sogud Ltd</a></div>
</div>
<div class="item">
<div class="head">
<b>Duration</b></div>
<div class="desc">
4 months</div>
</div>
<div class="item">
<div class="head">
<b>Repayment date</b></div>
<div class="desc">
26th Sep 2017</div>
</div>
<div class="item">
<div class="head">
<b>Profit offered</b></div>
<div class="desc">
5.5% absolute, 17% annual</div>
</div>
<div class="item">
<div class="head">
<b>Security</b></div>
<div class="desc">
100% of the product</div>
</div>
<div class="item">
<div class="head">
<b>Product</b></div>
<div class="desc">
Sogud Single Serve Gluten Free Squares (20 per case)</div>
</div>
<div class="item">
<div class="head">
<b>Marketplace</b></div>
<div class="desc">
Fife Creamery, TK Maxx</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li> <h4>
<span style="color: red;">Promoting the food, retail, wholesale, and the brand in the background</span><br />
</h4>
P2P finance makes your business public to a few dozen people on each platform who become interested in your brand. A few is better than none. It also allows you to offer a cash-back deal that encourages some lenders to think about buying your food. Some do. Some remember to claim cash back This is a more targeted kind of promotion than a loan raised on Seedrs or Crowdcube, where some of the same food firms have funded production. <br />
<br />
If lenders want food instead of repayment on a small loan, better still - Primestox encourages them to email, and will forward requests on to you.<br />
<br />
<i>"CrowdCube does a fantastic job of publicising SMEs. But does this always lead to sales? PrimeStox's product focus can boost revenues of our producers. " -<a href="https://primestox.com/comparison/">primestox.com/comparison</a></i> <br />
<br />
<i>"From the manufacturers perspective this will finance inventory and drive sales to consumers. A positive double whammy! "</i>, <i>- review in Informatia.</i> <br />
<br />
Lenders are called "friends". I'm a blogger; I don't know much about human relations, but this doesn't sound quite right. <br />
<br />
Even a blogger can sense some connection between an invester and the food. Some lenders may be bloggers or tweeters or chatterboxes or dinner hosts or potential stockists. They might offer the cash-back deal to someone else. They also have an incentive to fund small amounts, simply because of the risk (a theoretical risk so far) of defaulted borrowers' food plonked on their door step, so there are a more plonkees per batch of food than lenders per loan on other P2P sites - it's like crowd funding with extra incentives to buy food. <br />
<br />
The link to your brand and sales pitch remains on the Primestox site for as long as they want to show their track record, which is probably a long time.</li>
<li><h4>
<span style="color: red;">Formal way for informal contacts to lend</span><br />
</h4>
If a food producer has relatives, partners, staff, customers, or any kinds of contacts who want to take a flutter, this provides a formal way that they can do it without having to draw-up a contract. So your 50% partner can put more money into the batch and remain a 50% partner. Paroducers just put-up a poster for Primestox. Contacts sees the url, log-on out of curiosity, and your family or your customer might take a punt. Or take a punt on the next deal if they ever have spare money in the bank. </li>
<li> <h4>
<span style="color: red;">Promoting the food for clearance wholesale</span><br />
</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
This is un-tested, but from a food producers' point of view it might be good to be known to a lot of foodies, just in case one of them can offer a price for specialised food near its sell-by date. Maybe another person who puts money in is a shopkeeper who will try selling the stuff and order some more when it runs-out. My search for investers on twitter reveals a physics teacher, a football journalist and a P2P lending enthusiast who likes bitcoin. I am a P2P enthusiast too, but one who advertises a facebook page to vegans for a vegan shoe shop, so I could help try to clear products for the vegan market. I guess that one food industry person tends to attract another over time. Maybe they all live together in a special building somewhere ... or maybe I'm going off the point a bit here.<br />
</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Incentives to borrowers compared to invoice finance, banks & crowd funding</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="color: red;">Security</span></b>. The name says it. Other lenders start by asking about the business, then very quickly ask for as much security as for a personal loan. If the loan goes bad they can hardly be bothered to think about the value of stock. A personal guarentee can only be given so many times. For example at <a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance">Investly</a> invoice finance, when either side somehow messes-up - either the shop or the supplier - then the loan is backed by the supplier's personal guarantee. Called-in for payment, this could be a distraction that causes stress and legal costs all round rather than paying-back the lenders or letting the borrower get-on with earning a living, so anyone who is short of credit might use Primestox for all of a loan, while another borrower might use some combination of <a href="https://primestox.com/">Primstox</a> and <a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance">Investly</a>. I don't know the contract, but there is certainly not much stated to investers about personal guarantees. The contract probably evolves from experience over time.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Small loans allowed</span></b>. The track record says it. The smallest loan on their web site so far is £3,000, while <a href="http://bit.ly/rebuildingsociety">Rebuildingsociety</a> has a minimum loan amount of £25,000. Investly will lend from 1,000 and Marketinvoice has a calculator that starts at £5,000 with a minimum £250 fee to match.</blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Compared to 1.65-2.6% monthly interest for invoice finance on <a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance" target="blank" title="P2P invoice finance">Investly</a></span><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance" title="P2P invoice finance"><br />
</a></span></h4>
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance" title="P2P invoice finance">Investly</a> is a P2P site where lenders lend the value of an invoice not yet paid. <br />
It doesn't have regular stream of loans for lenders, compared to other P2P sites, but might appeal to the same people who are looking to borrow or pre-sell; the companies that sell food on Primestox.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance">Investly</a>'s site says borrowers pay 1.65-2.6% a month - about 20-35% annually.</span> If the invoice has not yet been agreed, there is no loan; it is only for a month or so between sending an invoice to the shop and getting paid. Assuming the shop doesn't want to pay before production, that leaves a lot of ingredients and work to finance, even before sending the food and the invoice. So invoice finance just competes with the last month or so of the three-month cycle that Primestox typically finances. Primstox' one press mention, in <span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.informita.com/resources/Informita+News++-+Quarter+4+2016.pdf">Informita New, December 2016</a>, says that there aren't many stock or inventory finance companies - <i>"there are some out there who have had limited success, but none have hit the market in a bit way"</i>, so the niche-within-a-niche of <i>"perishable"</i> could do with a specialist P2P firm. There has also been a shortage of cheap bank loans to smaller firms, allowing P2P markets like <a href="http://bit.ly/rebuildingsociety" title="type /stats after the url to see performance and loan statistics - free to sign up as a lender">Rebuildingsociety</a> to fill the gap and make loans secured on equipment or buildings.</span></li>
<li><h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Benefit compared to a bank</span></h4>
It's a kind of civic duty to find alternatives to banks at the moment, but there are financial reasons to avoid them as well. Everybody knows that they have high costs and are short of money.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Our experience tells us that business owners are in distress about having their overdrafts and other bank products pulled with short notice. In fact, research suggests that banks are pulling £5 billion in overdrafts from business in the UK each month! What’s more alarming is that this is not new and has been a trend for almost a decade, since before the financial crisis, and banks are still not lending anywhere near as much as they did prior to 2007.</i></div>
<i> </i><div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br />
</i></div>
<i> </i><div style="text-align: left;">
<i>The alternatives to SME bank lending have all notably moved away from a ‘one size fits all’, ‘computer says no’, ‘box-ticking’, approach, understanding that different businesses have different financial needs at different times. - K Grieff of <a href="http://bit.ly/rebuildingsociety">Rebuildingociety</a> , 7/6/17</i></div>
<br />
The Primestox alternative offers a little very targeted advertising, tempting people to go into shops and buy the food. A better deal than borrowing more money to pay for advertising. Which is presumably why some firms experiment with sites like Indiegogo and Crowdcube to raise cash; Primestox pitches itself in the same producers. </li>
<li><h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><a href="https://primestox.com/comparison/">Primestox.com/comparison</a> v Indiegogo, Market Invoice, Crowdcube & Ratesettter </span></h4>
A neat point-by-point comparison chart. - Indiegogo is a donation or investment platform that doesn't necessarily offer rewards to investors. - Crowdcube offers shares as a reward, which pay no dividend and can only be sold at another funding round. There is no other security like security on specific stock or a personal guarantee. - Market Invoice is an <a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance">invoice finance</a> site, that I don't know about as a lender because they have a very high minimum investment. - Ratesetter is a consumer credit and low-risk lending site.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"></span> </h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">My first two or three investments...</span><br />
</h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>£30 for 16 x ¼ litre fruit juice, cold-pressed @ £15 a litre.<br />
</li>
<li>£20 for 20 x 60g fruit energy bars @ £16.66 a kilo. For comparison, ClearanceXL tries to sell 60g fruit energy bars at a quarter the price - four for a pound plus delivery. If they were buying they'd want to pay - what? - 10p a bar sale or return for some minimum amount?<br />
</li>
<li>£20 for 200g of vanilla paste @ £100 a kilo<br />
</li>
<li>£25 for 10 x 200g pots of fermented pickle @ £12.50 a kilo. This is usually home-made or sold in wholefood markets apparently.<br />
</li>
<li>£20 for 10 x 500g packs of frozen chips, sweet potato, battered @ £4 a kilo. MySupermarket shows a few shops selling sweet potato chips, usually not battered, with the smaller packs or upmarket brands around £4 a kilo while typical prices are £2.60 or less on special offer or under £2 at Aldi. Waitrose sells these battered ones at £5.60 a kilo. The same brand has some crisps at ClearanceXL (see below) but I get this wrong at first glance - they are crisps and not these chips.</li>
<li>If I update this page after any of my loans default, I'll mention it at the top of the page but repeated loans on different deals have all gone well so far.</li>
</ul>
<h3>
<span style="color: red;">Incentives for lenders</span><br />
</h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li> <h4>
<span style="color: red;">Cashback</span><br />
</h4>
If you buy the food in a shop, borrowers might offer a cashback deal, should you be organised enough to keep the receipt and send it in. Maybe when the payment comes, you could use it to buy a packet of food with the cashback deal. Primestox suggest you email them if you want food instead of interest,<br />
</li>
<li> <h4>
<span style="color: red;">Flutter of excitement - food is delivered to you if the borrower can't pay</span><br />
</h4>
For investments of a few tenners, the excitement is in the flutter. A parcel of food might turn-up one day if the payment doesn't. If payment does arrive, you could use it with a cashback scheme to get a packet of food, or put it towards beer and fags and gambling debts, or leave it in the account to spend on the next deal to come-along and watch the money grow.<br />
<br />
For investments of two or three hundred pounds at a time, it's trickier. Nobody knows the risk of the borrower not paying - whether one in twenty or one in a hundred. If a borrower can't pay, nobody knows the chance of some compromise offer like selling at clearance prices to Approved Food at a lot less than the price you paid. The bottom of this blog post lists some firms that make offers for wholesale food near its sell-by date. If you have to take delivery of more food than you can eat, there is not much else online to say what you can do with it but you might have some use for bulk food and have all sorts of schemes. Talking of excitement, the hobby of thinking about food might encourage you to curry some over-date veg in the fridge instead of throwing it away, so you save that way as well.<br />
</li>
<li> <h4>
<span style="color: red;">Interest</span><br />
</h4>
There is interest of one or two pounds on the sizes of investment I've described and a three month loan, but there is a tick box you can tick to invest a lot more. One or two pounds is a lot of interest on ten or twenty pounds, for a three month loan. The annual percentage rates are at the top end of what investors can get, I think. In comparison <a href="http://bit.ly/invoicefinance" target="blank" title="P2P invoice finance">Investly invoice finance</a> pays around 10-20% to lenders on an auto-lend system: The loans only last a month or so, but your cash is re-lent automatically to the next one if business picks-up (it's a bit slow as I write) and it costs nothing to sign-up. Other platforms like <a href="http://bit.ly/rebuildingsociety">Rebuildingsociety</a> had high rates of interest on offer when they started, which gradually dropped in an auction system. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGgLAgIPOmXpKlsBDqP-qtZ5XVHPRKAUDL2JGLvL0SPr_M82bB5FP-YsCdBl3Crd7w2XfAU5YTzIVPnAyOA2K6jhGjguvXJNqae6v3QFLgi7HKEOkaN2HLONN2Iics4eaCP77wJWQkrQtd/s1600/temp.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGgLAgIPOmXpKlsBDqP-qtZ5XVHPRKAUDL2JGLvL0SPr_M82bB5FP-YsCdBl3Crd7w2XfAU5YTzIVPnAyOA2K6jhGjguvXJNqae6v3QFLgi7HKEOkaN2HLONN2Iics4eaCP77wJWQkrQtd/s1600/temp.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the morning after</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://bit.ly/rebuildingsociety">Rebuildingsociety</a> are good at dealing-with defaults, but still have enough bad debts to take average returns down to the mid-teens. Lenders' experiments with sites like this will loose on a few like <a href="http://bit.ly/2pWUMGp">Bondora</a> who just shovel-out money like Leaman Brothers and shrug when it doesn't come back. A better investment could be in selling cocaine to the director of Lehman Brothers - pictured - but that's probably illegal and I don't know whether he took decisions and drugs at the same time - it's just the way someone took a photograph that suggests it.<br />
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">For borrowers and lenders -<span style="color: red;"> Default: what next?</span></span><br />
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is a hunch. I have never dabbled in commodities trading so I might be quite ignorant about how often it comes to the crunch and commodities get delivered to lenders. And none of this has happened.<br />
<br />
If there is a deliberate and very convincing fraud, the producer disappears leaving no commodity. This is a very old problem. Contracts were invented for this kind of situation. Anyway I doubt that a deliberate fraudster would pick such a public way to do it, with so many different people looking at the details, so that's a very tiny chance. Then there are natural disasters, illnesses and the like but I guess that just about every batch of food gets produced, into shops or warehouses and worth a lot more than the original sack of oats. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I guess that food companies want good publicity from their borrowing, and will do a lot to avoid defaulting on the loan if they can pay, but these things happen. <i>"the situation could arise that [they] could not pay. In that case you continue to hold title to the the product until it is sold. You also have the option of requesting that the product be sent to you or a location you specify - at no additional cost. " - FAQ</i> An online vote, run by Primestox.com, allows other investors to out-vote you on the best option, but I guess that a vote would allow some people to take the stock and others to hold-on for repayment or accept an offer if available. If the borrower is still in business and half solvent, I imagine that they want to pay later for the food that will sell, rather than return all of it. There are degrees of mess-up, from late-payment to late payment under legal threat to receivership to wind-up and non-existence, and I suppose that nobody wants to work down the list if they can stay at the first stages. "<i>the producer may experience production issues affecting the quantity or quality they can produce. Alternatively they may have difficulty selling their product in the market. In such cases delays may occur to your payment. However in all cases you continue to hold title to the product until you're repaid in full with profit. If during this time period you wish to receive the product which you paid for, you can request its delivery to any UK address at no additional cost. "</i> Late payment turns into the chance of no payment after a while. Sell-by dates get nearer. <br />
<br />
With luck, the borrower might organise an option of very cheap sale and lenders might discuss whether they could do better. <a href="http://takestock.com/">Takestock.com</a> allow you to do something similar by opening an account and try to sell surplus food on a free small ad via an 18% escrow service. Takestock's details are further down the page. If 18% for an escrow service sounds high, you can see what other links I have found at the bottom of the page as well. There are loads of them under the heading "selling food from home and on classifieds sites", but none says <i>"we pay near retail price at somewhere like Waitrose for an upmarket brand".</i> They all look a bit clearance-ey. <br />
<br />
Getting back to Primstox, their contract does <br />
- not say that Primestox will use their commission money to pay for deliveries <br />
- not say that Primestox invest in every loan so won't flog duds. I imagine that Primestox do invest in loans at this stage, just to try to balance lenders and borrowers, so they will learn from experience what works. Their low-budget way of working suggests that they don't have equity finance people pushing them to make money fast at all costs. There isn't a staff team and an office and a bunch of bills to pay in the short term; they can think in the long-term. <br />
- not say that Primestox will run an eCommerce site or help any lender who does so, selling surplus food to other investers. I imagine that other investors are a sympathetic market for the one or two who have a tonne of soup on the doorstep. So after a default, in the worst case, you have invested far too much, and more food than you want to eat is plonked on your doorstep..</blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>If you have anything to do with catering you might find other uses. If you need contacts in catering, you might use the app that connects restaurants and their surplus food and customers who want cheap deals, you might already have a restaurant contact who might be open to ideas or make a suggestion, but the ones near me are generally bakeries. Anyway, a caterer might offer a dish of the day, or a special offer by the restaurant to bargain-hunters who use the app for that restaurant.<br />
</li>
<li>If you have anything to do with food sales, an idea might come to mind like... - special offer food by a shop counter. Maybe your newsagent would borrow some food, and give you a credit note for 50p per jar sold for you to spend on other newsagent stock.<br />
</li>
<li>If you have nothing to do with food sales, but want to start, Takestock.com membership is free. - free small ad and escrow service that charges you 18% on any offer you accept<br />
</li>
<li>If you plan to eat it the food, freezer space might help -<a href="http://www.for-sale.co.uk/freezer">for-sale.co.uk/freezer</a> includes ads on sites like ebay and gumtree. Local searches are most likely and you might even find a free one on <a href="https://trashnothing.com/">Trashnothing</a>, or join the same site to give some food away. An app called Olio comes-up on search engine results, specifically for giving food to neighbours if they happen to have the same app. Maybe someone will offer you an apple crumble two miles away once you subscribe.<br />
</li>
<li>I don't know much about those food bank collection points that you see in places like supermarkets. There are a few sites on search engines for locating organisations and collection vans that can use food. I suppose that a one-off donor of a freezer-load needs some scale between the nearest collection-point and the agency that can send a van. This list covers foodbanks, who might help. - <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/datablog/2012/jul/12/food-banks-uk-directory-guardian-readers">theguardian.com/society/datablog/2012/jul/12/food-banks-uk-directory-guardian-readers</a></li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Background to the Primestox.com company</span><br />
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are practically no references to the site on other sources. It looks more polished and sane than some sites that do things like bitcoin lending, or my own <a href="http://veganline.com/">shoe shop</a> that you should try, but less referenced from anywhere else. The borrowers are food businesses with web sites linked and which tend to link back.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.check-business.co.uk/business/09915596/primestox-limited">https://www.check-business.co.uk/business/09915596/primestox-limited</a> is the company. The check-business site would drop a couple of tiny hints from an Equifax report if there was anything to say, but there isn't - the business is too new. The Companies House entry doesn't state much more - just connections to West London from previous employers that are confirmed from the director's Facebook page and choice of software engineer, so the business looks UK-based. Linked-in profiles mention some people related. There are three shareholders and one of them seems busy employed in South Africa; only one is an "officer" on the Companies House form. The postal contact is the first floor above Starbucks in London's Oxford Street, also home to BG Partnership accountants and 23 other companies. <strike>There is no mention on P2Pmoney yet;</strike> I added a post on P2P independent forum, and P2P money have added this site to their list of P2P lending sites, just as one or two food companies have given the site a mention.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Software</span><br />
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.selfstarter.us/"><img alt="http://www.selfstarter.us/" border="0" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDKa_txk-J9i7SgVimrnYIRwzpbG7odmjbmlczG1p1uUvfTUrpitl4sbN-sF5ri1flp2fzCPxSbcvn7Tueb7H6d3cKGRMnkm1grVgUvroFaOogxoyUdyjPJ5mltec1gHKgQfilIkYKStfm/s640/temp.png" width="640" /></a></div>
The software looks a like crowd-funding software, which can be had for free. I don't know if it is <a href="http://selfstarter.us/">Selfstarter.us</a> but if there is one free open source piece of software, there will probably be others, cheap or free, and this company has used something similar-looking for the new purpose of P2P lending, which is otherwise expensive to get going, I think, for lack of free software. I don't know if this is unusual - it's good to see that it can be done. The company paid <a href="http://www.alexpanichi.com/primestox.html">Alex Panichi, user interface web designer</a> who answered an upmarket <a href="http://archive.is/d92vW">job ad</a> and <i>"worked to improved various steps in the user journeys. The user interface has been enhanced and refined. There has been lots of sketching, wire framing and hundreds of iterations to de-clutter the interface. In fact, the main challenge was to show the most relevant information to the user at each stage"</i> So, £200 an hour for several evenings and weekends doing iterations on a general theme is a few thousand pounds, but not bad.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">blog background</span><br />
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Written as a hobby and to promote <a href="http://veganline.com/" title="vegan boots belts and jackets mainly made in the UK">Veganline.com for vegan shoes online - an online vegan shoe shop selling boots belts and jackets mainly made in the UK</a></blockquote>
<hr />
<h3>
<span style="color: red;">Selling food from home and on classifieds sites</span></h3>
<hr />
<h3>
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ebay and the mainstream sites tend not to advertise food, but I have a log-on for Takestock.com that allows selling! The site doesn't have a huge amount on it, with a lot of the guide prices well over supermarket basics prices per kilo. People use it to advertise sales to new customers, I guess, rather than for regular turnover. I hope this list helps borrowers to shift surplus stock and repay their loans, but, when they default and can't make a decent offer for the food. maybe someone else among the lenders can use one of these to get something better or maybe it helps if a borrower has to take delivery of too much food to eat.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://takestock.com/">Takestock.com</a> classifieds - allowed login<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from their advertisers by signing-up and contacting them. It's a classifieds site for food. A photo and often a minimum order is available for each advert once you sign-up; guide prices are cheeky-high except for the odd overdate thing which is low.<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - postcode or place name on each advert but no map or search-by-distance. Most offer to help with delivery. Some have a place name like "London" which helps searching; a lot are in north england or Norfolk for vegetables. There is a box for questions which is a good place to ask if the seller would use your favourite cheap courier such as Parcel2go's UPS shop-to-shop service for up to something like 20kg for not much money. Parcelmonkey are good for courier quotes too.<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to their readers by signing up and advertising - they take the money via their bank account and take ? 18% +VAT if there is no dispute. 8% on fresh food.. The selling page recommends a low minimum order and to offer help with delivery.<br />
</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<strike>Amazon not yet sure</strike><br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from them - for example https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scarlett-Mustard/b/ref=bl_dp_s_web_5324604031?ie=UTF8&node=5324604031&field-lbr_brands_browse-bin=Scarlett+%26+Mustard<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery -<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to them - not yet sure if it's possible. Hermes delivery costs are a problem. I don't see a "sell" tag next to the items on Amazon Groceries either, and if the brand isn't already for sale on Amazon, you have to persuade the site to list it.<br /><br />Amazon is the only classifieds site that comes-up if you search for words like "peas" "biscuits" or "chocolate" on for-sale.co.uk, bar the odd rare add on ebay or gumtree<br />
</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
other home retail<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>There are ecommerce add-ons for facebook</b>, I think, which might be free. Maybe Paypal links or something specialised. I don't know if facebook contacts would use them, but they might see the page and offer you cash. An idea for someone with a zillion facebook contacts.</li>
<li>http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5232467 mentions <b>facebook selling groups</b>, a gumtree-like thing that I didn't know about<br />
</li>
<li><b>Leaflet a hundred letterboxes</b> with an explanation and half-price offer. Someone might be intrigued enough just to say hullo to a neighbour. Cheapest paper is from Wilko or supermarket basics. Cheapest ink is a CISS system on a printer or Epson Ecotank.<br />
</li>
<li><b>Fly pitching, pop-up stalls, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/21/honesty-box-recipe-challenge-creative-cooks-rachel-cooke">honesty boxes</a></b> , <b><a href="https://www.for-sale.co.uk/vending-machine">vending machine</a></b>s... all a bit unfamiliar to buyers I think, who would pass-by to avoid being bothered, or assume the goods second-rate in some way. My aunt - do you know my aunt? - anyway she used to sell potted herbs in a market for the womens' institute. They were cheaper than the garden centre but people were just programmed to buy them from the garden centre. Anyway, if you know my aunt, you are on to something. If you don't know my aunt, you might want to try door-to-door leafleting to advertise an honesty box or a fly-pitch or a ring-the-doorbell-and-ask offer. Ringing other peoples' doorbells doesn't seem worth the hassle to customers, even ignoring the stress to you.<br />
</li>
<li><b>Pop-up restaurants</b>. There is something in this; I am not sure what<br />
</li>
<li><b>Buying from self-employed people like stallholders</b> could be a good habit to get into, in case one of them can suggest something if you are caught with a lot of stock. Easier if they know your face.<br />
</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<strike>Expirybuy.com classifieds</strike> - didn't send a login<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from their advertisers - it's a paypal system<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - ads say things like "ships to Blackburn"<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to them - I've signed up, waiting for confirmation by email. No mention of commission yet. Still waiting for confirmation a few days later.<br />
</li>
</ul>
<div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Gumtree<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from their ads - https://www.gumtree.com/search?search_category=all&q=freezer<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - parcel2go or similar<br />
</li>
<li>Place an ad - there is only one food ad and two non-food in this category, but it might be free<br />
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<strike>Merkandi.co.uk classifieds</strike> - want £86 sign-up fee<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from them - https://merkandi.co.uk/categories/food-beverage/26<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery -<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to them - same<br />
</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<strike>Stockondeals.com</strike>/ - mainly Denmark so crossed out - typically electrical but some food<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy via their site<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery -<br />
</li>
<li>Sell via their site - it's EU and Danish state funded, so the commission might be low<br />
</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Selling to shops and wholesalers</span><br />
</h3>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Approvedfood.co.uk
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from them - <a href="http://approvedfood.co.uk/">http://approvedfood.co.uk</a>/<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - http://store.approvedfood.co.uk/delivery_charges £6 delivery on £17 minimum order<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to them - http://store.approvedfood.co.uk/page?name=sell-to-us<br />
</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Clearance Wholesale<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from them - https://www.clearancewholesale.co.uk/contact no web shop - Grimsby cash & carry<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - apply for pallet deals<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to them - https://www.clearancewholesale.co.uk/sell-my-stock<br />
</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.clearancexl.co.uk/">ClearanceXL.co.uk</a> including Swinco.co.uk<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from them - http://www.clearancexl.co.uk/epages/es136752.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es136752/Categories/%22Food%20%26%20Drink%22<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - http://www.clearancexl.co.uk/epages/es136752.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es136752/Categories/NEW__399_DELIVERY - £5.25 most areas. Free collection by appointment in Sheffield S9<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to them - https://www.epayments.co.uk/epages/es136752.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es136752/Categories/%22ABOUT%20US%22/Supply_SWINCO has the email address</li>
</ul>
<b>Companyshop.co.uk</b><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li> Buy from them - membership scheme offered as a staff perk by some employers.</li>
<li>Delivery - sites around the UK. HQ in Yorkshire</li>
<li>Sell to them - they sell <a href="https://www.companyshop.co.uk/community-shop/how-we-work/what-we-do/">surplus food</a> and write about it - not sure if they pay or get donations</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Eatbig<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from them - http://www.eatbig.co.uk/shop/ - possibly cheaper per kilo on nuts, but usually expensive
</li>
<li>Delivery - http://www.eatbig.co.uk/delivery/ - £3-£5 or free over £40<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to them? - they tend do sell catering-size packs - not sure how to contact<br />
</li>
</ul>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Factoryfoods<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from them - no web shop<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - walk-in at Rotherham or Barnsley http://www.factoryfoods.uk/directions/<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to them - http://www.factoryfoods.uk/sell-to-us/</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Frugalitis</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from them - https://frugalitis.com/ aka Essential Brands Ltd. Also sell to ex-pats.</li>
<li>Delivery -</li>
<li>Sell to them - ? Phone: +44 116 3440001 Address: Online Division, Celandine Road, Hamilton, Leicester, LE5 1SW. </li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Self Trading<br />
</h4>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Not quite sure what this one is - it once bought a supermarket's stock. Found by googling "short dated food"</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
SOS Wholesale<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy from them - apply for an account or use the Derby cash and carry.<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - apply<br />
</li>
<li>Sell to them - http://www.soswholesale.co.uk/residual-stock-management/<br />
</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Unlikely</span><br />
</h3>
This lot are listed to save looking at them again, or just because they looked interesting http://www.londonpopups.com/p/advice-resources.html<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4>
Bargain Outlet<br />
</h4>
</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy - discount shop in Newkey and Weston. Prices from 25p. May be the same as<a href="https://www.facebook.com/affordablefoodscornwall/"> Affordable Foods</a>, who have a franchise system with a branch in north Blurton, Staffordshire.<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - walk in, retail<br />
</li>
<li>Sell - "supermarkets get in touch" .... "buys from supermarkets"<br />
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://bigbarn.co.uk/">Bigbarn.co.uk</a><br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery<br />
</li>
<li>Sell - looking for regular producers; food is sorted by manufacturer<br />
</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.grapepip.com/">Grapepip.com</a> - wine only<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy - postcodes not given - prices start about £100 for 12 bottles - no licence or business needed. Buyers and sellers both pay 5% + VAT<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - "Please note that the location of each lot is clearly stated; as a Buyer, it is your responsibility to take note of the location prior to bidding as any subsequent transfer/delivery costs are the liability of the Buyer." Clearly stated to people who understand "Location: Octavian: Duty status: Under bond" on the first ad I looked-at.<br />
</li>
<li>Sell - wine only - 5% + VAT "As long as your wine has been professionally stored in the UK since its original sale/shipment, you can list your wine on GrapePip. Please note, however, you will be required to provide documentation to confirm original purchase and subsequent storage in a UK warehouse of every lot listed on GrapePip. To find out more about how to sell your wine on GrapePip, please go to our <a href="https://www.grapepip.com/p/Private-Vendor-Information">Private Vendor Information Page</a>. If you are a wine merchant looking to sell your wines on GrapePip, please go to our <a href="https://www.grapepip.com/p/Vendor-Information">Trade Vendor Information Page</a>." Winebinends is another wine-only firm that works as a broker - charging 30% commission to find a buyer with only one delivery hop to pay-for. They say that other clearance companies that have warehouses charge 70% and two delivery trips.<br />
</li>
</ul>
<div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.mackenzietrading.co.uk/">Mackenzietrading.co.uk</a> - frozen food clearance wholesale for trade sellers<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy -<span style="font-family: inherit;"> "<span style="color: #6d665f; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">Essentially we are a frozen food broker: purchasing surplus stock from frozen food manufacturers...."</span></span><br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - can involve storage and repacking in Lancashire<br />
</li>
<li>Sell - <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #6d665f; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;"> "... and selling this onto high street retailers and catering companies"</span></span><br />
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
</div>
<div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Nifties<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy - <a href="https://www.dontwastethetaste.co.uk/">https://www.dontwastethetaste.co.uk</a>/shop aka Nifties, Good for onions at a first look, but the web site is turned-off this February 2018 so you'd have to walk-in.<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - Delivery - https://www.dontwastethetaste.co.uk/ - £7, £2 in Dover or walk-into their Dover shop.<br />
</li>
<li>Sell? - probably not for specialised upmarket products by the look of them<br />
</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
The Peoples Supermarket<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://thepeoplessupermarket.org/">http://thepeoplessupermarket.org</a>/ - no web ordering - £25 annual membership to work 4 hours a month and get 20% off<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - walk in supermarket in Lambs Conduit Street, North Central London</li>
<li>Sell? - now owned by one wholesaler - history of one-off deals before that - web site statements about avoiding food waste<br />
</li>
</ul>
<div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://toogoodtogo.co.uk/">Toogoodtogo.co.uk</a><br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Buy- app links you to bakeries or restaurants with closing-time bargains.<br />
</li>
<li>Delivery - you need to link to a restaurant near you via the app which works on Ios or Android. Pay the app and go to collect the food.<br />
</li>
<li>Sell - restaurants welcome. If you know a restaurant on the system, they might use the app to try to sell for you on commission. <br />
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Yumbies<br />
</h4>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>buy -<br />
</li>
<li>delivery -<br />
</li>
<li>sell - looking for regular batch producers not surplus stock - 18% charge<br />
</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
Not trading C...a ran just for the end of 2016 and start of 2017 Foodbargains Discountbargains.co.uk<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-79436529746789100272017-03-21T13:00:00.003+00:002017-10-24T19:57:07.400+01:00Copydex Jointmaster instructions never used<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Maybe nobody has ever used Copydex Jointmaster instructions in the history of the world, but a few people might be interested to know what they said, now that bits of these kits turn-up in junk shops.<br />
Maybe someone can use these images to help put the things back into production if they were ever any good.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltssDfrHA0kc1dA5FubKKlpkadrGWJh9ypUkiRwRhXN2CD-7sZpab-zfzFp2ZqIWF74yBInLzLoucZy63FiiE7HqjjZ9m9FauXqVxLrigVnfBSy7mlW-d9e5JTBiUlUcW0PrmJImmgFFf/s1600/s-l1600%255B1%255D.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Copydex Jointmaster box - fee inside, detaild plans for making two superb coffee tables" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltssDfrHA0kc1dA5FubKKlpkadrGWJh9ypUkiRwRhXN2CD-7sZpab-zfzFp2ZqIWF74yBInLzLoucZy63FiiE7HqjjZ9m9FauXqVxLrigVnfBSy7mlW-d9e5JTBiUlUcW0PrmJImmgFFf/s1600/s-l1600%255B1%255D.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPuTBme4_Tnd2HrNJHB0Q52ult08AILgh3ZWCGF8OTeipUGu_RQEKwP9MxeMtz-OvwXWiMguxSYYoc6qVE4-aTPRYXP84o07wRqsiF6LnnoNZ9XFcpC7U5EP-AFOnd3zvO7kbuLGNq4u6I/s1600/bits002.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPuTBme4_Tnd2HrNJHB0Q52ult08AILgh3ZWCGF8OTeipUGu_RQEKwP9MxeMtz-OvwXWiMguxSYYoc6qVE4-aTPRYXP84o07wRqsiF6LnnoNZ9XFcpC7U5EP-AFOnd3zvO7kbuLGNq4u6I/s640/bits002.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OwZYuzPbkPtY5g-9vOgiW7qF6QYLMI2WIYwZ5IdlpMrXbZqw3V-Y9WuT8p9HOkrQr5g5ctS9H1TMMnNEV5zQ4Y1iZi2zD_4dr7muWZZ4vrLfjR_UvF6x8TyllUb_A8Seucsg-2R5W7OU/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OwZYuzPbkPtY5g-9vOgiW7qF6QYLMI2WIYwZ5IdlpMrXbZqw3V-Y9WuT8p9HOkrQr5g5ctS9H1TMMnNEV5zQ4Y1iZi2zD_4dr7muWZZ4vrLfjR_UvF6x8TyllUb_A8Seucsg-2R5W7OU/s1600/temp.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGFfeD4FPknPKN9gUynaW35-b14Nkm202wLAghWVjqZ8yD1YmHHZNIiClfYlDWBLmEHy6bcGmJKWLx3dG3Oj7ziEITDs_rp6rijx_TrihqWphIE1t187_mKD9E4qQwwEHQXjh5oaTLJTDp/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGFfeD4FPknPKN9gUynaW35-b14Nkm202wLAghWVjqZ8yD1YmHHZNIiClfYlDWBLmEHy6bcGmJKWLx3dG3Oj7ziEITDs_rp6rijx_TrihqWphIE1t187_mKD9E4qQwwEHQXjh5oaTLJTDp/s1600/temp.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6oPD7wId0mVCeeMe0rZNHLWLeHPffEE_JWj2S4k2kP8TBQPfRWIYzMPSbCmhrJK0TopUfUUovGCxFTjBXlaN0gVgBsoFmZFNRzECe8fuBKtUWIZfbsRl_av8wAV5CS40eQZcmlQ-1UqD/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6oPD7wId0mVCeeMe0rZNHLWLeHPffEE_JWj2S4k2kP8TBQPfRWIYzMPSbCmhrJK0TopUfUUovGCxFTjBXlaN0gVgBsoFmZFNRzECe8fuBKtUWIZfbsRl_av8wAV5CS40eQZcmlQ-1UqD/s1600/temp.jpg" /> </a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirpo2EExJYr-d3F0BQR3WjrA1deq9I7HP2o9JZy2Lc0oLXL_hLwnIyKxWohm8H-pdip8njJcmFzVRrVneOGeCLqW1dgOH7PITDoDfTyNHPxi69icHcYpOQFSwL-H-0bBl_FvpnwIJNoeM6/s1600/04-05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1131" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirpo2EExJYr-d3F0BQR3WjrA1deq9I7HP2o9JZy2Lc0oLXL_hLwnIyKxWohm8H-pdip8njJcmFzVRrVneOGeCLqW1dgOH7PITDoDfTyNHPxi69icHcYpOQFSwL-H-0bBl_FvpnwIJNoeM6/s1600/04-05.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5lEtxb2un8OmmQWw16iQpUZQv5aMK2YZK941Ip070FMIUCGSH0slYRWrjo5kO2UzLUgVOSTTEGD1h2oqZcaezNKXRsjJ1Fn-EdrinYHG1pswyFDfQbyCNDV_xDOZ9dLzXs9q9Hs8ClSr/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5lEtxb2un8OmmQWw16iQpUZQv5aMK2YZK941Ip070FMIUCGSH0slYRWrjo5kO2UzLUgVOSTTEGD1h2oqZcaezNKXRsjJ1Fn-EdrinYHG1pswyFDfQbyCNDV_xDOZ9dLzXs9q9Hs8ClSr/s1600/temp.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkr4_ApTI-9R-5y0bQ8CwWnK05POFPLZ4g2kJijUh9BGMu0cLwzHDXm4J0Q1Kl7xe_yWA7-dwxdrRlqj0RORPa6Br06UMmFKVxCoBiK8g5LHsc4jndQr4IQsd7mQOEBcM0auimemFtqF4Q/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkr4_ApTI-9R-5y0bQ8CwWnK05POFPLZ4g2kJijUh9BGMu0cLwzHDXm4J0Q1Kl7xe_yWA7-dwxdrRlqj0RORPa6Br06UMmFKVxCoBiK8g5LHsc4jndQr4IQsd7mQOEBcM0auimemFtqF4Q/s1600/temp.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaHCTBmq6GFJqxYYqcKcg9aCyca9bshfennOJKjwIL6AY_CWKEuKaSAdwQtinuYIdm1d8oe1FWq01TZ-36XqqKR4pqNPvzaUEXTuT8hBttpemcp4xMlUgzVb1z5tDi4Hb154xrrk1t9c3a/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaHCTBmq6GFJqxYYqcKcg9aCyca9bshfennOJKjwIL6AY_CWKEuKaSAdwQtinuYIdm1d8oe1FWq01TZ-36XqqKR4pqNPvzaUEXTuT8hBttpemcp4xMlUgzVb1z5tDi4Hb154xrrk1t9c3a/s1600/temp.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJCITkAdk4htyJMWXvUctKfd_lz7z5HaaS0IiCdarObztXoA95TvaD2XR4dxjS1RQhUbYyynigPyHBVpHe14KH4xFa-3zmpYFTRgixzJ2Wmthg_TU5ph8IbRfBD8HaMda9QoaBbQQZZ8wN/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJCITkAdk4htyJMWXvUctKfd_lz7z5HaaS0IiCdarObztXoA95TvaD2XR4dxjS1RQhUbYyynigPyHBVpHe14KH4xFa-3zmpYFTRgixzJ2Wmthg_TU5ph8IbRfBD8HaMda9QoaBbQQZZ8wN/s1600/temp.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<hr />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmX5S1dtNK7E456Ntiax7Tl5Hpt2HylV0iW8R_Jw6aVqwjvFIig4psBIGoectOeGjjhmU7FQVy6baaZ5qIr_UvqYnVX82_OFMhb6bYM80GUC0UUaMcMij3XepzI0IILnsIEjHQCcm99l-L/s1600/s-l1600%255B2%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmX5S1dtNK7E456Ntiax7Tl5Hpt2HylV0iW8R_Jw6aVqwjvFIig4psBIGoectOeGjjhmU7FQVy6baaZ5qIr_UvqYnVX82_OFMhb6bYM80GUC0UUaMcMij3XepzI0IILnsIEjHQCcm99l-L/s320/s-l1600%255B2%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGi_-T7yB9bB44FH98eYSRhTbxWa33p7gsRXc602bvN4MnD-2EzFdkPcLxf8SVOR5_wjK8PQYTbSEv0mB9VYZj4VW8OcdUxWrPUvprG7gbMVO9ZTrX9FnWV-Q1U8a7ERF7kraAOpBKIm7/s1600/s-l1600%255B3%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGi_-T7yB9bB44FH98eYSRhTbxWa33p7gsRXc602bvN4MnD-2EzFdkPcLxf8SVOR5_wjK8PQYTbSEv0mB9VYZj4VW8OcdUxWrPUvprG7gbMVO9ZTrX9FnWV-Q1U8a7ERF7kraAOpBKIm7/s320/s-l1600%255B3%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Someone else's <a href="http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/unusual-tools-copydex-jointmaster.html">jointmaster pictures</a> and comment.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCOK8LLmJhwqQovlKkNDHJzwfY3kJ08Ya6HV6LBOvGLrIF59vYmzRFY8hX0A3WrOUUQkmH6LucnghpO8TttkqqS10vOUCgfbR5Am_TIiwjfbikCZFsZEWSqaQ-pb4jG-lh37KKFliAkOt9/s1600/s-l1600%255B1%255D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCOK8LLmJhwqQovlKkNDHJzwfY3kJ08Ya6HV6LBOvGLrIF59vYmzRFY8hX0A3WrOUUQkmH6LucnghpO8TttkqqS10vOUCgfbR5Am_TIiwjfbikCZFsZEWSqaQ-pb4jG-lh37KKFliAkOt9/s320/s-l1600%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHBRO4uiffR_7vNfh-psj2yUuJYxyIGImNPtm_s_06lzsqwVrDERrJcyVypWv1r-0Z-7jM5ZPIbqEJjMzQoWQL4YTIFuTUPC4xFd6ircTP2PvSb1T8Yrquj0vOerS3DbhAf0RWlq2u99aZ/s1600/s-l1600%255B1%255D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHBRO4uiffR_7vNfh-psj2yUuJYxyIGImNPtm_s_06lzsqwVrDERrJcyVypWv1r-0Z-7jM5ZPIbqEJjMzQoWQL4YTIFuTUPC4xFd6ircTP2PvSb1T8Yrquj0vOerS3DbhAf0RWlq2u99aZ/s320/s-l1600%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<table align="center" style="border-spacing: 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody>
<tr> <td><div id="ds_div">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQuUn6_83l3D_hjRsiuRTsTM1hFL7Gt28XZKAHCvgQmvysAbnsQJYWWiwMWeqDv6UgfCsKy0E6IlakajP0udmffI4u1IagGN919m1SD9o612FNfXcw5LjGlcdonxaM61D3x3Ejp61PjuuT/s1600/bits001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="377" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQuUn6_83l3D_hjRsiuRTsTM1hFL7Gt28XZKAHCvgQmvysAbnsQJYWWiwMWeqDv6UgfCsKy0E6IlakajP0udmffI4u1IagGN919m1SD9o612FNfXcw5LjGlcdonxaM61D3x3Ejp61PjuuT/s400/bits001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;">This blog is from someone who has never used a Jointmaster for anything, but does <a hre="http://veganline.com" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" title="vegan boots shoes and belts from Veganline.com, mainly made in the UK">make belts by hand and sells vegan boots belts and shoes at an online shop called Veganline.com</a><br />
<br />
Optical character recognition without the photos:<span class="_Tgc"><br />
</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<hr />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><br />
</span></span></span></span>INDEX TO CONTENTS </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Adjustable Angle Bracket page # 14 <br />
Base of Jointmaster 15 <br />
Bench Stops 15 <br />
Buffer Pads 4, 15 <br />
Bridle Joint 8 <br />
Butt Joints 90° 5 <br />
Care of Saw 4 <br />
Closed Halving Joint 7 <br />
Depth Stop 14 <br />
Dovetail Joints, Tail 10, 11 <br />
Dovetail Joints, Recess 11, 12 <br />
Dovetail Halving Joints 12 <br />
Dowels 15 <br />
Feather Cut 9 <br />
Half Lap Mitre 10 <br />
Joints, Examples 13 <br />
Lap Joint 5, 6 <br />
Marking Out 16 <br />
Mitre Joint 9 <br />
Open Halving, Joint 5, 6 <br />
Saw Cuts, 90° 5 <br />
Saws, recommended types 4 <br />
Saw Guide Springs 15 <br />
Saw Guide Pillars 16 <br />
Selector Head 14 <br />
Spare Parts List 17 <br />
Tenons, Cutting 5 <br />
Waste Removal 16 <br />
Wedge, use of 14 <br />
Notes for left-handed users 17 </span></span><br />
</span><br />
General hints on sawing and use of Jointmaster <br />
<br />
SAWING </span></span></span></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">Always allow the saw to follow the guides — do not try to control its direction and do not use too much downward pressure. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">Move the saw backwards and forwards within the guides taking a LIGHT cut on each forward stroke. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">Take particular care not to overstroke and cause the saw to leave the guides, (the less you try to influence the saw the better the results are likely to be). </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">A well sharpened saw requires little or no downward pressure. If, after a few trial cuts, an accurate saw cut is not obtained check the SAW. A saw with blunt or badly set teeth, or a saw with a twisted or bent blade, will never cut squarely and cleanly. If necessary, have the saw teeth sharpened or reset. However, avoid too great a set on the teeth. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">If there is an initial jerkiness in the action of the saw, check the setting of the teeth. Jerky saw action is usually the result of an over coarse set of the teeth and light honing with an oil stone, across the side of the teeth tips, should level these cutting points and provide a steady, easy and clean cutting operation. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">It is advisable to practice easy joints to get the feel of the Jointmaster before tackling major tasks. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">NOTE: Unless the wood being used is straight and has a 90</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span></span></span> end cross section, completely accurate joints are impossible. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"> <br />
RECOMMENDED SAWS FOR GENERAL USE. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">Either a 12" tenon or back saw with a blade at least 3" deep; or a 22" hand saw with nine teeth per inch having small set on teeth. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">If the blade of the saw is not deep enough to reach required cut, raise workpiece on a flat parallel wooden packing strip (this will also avoid cutting into buffer pad). </span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"> <br />
GENERAL </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">The Jointmaster is designed to take up to 4" x 2" (10cm x 5cm) for 90</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span></span></span> cuts and up to 2" x 2" (5cm x 5cm) for 45(' cuts. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">Keep jig free from sawdust and check that dowels are fully seated in tapered holes and that buffer pads are flush with or below surface of base. Also check that laminate face of saw guides is adhered firmly in position. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">A range of angles other than 90° and 45</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> can easily be cut by positioning a dowel pin in selected degree marked hole at rear of jig. Normal cutting procedure applies. </span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"> <br />
HOW TO MAKE JOINTS <br />
Securing the Jointmaster on working surface <br />
The jig can be secured either permanently by screwing it on to the workbench or temporarily by the use of bench stops. Bench stops should be inserted into the holes at the base of the jig. <br />
90° SAW CUTS OPEN HALVING OR LAP JOINT <br />
(90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> BUTT JOINTS, CUTTING OF TENONS ETC). <br />
<br />
Insert dowel in the left hand 90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> hole. Place wood against dowel and face of rear saw guide pillars. Saw through wood for 90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> cut. <br />
<br />
<br />
1 Place first part piece of wood on right side of jig. Slide adjustable angle bracket forward so that it lightly holds wood against the right side of the guide pillars. Tighten thumbscrew and remove wood. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">BRIDLE JOINT</span><br />
<br />
The 1st part or male section of the join is made using the adjustable angle bracket and 'C' blade of the selector head in precisely the same way as used for the closed halving joint. With the bridle joint, however, the saw cuts are made on each side of the wood to one-third of the thickness. <br />
<br />
1 Gauge the width of the 2nd part by inserting in the adjustable angle bracket. <br />
2 Mark wood to show one-third depth. <br />
3 Cut the two sides of the recess on the first side of the 1st part, using 'C' selector head blade. <br />
<br />
It will be found helpful after cutting the recess in one side to turn the wood 90° (i.e. onto its side) and then to insert the 'C' selector head blade into the edge of saw cut. The saw is then used to mark the position of the recess on the other side. The wood is turned a further 90' and the second recess is cut to one-third depth. <br />
<br />
4 Remove waste (see page 16). The 2nd part (femalel is made by sawing vertically on the front saw guide pillar. <br />
<br />
5 Having marked the end of the wood to show the one-third depth, position the wood vertically against the front saw guide pillar with the end approximately 1" below the top of the saw guide pillar. <br />
<br />
6 Hold the wood in position with a G-clamp and align under saw (spring will hold saw in suspended position) using a square to ensure 90° against the base of the jig. Note: the saw cut or ken must be on the`waste'side of the line showing the width of the slot to be cut. <br />
<br />
7 Saw to required depth. <br />
<br />
8 Remove waste, initially with a drill and finally with a sharp chisel. <br />
<br />
p #8 <br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">MITRE JOINTS </span><br />
<br />
The Jointmaster has unique advantages over the conventional mitre box in that the wood is moved and the saw is always used in the same direction. <br />
<br />
A dowel is inserted in the appropriate 45° hole and the wood to be cut is laid against it and the rear saw pillar, as illustrated. Precise positioning of the cut is ensured by lining the wood up under the saw, held in the suspended position by the saw guide springs Before sawing, it will be found helpful to use the wedge for holding the wood firmly in the required position. A dowel is inserted into any convenient hole with the wedge pressed between it and the wood to be cut (see illustration). <br />
<br />
An alternative method of cutting accurate mitres is to place dowels in each of the two holes immediately in front of the rear saw guide pillar. A large mitre dowel should be placed in the right hole. For opposite cuts, the mitre dowel should be placed in the left hole. An additional dowel is placed in one of the forward 45' holes. When using this method the wood must be cut first at 90°. It is then placed with the 90° cut end into the two adjacent dowels and against the inside of the 451 front dowel. A feather cut is then easily achieved. This method is very helpful when cutting picture frames since the sides of the frame can be cut first at 90° to the exact length required. If a short piece of wood is to be cut, use the central 45° position for exact control. <br />
<br />
p #9 <br />
HALF LAP MITRE <br />
DOVETAIL JOINTS for the tail <br />
<br />
1 Cut an open halving joint on the 1st part, following the instructions on page 5. <br />
1 Cut wood off at 90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> <br />
2 Place two dowels in the two adjacent holes immediately in front of the rear saw guide pillar; the large mitre dowel going into the right hand hole and a dowel in the appropriate front 45</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> hole. <br />
3 Place the wood with the open halving joint against the two adjacent dowels with the wood against the 45° dowel. <br />
4 Make a feather cut to produce a 45° angle on the open tenon. <br />
5 For the 2nd part, cut off the wood at a 90° angle <br />
6 Place the wood with the cut 90° end against the two dowels inserted in the adjacent holes in front of the rear saw pillar, and against the appropriate 45' front dowel. <br />
7 Make a feathercut to half the thickness of the wood. <br />
8 Remove waste with a sharp chisel. <br />
<br />
2 Use wedge to mark the angle of the tail on both faces of the wood, as illustrated. It will be found helpful to lay the edge of the wood and the wedge on a flat surface to control the pencil line. <br />
3 Reverse wood and draw the second line (see illustration). <br />
<br />
p #10 <br />
4 To gauge length of tail required, place 2nd part in which the recess is to be cut on the right side of the jig, sliding the adjustable angle bracket forward so that it lightly holds the wood against the right side of the saw guide pillars. <br />
5 Tighten thumbscrew and remove the wood. <br />
6 Insert dowel in the 90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span>, hole; and place the selector head on the adjustable angle bracket with the'T blade facing you, blade downwards. <br />
7 Place wood against the 90° dowel, with the cut end against the 'T' face of the selector head. <br />
8 Make saw cut down to the line showing the depth of the tail shoulder. <br />
9 Reverse wood and make a second cut to the depth of the tail shoulder. If several tails are to be made, the depth stop should now be set. <br />
10 Place the or blade of the selector head into the slot in the wedge, and press the blade down so that the top of the blade is just below the blunt end of the wedge. <br />
11 Move the adjustable angle bracket to the front channel. <br />
12 Place the selector head, complete with the fitted wedge, on the adjustable angle bracket — adjusted so that the left side of the wedge is approximately 1/8" from the laminated face of the left front saw guide. <br />
13 Place wood against the front saw guide pillar with the top of the wood in line with the top of the wedge. Use a G-clamp to hold firmly in position and saw out waste down to the shoulder saw cut. Note: the saw cut must be on the waste side of the line. <br />
14 Loosen G-clamp, rotate wood 180°, and re-position to cut second side of tail down to shoulder. <br />
<br />
p #11 <br />
FOR THE RECESS <br />
DOVETAIL HALVING JOINT <br />
<br />
1 Using the dovetail, mark the depth of recess required. <br />
2 Insert dowel in 90</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span></span></span> hole. Place wedge against 90° dowel and left rear saw guide pillar, with the thick end of the wedge against the saw guide pillar. <br />
3 Place wood against wedge and position so that the saw makes the right hand saw cut. The cut must be made on the waste side of the line showing the recess. <br />
4 Saw down to the depth required for the tail. <br />
5 The left hand saw cut line is now marked on wood, taking care to ensure tight fit. <br />
6 Replace wedge so that the thick end is against the 90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> dowel. <br />
7 Move the wood to the right and align under the saw held bythe guide springs to cut the fell hand side of the recess. The saw cut must be made on the waste side of this line. <br />
8 Remove waste from the recess with a chisel. <br />
<br />
1 Make the tail, following instructions on page 10. <br />
2 Cut away half the thickness of the tail using a 90° dowel and rear saw guide pillar. <br />
3 Make recess to required depth, following instructions on this page. <br />
<br />
p #12 <br />
These are some of the joints you can make with the Jointmaster <br />
<br />
Dovetail Halving <br />
<br />
Housing Halved <br />
<br />
Cross Halving <br />
<br />
Mitre with Half Lap <br />
<br />
Corner Halving <br />
<br />
p #13 <br />
General use of Jig and Accesssories <br />
<br />
WEDGE <br />
The wedge provided is cut at an angle of 8;. It is primarily intended for the sawing of dovetails (see page 10). It will also be found useful (together with a packing strip when necessary) for clamping the wood during sawing or when the jig is used as a glueing frame. Any convenient dowel hole (marked 451 can be used. There is, however. an extra dowel hole for clamping purposes on each side of the central rectangular slot between the two saw guide pillars. <br />
<br />
DEPTH STOP <br />
PLASTIC NUT AND GUIDE N. : r <br />
TENON SAW RIB <br />
PLASTIC HEAD <br />
TENON SAW <br />
<br />
SAW GUIDE PILLARS <br />
Usage: When making a number of similar joints, consider-able saving of time can be achieved by using the depth stop. This stop when set and used with a tenon saw (or similar saw with a ribbed back) limits the downward travel of the saw. It is usual to fix the depth stop in the guide column A, furthest from the operator. In this way the depth stop when correctly set will take care of the depth of cut on the hidden face of the work, whilst the operator can ensure parallelism of cut bycontrolling the depth of cut on the "visual" side of the work Note: Care should be taken to make sure that the saw does not miss or override the depth stop. Use only the lightest downward pressure of the saw for best results. The depth stop can be removed without altering the depth setting and replaced to its original pos-ition as required. Take care when replacing the stop to ensure that the depth stop is correctly located. <br />
<br />
Insert the threaded portion of the screw into the groove behind the fixed saw guide strip. Make sure that the plastic spring nut is the correct way round and is resting on top of the guide column. <br />
Adjustment: A) Make a sawcut in a workpiece to the required depth using a tenon saw with a ribbed back edge and leave saw "balance" in the saw cut. B) Rest plastic nut of depth stop on top of guide column and adjust height of the depth stop by rotating the screw in the plastic nut until the top of the cylindrical plastic head just touches the under-side of the saw rib. C) Sway the saw slightly to the right so that it de-presses the plastic springs then insert depth stop into the receiving hole in the guide column behind the saw guide. ID) Allow the saw to regain its normal position and check whether the plastic head of the depth stop rests correctly against the underside of the rib of the saw if not sway the saw to the right to make minor adjustments. E) Make a trial sawcut and check depth. <br />
SELECTOR HEAD AND ADJUSTABLE ANGLE BRACKET The selector head and adjustable angle bracket are used for automatically gauging the width of the 90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> joint recess. The selector head is designed to com-pensate for the width of the saw cut (kerf). The com-pensation for the saw cut is dependent upon the type of joint being constructed and the selector head is designed accordingly. <br />
<br />
SELECTOR HEAD <br />
THUMB SCREW <br />
<br />
<br />
(a) <br />
ADJUSTABLE ANGLE BRACKET <br />
<br />
p #14 <br />
For open ended recesses, the selector head is used with the blade marked 'T facing towards you and with the tapered end of the blade downwards. When making closed joints, the selector head is used with the blade marked 'C' towards you again with the tapered end downwards. The adjustable angle bracket slides in a groove on the right side of the saw guide pillar and is held in the required position by a thumbscrew into the base. To remove the adjustable bracket, simply remove the thumbscrew from the jig. There are two positions where the angle bracket can be screwed down. For narrower pieces of wood the bracket should be screwed into the far right screw hole (not dowel hole), as illustrated earlier(a). Forwider pieces of wood the bracket should be turned 180</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> and fixed to the left hand screw hole. The selector head has to then be repositioned as illustration (b). Note: the 'T' blade of the selector head will be found useful as a length stop for short work, i.e. cutting dowels, etc. Normally, the adjustable angle bracket is fitted with the upright towards the saw guide pillar. Additional length can be obtained by re-fitting the adjustable angle bracket in the groove with the upright portion away from the saw guide pillar. <br />
<br />
BUFFER PADS Two reinforced nylon buffer pads are fitted on the sawing line between the two saw guide pillars. These buffer pads are designed to protect the saw if the user inadvertently continues the sawing action when the saw cut has been completed and can be rotated to maintain this protection. They can also be replaced or re-positioned by inserting a probe through the corres-ponding hole in the underside of the base plate. Note: the base plate is diecast from Mazak (a zinc alloy). If the saw should strike the base plate, damage to the saw teeth will be minimal. <br />
<br />
THE DOWELS There are three types of dowels, all illustrated on Page 3 . These fall into the following categories: — Bench stops — Ordinary dowels (tapered) — Mitre dowels (for use with mitre joints). These are precision made from reinforced nylon. The taper on the dowel matches the taper of the holes in the base of the Jointmaster. This self-seating taper ensures an accurate vertical fit but some pressure is advisable to seat the dowel fully. If excessive pressure is used, the dowels can be removed easily by a blunt rod through the corresponding hole in the underside of the base. <br />
<br />
BENCH STOPS Two tapered holes in the front of the base of the jig are provided. By inserting a dowel in each of these holes the Jointmaster can be held firmly against the edge of a bench or table. <br />
<br />
THE BASE The base of the Jointmaster is a precision die casting. The tapered holes into which the dowels are inserted are each marked to show the angle that each will produce. Unlike the traditional mitre box, the Jointmaster allows the saw to be used in the same direction always. The wood is moved to the required angle and therefore control of the saw isalways maintained regardlessof theangle of cut. To maintain the accuracy of the Jointmaster, some care must be taken to remove sawdust as it accumu-lates: the wood needs to be placed accurately against the saw guide pillar, and the dowels seated firmly into their tapered holes. <br />
SAW GUIDE SPRINGS <br />
SAW GUIDE SPRING <br />
<br />
P <br />
SAW GUIDE SPRING RETAINING ENLARGED --:- BOLT CURVE DOWN WHEN FITTING It7 A special reinforced nylon spring is fitted to each of the Right Hand saw guide pillars. These springs assist in holding the saw upright against the saw guide faces. The springs also allow the saw to be suspended above the wood to ensure very accurate positioning of the wood before the saw cut is commenced. Each saw guide spring is held in position by a screw through the side of the saw guide pillar. The springs can be replaced when necessary (see sketch) — the spring leaf should be curved downward. To insert the saw blade between the guide springs and the saw guide face, keep the saw blade vertical and apply a light pressure to the saw against the guides. This will compress the springs and so open a gap allowing the saw to slide downwards. When the guides are new the initial rate of wear may seem excessive but this wear will progressively reduce as the jig becomes "run in". <br />
<br />
SELF TAPPING SCREW <br />
<br />
p #15 <br />
General use of Jig and Accesssories <br />
SAW GUIDE PILLARS The sawing face on the inside of each Left Hand guide pillar is protected by a wear-resistant laminate, and is held in position. Should they eventually wear, however, they can be replaced (see sketch). <br />
SAW GUIDE PILLAR <br />
<br />
LAMINATE <br />
RETAINING BOLT <br />
The saw guide pillars a e designed to fit correctly into the base and are held in position by bolts. Always ensure that these bolts are secure. <br />
MARKING OUT (90° Crosscut Joints, etc.) <br />
<br />
As the jig has automatic setting, it is not usually necessary to mark out, in detail the joint which you are to make apart from: a) The position of the joint along the length of the workpiece — this can be as little as the position of the right hand edge of the joint only. b) The depth of the joint i.e. the depth to which the saw-cuts are to be made. Item (a) above requires only a rule or other simple means of determining a position. <br />
Item (b). The depth of the joint recess can be marked out by measurement or alternatively the position can be marked out using the marking on the 8" wedge. Viz. (1) Select a position on the workpiece adjacent to the joint, and make sure the edges of the workpiece are square. (2) Place the wedge diagonally across the work-piece such that the two lines (shown Nos. 1 and 5 in the diagram) are opposite the edges of the workpiece. THIS IS IMPORTANT <br />
Line 3 will show the point of half thickness. Lines 2 and 4 show the points of a third thickness. Other marking out is described where necessary against the specific joint instructions. It is advisable to mark the joint depth on both opposite faces of the workpiece so that the parallelity of the sawcuts can be checked. <br />
REMOVAL OF WASTE <br />
<br />
SCREWDRIVER <br />
LIMITING SAWCUTS <br />
Method 1. Using a wood chisel. This is the conventional method which is shown in numerous woodworking books and magazines. <br />
Method 2. Make additional sawcuts at approximately 1/4" spacings from the limited sawcuts. Make use of the Depth Stop to be sure not to make the sawcut deeper than the finished joint. Place a screwdriver or similar shaped lever to the bottom of the middle intermediate sawcut (as sketch). Gently lever and remove the cut section. Repeat along the length of Joint. Clean up bottom with a rasp or chisel. Note: When using this method make the section at the ends as thin as possible and slightly under depth. This will help to create a clean edge and avoid breaking away the good material. <br />
</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">p #16 <br />
NOTES FOR LEFT-HANDED USERS. <br />
There are two methods of cutting mitre joints (see section on Mitre Joints, page 9). Left-handed users may prefer to follow the instructions below for some common joints. 45° Mitres <br />
a) Place dowels in position, placing the wider one in the left hole. Place wood in position, holding it firmly against the dowel placed in the front right hand 45' hole. Proceed to saw. Mitre Joints <br />
b) Insert dowel in top right hand corner. Lay wood against dowel and the rear saw pillar. Before sawing, it will be found helpful to use the wedge for holding the wood firmly in the required position. A dowel is inserted into any convenient hole with the wedge pressed between it and the wood to be cut. 90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> Cuts Insert dowel in right hand 90° hole. Place wood against dowel and face of rear saw guide pillars. Proceed to saw. Closed halving joints The procedure for closed halving joints is the same as detailed in body of this booklet, except that instead of using the left hand 90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> dowel position, the right hand 90</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc">°</span></span></span> should be used, with the wood placed firmly against the rear saw guide pillars and the dowel. <br />
<br />
SPARE PARTS SERVICE PRICE LIST (1st October 1981) FOR U.K. AND EIRE ONLY (Prices for Overseas on request) <br />
Ref. No. JM 201/3 JM 202/3 JM 203/3 JM 204/3 <br />
JM 205/3 JM 206/3 JM 207/3 JM 208/3 JM 209/3 JM 210/3 <br />
JM 211/3 <br />
JM 212/3 <br />
Angle Bracket Buffers Pads Depth Stop 4 Tapered dowels, 2 Bench stops, 1 Mitre dowel Saw Guide Laminate Saw Guide Spring Selector Head Thumbscrew Wedge Saw Guide Pillars complete 1 pillar with laminate & retaining bolt, 1 pillar with spring & retaining bolt. Saw Guide Pillars complete set of 4 Rubber Feet <br />
Price incl. of. VAT 45p each 35p per pack of 4 35p per pack of 2 57p per pack of 7 <br />
35p per pack of 4 • 45p per pack of 4 45p each 35p per pack of 2 35p each <br />
£1.72 per pair <br />
£3.10 (2 of each) £0.07 per pack of 4 <br />
When ordering spare parts please provide a list of your requirements quoting ref. nos. together with clear details of your name and address for use as label and cheque or postal order to the value as listed above. Additional stamps for postage are NOT required. <br />
Please address all correspondence to: Consumer Services Department Copydex Limited, 1 Torquay Street, London W2 5EL <br />
p #17 <br />
(Copydex merged into a larger firm later-on and dropped the Jointmaster product)</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Tiled Table - 4 pages</span></span></h3>
<hr />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfhbHBm3l7mAmFjfZi4VpdElMP76Ds70I3r5yySFFqNWLGgVYz4hAi9BXFf8QTEyO99bCgzqG8sQ5EQOtg3TY8x62u_tFYdfwr8epE4K3xeoAVGFUztflnt3Zl_oPqSDb3zVzS5l1ZoC-J/s1600/tiled-table001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfhbHBm3l7mAmFjfZi4VpdElMP76Ds70I3r5yySFFqNWLGgVYz4hAi9BXFf8QTEyO99bCgzqG8sQ5EQOtg3TY8x62u_tFYdfwr8epE4K3xeoAVGFUztflnt3Zl_oPqSDb3zVzS5l1ZoC-J/s1600/tiled-table001.jpg" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPpgyXxXndJ8D0ocb9IvGztg6I0Xjf0hNpBAyCC3-7ZMRug9NFiZ-r1iUSdTowUQVSiz8W_1T7VItsaXX_A98rPCTNy_jD0iS8j77V0FHAWTxsERVJFZdzybDw0YYgwX8wLu0ltw3uknur/s1600/tiled-table002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPpgyXxXndJ8D0ocb9IvGztg6I0Xjf0hNpBAyCC3-7ZMRug9NFiZ-r1iUSdTowUQVSiz8W_1T7VItsaXX_A98rPCTNy_jD0iS8j77V0FHAWTxsERVJFZdzybDw0YYgwX8wLu0ltw3uknur/s640/tiled-table002.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcTAjj9-C0ld666nfU0bzK7YiKfgqAfHeEw9sW2o9kJr3RP2tTEjWgX2C9_d5vz0Hh08fJKRlqvV6d4ef3DVgCqSkXp5JchxmY3kHwIe3XHhXY79PPvKptoD7NA_gBqFgX3e-LBrUrHQNk/s1600/tiled-table004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcTAjj9-C0ld666nfU0bzK7YiKfgqAfHeEw9sW2o9kJr3RP2tTEjWgX2C9_d5vz0Hh08fJKRlqvV6d4ef3DVgCqSkXp5JchxmY3kHwIe3XHhXY79PPvKptoD7NA_gBqFgX3e-LBrUrHQNk/s640/tiled-table004.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpjBeavaiS0wiNE9G-6qn_udYU9LMnY1CPD4qff81wJIBm60Y6jS2_LCWc5tsTNghj5LpAxn1BUff7M96sEzu_WI48rh3-V7lB-Gm_gmXuCqDcnvbyjYd3B9UvM-VFuEC6lQDGGSO9k0z7/s1600/tiled-table003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpjBeavaiS0wiNE9G-6qn_udYU9LMnY1CPD4qff81wJIBm60Y6jS2_LCWc5tsTNghj5LpAxn1BUff7M96sEzu_WI48rh3-V7lB-Gm_gmXuCqDcnvbyjYd3B9UvM-VFuEC6lQDGGSO9k0z7/s640/tiled-table003.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Matching Tables - 4 pages</span></span></h3>
<hr />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWLl7sZtc-eEXCQ_xa406HuIZK_jVtMarfcR82b9D9XOmxDo3ncQAtL_LCv3uSaUJhx4AJA6y3ZkAKBUrymt9nR68JJnIKFQ2p85kaKWYOC_-KAJvZLcBkRGj-NVoHKEzz3YmCvWPttblI/s1600/matching-tables001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWLl7sZtc-eEXCQ_xa406HuIZK_jVtMarfcR82b9D9XOmxDo3ncQAtL_LCv3uSaUJhx4AJA6y3ZkAKBUrymt9nR68JJnIKFQ2p85kaKWYOC_-KAJvZLcBkRGj-NVoHKEzz3YmCvWPttblI/s640/matching-tables001.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicr2dAipyquT8b1xyfo4tCXt2gIhyphenhyphenAQGGBLOjcfXDS7Tr7wQk1F1GyBZHi161fJwB-2VeM5vTHqpdS3cUizqtwsG88qsKzYHG2Q6uADviJ9PCtptIw6RpMGSUoYNTNXPkWSFMYlQBDAPCl/s1600/matching-tables002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicr2dAipyquT8b1xyfo4tCXt2gIhyphenhyphenAQGGBLOjcfXDS7Tr7wQk1F1GyBZHi161fJwB-2VeM5vTHqpdS3cUizqtwsG88qsKzYHG2Q6uADviJ9PCtptIw6RpMGSUoYNTNXPkWSFMYlQBDAPCl/s640/matching-tables002.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotA-scCubpBw90qbtUcBwa5EQbnJeu2fV1T7RC4U2w_OpXl-DOPzPmplUoaTjziu7Bj2L9kbEk9pagZhN0Df_AnDOt2UpMr3wXh0AAir7gZPNkduH7fJws4eK1NAVfq8Efn3yuWzTAM7G/s1600/matching-tables003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotA-scCubpBw90qbtUcBwa5EQbnJeu2fV1T7RC4U2w_OpXl-DOPzPmplUoaTjziu7Bj2L9kbEk9pagZhN0Df_AnDOt2UpMr3wXh0AAir7gZPNkduH7fJws4eK1NAVfq8Efn3yuWzTAM7G/s1600/matching-tables003.jpg" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Cwxw2Y336VRDNImYh4lGbmxIukZ6i40Z970SFNTdYHL1VN0JQaPaJ3jSc68bczFNahoh5YoqPYhVa0FMl-7Bxdo0Y4c781MuGPzFzqFG2CUvKTFxb2zmhA9dBIDyo_PMAplCqWy87oIo/s1600/matching-tables004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Cwxw2Y336VRDNImYh4lGbmxIukZ6i40Z970SFNTdYHL1VN0JQaPaJ3jSc68bczFNahoh5YoqPYhVa0FMl-7Bxdo0Y4c781MuGPzFzqFG2CUvKTFxb2zmhA9dBIDyo_PMAplCqWy87oIo/s1600/matching-tables004.jpg" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Shelf Unit - 4 pages</span></span></h3>
<hr />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWnBC2gToWy7ngsQdWstOzGSpc5fsAH94v4lXvk0SDCeZNtvvSXRvDPOHGkWg8oeFSBG5gQnpUTxygC_ibvXk9FqetpEH5Xg_MeQR2BD2mlYcjThq_lsD2e6wvWW3mYtwJ_bn0Rj9Fv4Kj/s1600/shelf-unit001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWnBC2gToWy7ngsQdWstOzGSpc5fsAH94v4lXvk0SDCeZNtvvSXRvDPOHGkWg8oeFSBG5gQnpUTxygC_ibvXk9FqetpEH5Xg_MeQR2BD2mlYcjThq_lsD2e6wvWW3mYtwJ_bn0Rj9Fv4Kj/s640/shelf-unit001.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIABdGyl5N_srxsJntRv14Qc5dUKRV6-dVOBDecEjGOrbusg9vBC1MAhQpdM1Wv83h0qMBCMODsD11cM-Armi0gLKntg3YWklRqy1PxeWyMTrz7NumK1f5Mi2RcWjK_kCUOzDUwE_UViJH/s1600/shelf-unit003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIABdGyl5N_srxsJntRv14Qc5dUKRV6-dVOBDecEjGOrbusg9vBC1MAhQpdM1Wv83h0qMBCMODsD11cM-Armi0gLKntg3YWklRqy1PxeWyMTrz7NumK1f5Mi2RcWjK_kCUOzDUwE_UViJH/s640/shelf-unit003.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRgsym5ExDl7xnrunWlK7YLucS3gCQhjTDuLsDZ77_Yy1gknYrUkXxWouxgBJageOs-C8EjoRYBi5RYqzaeuHLWlpicQ0Mj5HCWdni3WHxqAgSHXKS8SU66Ycj7zxgonS6tMDOJtTOpIvb/s1600/shelf-unit004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRgsym5ExDl7xnrunWlK7YLucS3gCQhjTDuLsDZ77_Yy1gknYrUkXxWouxgBJageOs-C8EjoRYBi5RYqzaeuHLWlpicQ0Mj5HCWdni3WHxqAgSHXKS8SU66Ycj7zxgonS6tMDOJtTOpIvb/s640/shelf-unit004.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: medium;"><span class="_Tgc"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVNwA7LFBnyqGPMSVO6RBTWz5gUVhWVBw8LqH02g8tdojch2U_EQblqA_SRjnc1n2eDJGaMkE2Qo_1T0C1H0qKvJoCowNRR9pbCu_VNt_THdZyn0RfN_z_LqNlxF3YfOLLMpNLsY9_5YDG/s1600/shelf-unit005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVNwA7LFBnyqGPMSVO6RBTWz5gUVhWVBw8LqH02g8tdojch2U_EQblqA_SRjnc1n2eDJGaMkE2Qo_1T0C1H0qKvJoCowNRR9pbCu_VNt_THdZyn0RfN_z_LqNlxF3YfOLLMpNLsY9_5YDG/s640/shelf-unit005.jpg" width="640" /> </a></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Blogged to promote <a href="http://veganline.com/" title="Tredair-sole boots with vegan microfibre tops, belts made to order from 2mm microfibre, shoes and more">Veganline.com - an online vegan shoe shop selling vegan boots belts and jackets mainly made in the UK</a></div>
<span id="closeHtml"></span> </div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-25362507744418865622017-02-28T16:55:00.010+00:002018-10-21T10:22:43.697+01:001980s recession<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
Related: <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/bad-economics-courses-for-twenty-teens.html"><u>Bad Economics Teaching for the twenty-teens</u></a> from data on Unistats, 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economnics-teaching.html">Better Economics Teaching</a>: some off-the-cuff suggestions based on being a 1980s student <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html" title="The British economic crisis: its past and future. Front Cover. Keith Smith. Penguin Books, 1984 - Business & Economics - 256 pages, ISBN 9780140225020">The British Economic Crisis</a> - a similar book to Robert Peston written in the 80s - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">Star Courses</a>: the least satisfied, most bored and lowest paid UK graduates, written 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">Boring Economics Teaching is interesting</a>: how someone managed to teach economics from memories of an old textbook at the peak of the worst recession since the 1930s, and tried to cover-up for government causing the recession. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2012/10/leslie-fishman-writings.html">Journal Articles by Professor Les Fishman</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economics.html">unbelievable beliefs</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/02/1980s-recession.html">1980s recession explanations I wrot</a>e - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-search-for-one-click-install.html">UK unemployment 1980s from the Begg 1984 textbook</a></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">1980s recession caused by deliberate government policy </span></h3>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
The 1984 Begg textbook says what caused the 1980s recession. It was caused by a policy of raising the value of the pound by tinkering with interest rates. As a result, export industries had to close. Begg was a teacher at Oxford Uni when he wrote his first textbook, and recent politicians like a prime minister and a shadow chancellor in the mid 20-teens were students on a PPE course there in the 80s, but said very little about the problem in the teens. As though they didn't know. The Bank of England had to explain to a treasury select committee how the system worked; a report with a neat flow diagram. The bottom line of arrows shows the rate of interest - that government can influence - effecting import prices. In other words it effects whether a lot of UK manufacturing has to close because of a deliberate government policy.<br />
<br />
I have a long blog post about being on a college economics course at the time, and imagined that someone might read it and simply not know what the economic problem was, so I started writing what came into my head, but for a proper read you could skip this and try <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html">The British Economic Crisis</a> book quoted in full on another post.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik3jFKxd39eb4NN3WHXkhKjbwWfuPHvF4bualTspnqXqTK1I3k5xuAM2mR3CVIS1bJ2rjclpWpH4kdOhQLxXhLIfyWciQYO1w4mzZDddPsgATNahUmwMfAvVKCZe_ys2Ck7ZnGbdBJ6zyb/s1600/monetary-policy-from_int_inf2%255B1%255D.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik3jFKxd39eb4NN3WHXkhKjbwWfuPHvF4bualTspnqXqTK1I3k5xuAM2mR3CVIS1bJ2rjclpWpH4kdOhQLxXhLIfyWciQYO1w4mzZDddPsgATNahUmwMfAvVKCZe_ys2Ck7ZnGbdBJ6zyb/s400/monetary-policy-from_int_inf2%255B1%255D.gif" width="400" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
I guess something about the teaching of compact economics degree courses in 1984-7 left students like myself unaware of other students' views or anything like that - views roughly suggested by opinion polls, or views of people who wrote books, but we were rather sure of our own views alongside the crushing hopelessness of most economics teaching. I was rather sure on both points anyway, and the recent prime minister and shadow chancellor seemed un-troubled by facts. Like them, I had been to posh school with loads of essay-writing about things like the origin of the first world war and thought that I could have sorted it in a few sides of A4. The difficulty was that people with different views - people like Dave at Oxford - were just as confident. Boris Johnson is reported as writing two essays to himself, pro and anti EU, in order to help him decide on the strength of his own prose.<br />
<i><br />
The Times</i>, my dad's old employer, reported that everything was wonderful in the UK and that is the view that's now recorded on TV and among pundits. Recent prime ministers, historians and such were at college at the time - they are in their early fifties now - and seem to believe that some kind of painful but useful reform happened in the 1980s. That's self-delusion based on ignorance and bad newspapers. Unemployment was caused by a Kamakazee economic policy that continued until 2009 with support from the three main Westminster parties.<br />
<br />
My dad sold advertising space for a few years for <i>The Times</i> and <i>The Observer</i> in the 1950s - he was the same age as Professor Fishman. Mum and dad kept-up the newspaper subscriptions for ever. I got to know the newspaper habit of putting the paragraphs in order of importance: the proprietor's view at the top, and the contrary facts at the bottom of an article or said in a different way. <i>The Times</i> also noted graduate unemployment in a different way. It said that nearly all graduates from Trinity College Dublin had to emmigrate about that time, even though things were going so well. I remember the article, with a formal graduation picture - like a victorian sports team in dressing gowns - and a list of how few of the graduates remained in Ireland to find work. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_pound#Breaking_the_link_with_sterling">Ireland had a cheaper currency from 1979</a> so it missed the worst of the Thatcher recession, but shared the problem of trying to sell to a dole queue in the UK; everything in the UK was not wonderful. Even Micheal Gove, the politician, had a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jun/15/eu-referendum-live-osborne-punishment-budget-farage-flotilla-thames?page=with:block-5761aa3ee4b04ceead988c83#block-5761aa3ee4b04ceead988c83">dad who wound-down a business in the early 80s but the Micheal Gove version of events is fiddled</a>. The link states one view, from Gove's dad, and the italics state another view, from Gove's speech reported in the Daily Telegraph. <br />
<i><br />Dry political arguments about the economic risks and benefits of leaving the EU suddenly became intensely personal. Speaking before a live audience Michael Gove revealed how he
had witnessed first-hand the “misery” caused by Brussels’ bureaucrats
after their policies led to the closure of his adopted father’s family
business. Visibly moved he told how he had watched his father’s fish
merchant business “going to the wall” as a result of the EU’s common
fisheries policy.</i><br />
<i>
</i><i>The Aberdeen-based business had been founded by Mr Gove’s grandfather, who in turn passed it on to his father Ernest.</i><br />
<i>
</i><i>EE Gove and Sons was a thriving concern, employing 20 people
to process and smoke fish from the North Sea, including cod and
whiting. But in the early 1980s it went under and was sold as a
result, says Mr Gove, of the European common fisheries policy (CFP),
which gave access to fishing grounds to boats from other countries and
imposed quotas on British fishermen.</i><br />
<i>
</i><i>Ernest Gove, 79, and his wife Christine, 77, still live in
the same neat, three-bedroom, granite semi-detached house in Aberdeen
where the MP was brought up.</i><br />
<i>
</i><i>Mrs Gove, a former lab assistant at Aberdeen University, was
tending her front lawn in the sunshine, but said they had strict
instructions from their son not to talk to the media. She did however say there was nothing left of the business
in a harbour that has been constantly redeveloped since oil first boomed
in the city in the 1970s.</i><br />
<br />
Stories like that were everywhere except that EU fisheries policies hadn't been invented; UK government interest rates had hiked-up the value of the pound and killed-off every concievable type of business. Everybody seemed to have redundant or out-of-business parents.<i><br />
<br />
</i><br />
<i>The Times</i>' proprietor-top-of-the-page view is the one most recorded, for example in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Sandbrook">Daniel Sandford;s TV History "The 80s"</a> Maybe he read <i>The Times</i> as well. Early 80s unemployment, in this history, was caused by privatisation of a big public sector, but that doesn't make sense except to people who believe blatently untrue things in economics text books written on a pattern set in the cold war. According to the textbooks, the UK was half way to East Europe in the share of GDP controlled by the <i>"Command Economy"</i>. It follows, to Daniel Sandford, who studied history at a similar university further south about that time, that 80s unemployment was a bit like the East German unemployment that followed unification and attempts to close or reform firms like Skoda in East Germany. If you asked someone who was in a country like East Germany after unification, they'd probably recognise the process far better than anyone in the UK in the 1980s who just experienced a fiddled exchange rate, a flood of imports that closed all kinds of industry, and fiddles to reduce services we'd paid-for in taxes.<br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">INTRODUCTION: COLD WAR ECONOMISTS - FIGURE 1-4</span></b></span><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6J5X3Cy8aPvN1ndZKsOQS47MHTIcWPI6kbkXdGPeu2B-am2WqxTT3TMaw4OlUORGvC01copAdudI5tQoVISGnjOnslc7rPyJHcyKT7T7lrhpULtSFxXHKOjBnUCd2AWLYyeLzqfibrkvl/s1600/mixed-economies.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Degrees of Market Orientation:: the role of the market in allocating resources differs vastly between countries. At one extreme, in the command economy, resources are allocated by central government planning. At the other extreme, in a free market economy, there is virtually no government regulation of the production, consumption and exchange of goods. In between lies the mixed economy where market forces play a large role but the government intervenes extensively." border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6J5X3Cy8aPvN1ndZKsOQS47MHTIcWPI6kbkXdGPeu2B-am2WqxTT3TMaw4OlUORGvC01copAdudI5tQoVISGnjOnslc7rPyJHcyKT7T7lrhpULtSFxXHKOjBnUCd2AWLYyeLzqfibrkvl/s320/mixed-economies.jpg" title="" width="306" /></a>This is a strange point worth repeating. Textbooks like Samuelson contrast the market economies like the US with the state-run economies like the Soviet bloc at the time. What's stated is that the UK is half way between the two. Stated in a strangely blatent and serious way for such a misleading point. I googled <i>"cold war economics teaching"</i> to see whether this has changed now, and <a href="http://www.webcitation.org/6l9yWTjwO">the first link that came-up</a> suggests not; words like <i>"social insurance"</i> or <i>"Social Democratic Party"</i> would not fit the definition <i>"Socialism is an economic system that features public (government) ownership and production of goods and services"</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
The scan here is from my 1984 Begg textbook, written by a teacher at Oxford Uni where they have another short course in Economics, as part of the PPE degree done by so many wannabe politicians from David Cameron to Ed Balls. They both probably stared at exactly the same diagram. A few even went to ordinary colleges like Keele where Claire Short and Priti Patel studied, and looked at the same diagram or something just as misleading.<br />
<br />
There are no numbers next to the diagram, but if you take it as a measure of the percentage of GDP controlled by the state - say 50% in the UK at the time - then the picture has a false simplicity to it. Since the 1980s, much more work is contracted-out but public-funded. So still public sector in a way. Other bits are more regulated, like banking, but still private sector in a way. When I started at Keele, National Express Coaches was used to a monopoly on long routes given in hope that they would return the favour by running short routes as some kind of back-room deal. I'd bought tickets on a rival - the tiny Stagecoach service from London to Scotland - but they were small and new and obviously private. Later-on, the roles were reversed. Stagecoach had a skill at predatory under-pricing that far out-gunned the ability of rival bus commpanies or the monopolies and mergers commission, so they could just take-over a 'hood like gangsters. They were specially interested in bus companies that owned valuable bus stations, to be sold after take-over. In a way, the monopoly power transferred to them and they became something a bit like the public sector in the sense of being the establishment or the big organisation with unfair power.<br />
<br />
There are other services, called public sector on the statistics, that would have to be re-invented if the public sector didn't so them like compulsory insurance for sickness and unemployment. Every special case bamboozles everyone who isn't much intersted in it, and those who study the subject are not helped by the diagram above,<br />
<br />
If you have a look at .gov.uk and the names of the ministries, it's clear that UK government is a kind of big insurance company providing services that we might use at some points in our lives but not at others. There was no ministry of economic command. There was no slice in the spending pie-chart for <i>"propping-up three million pointless jobs in nationalised industries to close in the early 80s"</i>. There is no Ministry of Economic Command to spend that budget. Simply not. </div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
<br />
<a href="http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2010UKbt_16bc1n#ukgs302">This is a breakdown of spending in 2010</a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5DfqdxgQLwrhlcoesa6VGvJxiCTI4iNwAp8694pvqe0l5wQOmElF20_IQ4P9S8eC11_rqFfl9R2nJMnxpWSMZ5PV3n89OEDsfOmAw7HsuFsON9D2JT1Gwj3D5p_WcTgicXQRYjG71Wo5s/s1600/temp.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5DfqdxgQLwrhlcoesa6VGvJxiCTI4iNwAp8694pvqe0l5wQOmElF20_IQ4P9S8eC11_rqFfl9R2nJMnxpWSMZ5PV3n89OEDsfOmAw7HsuFsON9D2JT1Gwj3D5p_WcTgicXQRYjG71Wo5s/s400/temp.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_1980UKbt_16bc1n#ukgs302">This is a breakdown of spending in 1980</a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1wMYOeBnOD7Bk21201WPHdxVzc0tIf30tDC5tKN_xYvdTPmBcbmGvwaAW_7WdwDxjwdyroa9NgLrc85vJew4hoGt60BGAKJXAAjhgjtKXFLpcV9XDMShPbCa8yIkK6mKS7ckodjZczqG/s1600/temp.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1wMYOeBnOD7Bk21201WPHdxVzc0tIf30tDC5tKN_xYvdTPmBcbmGvwaAW_7WdwDxjwdyroa9NgLrc85vJew4hoGt60BGAKJXAAjhgjtKXFLpcV9XDMShPbCa8yIkK6mKS7ckodjZczqG/s400/temp.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
As a big insurance company, the state can be more efficient than a private one, and it can also be more inefficient. This is one of the topics that economically-minded people discuss and it's a pity that economcis courses like this didn't promote discussion and evidence either way.<br />
<br />
A big public sector GDP can include a large number of payments made by a computer with few staff involved, paying a universal benefit like Child Benefit. The cost can be far lower than some private sector pension scheme like the one my dad tried to work for, which provided some pretty awful annuity deals to fund high sales & admin costs, and wouldn't be able to quote for providing child benefit or accident and emergency services, nor any services like school-fee schemes for the parents who can't pay.<br />
<br />
One difference between then and now is the proportion of taxes spent on debt repayment. In these area, the Thatcher government spent more than before. Most borrowers would seek the lowest rate at which to pay interest. I think Disreali was good at finding good advisors and someone knocked-up the idea of a government bond for him - or something like that (it's a long time since history O-level). Economists after 1979 added another constraint when advising governments: if the interest rate can be tweaked-up a little higher than other similar interest rates around the world, funds will tend to flood-in and raise the value of the pound, followed by cheap imports flooding-in and reducing inflation. The treatment has side-effects: higher public debt and demoralised survivers among a bust UK manufacturing industry, because manufacturers deal with international trade much more than the people who commentate like broadcasters and ministers and newspaper owners.<br />
<br />
An obvious difference between the 1980s and 20-teens is the amount of people on the dole. Broadly, a policy that puts people out of work will cost a lot in benefits, government schemes, and quite likely other services as well, so a government that is remembered for cutting subsidies to state industries is in fact one that increased demand for public services like benefits.<br />
<br />
A third difference is that there are pieces of the public sector that seemed a bit odd, even at the time, but the difference is not clear-cut. Nowadays the fiddles or the problems are PFI hospital buildings, or the the Palace of Westminster that funds staff to do pagentry but not mend the roof, or the nationalised banks. In the 1980s there were another lot, but not so very different. A strange example was that only gas and electricity boards were allowed to sell new cookers. You queued-up at their show-rooms and filled-in triplicate form to order one for you, then they would book one of their own qualified staff to plug it in when it finally arrived. Nowadays the system has evolved: you go to a private shop, they order a cooker, and when it arrives you can get any Corgi-registered gas plumber to plug it in.<br />
<br />
The oddest thing then was a kind of trade war going-on between European countries subsidising over-capacity in their steel industries in kind of game, to find out which one would stop first, close steel works, and make the capacity in other countries more profitable. EU rules wouldn't alloow it now. Lastly, councils and ministries tended to own the organisations that provided services like schools and hospitals in a more clear-cut way than now, so more of GDP counted as public sector. <a href="http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart_1900_2010UKp_16c1li011lcn_F0t_UK_Public_Spending_As_Percent_Of_GDP">Even so, the proportion of GDP that counts as public in the stats is still high</a>; there was no wave of privatisations big enough to cause 1980s unempoyment.<br />
<br />
The Begg course textbook comes back to a similar point on other pages, but in a more detailed and rather opposite way. It says that UK government makes a lot of transfer payments to provide a lot of public services, rather than being half way to a command economy as on the scale above. It even quotes words like "national insurance". The textbook is funny like that; it puts conflicting points of view on different pages, like an encyclopedia.<br />
<br />
Talking of privatisation as a cause of three million people being unemployed, there were more jobs on state-owned or council-owned payrolls in 1979, or payrolls that were private but felt a bit like state. No one individual knows the status of all the organisations like the Welsh Water Authority of the Potato Marketing Board, the National Lottery, the BBC, The Cheese Bureau or Universities, that tend to feel a bit like the public sector even if they're private and vica versa. Even ministers and journalists don't know: they tend to assume that it's all part of government under the <i>Merit Good</i> heading.<br />
<br />
Anyway, there were not three million less jobs on taxpayer-funded payrolls in 1987 than 1979. I don't know how to research this but it seems too straightforward to be worth researching. Some of these jobs were transferred to privately-owned empoloyers who employed fewer people to do the same thing, One example is the electicity board shops that used to have a monopoly on selling new cookers, just as British Gas and elictricity boards had a monopoly on plugging them in. It was daft and jobs had to be lost, but someone still had to sell cookers one way or another, and there is still a Corgi licencing scheme to replace the old British Gas monopoly on plugging-in a gas cooker. Much of what changed was a rather fuedal way in which government worked, and made itself unpopular, by insisting that people outside of any state payroll could not plug-in a cooker, but the change was not quick and consisted of large public organisations becoming a state regulator and a large private organisation. There was a state-owned railway, but the Beeching cuts had already happened and a lot of the infrastructure - now Network Rail - remains in state hands after a brief attempt to be Railtrack PLC. I think the National Grid remains nationalised, and, as with electricity supply, the private part co-exists.</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Nationalised and slightly nationalised industry in 1979 - reminiscence</span> </h3>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
<br />
My recollections of 1970s nationalised industry don't fit the story that privatisation caused 1980s unemployment. Nowhere near. Which is no reason not to write some reminiscences about large organisations trying to do things. so skip down a paragraph if you want to read the next thing. I write this because I enjoy reminiscence.<br />
<br />
Before the 1980s, as now, employers like banks or steel works or the odd car manufacturer had swung in or out of public ownership for reasons of policy or panic, but they behaved in fairly similar ways whoever owned the shares. The Chrysler Avenger was just as bad a car as the Morris Marina. Other firms in the private sector had tended to merge rather than invest. There was a trend towards the big and corporate and the nationalised and the council-run, which both political parties seemed to like and encourage.<br />
<br />
Car manufacturing is often quoted as an example of a nationalised industry at the time because everybody looked at cars on the street and even tried to mend cars on the street because the factories were new to cheap mass-production as were buyers, and the result was cars that fell apart. Less of the car industry was nationalised than current high street banks and, like them, it had other problems that had caused state intervention as a kind of short-term emergency treatment for the last remaining UK-owned conglomerate. The real state-run attempts to make cars were in East Europe and included a couple of models from Trabant, some Skodas and a car known in Poland that I'm told was known as "The Sock" for its shape and smell. Emmissions laws prevented The Sock and most of the others from being offered for sale in the UK. A delux model of the Trabant was offered for a while before emissions laws caught-up with it and sales ceased. The Skoda did OK, but by the late 70s most Eastern-bloc manufacturers tried buying-in designs from Fiat instead, and using thicker steel so they didn't rust-through like my brother's Italian fiat 600. <br />
<br />
UK telephones were an odd bit of industry. I saw on TV that the Post Office controlled a little empire of other parts of the economy, including telephones, land, and a catering college, but not a lot of expertise in the new generation of digital phone systems. There was a digital scheme called a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_X_%28telephony%29">System X telephone exchange</a>, but that was considered special. The organisation charged £15 a month or so for a landline, but that's the odd bit. It still does, and people still volunteer to pay that kind of amount to the mobile operators too instead of using pay as you go. And if someone reading this knows about the phone industry, I gues they'd say that a lot of low-tec analog infrastructure still exists; there were not a million people made redundant by the privatisation of British Telecom, how ever a good a video it makes on a TV history. <br />
<br />
UK car manufacturers still tried making their own models, but had run-out of petrol for the expensive bits of research and development and run-out of nous for having those ideas on the cheap as smaller firms sometimes do. They were like a 70s pomp rick group attempting the difficult 3rd LP. I saw somewhere the there is a firm that can make engines for Foumala 1 cars by cutting moulds out of very hard wood, and do it for some high number of thousands of pounds, but to develop an engine that scores well on comparison charts and avoids bad reputation costs millions - so much that manufacturers now club together to do it. In those days the conventional wisdom was to merge-together rather than club-together. Why one figure has so many more naughts on it than the other is a mystery and good subject for economists. Obviously a good result for something like petrol consumption or starting ability involves a lot of trial and error, but are the trial and error tream as good at nous and innovation as the people at Formula 1? Nobody knows.<br />
<br />
Jeremy Clarkson's brief interview with the designer of the Algro car went something like "do you like it?" "no" "was it a result of too many committee meetings?" "yes" "Do you want to drive it for the video?" "no". 1970s cars were OK for steering because they all shared a supplier for that, and somehow they did well on the new sheet metal chassis-less chassis, but other bits of research and development were kept in-house which meant not being done at all because of the cost. The Allegro was made in Belgium while the Marina and MG were made in the UK, but I guess they were all low in comparison charts for things like <br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>engines good enough to start in cold weather & score well on comparison charts, </li>
<li>undercoat that stopped the chassis-less monocoque chassis rusting through </li>
<li>gear boxes that you would want to use as a sales rep driving every day </li>
</ul>
(sales reps were a post war pointless industry; their cars counted as a business expense so most brand new cars sold to sales reps and then dads would buy them a year or two later) <br />
<br />
When you look at the dashboard of a 70s car - there is a Chyrsler Avenger in the National Motor Museum but few 70s cars survive in the wild - you see very scary silver paint and printed wood which scream <i>"fake"</i>. (I guess: I have walked past that Chrysler Avenger but don't remember the dashboard.) If the car dashboards could talk they would say <i>"I am a fake. You are a fake for choosing to buy me. Why don't we both just drive off beachy-head in a suicide pact together?"</i> A slush-moulding technique allowed very detailed fake sewing to be moulded into plastic door panels as well, just to make fakery worse. Technology was used as the Blair governement later used technology for PR. And the cars had trouble starting in the morning. You had to fiddle with the choke on my parent's Ford Cortina while the evil engine went "he he he he he. HA HA HA HA HA. he he he he he". <br />
<br />
There is a web site somewhere that publishes how many cars or a type survive over time. I haven't got the link but it's good material for economists to prove what was obvious in the 1980s: some cars were slightly worse than others but not much worse.<br />
<br />
Something about the prople chosen to design new cars and car factories, their budgets or the fragmentation of some of their budgets and combinations of others, and the people who bought the cars and decided where the market went, and the structure of the pension and share-buying industry that provided only short-term investment - something was bad for research and development. I suppose you could say the same for political parties' relationships with votors, or tabloids relationships with their readers, then and now.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<Digression on colleges><br />
Digressing from cars to colleges for a second, there was a fault with the customers. They were new to car-buying. A lot were sales reps looking for status in the car park. They looked for something classy, and the ranges of cars had a kind of class system with woodgrain veneer on the one you couldn't afford, all the way down to the one without a radio at the bottom of the range. They chose rather as people choose college places, looking for the classiest college, discovering that it's too selective, and working down the list from Oxford and Cambridge at the top to Burnley FE college's coaching for mail-order degrees at the bottom. When I chose a course, it was hard to find-out what was on the course and whether it was what I wished to study. Looking on the web, I see that newspapers still encourage people to choose by instutution rather than course, tweaking league table data to promote unpopular courses in popular institutions against popular courses in unpopular institutions. The differences between a course called "Economics" at one college and another one with the same name down the road are glossed-over altogether.<br />
</Digression on colleges></blockquote>
<br />
The Roots Group merged with Chrysler of Detroit that had the same problem, so neither side could help the other. There may be records of how long Chrysler Avengers lasted - probably less than ten years for a lot of them. I knew one still in circulation after ten years would emit a kind of blue smoke if driven faster than 60mph. Another UK car manufacturer was short of money for research and development and got a government bail-out. It produced the Morris Marina, likewise. 1970s and 1980s cars were a spectacle in themselves - the National Motor Museum in Coventry says that factories were new to competative, fast, cheap manufacturing and not every good at it. I'm sure that consumers were not very good at choosing cars either, getting more skilled through the 80s and 90s. TV remeniscences about Ford of Dagenham state how the jobs were organised in a madenning way for people who worked there. My own remeniscences were of patching-up my dad's Ford Cortina with plastic padding, sanded and covered with careful spray and T-cut to fill the rust-holes. Once the gear lever came-off in my dad's hand, revealing tarmac underneath. Morris Marinas were only slightly worse, but sufficiently worse that sales reps (who's employers got a tax rebate and were the only people to buy cars new) only bought Ford and Vauxhall; Chysler and Leyland's Austin and Morris brands were stop-gaps.<br />
<br />
UK coal mines were more what you'd imagine of the public sector. British Coal had been in the public sector for as long as NHS hospitals and the thing was run rather more like a ministry, with the benefit of cheap government loans to buy machines. It also had very cheap central accounts systems, rather like government: all pensions were paid-for out of the current account. If the payroll shrank in an area, that area showed a loss in later financial years because it still paid the pensions of previous generations of miners. Like a ministry, the National Coal Board had a head office near Whitehall - in Buckingham Palace Road alongside British Steel Corporation. I expect that was so that National Coal Board could sell coal to British Steel without having to pay delivery costs. There was probably a gateway between the two in the basement.</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">The pruning theory - dead wood - green shoots of recovery</span> </h3>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
<br />
The pruning-view came-up on Google just now, in the first half of a book synopsis published in the late 80s. The book was called Shaking The Iron Universe, apparently, and there is a link below, but it represents a common view among commentators.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<DIGRESSION><br />
At the time, international trade had become a lot easier as the port of Felixtowe allowed cheap surface mail for container-sized parcels addressed to the kinds of firms that liked to pay suppliers after recieving money from customers, and could afford high rents in the new retail planning zones. I guess a bit here - I don't have evidence for every clause - but I did see on telly that supermarkets were able to pay suppliers after the retail customers paid the supermarket were a new thing - often based on the ring road with a favour given to the council for planning permission. I am really not sure what I'm saying here but the ideas are worth writing. There was anyway a hike to the value of sterling caused by North Sea Oil. Norway had similar oil but a different system. It put the new tax money in a fund. Maybe it avoided massive rises in the value of its currency. But in the UK, government tends to put all money into the current account and tends to think a high currency is good for no known reason.<br />
</DIGRESSION></blockquote>
The book reports under-investment as over-staffing or low production per worker. These are close to being the same thing, but if you call it over-staffing then you can dream of a situation in which factories and jobs can close <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pour%20encourager%20les%20autres">to encouge the others</a>. Metaphors like "dead wood", "prune", and "green shoots of recovery" come to mind, specially if you read the Sunday Telegraph and watch <i>Gardiner's World</i> and are a core conservative supporter who might respond to this message..<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The cruel truth was that many of the companies that went out of business, and many of the managers who lost their jobs, got their just deserts. British industry was overmanned and in large part poorly managed. By the middle of 1981, the recession was already lifting, and company bosses - some newly in place, others terrified into action - realised something must be done. Throughout the Eighties, the quality of the manufacturing base improved greatly: proper financial controls were introduced, factories were overhauled, so were industrial relations. - <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/make-or-break-british-manufacturing-began-the-eighties-with-an-inevitable-shake-out-it-started-the-1491464.html">Online Synopsis from The Independant of David Bowen's "Shaking the Iron Universe"</a></blockquote>
The theory put in this book is that bad product lines like MG closed and that good ones like Morris Marina bounced-back revitalised. Bad Steelite closed. Good staffordshire figurines continued. Bad aluminium bicycle parts at GB Sport ceased production. Good cast-iron ones at Tube Investments stayed in production. Bad small computer firms like Acorn closed. Good computers like GEC's mainframe continued.<br />
<br />
I'm not convinced.<br />
<br />
What put the steelworks and the car-makers out of work was the exchange-rate hike caused by Sir Geoffrey Howe's interest-rate decsions, and that was what I had gone to Keele to study, as part of an economics degree course, so it should have been an exciting time to study economics. It turns out that an ex shadow chancellor and an ex prime minister went on a short economics course about the same time, and I don't think they learned anything either; I guess they both accepted the official view put in newspapers about what happened to the economy in the 80s.<br />
<br />
Talking of excitement, I don't know how to refute an economic argument or talk reasonably about it and the evidence, among people who have opposite ideas. For example, if someone seriously believes that the Olympics benefit the UK economy, I can't easily refute that. I have had a look at a report claiming that London Fashion Week benefits the UK economy, and think I can pick holes in that, but even if someone has an economic point to make, there is nowhere to make it. If anyone wants to research on how London Fashion Week does or does not benefit the UK economy, please contact me for ideas and maybe sources of information.<br />
<br />
The Begg Economics textbook has a paragraph about that, aimed at 16 year-olds, headed "common fallicies", one of which is "economists don't agree about anything". I think that's missing the point. Economists are bad at disagreeing because don't learn their trade in tutorials, so they don't learn from people who they disagree-with, and they end-up arguing against things that they don't really understand. I find the same; I find it very hard to read more than half way through a book about economics without getting too annoyed to continue.</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Related blog posts</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
Related:<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/httpswwwgovukgovernmentconsultationspro.html">ukgovernmentconsultations - migration advisory committee call for evidence on the effect of international students</a><br />
International students' effect on providers in expensive areas who provide the worst courses<br />
<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html">International Student Course Satisfaction</a><br />
Table
of feedback scores for the economics degrees for the universities that
take most international students. Most of the courses are at the bottom
of the league table for student feedback</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
Related: <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/bad-economics-courses-for-twenty-teens.html"><u>Bad Economics Teaching for the twenty-teens</u></a> from data on Unistats, 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economnics-teaching.html">Better Economics Teaching</a>: some off-the-cuff suggestions based on being a 1980s student <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html">The British Economic Crisis</a> - a similar book to Robert Peston written in the 80s - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">Star Courses</a>: the least satisfied, most bored and lowest paid UK graduates, written 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">Boring Economics Teaching is interesting</a>: how someone managed to teach economics from memories of an old textbook at the peak of the worst recession since the 1930s, and tried to cover-up for government causing the recession. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2012/10/leslie-fishman-writings.html">Journal Articles by Professor Les Fishman</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economics.html">unbelievable beliefs</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/02/1980s-recession.html">1980s recession explanations I wrot</a>e - UK unemployment 1980s from the Begg 1984 textbook <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html">International Student Course Satisfaction</a> - the colleges with most international students get worst reviews for economics courses</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<hr />
The author sells <a href="http://veganline.com/">vegan shoes for a living, mainly made in the UK. Veganline.com is the web site</a>.</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-40698974510011217892016-09-02T13:30:00.001+01:002018-10-21T10:22:45.263+01:00P2P lending risks and rewards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<fieldset><b>related pages about P2P lending</b><br />
https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html <br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/04/just-invested-few-tenners-in-primestox.html" title="Primestox.com review">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/04/just-invested-few-tenners-in-primestox.html</a><br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/08/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards-bondora.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/08/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards-bondora.html </a> </fieldset><br />
Moneywise wrote a page putting people off investments in Funding Knight and others under a "ones to avoid" heading. The article is no longer online; this is a better one with the same time.<br />
<h2><span style="color: red;">P2P lending risks and rewards (scroll down for rewards)</span></h2><h4 style="text-align: left;"></h4><blockquote class="tr_bq">After a few weeks of wanting to write some kind of blog post about P2P, there are a couple of triggers.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Bondora ring-up and email and avertise to suit the shareholders in their business, while their P2P lenders are let-down. Nobody comments.</li>
<li>Funding Knight is a bit quiet and short of new loans after letting-down the investors who helped fund their office and salaries, but it still does a good job for lenders. This has put journalists at Moneywise into a panic and they have warned lenders not to take-part.</li>
</ul><br />
Lending on P2P sites is partly an emotional choice. You decide to take a little flutter, and then more, but spread the risk. You glance at a few facts about the loan if you have time, just to avoid feeling silly if it goes wrong and it's a big one. A few bad experiences persuade you to avoid certain types of lending in future or to keep them on a small scale. Generally, in my experience, the results are much better than shares and bank accounts, and sometimes more socially useful. The only problem is how to encourage other people to enjoy the same results without annoying those with no money to invest and without sounding like a sales rep.<br />
<br />
I should start with the bad news by saying what's wrong with Bondora, even though it has no stack of licences or big number of lenders in the UK. Bondora management used to be a thrifty cautious bunch, but sounded as though they had swallowed a textbook about ending their "bootstrapping" and reaching a tipping point at which equity finance could help them expand to a new level. This is a very very bad idea for companies that lend; it forces them to take uncomfortable risks. Fundingcircle suffered the same process in the UK with Alex Moulton's equity finance company pushing them into ever bigger and riskier loans. <br />
. <br />
Clicking-around on the internet, you find reports by disgruntled Bondora lenders message boards like P2Pmoney.co.uk and now even in the <a href="https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/08/25/2173212/fun-with-peer-to-peer-accounting-yes-actual-fun/">Financial Times</a> . <br />
<span style="color: red;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: red;"><b>Bondora's estimated future returns are in double figures; <u>reality is 2.68%</u></b></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b>Bondora's estimated current value of my loans are €5,730; <u>reality is €8 today</u></b></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVytyhAJEZxjIJoa5pyejTjzf8F2gRZCzv1x6ixCgR3Y7Y4J-TYmMxmp-j4W4SifgBBYLcnpcXwDmQFUtmE6HbC5fjJDzWGP7OxxYA1p5XGq4oH0NzcqHVlQwXnTpZmR0rVner6y5TfwZk/s1600/temp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVytyhAJEZxjIJoa5pyejTjzf8F2gRZCzv1x6ixCgR3Y7Y4J-TYmMxmp-j4W4SifgBBYLcnpcXwDmQFUtmE6HbC5fjJDzWGP7OxxYA1p5XGq4oH0NzcqHVlQwXnTpZmR0rVner6y5TfwZk/s640/temp.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUtnagO5iMNqQNCJvdgmeMBjWe0L2-W4P2DaTGCFP4F59nDp-4iVMXmcvDCCEVAo5H5yktNZiFsiYCUyegS1qVVSGWi_KA50G7ye6JvKFyVR8Fyyd2FJ4KwR4gILaRc92_ETmHTG8taqn/s1600/temp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUtnagO5iMNqQNCJvdgmeMBjWe0L2-W4P2DaTGCFP4F59nDp-4iVMXmcvDCCEVAo5H5yktNZiFsiYCUyegS1qVVSGWi_KA50G7ye6JvKFyVR8Fyyd2FJ4KwR4gILaRc92_ETmHTG8taqn/s320/temp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So that's the glum news. <br />
There is a huge amount of extra detail now on the Bondora site, with videos and technical jargon, but, frankly, I have seen enough. There was also a head of investor relations, presumably on a high salary that adds to cots. You can look it up because he quit and they're advertising the job - https://www.bondora.com/blog/bondora-capital-is-searching-for-head-of-investor-relations/</blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Moneywise on <a href="https://www.fundingknight.com/">Funding Knight</a> changing ownership, which really is fine; it doesn't matter.</span></h4><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"putting 900 savers’ money at risk"</i></blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Funding Knight's statement about change is much like any other P2P lender:</span></h4><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="color: black;">"In the event that FundingKnight ceases to trade, we have appointed Complete Cash Management Limited to administer the collection of loan repayments and apportion them to the relevant investors. You will continue to receive the interest and capital payments due to you."</span></i><br />
<br />
"<i></i><span style="color: black;"><i>Any un-invested funds held in your investor account are held by our bank in a designated client account and ring-fenced from the assets of FundingKnight. These funds would therefore continue to be separate from FundingKnight Ltd and not available to its creditors."</i> </span></blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Reasons to believe Funding Knight and not Moneywise:</span></h4><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">(1) Experience</span></h4><blockquote class="tr_bq">I lend about £100 on any P2P platform that seems to offer a good return over 10% and have invested over a dozen. (Except Bondora where I lent too much). They don't close, raid the client account, and leave remaining loans un-collected. It simply doesn't happen. Fundingknight got me about 11½% with their auto-lend system, now dropped to 9½% while they've had less staff to recover bad loans and get new ones. Rebuildingsociety, on which I lend with my own rough hunches as well as auto-lend, got me 8% at minimum now risen back to 12½%. The rough hunches are often to invest at 20% as well as lower rates, and hope that the 20% bids are among the winning ones.<br />
<br />
The only one that seemed to loose money from the client account was Quakle, a tiny social enterprise that offered consumer credit without credit checks. I don't know how much went missing from the client account towards winding-up costs - possibly none - but the site dissapeared offline a few weeks after ceasing to take-on new business with nothing but an email address for explanation. I think that anyone investing, like myself, could see that it was a pretty strange idea, and knew that there was no Financial Conduct Authority regulation of P2P lending at the time. That's why I only invested about £50, and I doubt anyone else invested more. <br />
<br />
Bondora has a few thousand euro of my cash listed in un-salable loans and a quoted return of 3% at the moment, because I have turned auto-lend off and withdraw when possible.<br />
<br />
In contrast, 20 other P2P lenders have simply ceased to take-on new lenders, failed to start taking-on business, or merged into rival companies, as you would expect in a new market. Here is a list:<br />
<a href="http://www.p2pmoney.co.uk/companies.htm">http://www.p2pmoney.co.uk/companies.htm</a><br />
<br />
The only similar companies to Quakle trading today are the bitcoin P2P lending markets, which have software and people interested in lending and borrowing, but not many borrowers who look plausible and evidence-based in their requests. The options are to wait, or to invest one bitcoin on the most slick-looking platform, which I think is Bitbond, and see how it goes by investing the minimum amount that can be invested whenever cash comes-back in repayments. I would like to this but their ID recognition system has just changed, but I hope to get back into the habit after re-proving my ID. So far, there is some turnover of money but my loans are still too young to judge. The platform itself is odd too. Slick and well-funded by venture capitalists, I guess that some of this money goes towards pretend loans placed just to make the site look busy. When that money runs out and more of the other kinds of borrowers take-over, then returns may fall, and whenever the people running the sites learn how the market works and what debts are collectable, returns may rise.<br />
<br />
An old Funding Knight borrower has just asked for a new loan and dozens of current lenders have bid to fund it, so I am not the only one who thinks this platform is still worth using.Funding Knight has a very good web site for presenting data, which I suppose it what keeps the lenders lending. It tells me that I have earned just under 10% on new loans and just over 10% on second-hand loans bought on the after-market, mainly with their auto-bid system set to re-invest my earnings.</blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">(2) References regulatory checks and reviews</span></h4><blockquote class="tr_bq">These include interim licencing from the Financial Conduct Authority, and membership of trade associations that have minimum standards for members. Lenders on the site are free to post on public message boards, with their detailed knowledge of individual loans that the company has offered - which is a far more transparent system than applies to banks. Lenders can also check prospective borrowers against <a href="https://www.check-business.co.uk/">check-business.co.uk</a> as well as reading the detailed story that's offered behind each loan request. <a href="https://www.check-business.co.uk/business/04148697/acacia-care-and-education-limited">If I take the first loan, alphabetically, on my list of loans</a> I see that it's descibed as <i>"above average risk"</i> and <i>"lower than average equifax credit score". </i>I only bought £30-worth with the auto-lending robot, but the people who bought more asked eight earnest questions on a message board while the loan was auctioned, and read a more detailed breakdown of what the assets are. Stock has no value because the business is a school, but are other assets apparently. The blackboards or "tangeble assets" are valued at £792,374 which looks high. If I were investing hundreds, I would check all the questions that lenders have asked and the replies. Someone probably asked about the assets, and got a reply. <br />
<br />
There are regular articles about Funding Knight on sites like P2Pmoney. So, without knowing how to check the contract between Funding Kight and Complete Cash Managment or how it would work in practice, I think I can trust that it would work. It may be in place at the moment: Funding Knight hasn't posted any new loans for a while, but if one came-up, I'd consider investing.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Nothing much - just wondering how to price risk</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">I suppose that a 50% instant risk of total loss is worth 200% instant interest to a robot with money to spare and no costs, or a hobbyist like a mild gambler.<br />
<br />
Anything more complicated, I find, is better expressed in some form like building-blocks than algebra, but one more layer of complication might be worth a shot.<br />
<br />
I suppose that a typical risk on a P2P lending site is that loan will fizzle-out to less value after a while. I would like to see this expressed as building blocks but here is an example. A loan defaults after one year and there is nothing to recover. Supposing I am a person who invests other cash at about zero percent in a deposit account, and has money to spare, does this for fun, then I suppose this is the same as it happening tomorrow; if half of loans do this I want to earn double my investment on all the ones that pay.<br />
<br />
I must come back to this.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Rewards over 10%</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">I did found calculators for internal rate of return and applied them to Property Moose estimates of how much will come back as rent and how much as capital gain after three years, and the result was under 9% so I'm taking money out.<br />
<br />
I do see measures of the percentage I am making on loans to small business, which vary a lot in results. These are higher and have an extra benefit of encouraging employment and tax-paying in the economy where I live.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://p2pblog.co.uk/10-percent-club/">https://p2pblog.co.uk/10-percent-club/</a> is a blog post about the less useful but high-paying sites that fund bridging loans and maybe the odd second mortgage. I've found similar results.</blockquote><br />
This blog is here to promote <a href="http://veganline.com/">Veganline.com , the first shop to sell vegan shoes online in the UK</a></div>Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-5167341220551269992016-08-18T15:09:00.010+01:002018-10-21T10:22:46.996+01:00Free online book-keeping software for simple accounts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
Related:<br />
Choosing a UK business bank account<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/07/setting-up-shop-with-uk-business-bank.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/07/setting-up-shop-with-uk-business-bank.html</a> <br />
Free, Fast and Pretty: shopping cart software for ecommerce<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/06/shopping-cart-software-for-ecommerce.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/06/shopping-cart-software-for-ecommerce.html</a><br />
Simple Bookkeeping and Account Agregators<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/simple-book-keeping-and-account.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/simple-book-keeping-and-account.html</a><br />
Free Online Bookkeeping Software for Simple Accounts <b><span style="color: red;">< this page</span></b><br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/08/free-online-book-keeping-software-for.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/08/free-online-book-keeping-software-for.html</a></fieldset>
</blockquote>
These free online accounts programs are in alphabetical order with a link and paragraph for each. A few more details could appear over time. The list is Beanbalance, Brightbook, Slickpie, Pandle, and Wavapps.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Introduction to free online accounting for income tax</span></h3>
I pay UK self-assessed income tax, using software to help with the job. That's what I know. I may pay UK VAT and Corporation Tax in future and look for programs written for the UK market. UK payroll is specialised too, and I mention something about that at the bottom of the page.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
UK income tax self-assessment requires<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li> transactions, probably imported from a bank statement</li>
<li>categories of transaction: income, cost of sales, overheads, non-business, and probably loads of others added out of curiosity, or to match any income tax expenses that have their own box on the form or their own rules.</li>
<li>payments can be split into two categories, such as splitting electricity into home and home-based office costs.</li>
<li>A total for a year for each category.</li>
<li>Cash accounting by default, with the option to measure invoices un-paid and bills un-paid if the business ever gets large. At the moment I just check against a bank statement - if my accounting is double-entry (I'm not sure) then that's only because it's checked against the bank statement; I try to enter things only once and in as automated a way as possible. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
I guess all the programs below can do all of these jobs and more; it's what they're for. That's what they know.<br />
<br />
Oh, this follows a previous post on <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/simple-book-keeping-and-account.html">account aggregators - mainly based on yodlee - that extract data from your bank accounts</a> to save you downloading the things. One of them - <a href="https://www.moneydashboard.com/">Moneydashboard</a> - can automatically log-in to a single bank account via the yodlee system and store your transactions, which you can download as a form of <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.csv</span></span> file, without totals, linked from the bottom left of their page. However your bank lets you download data, it can probably be converted to something you can upload to an accounts program. Cruch Accounting have a Santander Text File to CSV converter for example, Beanbalance have a Co-Op Bank <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.csv</span></span> to <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.ofx</span></span> converter, and <a href="https://csvconverter.biz/">CSVconverter.biz</a> can handle other formats for free. Midata, the <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.csv</span></span> format used for comparing bank accounts, goes back a year but has some of the payee descriptions asterisked-out. As a general rule, <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.csv</span></span> data is good but requires your accounts program to learn which column goes where; <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.ofx</span></span> data is good, <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.qif</span></span> data was accident-prone last time I used it. Accounts programs like my version of Wave often ignore the column for totals, if it's available, which it often isn't.<br />
<br />
I've put quotes from company web sites in italics. There's a little bit at the bottom of the page about downloadable programs.<br />
<br />
<hr />
Most of this information is from August 2016 with no routine up-dates. <br />
Slickpie's entry was updated in May 2017. I found a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jun/18/control-spending-finances-budgeting-app-smartphone">Guardian article from 2016 on smartphone budget apps</a>.<br />
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.beanbalance.com/">Beanbalance.com</a></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://www.beanbalance.com/Home/Index#features">http://www.beanbalance.com/Home/Index#features</a> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No premium service vs Free; everything is free but commission paid by accountants for referrals<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Bank statements:</span></h4>
download and upload. You have to log-on to see the formats which in August 2016 were: <i>Microsoft Money (any version) </i><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">ofx</span></span></span><i> format </i><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">.qbo</span></span><i> or Quickbooks format </i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">Sage Line 50</span></span> <i> <span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">.</span></span></i><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">qif</span></span><i> format</i> <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Transactions to categories: </span></h4>
Probably smart, but I don't see a quick note on their web site</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://mybrightbook.com/">https://mybrightbook.com/</a></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://mybrightbook.com/what_can_it_do/features/">https://mybrightbook.com/what_can_it_do/features/</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No premium service vs Free; everything is free. A dot next to a circle on their front page converts the screen to a less bright colour, and the screen art might change if someone sends them another suggestion.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Bank statements:</span></h4>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">ofx</span></span></span><i> or </i><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">qif</span></span></span><i> format. We recommend</i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">ofx</span></span></span><i> format, if it's available, as it provides more transaction information.</i> <br />
<div style="color: #999999; line-height: 16px;">
(<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: black;">Co-op Bank .<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">csv</span></span></span><i><span style="color: black;"> to</span></i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: black;"> .<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">ofx</span></span></span></span><i><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"> converter </span>Use this tool to convert Co-op </span></i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: black;">.CSV</span></span><i><span style="color: black;"> exports into </span></i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: black;">.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">ofx</span></span></span><i><span style="color: black;"> files, ready for upload into Brightbook. Note: this only works with Co-op </span></i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: black;">.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">csv</span></span></span><i><span style="color: black;"> files)</span></i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: black;"> <span style="color: red;">.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">qbo<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span></span></span></span></span><i><span style="color: black;"> format; </span></i><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Sage<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>Line 50</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Transactions to categories:</span></h4>
<i>With your help, Brightbook can recognise what the items on your statements are. For example, if your statement shows the description 'TELEPHONE CD.286', you simply choose the Bill Type (Telephone) and Payment Method (Direct Debit) and tick the box next to the save button - Brightbook will then remember it for future imports.</i></blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.pandle.co.uk/">Pandle.co.uk</a></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.pandle.co.uk/features/">https://www.pandle.co.uk/features/</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Slick service with a premium version coming soon and a promise to keep a free version forever. <a href="https://www.pandle.co.uk/pricing/">Pandle.co.uk/pricing/</a><span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">suggests that invoice reminders, bank feeds, stripe and paypal integration will be paid for. </span></span><br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Digression on Fremium services like Quickfile</span></span></span></h4>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">(There can be no promises about what will be free. <a href="https://quickfile.co.uk/">Quickfile.co.uk</a> is based in the UK and worth a look at £45+VAT a year, but was initially free and still has a free version for something like 80 lines of bank statement per month with only the features that you find on other free programs. When the price hike happened, they let me download my data and I found ways of uploading it to another program. While using it I found that it took a while to turn-off or work-around the double entry booko-keeping system of an invoice account to balance payments made, but it worked. You can teach it to recognise bank statement lines and categorise them ).</span></span><br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Bank statements: </span> </h4>
<i>We have developed integrations with all the major banks in the UK. So no matter who you bank with Pandle will be able to automatically import your bank statements.</i> - <span style="color: red;">presumably this is Yodlee</span>. For upload instructions, there is a video headed <i>Select one of our pre-formatted upload types depending on your bank account and easily upload all of your transactions in one go. </i>I tried uploading some Waveapps data, converted to <span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">.ofx</span></span> by csvconverter.biz but just got error message number one each time I tried a variation. It says something like "does not match". Pandle is very new and this quirk might be sorted by the time you try.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Transactions to categories:</span></h4>
<span style="color: black;">Learns from previous category decisions</span></blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.slickpie.com/">Slickpie.com</a></h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.slickpie.com/features">https://www.slickpie.com/features</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.getapp.com/finance-accounting-software/a/slickpie/">https://www.getapp.com/finance-accounting-software/a/slickpie/.</a><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;"><br />
(Getapp lists this service but doesn't list most of the free ones or allow comparison of any)</span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;">Bank statements:</span> </span></h4>
<i>In May 2017 they write "</i><i>Now, users from all the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries worldwide will enjoy unlimited access to live bank feeds from their own local banks! That’s right! SlickPie has just expanded to support all the major banks out there! " <br />
<br />
To import bank statement in SlickPie, you need to download your bank statement in </i><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">csv</span></span></span><i> (Comma Separated File) or </i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> <span style="color: red;">.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">ofx</span></span></span><i> (Microsoft Money) format.</i><br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<i> </i><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;">Transactions to categories:</span></span></span> </h4>
Probably something slick, but I haven't found a quick note on their web site<br />
<br />
This program doesn't seem to have a version for the UK market, but has subtle tweaks and instructions available for setting-up tax systems and a helpdesk who tout for trade asking if they can help with anything.<br />
<br />
In contrast Kashflow can upload a VAT return automatically to a UK tax office but costs so-much a month - a price that rises steeply from £5+VAT if you use it much.</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.waveapps.com/">https://www.waveapps.com</a></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.getapp.com/finance-accounting-software/a/wave-accounting/">https://www.getapp.com/finance-accounting-software/a/wave-accounting/<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">(Getapp lists this service but doesn't list most of the free ones or allow comparison of any)</span></span></span></a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No premium service except payroll, which is only available in the US and Canada anyway The free version can recognise bills and receipts sent from your own email address and keep them ready for matching against the bank statement. There isn't a page of features because the url is broken-down by features, which are /<a href="https://www.waveapps.com/accounting/">accounting</a> <a href="https://www.waveapps.com/invoicing">/invoice</a> <a href="https://www.waveapps.com/payments/">/payments</a> <a href="https://www.waveapps.com/receipts/">/receipts</a> <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Bank statements: </span></h4>
Imported on request, by pressing a button, once set-up. <span style="color: red;">The feed system used is from Yodlee</span>, which has been criticised by accountants as accident-prone, but works for me. I still have to learn how to import bank and card statements into their separate bank and card accounts. Or you can upload saved statements from your had disk. The .csv option shows you the top few lines of result and asks you to confirm which one is the date, description, and payment column before recognising the rest automatically. It claims to be able to flag entries that you upload twice by mistake, but hasn't done that for me. <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.ofx</span> </span>Microsoft Money <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.qbo</span> </span>QuickBooks <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.qfx</span> </span>Quicken <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.aso</span> </span>Simply Accounting <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="color: red;">.csv</span> </span>CSV file </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Transactions to categories:</span></h4>
The system is slow to list a load of transactions on the screen, even when you try to think of knacks like only showing a months' transactions at a time. This makes manual processing slow, but it's necessary as Yodlee bank feeds have been known to mess-up. There is an automatic system that counts a paypal payment as "computer services". There is no way to change the automatic system. The nearest is to wait to the end of the year, list the ledger screen by the description column, click the tickbox beside every paypal receipt, and then press a button to reclassify the lot as something else.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">VAT:</span></h4>
The program has heard of VAT so I expect it can be set-up to handle UK or non-american taxes, but one review is less sure: "Basically Wave Accounting doesn’t handle VAT properly. There is no option for cash accounting or the flat rate scheme, trying to incorporate VAT in transactions is difficult and the VAT return is useless, does not transfer anything into a liability account and no ability to reconcile VAT transactions.". Wave themselves say that the program is fine for VAT and I've used it for a few lines of VAT payment on a cash-basis account, but haven't had a VAT inspection of the result; it's just a handful of account lines each year that I used to make a figure to put on the form.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<hr />
Chance findings - the programs that cropped-up and don't qualify for the list but might interest someone<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><b>Never do anything for the first time: paying self-assesed income tax with software as a guide</b></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...can be a strain on anyone's ability to make sense of HMRC web sites and guides. There are cheap bits of software for the purpose, with their own guides, prompts and estimates as well as special cases like paying from abroad where the HMRC website doesn't work. The Guardian had a joint deal one year with a firm that is now called GoSimple; others are among the list on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/software-tax-returns">https://www.gov.uk/software-tax-returns</a> . I guess that they are less for book-keeping than the software listed at the top of this page, and more for help filling-in the tax form. Some of the programs have free trials, so you can use them for the help screens to check that you've got the hang, and then fill-in your own figures on the HMRC web site if you would rather save the cost of the software.</blockquote>
<span style="color: red;"> </span> <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Payroll programs</b></span> </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I've never done UK payroll, but found-out some software for it by accident. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.payerti.org/RTI-UC">http://www.payerti.org/RTI-UC</a> - guide to real time reporting requirements for employers<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/tech-pulse/rti-payroll-software-free-options">https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/tech-pulse/rti-payroll-software-free-options</a> lists software.<br />
<br />
HMRC list a few online programs that can report detail for less than ten UK employees alongside paid versions of the same software that can do more, as can HMRC's own downloadable software which is also free and has no limit on use. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/basic-paye-tools">Gov.uk/basic-paye-tools</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://adminsoftware.biz/"> Adminsoftware.biz</a> is a down-loadable accounts program that can do UK payroll for over 10 employees. <i>The payroll was developed specifically for the United Kingdom. It can submit information to HMRC using RTI, and we believe at this time, it's the only free payroll that will allow in excess of 10 employees. The maximum is 250 employees. However, Adminsoft Accounts is primarily an accounts system, and so the payroll is basic. While very useable, and fully compliant with payroll legislation, it does not have some of the 'bells ad whistles' that some of the paid for (and rather expensive...) alternative products may have. For example, things like the amount of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/employers-sick-pay">SSP</a>, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/employers-maternity-pay-leave">SMP</a>, student loans, etc. have to be worked out by hand, where as a more sophisticated payroll would work out the amounts automatically. </i> <br />
<br />
Adminsoft describes itself as a double-entry accounts program that handles stock control and has addons for cafe-restaurants and motor repair or car parts shops, so it's a different animal to most of the programs listed above. It's also coy about importing bank statements; I can't see anything that says what formats it accepts from your hard disk, and it doesn't mention yodlee connections. It's supported as free software - like Wave - by ads on your working screens and a credit on your invoices. They're more intrusive than the add on Wave, but Adminsoft does do stock control and payroll, and has modules for car parts shops and cafes. Unlike Wave, Adminsoft can't be used online like a web site; there is an faq post about how to use if over an internal network. The fact that it's on your hard disc ought to make it faster than Wave on a bad day, when Wave is very bad; downloadable software might be more efficient. I don't know how much.<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://payroo.com/">Payroo.com</a></b> looks next cheapest from a quick search of HMRC's first list of programs - <a href="https://www.gov.uk/payroll-software">Gov.uk/payroll-software</a> - the ones that are free for the first three or nine employees. Payroo is cheapest on the list for employers of ten or more, who pay £3+VAT a year when submitting an end of year report. It runs from a web site, like the list of accounts software above. A couple of posts on the accountingweb link suggest that when something goes wrong there is no way to put it right; you can't contact Payroo to ask them to put right a mistake even if it's their mistake. On the other hand, the £3+VAT cost is yearly; other companies charge per month.</blockquote>
<span style="color: red;"><b>Downloadable open source and free accounts software</b></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are plenty of downloadable open source programs, but so far as I know they all make double entry a priority which makes the learning curve steep and accounting slow. This is a problem with Gnucash and its simpler relative, Grisbi, as well as the now open source Turbocash. I have not tried VTCashbook which is often mentioned on other sites. When I used downloaded software for work I used <a href="http://www.mechcad.net/products/acemoney/personal-finance-software-quicken-alternative.shtml">Acemoney</a>, which is free for one or two tracked accounts or freemium for more and geared to a sole trader or freelancer. It claims to download data from some of the US banks automatically, but I don't have any US bank accounts to test it on and UK banks aren't so easy to deal with. I guess that open source software is more of an option when looking for larger-scale more complicated options with different names like "ERP" and more functions. You might prove me wrong by checking Wikipedia</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_accounting_software#Free_and_open_source_software">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_accounting_software#Free_and_open_source_software</a></blockquote>
<b> <span style="color: red;">Time tracking programs</span></b></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is a feature on some account programs but not others. I haven't spotted whether it's on any of the list above, but the american program <a href="https://zipbooks.com/">https://zipbooks.com</a> has it. The program is funded by commission from services like Paypal in North America, so it won't include specialised features for the UK any time soon, but hey: it has time tracking<b> </b>and something called Project Management as well.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Installable open source and free accounts software for web servers </span></h4>
<blockquote>
Web servers nowadays include an easy software installation panel called something like Vistapanel, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softaculous">Softulicious</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Installatron">Installatron</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastico_(web_hosting)">Fantastico</a>. Even the slow, free servers like Byethost have it. If you search the web sites of these one-click installer companies, or sign-up for a web host, you'll see the list of what they can install which is mainly rather corporate multi-purpose stuff.</blockquote>
<b> <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"> </span></span></b><span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: red;"><b>Stock control programs and ERP</b></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One of the hassles of growing a business is that after a while you want to integrate things like the accounts software and the e-commerce software, and find that it can't easily be done and that you need something like a Drupal set-up or some sprawling-great program do it, and apparently sprawling-great programs are called ERP, which probably stands for sprawling great program in some language. Oodoo is an example.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
I haven't reached that stage; I hope to use the stock control software that's glued to the back of Prestashop e-commerce. For the moment, I just count the shoe boxes on a shelf. Anyway, one of two of the programs above might do stock control.</blockquote>
<a href="http://veganline.com/">The purpose of all this blogging is to promote an online vegan shoe web site called Veganline.com that sells vegan shoes boots belts and jackets mainly made in a democratic welfare state - the UK</a>. </div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com102tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-63752259579977077802016-06-13T14:51:00.008+01:002018-10-19T15:38:17.250+01:00London Housing Trust<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-06-08/revealed-homeless-housing-trust-accused-of-letting-down-domestic-violence-victims-in-400-a-week-rooms">https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-06-08/revealed-homeless-housing-trust-accused-of-letting-down-domestic-violence-victims-in-400-a-week-rooms</a> ... A lot of this blog post repeats what's on the link - skip down the page for how to run an organisation that is not like London Housing Trust or read-on to see why not to copy them. If you are just loking for London Housing Trust's office address: 8b Evelyn Court Business Park, Grinstead Rd, SE8 5AD. </blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">London Housing Trust & funders</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">The BBC version of this story confirmed that London Housing Trust defrauded the local housing benefit office by claiming for a <i>"concierge service" </i>at a place where there wasn't one. The fraud is as simple as that. The building housed victims of domestic violence amongst others, so there's a good reason to have someone paid to answer the door, but no such job existed. This is a straightforward factual statement, easily proved; there is no need to find a record of complaints. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/jun/10/profit-homelessness-domestic-abuse-council-cuts">The Guardian re-reported the story</a> with quotes from several residents. <br />
<br />
There's also money from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supporting_People">Supporting People</a>, a scheme like Housing Benefit which I don't understand, and depends on residents needing some kind of extra service beyond what other landlords can provide.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile the organisation insists on online referrals which could be good but leaves less paper trail to say what these residents' support needs were or are - always a problem when the residents are not there for any specific treatment that might help define them. I don't know if this is a problem, but it was certainly a problem at Kids Company, where the founder made repeated implausible claims about the needs of her clients and instructed staff to upgrade every one of them on the database in the last few days that staff thought they were paid.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">London Housing Trust & suppliers </span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">The BBC confirmed that London Housing Trust defrauds ex-residents as part of a scheme to defraud suppliers, showing an interview with an ex housing support worker who said something like <i>"this has happened loads of times. We put any ex-residents' name on the electricity bill, and when it isn't paid we say 'look: we're a housing association; the resident has moved-on', and the electricity company don't cut us off."</i> The BBC backed-up this general story with a specific ex-resident who had been chased for forged fuel bills, and a current resident who had confronted the landlord. The BBC had a third piece of evidence - a photo of an emailed reply from a current housing support worker saying that the director - <i>"<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-dellar-187a0365">Steve</a>"</i> - had instructed her to put <i>"the longest residents' name"</i> on an electricity bill.<br />
<br />
This illustrates the problem of people who get public money. They are often not people who you would hire to paint the place where you live, or do your accounts, but if you need a job or supported housing, you sometimes have to put up with them as though they were the sensible ones.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">London Housing Trust & jobs & staff</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">The organisation seems likely to treat staff so badly that ex-staff can be called bad witnesses, as though this was normal. As though it's normal for ex-staff members to want to contact the press: <i>"The programme ... arose from one complaint from one client and the malicious intent of a former employee".</i> If the organisation does treat staff like this, the result for some staff is obvious. There is another result for tenants and taxpayers: organisations who hire staff like this will get the ones so unimaginative that they didn't see anything wrong, or so cynical that they worked the system. They won't get the perfectly good staff who made a fuss. Such people would be given a bad reference if they tried to get another job after being employed at London Housing Trust or any of the other organisations like it.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">London Housing Trust & donors</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">The BBC added a story of food bank parcels being delivered to the head office, and interviews with residents who said they had never seen any food from food banks; none reached them.<br />
London Housing Trust urges residents to complain to the BBC about unfair reporting.<br />
<br />
It's easy to see why this sort of organisation should be short of cash, but the high housing benefit payments ought to go a long way if the organisation is run efficiently, without anything being syphoned-off to other companies. London Housing Trust is certainly a thrifty organisation in terms of self-written web sites done on open source software, clients on the board instead of external trustees, and an organisation that seems to run on the say-so of a director rather than a committee-cycle. This could be a good thing if it allows the organisation to run on the current grant system, including special high-rate housing benefit, rather than a begging-round of grants from all-over-the-place and housing provided cheaply by sympathetic housing associations, as was the system when I worked in supported housing (we used to have fake consultation where a team leader would be required to get consent from staff for some distant committee's decision). Firms that pay low wages and are generally cheapskate like NACRO or Stonham or English Churches had all the advantage that bad employers have, and were still short of money when I did temping work for them. But that doesn't change the starting point; the housing benefit payments should be not be syphoned-off to other companies; they should be spent on what it said on the form.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">London Housing Trust & trust & scandle</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">By the time the story was on TV, some of the <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/" target="_blank">Bureau of Investigative Journalism</a> reports of obvious and deliberate-looking conflicts of interest, like awarding a contract to a company owned by a director <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/KThnnu8JbaMz2V_B7uBUjnGiSKk/appointments">Steven Dellar</a>, had been acknowledged to some extent. <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07422670/officers">Dellar resigned on the 4th of June</a>, while another London Housing Trust director, <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08918965/officers">Winsome Chambers, resigned a directorship of Limitless Care Ltd on the 3rd of June</a>. The names of both director's other companies suggest that they are contractors for the likes of London Housing Trust, and so able to get work in a way that isn't transparent. They could move money in or out of the organisation in a way that isn't shown on the books by charging less or more for work they are bound to get. <br />
<br />
This is not worth a news report when a private company does it - maybe to avoid Corporation Tax - but if there is charitable-style funding or volunteer work done to help a poor organisation, then it ought to be known. The organisation claimed on its web site to be a charity until quite recently, when it was pointed-out to them that larger charities have to register or stop using the word. It still calls itself a "Trust".</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">London Housing Trust & inspections, December 2016</span> </h3><blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/new_reports/INS2-2702773212.pdf">We did not give a rating to the service because there was only one person using the service</a>.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">London Housing Trust & trustees or residents</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">LHT has some residents on the board of directors.<br />
Trustees sometimes justify bad management of voluntary organisations by saying that it's the clients that are the first priority, and so all the other stakeholders - funders / donors / volunteers, staff, or suppliers - come second. Usually the same point of view comes with a lazy approach to who the clients of a charity are - such as the particular residents at any one time - rather than the potential residents and ex-residents as well in part of a process. Anyway, clients of a service suffer too. For example, if you had a problem with domestic violence, you want to live somewhere with a "concierge service". If it it's funded but not supplied, then nobody can have the service. Either the hostel tries to avoid housing clients who need it, or they take a chance and maybe it's needed but not there. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The effects on clients go-on. Staff who make a fuss leave the trade or are forced to leave the trade without a reference. The next agency down the road hires staff who got their first jobs at this place, and can get a reference from it. After a while, the whole trade gets to be staffed by people who are loyal to employers, not to the work, who lack curiosity about what they're doing, and don't make a fuss. These aren't good people to run anything,. An organisation which was much more transparent could do a lot more for everyone, including clients.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">So</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">In everyday life, you don't trust dishonest people; you don't hire someone to do a job if they did a fraud on another job.<br />
<br />
The shocking and depressing thing is that the organisation is so dishonest that it doesn't apologise or understand the problem; a statement on their web site urges residents to write-in to complain to the BBC. The notion that <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20151023025040/http://www.londonhousingtrust.org/staff/stephen-dellar/">a dishonest person</a> should not have been a director, nor a biddable person still work as a housing support worker, isn't addressed in their reply. Facts are not important to them either. My hunch is that words and facts are less important than status in way that the organisation is run.<br />
<br />
This is the kind of management that you have to put-up with if you work for grant artists. I once worked for a firm called Equinox, working for rough sleepers in South East London, that treated funders, residents, and staff in a similar way. Not exactly the same way, but fraudulently. Equinox is still going. <a href="http://www.qvt.org.uk/">Quo Vardis Trust</a>, a <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05876659">company</a> and <a href="http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1116196">registered charity run by Steve Dellar</a>, does joint work with Equinox apparently. <br />
<br />
Dishonesty is often the end of a process that began with an attempt to run an honest service. People set-up organisations to do impossible or difficult things because they don't know that it's difficult. A general point of view emerges among trustees and around the office, which happens to be the easiest and cheapest thing to believe. Then when managers are hired over time, it's convenient for them to believe the unbelievable. These are London Housing Trust's specialisms, according to the Care Quality Commission.<br />
<ul class="collapsible"><li>Dementia</li>
<li>Mental health conditions</li>
<li>Personal care</li>
<li>Physical disabilities</li>
<li>Caring for adults under 65 yrs</li>
</ul>NHS consultants have trouble specialising in one of those areas and finding a way to help; this rental agency claims to specialise in all of the. It's not unusual. TurningPoint has a similar note on its letterhead, as does English Churches Housing Group. The letterhead says something like "drug alcohol learning difficulties ... those sort of people", and the service is described as "housing", or "working with", or "anything to claim a grant to be honest". The reality is that someone from the temping agency or a junior inexperienced job applicant is called-in to do the job. Whatever it is. Job qualifications and interview questions can mention subjects like "awareness of alcohol issues" in passing, underneath the bit that says "able to use an impress petty cash system". This was the norm in the kinds of housing support agencies I used to work at while temping, and it's only a few steps short of the the fraud that follows. It's a very hard norm to change, because there is no set of people you can ask about what the organisation does. Some staff do a lot; some a little. Some talk a lot, and rise to be team leaders. Others come-in from other jobs and become the grander staff who talk to consultants about how very, very junior their junior staff are.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Afterthought and digression about schools</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">As most secondary schools now work on with similar principals, this it's hard to guess what will happen to secondary schools. Will they become as bad as supported housing agencies? There are reports in the Times Higher Educational Supplement staffroom section of free schools awarding over-priced contracts to their own senior staff under other company names.</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Italics are direct quotes from the London Housing Trust web site - scroll down for a bit about how to be an honest skinflint in the voluntary sector</span> </h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">"<i><br />
Jun 16</i><br />
<h3 style="text-align: justify;"><i> BBC London News Broadcast – Response by London Housing Trust</i></h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Many of our clients and agencies who work with us, may have seen the BBC London News broadcast (08/06/16) about alleged malpractice occurring within the Trust. We unreservedly deny the reported allegations and intend to make a formal complaint to the BBC and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The broadcast was littered with factually inaccurate details and was based on a complaint from one client, who in collusion with a former employee, collaborated to bring the name of the Trust into disrepute. The Trust supports over 200 clients across 47 properties. The journalists honed in on two properties and interviewed two clients and from this made an exaggerated claim of “widespread malpractice”.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>On seeing the broadcast, a number of clients have contacted us voicing their astonishment at the biased reporting and volunteering to give video testimonials of the support that they receive from the Trust.</i></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><i>If you have any concerns about our work, please do not hesitate to contact our Operations Manager, <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08918965/officers">Winsome Chambers</a>.</i><br />
"<br />
<a href="https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/1-1699750135/services">London Housing Trust has not yet been inspected by the Care Quality Commission</a>, after registering in January 2015.<br />
<br />
The Homes and Communities Agency has a very public online notice to say it's inspecting London Housing Trust as a registered social landlord, and links for detail to t<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulating-the-standards">his page about how to be a registered social landlord</a>. I haven't read the detail but I was in the trade the inspections were from the Housing Corporation and about things like rent, repairs, and the role of staff.<br />
<br />
<h3><i>Dec 2012</i></h3><h3><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="BBC London News Broadcast 8 Jun 16 board response"></a></i></h3><h3><i>LHT Signs up to the London Living Wage (£8.55 ph)</i></h3><h3><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="BBC London News Broadcast 8 Jun 16 board response"></a></i></h3><h3><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="BBC London News Broadcast 8 Jun 16 board response"></a></i></h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>On the 31 December London Housing Trust raised all its employees wages to at least the London Living Wage (currently £8.55).</i></div><h3><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="BBC London News Broadcast 8 Jun 16 board response"></a></i></h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>We believe that, like Boris Johnson “Paying the London Living Wage is not only morally right, but makes good business sense too.” As a Registered Provider of Social Housing, LHT provides supported accommodation to over 150 clients in London. Our commitment to our clients must be reflected in our commitment to our staff.</i></div><h3><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="BBC London News Broadcast 8 Jun 16 board response"></a></h3></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><i>“Support is one of the lowest paid sectors and providing a living wage means that we can attract the best people in the sector to offer the best support to our clients. Its part of our people strategy and our corporate responsibilty agenda.”</i> – Dr Stephen Dellar – Director @ LHT<br />
<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
Update: London Housing Trust has extracted <i>"messages of support"</i> from other organisations as their website described them for a while, Or at least it has extracted feedback about the referral process; quotes show replies to that question. It's not stated whether these were phone interviews or email or what, but the quotes were all made on the same day - eight days after the broadcast - so they were probably obtained by cold-calling people who need referral options for their clients and so are likely to be polite.<br />
<i>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------</i><br />
Heather Lord (who works at The Depaul Trust)<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><i>‘Most referrals have been a positive outcome. I have not faced any issues with LHT. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The referral process is not the best although it is online. LHT could improve the referral form to suit referral agents and well as LHT staff.’</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------</i></div><div style="text-align: left;">Malcom Williams (who works at The Passage Day Centre)</div><br />
<i>‘The referral process is fine. I do not have any issues with LHT however they could improve communication with referral agent in regards to clients who have been referred.’<br />
<br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------</i><br />
Tracey Hamilton (who works at Tower Hamlets Council)<br />
<br />
<i>‘The referral process makes it easy to provide the client information. LHT is very informative; they call you back regarding a client and if not when you call, they provide you with enough information, so your up to date with everything.’</i><br />
<i>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------</i><br />
Gary Bird (who works at Thamesreach)<br />
<br />
<i>‘The process of referring clients is very straightforward, its nice quick and easy. I personally have not faced any issues with LHT and in my opinion there are no improvements needed. </i><i>I’ve referred many clients and I will definitely refer more.’ </i><br />
<i>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------</i><br />
Homeless Support Worker (no name, team, or organisation given so this is looks very much like a made-up quote).<i><br />
</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>‘bla bla bla bla bla bla bla this is probably a made-up quote para one’</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>‘bla bla bla bla bla bla bla this is probably a made-up quote para two’</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>‘From all of our Team, we would like to say thank you to the London Housing Trust and at a time like this when you are going through difficulty holding on to positive thoughts and feedback is far more important than journalists causing distress’ </i></div></blockquote><i> </i> <br />
<hr /><i></i><br />
<h3><span style="color: red;">How to be an honest skinflint in the voluntary sector</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">A happy event: <a href="https://knowhownonprofit.org/">https://knowhownonprofit.org/ </a>is a good site about how be a good skinflint and other subjects that interest prople in the voluntary sector - all published as a wiki with help from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations<br />
<br />
This is quite different to the kind of thing that used to be on head office desks when I worked for the voluntary sector. Subjects like how to work without an office or a landline. Whether there is something on how to work without a Microsoft and and Adobe licence I don't know - that used to the last badge of rank that voluntary sector managers wanted to give-up, even when they were plotting fake gross misconduct allegations to get rid of expensive staff without redundancy, or ripping-off funders and clients with lies about services provided or letting down suppliers. I worked at one place that simply decided not to pay rent on an office in order to rip-off the landlord.<br />
<br />
Oh - here is a clue:<br />
<a href="https://knowhownonprofit.org/case-studies/upgrading-it-systems-with-very-limited-resources">https://knowhownonprofit.org/case-studies/upgrading-it-systems-with-very-limited-resources</a><br />
This author suggests using one donated piece of microsoft software one one remote server. I disagree. I think the default option should be to use free open source software like Libre Office on all machines, updated every few months, so that everyone is using the same software and nobody has to trouble donors. There is a side effect that everyone associated with the organisation learns that free software exists, which is the kind of objective that charities are set-up for; they can pass-on the knowledge to their clients.<br />
<br />
Traditionally, voluntary sector trade associations have had to advise a broad range of organisations, defined by the type of organisation (however broad) rather than a purpose, which is usually something more or less impossible like feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, healing the sick and providing community to those who are hard to reach. All with or without a grant from some government body which is probably reducing while demand increases.<br />
<br />
I found a couple of pages on making the landlord redundant and cutting energy costs legally -both by the same author. They read like something from Moneysavingexpert, which is another good place to look. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://knowhownonprofit.org/case-studies/going-officeless">https://knowhownonprofit.org/case-studies/going-officeless </a><br />
<a href="https://knowhownonprofit.org/case-studies/cutting-energy-costs-1">https://knowhownonprofit.org/case-studies/cutting-energy-costs-1</a><i><br />
</i><br />
<br />
And I almost forgot to add a link to my job - <a href="http://veganline.com/">flogging vegan shoes mainly made in the UK, along with boots, belts, and some vegan jackets</a>.</blockquote><br />
<h3><span style="color: red;">How to set-up a better firm to your boss's one in the voluntary sector</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">When I worked for Drink Crisis Centre, as it then was, there was a rapid turnover of people who were often not on speaking terms with each other, working for the outreach team. My project - hostel liaison - was merged into it on the management diagram, but really I was self-employed with hindrance from a voluntary organisation that took a large grant, kept some of it for management fees or ghost staff, and paid me the rest as salary till on a whim they closed my part of the project and used fake gross misconduct accusations dismissals to remove remaining staff without a reference. What surprised me was that there was no way to set-up a rival organisation with the same staff and the same funder, given that the management team provided next to nothing. All we needed was a formal way of meeting, because we were not all of us on speaking terms, and a bit of free advice from a consultant on how to transfer the project over to a better management team. At the time there was another management team called Rugby House Project that we trusted a bit more and had managed similar things. We needed a union branch that was interested in this kind of work. All the rest would become obious once a union branch had started the process, as, between us, we have most of the knowledge about how the grant system worked and who organised it. Now, <a href="http://employees.org.uk/lookatourlaundry.html">people who work with people don't often want to go and work with more people in the evenings in some kind of branch committee</a> and there is a good site about how one of these worked very badly a decade ago, but the idea remains worth a try.<br />
<br />
I doubt the idea would work for London Housing Trust because the staff would more often be on a first job in the trade and keen to move-on to something better-paid rather than stay and do something. This is more of an idea for jobs were people like the work, but don't like the employer, but it might apply.</blockquote><br />
</div></div></div><br />
<hr />Related post about Grenfell Tower and how the behaviour or tenants at Kensington Town Hall links to housing association management styles<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/06/grenfell-tower.html" title="Grenfell Tower: it's obvious">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/06/grenfell-tower.html</a><br />
<br />
</div>Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-37230680973905270222016-05-09T19:04:00.002+01:002018-10-19T15:37:23.533+01:00trade directories<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last century, there was a thing called the Shoe Trades Directory in the UK, published by a footwear manufacturer's magazine using research by the people who sold ad-space on its pages. I photocopied the last edition at City Business Library and ran out of change before doing the index, so if anyone has the index to the Shoe Trades Directory of about 1990, I would be interested to know.<br />
<br />
Internet killed the niche-market trade directories and replaced them with its own versions - the enthusiast link-list; the automated directory of free information that hopes for an advert, the blog, and the obscure document that you dredge-up from years ago. <br />
<br />
None of these does the same job of saying whether X shoes of Y town makes mens, ladies, or childrens' sizes using Z or other technique in batches of 1, 12, 36-72, 100+, or 1 container-full, at low-end, middling, or top-end prices: contact Mr X for more details or, better, fax 00000000000000, and promised to cover nearly all the shoemakers in the UK - not just the ones who pay to be in a trade association or have a PR agent.<br />
<br />
Well I am very chuffed to get a polite reply from government via an MP who was busy on other things at the time, but still found someone to concentrate on my email and forward it.<br />
<br />
(Unfortunately there is another part of government funding promotion of important goods and even an M&S factory in China - <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69193/pb13206-clothing-action-plan-100216.pdf">https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69193/pb13206-clothing-action-plan-100216.pdf</a>)<br />
<hr />
Marie-Claire Uhart <br />
Director <br />
Central Policy<br />
<br />
1st Floor, 1C/01 <br />
100 Parliament Street <br />
London SW1A 2BQ <br />
<br />
Zac Goldsmith MP <br />
<br />
zac at zacgoldsmith com <br />
<br />
Tel: 03000 586675 <br />
<br />
Email: marie-claire uhart at hmrc gsi gov uk <br />
<br />
Date: 05 May 2016 <br />
<br />
Dear Mr Goldsmith <br />
<br />
Thank you for your email of 4 April 2016 about your constituent, Mr John Robertson of 2 <br />
Avenue Gardens, London, SW14 8BP. I am replying on behalf of the Chief Executive. <br />
<br />
Mr Robertson raises an important point. To address this issue, as part of the Government’s <br />
agenda on business, HMRC and the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) are <br />
looking at various business register options. <br />
<br />
As Mr Robertson recognises HMRC operates under a duty of confidentiality which applies to <br />
all information the department holds. This legal duty can be dis-applied in certain <br />
circumstances, for example where a person consents to disclosure when the information is <br />
for the purpose of our functions; or where a statutory enactment is in place. In developing <br />
business register options with BIS, we are looking at potential benefits while ensuring that <br />
the public can continue to be confident that we look after their data appropriately. Where <br />
legislation is needed to be able to use HMRC information as part of a register it will be <br />
included as part the overall package. <br />
<br />
I hope this helps you to reply to Mr Robertson <br />
<br />
Yours sincerely <br />
<br />
<br />
Marie-Claire Uhart <br />
<br />
Director, Central Policy <br />
<hr />
... Back to the blog post and away from quoted letters ....<br />
<hr />
<br />
On a different subject I've been looking for somewhere to list all the sties that re-hash companies house data, and sometimes add just a teaspoon-full more without charging. And then close, like bizzy, or start charging, liked Duedil. I've taken the example of Nonleather Distribution Ltd on each site, if available. This company was registered 16 days ago and changed its name about two weeks ago. If it isn't on the site, I don't link to it.<br />
<br />
<br />
http://www.bizdb.co.uk - hopes to cross-link to trademark ownership, directors, sic code search, and company domain ownership according to the front page of the site<br />
<strike><br />http://bizzy.co.uk/404/</strike> closed - used to offer a free minimal credit reference - see checkbusiness below<br />
<br />
https://www.check-business.co.uk - <a href="https://www.check-business.co.uk/business/10285177/nonleather-distribution-ltd">Nonleather Distribution Ltd</a> - adds a free star rating from Equifax credit rating. Links to the owner, Funding Options, a credit broker<br />
<br />
http://www.cdrex.com - <a href="http://www.cdrex.com/nonleather-distribution-ltd-9841746.html?recache=1#more">Nonleather Distribution Ltd</a> - search by keyword in the name - first to allow searching by classification - adds co-ordinates and arial view - updates prompted by a company number search<br />
<br />
http://companiesintheuk.co.uk - <a href="https://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/nonleather-distribution">Nonleather Distribution Ltd</a> - <br />
- search by classification - search by postcode - prompt an update - add links for your own co<br />
<br />
http://www.companycheck.co.uk - Nonleather Distribution Ltd <br />
<br />
http://www.companysearchmadesimple.com - <a href="https://www.companysearchesmadesimple.com/company/uk/10285177/nonleather-distribution-ltd/">Nonleather Distribution Ltd</a> - no added free services - classifications don't show<br />
<br />
http://www.creditgate.com - <a href="https://secure.creditgate.com/search/search.aspx?AP=&CompanyID=10285177&CompanyType=L">Nonleather Distribution Ltd</a> - no extra services over companies house- hard sales of paid-for services that are often free at Companies House<br />
<br />
http://www.datalog.co.uk - I can't open their site but a cached version says it covers "British, American, Canadian and Irish companies", with US companies from "Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, NY, Virginia, Rhode Island, Michigan, Oregan, Washington and Wyoming."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://do-business.net/sbc/Company/Search">http://do-business.net/sbc/Company/Search</a> based on Dunn and Bradstreet's database rather than Companies House, and so able to cover some sole traders who can apply for a DUNS number. No information given free except a name and address. Free monitoring of a few companies is available.<br />
<br />
http://www.duedil.co.uk - <a href="https://www.duedil.com/company/gb/10285177/nonleather-distribution-ltd">Nonleather Distribution Ltd</a> - now charge for previously free services<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.opencorporates.com/">http://www.opencorporates.com</a> - covers so many juristictions that there are too many to list, starting with Abhu Dhabi. Cross-references to London Gazette and other similar</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-82875877392465268072016-04-18T19:50:00.003+01:002018-10-21T10:22:48.715+01:00economics: open mike<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h3 style="text-align: left;"></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq"><fieldset>Related: <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/bad-economics-courses-for-twenty-teens.html"><u>Bad Economics Teaching for the twenty-teens</u></a> from data on Unistats, 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economnics-teaching.html">Better Economics Teaching</a>: some off-the-cuff suggestions based on being a 1980s student <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html">The British Economic Crisis</a> - a similar book to Robert Peston written in the 80s - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">Star Courses</a>: the least satisfied, most bored and lowest paid UK graduates, written 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">Boring Economics Teaching is interesting</a>: how someone managed to teach economics from memories of an old textbook at the peak of the worst recession since the 1930s, and tried to cover-up for government causing the recession. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2012/10/leslie-fishman-writings.html">Journal Articles by Professor Les Fishman</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economics.html">unbelievable beliefs</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/02/1980s-recession.html">1980s recession explanations I wrot</a>e - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-search-for-one-click-install.html">UK unemployment 1980s from the Begg 1984 textbook</a></fieldset></blockquote><hr /><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Open Mike: a site for economics</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq">A site called <a href="http://www.ecnmy.org/">http://www.ecnmy.org</a>/ has set-up to promote economics contributions from a range of people, if not face to face discussion; I haven't quite got the hang of it yet in terms of who it's aimed at and what contributions help; it looks a bit like an alternative to a first economics textbook, rather like <a href="https://www.core-econ.org/">http://www.core-econ.org</a>. Neither has a search function that I can find.<br />
<br />
I wrote a general post about discussions but didn't like it the next morning and put something better in its place, which is also a new paragraph on <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economnics-teaching.html">better economics teaching post</a>. It is an extra theory beyond the ideas of a "public good" that economics textbooks quote as justifying a compulsory tax or subscription to a service. I think it's essential to understanding state spending.</blockquote><h3><span style="color: red;">national insurance / social insurance / social security / welfare state<br />
an introduction</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq"><fieldset><b><span style="color: red;">Why?</span></b><br />
Private payment plans exist for a lot of the things that the state provides - everyday health care, school fees, pensions, annuities, insurance against risks like car accidents, flood, fire, theft, and short term loss of earnings - including the famous PPI scheme. <br />
<br />
Assuming these plans are as efficient as a state scheme, they have a problem: you can't afford them on a low-paid job. Put another way: people without these costs can under-cut you. So lower-paid people need a law to say that everybody has some kind of payment plan, otherwise next to nobody will. (That's a problem when people in a sweatshop country like Bangladesh compete with people in the UK to do factory jobs, or when those same people note the disparity of working conditions, and try econonomic migration.)<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">When?</span></b><br />
Parts of Germany had a compulsory insurance system for employed people from 1868. The UK and Ireland had compulsory membership of insurance schemes from the National Insurance Act of 1911 (Imperial governments like Bangladesh in India did not follow). India got a basic hospital insurance scheme for people in formal employment from 1948. <strike>I don't know where to look-up what system exists in what country</strike>. Some of the current systems are listed on <a href="http://www.spicker.uk/">Spicker.uk</a> <br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">How?</span></b><br />
Compulsory insurance does not have to be part of the tax and benefit system, but the public sector can privide the cheapest deal. It is, generally, efficient at vast uniform activities, saving the costs of sales, accounting, and assessment that make up a big chunk of private insurance costs. The brokers' fee for motor insurance used to be about 50% in the first year for example, when my dad tried doing it. There is also a lot of saving in hospital admission costs: you just have to prove that you are sick to get admission, rather than remember your insurance details. The NHS is much cheaper than the US system of healthcare. I don't know figures for how cheap it is to another couple of universal benefits - pensions and family allowance - but I imagine it is practically free because a computer can do most of the work. <br />
<b><br />
</b> <b><span style="color: red;">What does "welfare" mean?</span></b><br />
Nothing. It is a slippery word. It slipped into the idea of a "welfare state" I guess because the UK 1948 system paid staff to help the unemployed get interviews and nanny them about in a rather awkward way - quite different to the insurance-like gist of the system. The jargon at the time for unemployment benefits was National Insurance and National Assistance, the first being contributions-based and a higher rate and the second being based on low savings and income and at a lower rate. Vestiges survived in two rates of income support last time I looked. Oh there's another word which I think comes from Woodrow Wilson's "Social Security Tax" invented in the 1930s. Again it doesn't mean anything financial.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Is universal insurance good?</span></b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Meerkat_(Suricata_suricatta)_Tswalu.jpg/250px-Meerkat_(Suricata_suricatta)_Tswalu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A picture of some meerkats. Shown because the UK is fond of meerkat-based advertising of an insurance comparison web site. Meerkats have east european accents and complain that their long entrepreneurial history is over-looked by people who find their site by mistake while seaching for cheap deal on your car insurance" border="0" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Meerkat_(Suricata_suricatta)_Tswalu.jpg/250px-Meerkat_(Suricata_suricatta)_Tswalu.jpg" title="" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meerkats get cheap deal from national insurance</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
You do not have to pay for a parallel system to keep the old sick and young uninsured off the streets; the people born with learning difficulties or the people who have never earned enough to insure, or who migrate-in from some very different system, nor to run a third system again for people you think are feckless free-riders rather than unlucky. <br />
<br />
Also it is cheap deal! Specially if done by government or something similar in having one big computer, lots of existing information, and a lot of direct debits and credits to make into bank accounts according to age or some simply-checked claim. <br />
<br />
If you consider health and education as insurance-like services, because they are used at parts of our life-cycles and not at others, then there are more good side effects. This idea overlaps with the idea of a "Merit Good" quoted in countries where they don't have national insurance but still pay a bit out of taxes for hospitals.<br />
<br />
Mothers with access to secondary schools and health services tend to have fewer children and later in life. Parents who expect a basic pension and care in old age have less incentive to have a lot of children, which, in Bangladesh, it is common to do because you want them to look after you in old-age. So a cycle of poverty fuelling over-population tends not to happen when there is social insurance. Both China and Bangladeshi governments agree with this point of view. China has a "one child" policy and Bangladeshi government sends health advisors to go and persuade the poor to have smaller families, but neither yet has universal healthcare and pensions. I understand that the Bangladeshi system is like Victorian Britain: there are teaching hospitals with some state subsidy that keep bodies off the streets in the towns, and a referral system that tries to get fair access to them for people out of town. A good Victorian system to be proud of, but one that was improved-on decades and hundreds of years ago by better governments.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Problem: cost of means testing or admin still exists for some benefits</span></b><br />
Costs mount-up again for means-tested benefits, for which you have to prove something like low income and affordable rent (for housing benefit) or unemployment and active seeking for work (for dole). The BBC published a guide to the cost of removing child benefit to wealthier mothers which I am not sure how to find on the net, but makes the point about means-testing being expensive in admin and universal benefits being a cheap deal.<br />
<span style="color: red;"><br />
</span> <b><span style="color: red;">Problem: the state thinks the money is theres and runs the scheme like a charity</span></b><br />
Where the state nationalises the system as in the UK in 1948, it tends to regard the money as its own, paid straight out of the current account as a favour, and this idea creeps into the methods of administration and political decisions such as benefit sanctions or housing benefit cuts. When I was at college, Edwina Curry MP came to give a talk. She mentioned how hard she had worked to persuade the civil service to give up the notional "national insurnance fund" that still exisited at the time. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Problem: the state doesn't plan ahead</span></b><br />
Private insurance and pension systems try to have an expert who guesses how long pensioners will live or how many accidents will happen. An absent-minded government can forget that and then leave MPs to say, with a straight face, that there is "a problem of an ageing population", as though they only discovered just recently that people get older. They can accept taxes or national insurance payments for years, and then decide they'd rather spend the money on The Olympics instead.<br />
<b><br />
</b> <b><span style="color: red;">Problem: structural imbalances</span></b><br />
Insurance can only be made compulsory in one country at a time. What if someone moves? Or thousands and thousands of prople in one direction? What if someone works cheaply in Rana Plaza in order to sell cheap goods in Rochdale, where their cousins have to pay national insurance and VAT? Governments have not been good at solving this problem, mainly because their MPs studied bad textbooks at college which don't mention social insurance. As a result we have a mixture of sweat-shop and non sweat-shop countries in the world, with most of the goods made in the sweatshops and poverty not always reducing in those countries. One brief attempt to build-in a "social clause" into tariffs, requiring something in return for low tariff access to trading blocks like the EU, was quickly shouted down by sweatshop governments. Attempts to defend trade and industry in states with social insurance, by building tariff barriers, are generally dismissed by economists as something that tabloid readers want and that government should not give-in to.<br />
<span style="color: red;"><br />
<b>Oh I don't know lots of stuff</b></span><br />
I'm so ignorant I don't know where experts on this subject write. Maybe under the heading "social security", or "comparative social security systems" or something of that kind<b>. </b>The Beveridge Report probably has something about it. My mum explained a bit<b>. Just found an expert link:<br />
<a href="http://www.spicker.uk/social-policy/socialsecurity.htm">http://www.spicker.uk/social-policy/socialsecurity.htm</a><br />
</b></fieldset></blockquote><h3><span style="color: red;">My economics textbook says <strike>nothing</strike> little except under very odd headings</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: left;">They are different to those taught in history or subjects like social work; they are just odd covers for a failure to engage with reality. I have just found a concept of payment related benefits slipped-in to my textbook half way through an obscure chaptor on taxation, and not indexed. It seems to contradict the points made more strongly that come-over from the US edition of the same book.</div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><fieldset>Public Goods<br />
Income redistribution from the rich to the poor in one year [not over a life-cycle] as one reason for "Transfer Payments".<br />
Merit Goods and Bads<br />
Aid Trade and the badness of tariffs round welfare states.</fieldset></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Notes in progress about <a href="http://www.spicker.uk/social-policy/socialsecurity.htm">social policy</a>, a <a href="http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/Subject-benchmark-statement-Social-policy-and-administration.pdf">subject</a> I had previously not heard of, which covers the welfare state and ought to shove some very clear economic theory up economists' trousers, but doesn't.</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq"><fieldset>5.4<br />
Threshold graduates will be able to demonstrate:<br />
z<br />
well-developed descriptive skills and basic analytic skills<br />
z<br />
an ability to distinguish between some of the core theories, concepts and<br />
approaches in social policy - reasons for universal benefits and contributions-based approach to benefits - need for tariff boundaries around areas with a national<br />
z<br />
a basic ability to seek out, use and evaluate data derived from social surveys and<br />
other research publications<br />
z<br />
a basic ability to undertake investigations of social questions, issues and problems<br />
z<br />
a sufficient grasp of research methods and their application to enable them tocomment on research evidence<br />
<br />
Typical graduate<br />
Knowledge and understanding<br />
5.6<br />
Typical social policy graduates will be able to demonstrate a thorough knowledge,<br />
critical and systematic understanding of key aspects of social policy including a critical understanding of the functioning of the institutions of the UK welfare state and at least some of the other welfare systems operating in other parts of the world. They will be able to demonstrate an ability to review, consolidate, extend and apply their knowledge and understanding across a wide range of social policy issues and be able to reflect critically on ideas that are presented in teaching and in relevant literature.<br />
Subject-specific skills<br />
5.7<br />
Typical graduates will be able to demonstrate: <br />
z<br />
well-developed descriptive and analytic skills<br />
z<br />
an ability to understand the core theories, concepts and approaches in <br />
social policy and a clear ability to distinguish among them<br />
z<br />
an understanding, and ability to reflect upon, the underlying value base of many<br />
policy proposals and distinguish clearly between normative and empirical arguments<br />
z<br />
a sufficient grasp of research methods and their application to enable them to<br />
comment on research evidence<br />
z<br />
a strong familiarity with a range of research methods and an ability to reflect<br />
critically on their use in various research studies. </fieldset></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">economics teaching - some related posts</span></h3><blockquote class="tr_bq"><fieldset>Related: <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/bad-economics-courses-for-twenty-teens.html"><u>Bad Economics Teaching for the twenty-teens</u></a> from data on Unistats, 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economnics-teaching.html">Better Economics Teaching</a>: some off-the-cuff suggestions based on being a student in the 1980s <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html">The British Economic Crisis</a> - a similar book to Robert Peston written in the 80s - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">Star Courses</a>: the least satisfied, most bored and lowest paid UK graduates, written 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">Bad Economics Teaching</a>: how someone managed to teach economics from memories of an old textbook at the peak of the worst recession since the 1930s, and tried to cover-up for government causing the recession. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2012/10/leslie-fishman-writings.html">Journal Articles by Professor Les Fishman</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economics.html">unbelievable beliefs</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-search-for-one-click-install.html">UK unemployment 1980s</a> </fieldset></blockquote><hr /></div><hr /><br />
This is one reason why I blog. After looking for EU-funded regional development schemes after illness in 2002-5, I found that London ones had been diverted to a campaign against local manufacturing and in favour of a membership organisation with public subsidy. It was probably linked to Millenium Development Goals and the aftermath of Make Poverty History - in fact <a href="http://pantstopoverty.org.uk/">Pants to Poverty is quite open about this as an origin</a>. It preached that tariffs around welfare states are bad, payments by taxpayers in such states to schemes in Bangladesh or maybe steelworks in China are good, and that social insurance is not a fit topic to discuss when talking about poverty in Bangladesh. I didn't want to talk about poverty in Bangladesh; I wanted schemes like London Fashion Week and Esthetica, the room that sounds like "ethical" but isn't, to close-down and for government to save the money or spend on a scheme of business support as intended. My web page on the subject has slipped down the rankings so I will give it a link: <a href="http://veganline.com/ethical-fashion-forum.htm">http://veganline.com/ethical-fashion-forum.htm</a> The page is headed "Ethical Fashion Forum: goods from badly-countries" I've added a heading to this link: "brands are over-done; ethical fashion blogs don't mention national insurance, ethical fashion companies seem a bit glib and to ignore UK manufacturing as the main priority, ethical fashion definitions are rigged by a house of lords committee and a group at London College of Fashion sponsored by Nike, ethical fashion designers are a daft idea because you have to make the stuff". So now you know. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><fieldset>Related:<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/httpswwwgovukgovernmentconsultationspro.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/httpswwwgovukgovernmentconsultationspro.html</a><br />
International students' effect on providers in expensive areas who provide the worst courses<br />
<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html</a><br />
Table of feedback scores for the economics degrees for the universities that take most international students. Most of the courses are at the bottom of the league table for student feedback</fieldset></blockquote><hr /><hr /></div>Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-27484145710664970472016-04-13T15:58:00.008+01:002018-10-21T10:22:55.679+01:00economic crisis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote>
<h2>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Its Past and Future - UK 1984 edition</i></span></h2>
</blockquote>
</div>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
</h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/KeithSm49353997">KEITH SMITH</a> </span></h3>
</blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/british-economic-crisis-its-past-and-future/oclc/19324456" title="ISBN 9780140225020">This out of print 1984 paperback</a> is transcribed here without permission, because it reads like Robert Peston's missing volume 1: what happened before the banking boom. There is a pirate note at the end. A later 1989 edition had an extra chapter, not yet found to transcribe. The cover calls the book "A new three-part introduction to the British economy - the background, current theories and possible future". </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
<b>The British Economic Crisis</b> by<b></b> was published by Pelican, ISBN: 978014022813</span></div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">Introduction</span> </h3>
</blockquote>
<hr />
There is a significant difference between economic problems and an economic crisis. All economies face more or less severe problems, all of the time. Some may result from the basic structure of the system itself, such as the 'cycles' of unemployment and recession which plague capitalist economies: they are due in large part to the absence of any central coordination in and between such economics. Socialist economics, built on central coordination and planning, are stable by comparison, and rarely face problems of unemployment. Yet their very centralization generates other problems: enterprises are often inefficient compared with those of the capitalist world, perhaps because they lack the spur of competition, and they find difficulties in generating and sustaining real technological progress. Added to these inherent structural features, countries often have problems due to accidents of nature or geography - shortages of natural resources, for example, or problems of climate. Then there may be difficulties deriving from the framework of institutions and policies and pressures within which the economy functions: the absence of a centralized pay-bargaining system makes the operation of the British economy very different from that of Sweden, for example, where pay is often settled at a national level for whole groups of industries simultaneously. There may be problems from unpredictable shocks to the system, such as the OPEC price rises of 1973-4, or the chaos caused in the international financial system by the way the United States financed its war effort in Viemam. Finally there are problems arising from mistakes in decision-making. The Concorde project, or the Russian TU144, or the West German construction of a nuclear-powered merchant ship - which turned out to require an annual operating subsidy of several million pounds - are examples. If <br />
<br />
12 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
the projects are big enough, and if such mistakes occur often enough, the economic consequences can be very serious. <br />
<br />
The mere existence of problems like these - even in severe forms - does not indicate a crisis. It would, in fact, be wildly unrealistic to think of an economy functioning without at least some of the difficulties sketched above. A crisis, in the sense the term is used in this book, is something more, for it is not a matter of problems within an economic system, but a question of the viability of the system itself. A crisis occurs when the types of activity on which an economy is based, and the levels of income which it generates, are no longer sustainable. To put it a different way, one could say that economic problems - of the kinds outlined above - can be lived with, they can be adapted to, but a crisis entails inevitable change. Large-scale transformation becomes unavoidable, and this can take the form either of a positive attempt to overcome the critical difficulties (which may not necessarily involve any earth-shattering upheavals), or a process of decline and maybe collapse. There are plenty of historical examples of these paths. Should, however, the current predicament of the British economy be interpreted as a crisis of this type? No one can deny that the situation is serious. Yet there are a number of ways in which it could be read. One argument is that we are indeed in the throes of a crisis, but that the positive response has already begun. Britain is even now engaged in a process of transition in which the seeds of future success are being sown: this was the view taken by Sir Geoffrey Howe - then Chancellor of the Exchequer - in his speech at the Mansion House to an audience of City bankers and merchants in late 1982: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There is plenty of economic pessimism about, at home and abroad. In this country and throughout the world, there are those who question whether there can ever be a return to prosperity ... But I am certain that the problems we sec are those of change, not of decay. To be sure, transition is painful and the pace of recovery slow. But ... long overdue change, evolution, innovation are at last being willingly embraced: we are on the right path. </blockquote>
On the other hand there are people who disagree sharply with Sir Geoffrey, yet who share his faith in the viability of the present economic system in Britain. They might be described as being, to use <br />
<br />
INTRODUCTION • 13 <br />
a cant term, in the 'centre' of British politics (meaning they can be found in large numbers in all of the political parties). For them the economic structure within which Britain has functioned since the late 1940s remains workable: what is needed is a change of government, and a modification or reversal of `Thatcherite' policies, and recovery will follow. It is thus the policies which are being carried out within the present economic framework which are the problem, not the framework itself. <br />
<br />
This book shares neither of these views. It argues that the recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s marks a fundamental turning-point, for it has been superimposed on a long-term economic decay which has now reached a point of no return. The weak and hesitant recovery from the recession may continue into the mid 1980s, but cannot resolve Britain's industrial and economic crisis: the economic structure with which Britain emerged from the Second World War, and which carried the country with some success and much failure through the 1950s and 1960s, is no longer workable. The British economy is indeed in crisis; without far-reaching changes further sharp decline is inevitable within the near future and if it occurs may well prove irreversible. <br />
<br />
The following chapters explain why this is so. They begin with a description of Britain's relatively poor economic performance over a long historical period, and establish why this poor performance now has the dimensions of a genuine crisis. Britain's economy, and the jobs and living standards of everyone in Britain, have for many years been dependent upon a complex system of foreign trade and inter-national economic relationships; within this system the manufacturing sector of the British economy has played a crucial role. The importance of the 'de-industrialization' of Britain since the mid 1960s lies in the fact that the relationship between Britain's foreign trade and its manufacturing capability has now broken down. Only the fortuitous emergence of North Sea oil has enabled Britain to continue as though nothing has happened. When oil output declines, as it will in the very near future, Britain will face desperate economic problems. Understanding why this impasse has been reached requires not just a description of the course of Britain's ever more precipitous decline, but also the development of some theoretical ideas in order to explain <br />
<br />
14 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
it. These are mainly to do with the nature of economic growth, with the relationship between economic growth and technological change, and with the interaction between growth, technological change, and the external performance of the economy. Economics is not, unfortunately, a field in which theoretical ideas can be altogether avoided. But the issues are not, even for non-specialists, necessarily difficult to understand, and those which are outlined in the first chapters will form the basis for interpreting the decline which will be described in subsequent chapters. Part One of this book is concerned, therefore, with an account of the 'Thatcher recession' of 1979-81, set against the background of the long-term decline which it has accelerated rather than solved. Part Two deals with the theoretical foundations of economic policy, concentrating on the so-called Monetarist-Keynesian debates of recent years; it is argued that the confrontation between them is frequently spurious, and to a very considerable extent irrelevant to the serious economic problems Britain faces. Finally, problems of industrial recovery are discussed, with an argument for an active policy of government intervention for industrial reconstruction, along the lines of that carried out in Japan, whose highly successful methods of industrial intervention are described in detail. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidVii6KibLEt_MCzOjWY2hnRdoQ7oT7cNuzLEEe8iwGIdhiZ_tCyGxFtGy6g3tJjxDJML4ac2l6CbXourgqLLgoRNtaoA5_q-aV6qgSk5RCP2_EflazKsZiKTfPqNoDvBMoHYIc40fYacy/s1600/9780140225020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Book cover showing number 11 Downing Street boarded-up and abandoned" border="0" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidVii6KibLEt_MCzOjWY2hnRdoQ7oT7cNuzLEEe8iwGIdhiZ_tCyGxFtGy6g3tJjxDJML4ac2l6CbXourgqLLgoRNtaoA5_q-aV6qgSk5RCP2_EflazKsZiKTfPqNoDvBMoHYIc40fYacy/s640/9780140225020.jpg" title="The British Economic Crisis" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">PART ONE :</span></span></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><hr />
</span></span></span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #990000;"> </span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red;">THE CRISIS</span></span></span> </span></h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i>1 </i></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i> </i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><hr />
</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"> <span style="color: red;"><i>The Crisis Behind the Recession</i></span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
The word 'crisis' has become slightly overused in Britain in the past few years. The main reason, of course, is that Britain's economic performance since the advent of Mrs Thatcher - especially between 1979 and 1981 when the economy entered a major recession - has seemed so much worse than what came before. In many ways it is indeed much worse, and this will be described in detail below. Unfortunately, implicit in a lot of recent crisis talk is the idea that overcoming it simply means reversing the economic effects of Mrs Thatcher, and getting back to the general trend of economic develop-ment, the forms of economic administration, and the kinds of social priorities which preceded her. However, it should be remembered that the economic situation which Mrs Thatcher inherited was in fact a grim one. Unemployment had been on an upward track for over a decade, inflation (though well down from its mid 1970s peak) was again rising, and manufacturing industry was shedding jobs and per-forming poorly in export markets. Many of the nationalized indus-ries, and quasi-nationalized industries such as British Leyland, were in deep trouble. The National Health Service and public services generally were starved of funds and investment. So, simply on these grounds, the idea that the crisis is purely to do with Margaret Thatcher is mistaken. But it follows, at the same time, that if the Thatcher administration or any other government were to return Britain to the pre-Thatcher level of 1979, the British people would have little to celebrate, for that year was the end-point of a prolonged decline. It was a good year only in comparison with what was to follow. <br />
<br />
So the UK economy suffers from two separable processes: a short-term recession - which might be called the 'Thatcher recession' - and a long-run decline. The mechanisms at work in these processes were <br />
<br />
<br />
18 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
quite different, and recovery from one set of problems does not mean recovery from the other.<br />
<br />
However, if Margaret Thatcher is not responsible for the real economic crisis which faces Britain, this does not mean that the economic effects of her administration are not serious. In late 1979, primarily as a result of her policies, the economy entered a recession which bears comparison with the 'Great Depression' of the 1930s. Since 1979, unemployment has increased by approximately 250 per cent. In the two years from mid 1979 to mid 1981, manufacturing output fell by 18 per cent, while overall national income fell by 71 per cent. These falls are bigger, and happened faster, than those of the Great Depression. And it should be remembered that these figures, dramatic though they are, are merely averages, which means that while some industries and areas are better off than the figures indicate, others have been hit much harder. Regions such as Scotland, Wales, the West Midlands and the North West, and cities such as Liverpool, have far higher than average unemployment. Industries such as metal manufacturing (output down 25 per cent between 1979 and 1981), textiles (down 26 per cent), clothing and shoes (down 21 per cent), timber and furniture (down 21 per cent) and general metal goods (down 26 per cent) were especially badly affected. Even such normally strong performers as mechanical engineering (down 16 per cent) and chemicals (down 9 per cent) were hard hit. New housing starts in 1980 were 165,000 fewer than in 1970, after ten years of rising population and increasing need (and the fall in building occurs in the context of an increasingly decrepit housing stock). In 1980 also, over 27,000 companies went into liquidation, as opposed to 6,000 in 1977 and about 5,000 in 1978. These are signs of an economy in serious trouble. Why did it happen? <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE 'THATCHER RECESSION'</span></h4>
We can start, perhaps, with a paradoxical feature of the post-1979 recession. This is that the large falls in manufactured output and in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - or total output produced in Britain - were not accompanied by falls in total personal incomes or consumer spending. As the recession took hold in 1980, GDP began a steady <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS BEHIND THE RECESSION • 19 <br />
decline, manufacturing output fell sharply, and employment fell spectacularly: yet personal disposable income (that is, the total of all individual incomes after tax) actually rose, as did total expenditure by consumers. Even when disposable income finally fell slightly - by about 2 per cent in t981 - consumer expenditure continued to increase. So the recession did not take the form of falling incomes and demand by consumers. <br />
<br />
Yet since a recession is nothing other than a decline in output - either absolutely, or in terms of its rate of growth - it must mean that somewhere along the line the consumption of output is slowing down or falling. For one reason or another, one of the end users of output is demanding and consuming less, and falling production and employment are a response to that falling demand. So where did this happen in Britain? Apart from consumer demand, the other major categories of final demand are capital formation (expenditure on such things as new buildings, machines, equipment, etc.), government expenditure and exports. However, all of these remained more or less stable. To find the main cause of the recession we need to look to another source of demand, one which is in fact <i>within</i> the very companies which are producing output. This is a demand for <i>inventory</i>, or stocks of goods: that is, the stocks of raw materials, semi-completed products and completed output which firms hold for various reasons. To see why this 'stockpile' demand collapsed, we need to look first at the broad objectives of Thatcherite policy, then at the measures used to achieve those objectives, and finally at the effects of those measures on companies in Britain. <br />
<br />
The Thatcher government came to office committed to the defeat of inflation as its primary goal; this was part of a wider programme for restoring market forces and market values as the basis of 'sustainable growth'. The first step, reduced inflation, was to be achieved through controlling the quantity of money in the system. How to control the money stock is, among economists at least, a vexed question; indeed there is hardly agreement on what the money stock actually is. Unassailed by doubts, however, the government decided on a double-barrelled strategy. On the one hand this was aimed at controlling the supply of money (controlling, in particular, the activities which caused governments to want to expand the money supply), <br />
<br />
<br />
20 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
and on the other hand controlling the <i>demand </i>for money (meaning, in practice, restricting the demand for credit from banks). The guilty party in expanding the money supply, it was argued, was government borrowing. The problem was a gap between government spending and its income from taxation; this gap, which has averaged between five and ten billion pounds per year in recent years, is the budget deficit, the basis of the 'Public Sector Borrowing Requirement' (PSBR). So the policy decision was to attempt to restrict spending and thus cut borrowing. This would both inhibit monetary growth, and also lower interest rates (since when the government borrows it naturally pays interest, and excessive borrowing - it was argued - raises interest rates). <br />
<br />
The attempt to restrict the impact of the PSBR on interest rates was important, for a related measure in the government's monetary control policy was a rise in interest rates. One of the ideas behind this is that the banking system is in effect capable of creating money through the overdraft system. The way to restrict the demand for overdraft credit is to raise its cost. Thus a lower quantity of money implies an increase in interest rates. This rise occurred: the 'base rate' for bank overdrafts was 12 per cent when the government took office; it subsequently rose by 2 per cent, then another 3 per cent, and stayed in the range 16-17 per cent through most of 1980. <br />
<br />
This policy had a devastating effect on industrial and commercial companies in Britain. Since most companies were unable to raise prices in line with the interest rate increases, it amounted to a sharp increase in their costs. This affected in particular the source of demand referred to above, namely for inventory or stocks within the company sector of the economy. <br />
<br />
Industrial companies normally maintain three kinds of inventory. They are, firstly, raw materials - these are held in order to even out possible fluctuations in availability, so that a regular supply of inputs is available. Secondly, there is work in progress, semi-completed output. Finally, there are finished goods - firms may want to meet fluctuations in demand which cannot be met out of current output, and will maintain stocks of their product for that purpose. Thus a steel mill will keep stocks of iron ore, oxygen, etc., beyond its im-mediate requirements; a ear assembly plant will have stocks of sheet <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS BEHIND TIIE RECESSION • 91 <br />
steel, wheels, engines and so on, and a ear company might hold a quantity of finished cars. These stocks can be large: in recent years they have been equivalent to about 30 per cent of total annual output. <br />
<br />
But the problem with stocks is that they must be paid for. Both raw materials and the labour which turns them into components or finished products are normally paid for before the product is finally sold. Frequently, therefore; companies borrow in order to finance both current production and stockbuilding. In recent years they have done so increasingly through bank overdrafts, often on a very large scale. <br />
<br />
For companies running large overdrafts, the government's monetary policy, and the interest rate rises which it entailed, was a disaster. Borrowing costs increased dramatically as interest rates reached 20 per cent. At the same time, companies faced increased wage and salary costs (as we saw above, personal incomes were on the whole rising during this period). Even though inflation was running at quite high levels, few companies were able to raise prices in line with it: in 1979 the big price rise was oil, and in 1980 it was nationalized industries and VAT increases which accounted for much of the increases in industrial prices. The evidence indicates that manufacturing companies, particularly in export industries, were raising prices at rates below the inflation rate. With costs rising fast, and prices not matching them, something had to give, and it was company profits. The average post-tax real rate of return almost halved in 1980, to the very low level of 2.9 per cent for non North Sea companies. Many firms began making losses. <br />
<br />
Under these circumstances, firms reacted in the obvious and logical way: they attempted to lower their current costs by reducing their current output. Firms began to supply finished goods not by producing them but by running down their stocks of such goods. Simultaneously, they reduced their stocks of raw materials, which lowered the anent demand for such materials. This lowering of current output led rapidly and inevitably to reductions in the workforce. The object of the exercise was to cut day-to-day running costs and to reduce debts to the banks, but the effect was to create a recession. For the amounts involved were very substantial: in 1980 the turnaround in inventories was approximately 43.5 billion, or 3.2 per cent of GDP. <br />
<br />
<br />
22 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
This alone more than accounted for the overall fall in output. The government had, in effect, created this response by attacking the financial positions of companies. <br />
<br />
So the monetary policy, operating through interest rates, produced an immediate recession. This was compounded by a further effect of high interest rates, namely a rise in the value of the pound. One feature of the world economy is the existence of large quantities of 'free-floating' capital which moves wherever interest rates are highest. When the interest rate rises, the foreign exchange markets either reflect a movement of such capital into Britain, or anticipate it. This happened: the exchange rate rose sharply. Since this meant that the pound was exchanging for more dollars, Deutschmarks, etc., then it also meant that the foreign currency prices of British exports were also rising. This meant problems for export industries, not so much in the short term (because most export goods are ordered well in advance) as in the winning of new orders. Prices of British goods abroad are determined by three factors; firstly, their costs of production - especially labour costs - inside Britain, secondly exporters' profit margins, and thirdly the exchange rate which links Britain to the rest of the world economy. In 1980 both costs and the exchange rate were rising, and British goods became much less competitive in price terms (though it should be borne in mind that 'non-price competition', in terms of quality, design, meeting of delivery dates etc., is also extremely important in export markets). Between the beginning of 1979 and the end of 1980, the so-called 'effective exchange rate' rose 21.6 per cent and wage and salary costs per unit of output in manufacture rose 36.6 per cent. This added up to a decline in the competitiveness of British goods, according to the International Monetary Fund measure, of about 50 per cent: a change almost un-precedented over such a short period. In the face of these developments, exports held up fairly well, mainly due to exporters making great efforts to keep their prices down - export prices rose by well under half the rise in costs of production. But imports soared, since the stronger pound made them relatively cheaper; the recession intensified as British producers began to lose out in their own home market.<br />
<br />
The other key element in the Thatcher government's economic <br />
<br />
<br />
TIIE CRISIS BEHIND THE RECESSION • 23 <br />
strategy has been an attempt to control and reduce government spending. The argument here was that government spending was at an excessive level, which both inhibited the operation of the free market economy (by distorting demand and raising interest rates) and fuelled inflation through the government borrowing which such spending entailed. Two points should be made about this attempt. The first is that total public expenditure has not significantly fallen; in fact as a proportion of national income it has risen under Mrs Thatcher. This is partly because the recessionary impact of the monetary policy has simultaneously increased the government's ex-penditure (on social security and unemployment benefit, for instance) and reduced its income from taxes (for when employment and income falls, the government's tax take falls). But also the government has not attempted to cut expenditure so much as redistribute it: away from some areas (such as education) and towards others (such as defence). This has altered the pattern of government demand for goods and services, with important impacts on some suppliers. The second point is that there has been a sharp fall in capital expenditure by the government: that is to say, programmes of construction and renewal of equipment and buildings have been curtailed. In 1981 such capital spending had fallen by almost 40 per cent from the 1979 level, and by about 60 per cent from the level of ten years before. This is an important aspect of the massive decline in the construction industry.<br />
<span style="color: red;"> </span><br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">A WORLD RECESSION? </span></h4>
The analysis of the Thatcher recession presented above has emphasized the effects on Britain of its own government's policy. This approach stands in sharp contrast to the government's account of the recession, which leans heavily on the existence of a <i>'world recession'</i>. This works simultaneously as a defence of Mrs Thatcher (everyone else is facing the same difficulties as us, therefore it can't be her fault) and as an explanation of our problems, a description of their cause (we are suffering unemployment because the world recession is hurting our economy). To what extent is this government account plausible? <br />
<br />
<br />
24 THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
There is no doubt that the international environment, at the time the Thatcher government began to implement its policies, had taken a turn for the worse. The price of oil had risen by 45 per cent between 1978 and 1979, and by a further 68 per cent in the following year. There was a slowdown in the growth of world trade. Interest rates were fluctuating sharply but also moving upwards in Europe and the USA. And all of this was occurring against the background of general instability and slow growth in the world economy in the 1970s. <br />
<br />
Can such developments account for the British recession? Here it is worth asking the obvious question, namely, in what ways can international trends affect the British economy? Two possibilities stand out. The first is that the international economy is for some reason contracting, and this is leading to either a slowdown in the growth of demand for UK exports, or an actual decline in the demand for British goods. This would almost certainly push Britain into a recession. The other possibility is that world interest rates might rise, forcing Britain to keep pace, and that this would depress the UK economy, possibly through the kinds of mechanisms outlined in the section above on the 'Thatcher recession'. <br />
<br />
Only the second of these possibilities seems to have any plausibility. The UK government was, as we have seen, committed to a rise in interest rates because they believed this would help in controlling monetary growth. A rise in world rates might then mean that British rates would have to rise by more than previously would have been necessary to achieve the same effect. On theoretical grounds this could easily be disputed, but it should also be said that, since the government had the option of not adopting this policy, it could have avoided excessive interest rate rises, and therefore it can't blame its problems on the world economy. The first possibility — a decline in demand for British goods — can also be discounted. This is because, although world trade slowed down in 1979, it was in fact still growing. The crux of the Thatcher recession was a decline in manufacturing, yet world trade in manufactures grew by 5.7 per cent in 1979 and by 4.6 per cent in 1980; this could not, therefore, be the cause of Britain's manufacturing troubles. And in general the so-called world recession took this form: slowdowns in growth rather than the absolute falls suffered by Britain. Table 1, which compares Britain with the countries <br />
<br />
THE. CRISIS BEHIND THE RECESSION 25 <br />
of the of OECD (i.e. Britain's major industrialized neighbours: the USA, Japan, W. Germany, France, Italy and Canada), shows this clearly for income and employment<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Table 1 . Changes in income and employment (%) </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
1980 1981 1982</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">National income</span><br />
-2.1 -2.2 +1.25 Britain<br />
+1.0 +1.2 +0.5 OECD average<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Employment</span><br />
-2.3 -4.7 -2.5 Britain<br />
+0.5 +0.1 -0.5 OECD average</span><br />
<i><br />
Source: OECD Economic Outlook, July 1982 Table 5, p.20. </i><br />
<br />
<br />
At a time when employment was falling by 7 per cent in Britain, it was actually increasing among the UK's OECD partners. Since then the picture has worsened in those countries. Yet two simple points should be made about the development of the world recession. The first concerns timing. The world recession is relatively recent, and Britain entered its own recession <i>before </i>the world recession really got going; on chronological grounds alone it seems difficult to make the world recession the source of Britain's troubles. Secondly, we should remember that all countries have faced much the same sort of international problems. Yet the other OECD countries, facing the same international environment, have not suffered recession on anything like the British scale; Britain's unemployment and output losses have been quite disproportionately greater than those of any other advanced country. Once again, the conclusion is that Britain's problems cannot be laid at the door of a world slump. Mrs Thatcher needs some other line of defence. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CAN THE 'THATCHER RECESSION' BE REVERSED? </span></h4>
<br />
The primary impact of the 1979-81 recession, therefore, was on the financial position of companies. In response to a monetary squeeze, <br />
<br />
26 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
and high interest rates, they contracted their output and their em-ployment, and satisfied both their customers and their bank managers by running down their stocks of goods, and their inventories of raw materials and work in progress. As earnings - for those in work - continued to rise, profits fell sharply. <br />
<br />
The running-down of inventories explains why a collapse in output has not entailed a collapse in consumption (at least not yet). Perhaps it explains also what many people regard as a certain apathy on the part of the British public in the face of the recession. The absence of protest and unrest is to do with the absence of harmful effects. It is only relatively small minorities who have been really hurt by the recession: the poor, the unemployed, the industrial capitalists. <br />
<br />
One conclusion which might be drawn from this account of the 'Thatcher recession' is that it is reversible. Lower interest rates, easier credit, a lower exchange rate, more government spending, perhaps some tax cuts: would not such a programme - in effect the reverse of that adopted by Mrs Thatcher so far - have exactly reverse effects? To some extent the answer must be yes: many industries are operating below capacity, and could respond to increased demand with increased output and employment. Increased government spending, particularly on construction, Might have a strongly stimulating effect on the economy. Even without positive measures for expansion, the economy is likely to grow from the depths of the recession, and this in fact began to appear in 1982 and 1983. But whether such growth can be sustained, and whether it constitutes a 'recovery' must remain doubtful. <br />
<br />
Two important problems should be kept in mind. The first is that so many firms in so many industries have collapsed or permanently contracted their capacity, that it must be problematic whether British manufacturing could actually respond to any sustained increase in demand. Historical experience suggests that it is far easier to contract output - to close down companies and factories - than it is to expand it so the Thatcher recession may not, purely on that score, be anything like fully reversible. The second problem is that of imports. British manufacturing appears increasingly unable to compete with imports of foreign goods, and there are good rounds for thinking that any expansion of demand will be spent primarily on imports. All the <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS BEHIND THE. RECESSION • 27 <br />
current evidence suggests that this is the case, and thus any growth in incomes will do little to alleviate the problems of unemployment and stagnation in UK manufacturing. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">INFLATION AND PRODUCTIVITY: A SUCCESS STORY? </span></h4>
In the face of the recession, not everything has been gloomy for the government, however. It has been able to point to two indicators of the success of its policies: a fall in the inflation rate, from a peak of about 18 per cent per annum to under 5 per cent and falling, and an increase in manufacturing productivity (output per person per hour) of about 12 per cent from late 1979 to late 1982. Naturally enough, the government has seen these developments as the harbingers of recovery. To what extent is this interpretation justified? <br />
<br />
The main difficulty in interpreting the inflation and productivity figures lies in the fact that they have occurred during a very deep recession, and this prompts questions about whether they will be maintained in any recovery. In terms of the inflation rate, we would expect it to fall in a recession of this magnitude, since firms are desperate for markets and their prices will be constrained accordingly, while workers moderate their pay claims because of anxiety about unemployment. The inflation rate has also been helped by unusually low food prices in roll; an almost certainly transient phenomenon. It should be noted that the fall in the inflation rate has not been an effect of the government's monetary policy, which has not been particularly effective in controlling the money supply. Thus decreases in the inflation rate seem to stem more from the effects of recession than from strictly monetarist policy. Whether or not the inflationary process has been halted in Britain remains, therefore, an open question. At the moment, claims about success in beating inflation are premature: they will be justified only if inflation remains low when output recovers. <br />
<br />
The productivity question is more complex. Often, in recessions, productivity falls due to firms 'hoarding' labour (because it is often difficult to regain skilled labour quickly when the recession ends). So output falls more than the labour force, and consequently output per worker declines. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
28 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
However, the recession of 1979-81 was much more severe than the mild cyclical recessions of the past. Firms appeared to take the pessimistic — and apparently justified — view that recovery was a long way off; consequently they shed labour and closed down lines of production. At the same time many firms went out of business entirely. Now where this happened — where production lines or whole firms were closed down — one would expect that they were unprofit-able because their productivity was low. That is to say, they had less than average productivity. But it is an arithmetical truism to say that when less-than-average productivity processes close down, then average productivity rises for the economy as a whole. There may be no actual productivity increase in remaining firms — the whole thing would thus be a statistical illusion resulting from the disappearance of less-than-average-productivity firms and processes. Again, it is too soon to say that 'success' can be claimed. <br />
<br />
Leaving aside these hesitations, however, let us suppose that recovery really is under way, that the slow growth of late 1982 to early 1983 will be maintained, and that it will be possible to regain the output levels of late 1979, when the first effects of the Thatcher recession began to be felt. This implies an increase in national income of about 5 per cent, and an increase in manufacturing output of about 18 per cent from the bottom of the recession. No doubt this would be hailed as a major achievement, but it should be remembered that to return to the income and output levels of 1979, which marked Britain as the poorest and most decrepit of the advanced economies, would really be little cause for celebration, for at that time Britain was already the 'sick man of Europe', a vulnerable economy at the end of a long period of poor performance and relative decline. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE LONG-TERM CRISIS — 1945 AND AFTER </span></h4>
Tracing the post-war decline on which the Thatcher recession has been superimposed involves looking at the economy in a comparative context, setting its performance against those of its competitors. Because of the competitive trading environment in which Britain exists, the 'health' of the British economy depends not only, for example, on how fast productivity is growing within it, but also on how fast <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS BEHIND THE RECESSION • 29 <br />
productivity is growing relative to Britain's competitors. Britain is only geographically an island; economically it is tightly bound up with an international economy. International comparisons are not simply, therefore, of academic interest, they are part and parcel of understanding what is going wrong in the UK economy. <br />
<br />
The 'performance' of an economy is not necessarily easily captured in figures. How well an economy is working, for those who live within it, depends on a number of things including: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(a) how fast it is growing; <br />
(b) how efficient it is, in getting the best from the resources available; <br />
(c) the level and growth of productivity, or output per person (which helps to determine competitiveness and levels of income); and <br />
(d) the distribution of income. </blockquote>
This section will concentrate on Britain's record in growth and productivity, both of which have been relatively poor. <br />
<br />
The post-war development of the world economy has consisted of two main phases of development. The first runs from approximately 1950, when the problems of post-war industrial reconstruction were at least beginning to be solved, to 1973, when the OPEC price rises installed a period of slower growth which has lasted to the present. In both of these major phases Britain's rates of economic growth were slower than those of comparable advanced economies, as Table 2 indicates. <br />
<br />
Clearly, in each of these periods, Britain's performance was well below average: in fact its growth rate, during the post-war boom, was the lowest of any industrialized country (though it was also, it should be added, the highest that Britain had ever achieved). In the post-1973 recession Britain's performance was second-worst: only Switzerland, which suffered a sharp though short-lived deterioration in its economy, did worse. The ratio between Britain's growth rate and the average growth rate declined during the post 1973 period (in 1950-73 the U K growth rate was approximately 40 per cent below the average growth rate; in 1973-9 it was 50 per cent below). One interpretation of this would be that Britain's performance in the seventies was not simply due to a slowdown in the world economy; but was also due to the fact that it handled the slowdown worse than other countries. <br />
<br />
<br />
30 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<br />
<i>Table 2. Growth of output 1950-79 (GDP, constant prices) </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1950-73 1973-79 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4.7 2.5 Australia </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">5.4 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>3.1 Austria </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4.1 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>2.3 Belgium </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">5.2 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>3.2 Canada </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4.0 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>2.1 Denmark </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4.9 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>2.3 Finland </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">5.1 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>3.0 France </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">6.0 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>2.4 Germany </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">5.5 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>2.6 Italy </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">9.7 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>4.1 Japan </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4.8 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>2.4 Netherlands </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4.0 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>4.4 Norway </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3.8 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>1.8 Sweden </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4.5 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>-0.4 Switzerland </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3.0 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>1.3 UK </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3.7 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>2.7 USA </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4.4</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>2.5 Average </span><br />
<i>Source: Angus Maddison, Phases of Capitalist Development, Oxford, 1982, Table 3.1, 45. </i><br />
<br />
Britain's performance in terms of productivity - or output per person - was also weak over these two periods. The level of productivity and the rate of growth of productivity matter for two central reasons. The first is that output per person has a large bearing on income per person, and hence on standards of living; it is not the only determinant of real income, but it is an important one. The extraordinary growth in the amounts of goods and services available to the populations of the advanced countries over the past hundred and fifty years is essentially clue to a dramatic growth in productivity. Looked at from another angle, productivity is a measure of efficiency, for it plays a significant part in fixing the costs at which output can be produced. In a competitive world - and a large proportion of Britain's output must compete, tither in export markets or against <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS BEHIND THE RECESSION • 31 <br />
imports within Britain - levels of productivity matter a great deal in determining the costs and hence competitiveness of products. <br />
<br />
Rates of growth of productivity are vitally important too. If two countries begin with approximately the same level of productivity, and one then has a higher growth rate of productivity, then the high growth country will tend to generate both higher incomes and lower prices and a competitive advantage. This process can become cumulative, with increasing disparities emerging between countries. This is indeed what has happened to Britain. Table 3, which looks again at the two broad stages in the post-war period, indicates something of the productivity gap. <br />
<br />
Once again there was a sharp slowdown in the second period, and once again Britain performed worse than average, and much worst <br />
<br />
<i>Table 3. Rates of productivity growth (%), 1950-79 (Annual average compound growth rates of GDP per man-hour) </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1950-73 1973-79 <br />
2.6 2.6 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Australia </span><br />
5.9 3.8 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Austria </span><br />
4.4 4.2 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Belgium </span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
3.0 4.2 </span>Canada </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
4.3 1.6 </span>Denmark </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
5.2 1.7 </span>Finland </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
5.1 3.5 </span>France </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
6.<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">0</span> 4.2 </span>Germany </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
5.8 2.5 </span>Italy </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
8.0 3.9 </span>Japan </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
4.4 3.3 </span>Netherlands </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
4.2 3.9 </span>Norway </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
4.2 1.9 </span>Sweden <br />
3.4 1.3 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Switzerland </span><br />
3.1 2.1 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">UK </span><br />
2.6 1.4 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">USA </span><br />
4.5 2.7 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Average </span><br />
Source:Angus Maddison, <i>Phases of Capitalist Development</i>, Oxford, 1982, drawn from Table 5.1, p. 96. <br />
<br />
<br />
32 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
than its main industrial rivals (Germany, Japan, Italy, France) though rather better than the USA. This last phenomenon has a ready explanation, however. For most of the post-user period the USA has been the world technological leader, and one effect of this is that other countries could follow the US path, using US technologies without the pains and problems and costs of developing them. 'Follower' economics can thus often attain higher productivity growth rates than 'leader' economies, though they may not be able actually to overtake them. But Britain's productivity growth has rarely reached the rates achieved by other 'followers', and has in general been markedly lower than comparable economics. These figures of course refer to the whole economy; but it should be noted that the differ-entials in productivity have been confirmed by a number of studies at plant level, in which output per worker, even in similarly equipped plants producing similar products, has been shown to be markedly lower (by up to 50 per cent) in Britain. <br />
<br />
The most obvious effect of this record of slow growth and slow productivity growth has been a stark relative decline in British <br />
<br />
<i>Table 4. National Income, per person (1979 US Dollars) </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">13,920 Switzerland <br />
11,930 Sweden<br />
11,900 Denmark <br />
11,730 W. Germany <br />
10,920 Belgium <br />
10,700 Norway <br />
10,630 USA <br />
10,230 Netherlands <br />
9,950 France <br />
9,640 Canada <br />
9,120 Australia <br />
8,810 Japan <br />
8,630 Austria <br />
8,160 Finland <br />
6,320 UK <br />
5,250 Italy </span><br />
<br />
Source: World Bank, <i>World Development Report</i> 1981, Table 1, p. 135. <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS BEHIND THE RECESSION • 33 <br />
incomes, compared with the same group of countries. There are serious problems in making cross-country income comparisons, but the figures in table 4 give at least a broad indication of the differences involved. <br />
<br />
Against this picture of poor performance and low income must be set a further image: that of Britain at the beginning of the post-war epoch. Then, Britain was not at the bottom of the table but near the top. It was a technically advanced, high-productivity economy with a major industrial base, sophisticated research and development capabilities, a highly skilled workforce and a capable financial system. The relative decline traced in the statistics above means that some-thing has gone seriously wrong. Moreover things have been getting considerably worse: concealed within the long-run averages of the above tables is a sharp deterioration in the mos. The figures above show that in the post-war period Britain's growth of output and income was slow compared with its competitors. But in the most, crucial parts of the British economy simply stopped growing. Instead, we have seen the historically unprecedented spectacle of an advanced economy suffering severe absolute fall in industrial and manufacturing output. These falls are at the core of Britain's economic crisis.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE INDUSTRIAL COLLAPSE </span></h4>
<br />
The British economy is built on an industrial base, by which economists normally mean four types of activity: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- mining, quarrying, oil, etc.; <br />
- construction; <br />
- public utilities: gas, electricity, water, <br />
- manufacturing. </blockquote>
All of these industries are important, though manufacturing is often accorded a special place since it provides the bulk of exports and jobs. To set what has been happening in context, we should note that from the mos, and right through the fifties and sixties, British manufacturing output grew at about 30 per cent per decade. In the early mos it continued to grow, but that growth was then swamped by a mid 1970s contraction followed by the Thatcher recession. The outcome was an absolute fall, over the decade, of over 8 per cent. <br />
<br />
34 THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
There is no precedent for this in British economic history over the past two centuries. And other industrial output fell by a similar amount. Only the massive growth of North Sea oil production prevented an overall fall in total industrial output; even including oil, there was only 1 per cent growth over the decade, a derisory amount. Table 5 - in the form of an index with 1975 equal to 100 - illustrates the collapse. <br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Table 5. Manufacturing and Industrial Output 1971-81 (1975 = 100) </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 97.5 100.0 108.4 106.6 100.0 101.4 Manufacturing </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 99.7 101.4 109.4 105.1 100.0 102.1 Total industrial production </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 99.6 101.7 109.2 105.1 100.0 100.7 ... less North Sea oil </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">103.0 104.0 104.4 95.5 89.6 Manufacturing </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">106.1 110.3 113.1 105.9 100.6 Total industrial production </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">101.9 104.1 104.3 96.9 90.6 ... less North Sea oil </span><br />
Souce. <i>National Income and Expenditure, 1982,</i> Table 2.4, p.21. <br />
<br />
Again, it should be remembered that these figures are avenges for whole sectors; things look much worse even than this if we look at particular industries within the manufacturing sector. 'Fable 6 shows decline over the 1970s for a wide range of important industries. <br />
<br />
This collapse in output has been paralleled by falls in employment, both in manufacturing and in industry generally. Here, however, the long-run decline began in the mid 1960s (see table 7). <br />
<br />
These figures reflect what is sometimes called a process of 'de-industrialization'. To return to the comparative context, it should be emphasized that in this process Britain is <i>unique</i>. Certainly, in the economic turmoil of the 1970s, other countries have suffered losses <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS BEHIND THE RECESSION 35 <br />
<br />
<i>Table 6. Index of UK manufacturing decline in the 1970s (1975 = 100) </i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1973<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span> 1979 <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">O</span>utput<br />
120.6 105.3<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>-13% Coal and petroleum products<br />
129.5 104.4 -35% Metals Ferrous<br />
117.1 105.5 -13% Metals Non-Ferrous</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 97.1 91.4<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span>- 6% Mechanical Engineering</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 95.4 78.1 -18% Shipbuilding<br />
118.8 99.3 -16% Motor Vehicles</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">120.7 94.6 -22% Bricks, cement<br />
117.1 96.7 -17% Textiles</span><br />
<br />
Source: John Hughes<i>, Britain in Crisis: De-industrialization and how to fight it</i>, Nottingham, 1982, p. 27. <br />
<br />
in output and employment. But nowhere have the falls been in any way comparable with those of the UK. Moreover, in many advanced economics - Canada, the USA, Japan, Italy - industrial employment has actually risen. <br />
<br />
So something very significant has happened within the British economy. A long process of relative decline has turned into an absolute contraction in Britain's industrial base. Should this, however, be a cause for concern? There are those who argue that it is not. Some suggest simply that the balance of Britain's economic activities is <br />
<br />
<i>Table 7. Employment in industry and manufacturing (million) </i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> June<br />
1966 1970 1974 1981 % Decline <br />
9.16 8.91 7.87 6.04 34.1 Total Manufacturing<br />
11.85 11.09 9.90 7.87 33.8 Total Production Industries</span><br />
<br />
Source: A. P. Thirlwall, <i>'De-industrialization in the United Kingdom'</i>, Lloyd's Bank Review, 144, p. 25. <br />
<br />
<br />
36 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
shifting, away from manufactures and towards 'service' activities; consequently, the decline in manufactures is a natural consequence of a change in what people want to spend their incomes on. But if this is the case, there is no necessary reason why a long-term increase in unemployment should result: a shift in the forms of employment, yes; unemployment, not necessarily. Moreover, the British people do not seem to be consuming fewer manufactured goods - they are consuming fewer <i>British</i> manufactured goods, and much more in the way of imports. Others argue - and these have included the former Chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe - that the slowdown in manufacturing is a response to the rise in North Sea oil production. The arguments here are quite complex, but it seems enough to point out that the problems in UK manufacturing and other industrial production began well before North Sea oil came on stream. North Sea oil has indeed had significant effects on the economy, but of course does nothing to explain why our performance relative to our neighbours has been so poor for so long.<br />
<br />
So such arguments, reassuring though they are, do not seem to get us very far. Against them, we could suggest that the de-industrialization of Britain is in fact a major historical development. Since it is indeed unprecedented it is difficult, to say the least, to outline its implications for the future. The argument here is that it threatens the long-term viability of the British economy, which is therefore at a significant turning-point in its history. But this requires a framework within which to set the facts outlined above, one which will enable us to understand their wider significance for the way the British economy functions. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="color: red;">2 </span></i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<hr />
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="color: red;">Growth and Trade </span></i></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="color: red;">—<br />
Components of the Crisis </span></i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
Improvements in the incomes, living standards and wel-fare of any country's people are in large part an effect of success in generating economic growth. Of course, growth is by no means the only contributor to these things, nor does it guarantee anything: much depends, for instance, on how its benefits are distributed among the population. And certainly growth brings many new problems in its wake. Even so, it remains the basic process by which problems of poverty, unemployment and low incomes - Britain's problems - can be overcome. <br />
<br />
The previous chapter showed that Britain's growth record has been very poor: in the 1950s and 60s Britain's growth rates were the highest it had ever achieved. Yet they were dismal when set against those of comparable economies; and in the 70s even that slow growth evaporated and an absolute decline began. This chapter secs out an analytical framework for understanding these developments, within which some of the basic elements of Britain's decline can be identified. It is concerned essentially with two types of problem: <br />
<br />
1. The nature of economic growth. What does economic growth actually consist of, and what are its mechanisms? In particular, what is the relationship between technological change and economic growth? <br />
<br />
2. The role of international trade for an economy like that of the U K. Why does the trading position of the economy matter, and what is the relationship between it and the economy's growth record and growth prospects? <br />
<br />
38 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">ECONOMIC GROWTH </span></h4>
Economic growth is an increase in the total output of an economy overtime. It can result from two quite separate processes. On the one hand there may be a growth in output resulting simply from an increase in the number of workers and an increase - sufficient to employ them - in the economy's stock of machines and equipment. This is, in other words, an expansion of existing activities; it means doing the same sorts of things on a wider scale (in fact, economists sometimes call this 'capital-widening' growth). Such growth involves an increase in total output, but no increase in output per person, or in income per person. We can call this 'extensive' growth. <br />
<br />
On the other hand there is a further dimension of economic growth in which, in the words of Professor Simon Kuznets - one of the most influential of modern growth theorists - 'we identify the economic growth of nations as a substantial increase in per capita or per worker product.' [1] Here, economic growth occurs not because of more workers but because of increased output by existing workers: in other words, productivity growth. We might call this 'intensive growth'. Now this 'intensive' productivity growth is a complex process involving many activities ranging from basic scientific research through to the development and application of quite small-scale skills in production. But in general it involves changes in the capital stock; that is, changes in the array of plant, equipment, machines and so on with which workers product. These changes take the form either of increases in the amount of equipment available for each worker to work with, or improvements in technology which increase either the quantity or quality of output which can be produced with available quantities of capital and labour. <br />
<br />
Clearly these two types of growth - extensive and intensive have gone hand in hand in the course of the development of the advanced economies. But it is the second type, based on productivity growth, which is more important and on which the attention of economists has focused. The reason is obvious: rises in output per head are one of the few paths to rising incomes and standards of living and shorter working periods. Since these are among the central objectives of economic activity as such, the importance of intensive growth stands <br />
<br />
GROWTH AND TRADE — COMPONENTS OF THE CRISIS • 39 <br />
out. Another reason is that there is considerable research evidence to suggest that productivity increases, resulting from broad technological improvements, have made the most important contribution to the rapid economic growth of the advanced economies since 1850. The massive rises in income, and the dramatically shortened working week, which have characterized Western economic development, are the result of intensive forms of growth. <br />
<br />
So what is entailed by this intensive, productivity-increasing mode of growth? What kinds of activity promote it or retard it? The most general point is that intensive growth involves a process of almost continuous change within the economy. This change occurs along three main axes, to do with the kinds of activities on which the economy is based (that is, its structure); with the kinds of products which are produced (its output mix); and with how products are produced (its technology). We can consider each of these types of change in turn: <br />
<i><br />
1. Structural change </i><br />
Structural change means simply a shift of emphasis within the activi-ties which make up the economy; by itself it can raise productivity and generate growth. For example, in many economics agriculture is less advanced technically and less productive than manufacturing. If workers move, therefore, from agricultural work into a manufacturing job, their productivity will automatically rise and output will grow. These kinds of shifts have historically been important in raising productivity, but are obviously limited; only so many people can be moved out of agriculture, and the productivity improvements gained thereby are a once-for-all affair. But structural shifts of this type remain important. Recently, for example, manufacturing employment dropped in the UK - as we have seen - while service employment has risen; since services are, on the whole, less productive, the result a fall in average productivity and in overall output. <br />
<br />
<i>2 Changing the product mix </i><br />
The general mix of products being turned out by an economy clearly changes over time. In the first place, some products simply drop out ut production: whale-bone corsets and horse-drawn wagons are no <br />
<br />
40 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
longer made. Others remain but fade from significance, like lace, or horseshoes. And completely new products emerge, such as - in the twentieth century - electrical goods and, more recently, electronic and microprocessor-based products. Finally, within this broad process of change, some things remain in production, yet change their character so much as to be, in effect, new products: transistor as opposed to valve radios, digital as opposed to mechanical watches. We could sum up by saying that there is continuous product change in terms of design characteristics, technical attributes, materials and functions. The question is, what is the <i>economic</i> significance of such change? <br />
<br />
There is in fact an important relationship between product change and economic growth. We can start by noting that, in order for output to grow, the demand for that output must also be growing. For any particular country within the world economy, product demand can grow for two reasons: either the total market is growing, or that country's share of the market is growing. Now when the world economy grows, when world incomes grow, the demand for all indi-vidual products also grows. But these demands for individual products do not grow at the same pace; some, in fact, grow faster than others. Over the past ten years, for example, world income and demand have grown; but the market for stereo equipment, for instance, has grown much faster than the market for nuclear power stations. As a general rule, as incomes grow, the demand for manufactured products grows faster than the demand for agricultural goods. <br />
<br />
This suggests that a first condition for growth is that a country must be producing goods for which demand is growing; often, this will mean new products, since the expansionary possibilities here will usually be greater than for older products whose demand pattern is more stable. After the Second World War, for example, consumer durables such as refrigerators and washing machines - which in Europe were essentially new products - were in strong demand and became an important motor of post-war growth. At the present time, demand for consumer electronics, notably video equipment, is growing, and this promotes growth in Japan, the only significant producing country. <br />
<br />
But it is not, by itself, enough to be producing in new and expanding<br />
<br />
GROWTH AND TRADE - COMPONENTS OF THE CRISIS - 41<br />
product groups. Products also have to <i>compete </i>to maintain their share of the market, and for both new and old products this also means change: the development of new designs, of new standards of performance, and so on. The motorcar of' the 1980s is very different from that of the 50s; in this field, as in many others, world competition relates not just to prices but to the technical standards of the product. If producers are to stay in business they must keep up, therefore, with the frontiers of technical change in the design of the product. These considerations suggest that product change is central to economic growth simply because without it, demand is unlikely to grow. Thus growth is not just a matter of efficiency, but of efficiency in producing the right sorts of things: there is no percentage in being the world's most efficient producer of whale-bone corsets. Moreover, from this perspective, 'de-industrialization' can be seen not as a bad thing, necessarily, but as a vital concomitant of growth. 'De-industrialization', in the sense of running down industries in declining product areas, and building them up for products with high and rising demand, should be normal practice for a successful economy. <br />
<br />
<i>3. New processes: </i><br />
changing methods of production The other crucial aspect of change is not in products but in the processes of production through which they are made. New products generally entail new production techniques. But even where products remain broadly the same - as in steel, or chemicals - methods of production change. Such changes can take a wide variety of forms. Some may be very dramatic, shifting the whole nature of production: in chemicals, for example, an important shift was from 'batch' techniques to a continuous `flow' process; the analogous shift in cars was from individual assembly - one car at a time - to the production line. Such 'big' changes can also take the form of changes in power sources (oil and electrical power for coal and steam), or materials (plastics for metals), or methods of work organization (the factory for the artisan's workshop). At present, the rapid introduction of robots into manufacturing assembly - made possible by microprocessors - may well be such a 'big' shift. <br />
<br />
At a less spectacular level there are frequent small changes in <br />
<br />
42 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<br />
production processes which raise overall productivity. In a competitive world the economy must be flexible along the whole spectrum of such changes; it must keep in touch with 'best-practice' techniques of production, or lose out to its competitors. In processes as with products, the economy must be in the business of continuous change. <br />
<br />
Such 'process' transformations necessarily involve changes in the nature of work, in the numbers of people employed, and in the kinds of jobs they do. Here again there must be flexibility, an openness to the possibilities of de-industrialization. A growing and efficient economy must somehow solve the problem of shifting people from declining to growing industries, from low-productivity to high-productivity jobs; it must be able to absorb the consequences of technical change. As a very minimum this involves recognizing and overcoming complex problems of education, retraining, and re-location; but it entails many further problems of industrial policy. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">GROWTH AND TECHNOLOGY </span></h4>
To sum these ideas up, we can say that economic growth implies a continuous, multi-faceted process of change: a process which Joseph Schumpeter called 'creative destruction', as old methods and products make way for new. This is nothing other than the process of tech-nological and technical innovation. So the theoretical point in all of this is that growth and technological change go hand in hand; they are indissolubly linked, for it is technological change that makes growth possible, as Professor Kuznets rightly argues, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>a sustained high rate of growth depends on a continuous emergence of new inventions,</i> providing the hoses for new industries whose high rates of growth compensate for the inevitable slowing down of the older industries. A high rate of overall growth in an economy is thus necessarily accompanied by considerable shifting in relative importance among industries, as the old decline and the new increase in the nation's output [2] (My italics.) </blockquote>
This emergence of new inventions and innovations does not, of course, happen by accident. It involves the commitment of resources directed specifically at generating technological progress: in a word, it involves investment. Now investment in technology-based growth <br />
<br />
GROWTH AND TRADE — COMPONENTS OF THE CRISIS • 43 <br />
means that resources must be committed to two types of activity. <br />
<br />
First, there are research and development (R & D) activities, which are aimed specifically at producing new technologies. These R & D activities can range all the way from basic scientific research, via forms of applied technological study, through to the design and con-struction of new machines and products. It is extremely important to note that this R & D activity need not be confined to the direct development of technologies: it can also consist of a search for useful technology imports. At the technological level, the world economy is characterized — as the previous chapter noted with respect to the US growth record — by a distinction between 'leader' and 'follower' economies. Follower economies can and should devote a large part of their R & D activity to obtaining the technologies of more advanced economies. This has been a notable feature of rapid economic development in Western Europe in the mid nineteenth century (using British technology), in the Soviet Union in the 1930s (using US and European technologies), in Western Europe after the Second World War (using American technologies). The most striking example, however, is Japan, which has combined a high level of domestic R & D with a very high level of technology import from Europe and the USA; Japan's remarkable economic growth has been heavily dependent on foreign technologies, but the point is that this has required a substantial commitment of R & D resources aimed at seeking out the most useful, adaptable and profitable techniques for import. <br />
<br />
The second aspect of investment is industrial construction itself: the commitment of resources to building up the industries which will either use or produce the outcome of R & D activity. For an economy to grow successfully, these two kinds of investment must be 'adequate' in two different senses. On the one hand, investment must be 'adequate' in volume or amount: a country must devote enough of its income to such investment, so that it has both the ability and the economic capacity to produce a level of output that will maintain its incomes and employment. On the other hand, investment must be adequate in what we might call direction: it must be directed towards viable activities, meaning areas of R & D and pro-duction where there actually will be a pay-off and profits. <br />
<br />
44 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
These kinds of theoretical points about the relationship between technology and growth suggest various propositions about the poor British growth record outlined in Chapter I. Specifically, they suggest that Britain's growth problems have been tied up with a technological weakness. <i>Britain has not devoted enough of its resources to R & D) and production investment; and the resources it has committed have gone to the wrong areas.</i> The consequence has been low rates of growth. Conversely, it could be argued that the success of countries like Japan and West Germany is an effect of success in managing the processes of technological innovation and investment. <br />
<br />
These propositions form the first part of a framework for understanding the British predicament. The next two chapters will look at some of the relevant evidence, which suggests that technological weaknesses are indeed at the root of Britain's slow growth problem. However, we also need to ask why this slow growth should involve a crisis, a threat to the viability of the UK economy. Here it is necessary to look at the 'external' position of the economy: at its import-export structure, and its balance of payments, and at the economic role they play in an economy like Britain's. Against this 'external' background we can discern the really worrying implications of the slowdown and end of British economic growth in the 1980s. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE EXTERNAL PROBLEM </span></h4>
Britain's place as part of an international economy is central to its economic functioning. To some extent this is for geophysical masons: Britain is a small, overpopulated island which needs to import about half its food, and a large proportion of the raw materials used in industry. Obviously it must export to finance such imports. But there is more to the problem of exports than this. This is because the 'balance of payments' - in which Britain's economic relationships with the world are summed up - is not simply a set of accounts. It involves the operation of powerful economic forces which place real constraints on the rate at which Britain can grow, and on the level of income and employment which it can sustain. It sets limits on the kinds of policies which can be adopted. As we shall sec, for an economy like Britain's, manufactured exports and imports play an <br />
<br />
GROWTH AND TRADE — COMPONENTS OF THE CRISIS • 45 <br />
important role within the balance of payments, which is why the growth failures and technological weaknesses - referred to above - have very disturbing implications for the future. But in order to depict the problem accurately, we need to look first at the meaning of the balance of payments and then at its mechanisms; then at the structure of British trade and the prospects for the future. <br />
<br />
In essence, the balance of payments records the purchases and sales of sterling and foreign currencies related to two kinds of transaction. The first are called 'current account' transactions; these refer to all imports and exports of goods (such as cars or machinery or food) and services (such as insurance sales or tourist activities). Goods and services are sometimes referred to as 'visibles' & and 'invisibles' respectively. The second type of transactions are called 'capital account' transactions; they refer to the shift of money into and out of Britain for the purchase of assets - shares, bonds, bank deposits, land, plant and equipment, etc. <br />
<br />
The ratio at which pounds exchange for other currencies within these transactions is, of course, the 'exchange rate'; it plays an im-portant part in keeping all of these transactions in balance, and every country must have some policy on how its exchange rate is fixed. There are in fact a range of possible exchange rate systems, each with different implications for the economy. One is a system of fixed, unalterable rates, such as the 'Bretton Woods' system which governed the advanced marker economics between the end of the Second World War and 1971. With this system governments fix a definite set of rates, which are changed only at long intervals; for most of the post-war period, for example, pounds exchanged with dollars at the fixed rate of $2.80 = £1, until 1967 when the pound was devalued to $2.40 = £1. In order to keep the rate stable, governments would hold large reserves of gold and foreign currencies, which in Britain were and are held in a special account in the Bank of England called the 'Exchange Equalization Account'. When, for example, Britain imported more than it exported it would need more foreign currency than it was currently earning to pay for the imports; the Bank of England would supply this by running down its reserves. Conversely, when Britain had a surplus of exports over imports, foreign buyers would need extra sterling to pay UK exporting firms; then the Bank <br />
<br />
46 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
would supply sterling in exchange for foreign currencies, which would go into the Exchange Equalization Account, thus increasing UK reserves. In this way the Bank ensured that the supply and demand of sterling and foreign currencies were always in balance at the going exchange rate, and the rate was thus fixed.<br />
<br />
At a polar extreme from the fixed-rate system is the 'floating-rate' regime. Here the government supplies neither sterling nor foreign currencies into the foreign exchange markets. In consequence, the supply of sterling into the market (from importers wanting to buy foreign currencies), and the demand for sterling (from foreign buyers of our exports, who need to change their money into pounds to pay UK companies for the goods), can be out of balance. This causes the exchange rate, which is the 'price' of sterling in terms of other currencies, to move. A surplus of exports over imports means a demand for sterling greater than the supply, and vice versa. Thus, in this system, the day-to-day exchange rate can fluctuate quite sharply. <br />
<br />
Apart from holding and using foreign currency reserves, there is one further way the government can affect the movement of currency (and hence, in the floating system, the exchange rate). This is by affecting capital movements through interest rates. A rise in interest rates will induce foreign investors to shift their capital to Britain, since they can now get a better return than elsewhere. This has the effect of increasing the reserves (with fixed rates), or pushing up the exchange rate (with floating rates). In principle, therefore, the government can keep the overall supply of, and demand for, sterling in balance by varying the basic interest rate: if there is a surplus on current account (exports are greater than imports) then it can lower the interest rate to produce a deficit on capital account (more capital goes out than comes in). If the capital account deficit exactly offsets the current account surplus, then there will be no change in either reserves or the exchange rate. <br />
<br />
At present, Britain operates a system which is somewhere between the fixed and floating-rate models - it is called a 'managed float'. The exchange rate is allowed to float, but the Bank of England intervenes with its reserves to iron out temporary fluctuations. in addition, interest rates also shift to stabilize the rate. So in any one year the balance of payments consists broadly of three items: <br />
<br />
GROWTH AND TRADE - COMPONENTS OF THE CRISIS • 47 <br />
- the current account balance; - the capital account balance; - the 'balance for official financing': i.e., the change in the reserves as a result of Bank of England intervention. The 'balance for official financing' is equal to the difference between the current and capital account balances; this means that by definition the whole thing sums to zero - the balance of payments really is a balance. In 1980, for example, the current account was in surplus to the tune of approximately £3 billion; the capital account was in deficit by<b> </b>£1.8 billion; and official financing - in this case involving additions to reserves - was approximately £1.2 billion. Net balance: zero. <br />
<br />
This particular accounting identity always holds true: the balance of payments is always in short-term balance, or 'equilibrium'. <br />
<br />
However, the problem of balance of payments equilibrium goes much further than this. Pearly, if Britain had a serious overall deficit, it could not finance this by running down the reserves over an indefinite period, simply because the Bank of England's foreign currency reserves are finite. Sooner or later they would run out. Then, if not before, the exchange rate would begin to depreciate or even collapse. In theory, this could in itself solve the problem of discquilibrium, since a falling exchange rate means that our exports are becoming cheaper and imports dearer; hence exports would rise and imports fall, and we would move back into basic balance. But this mechanism is by no means as certain as the textbooks tell us, and there would be formidable problems of adjustment (including falling real incomes) along the way. <br />
<br />
The upshot of all this is that the basic balance of payments - the current and capital accounts - must be kept broadly in equilibrium. Consequently, the British economy cannot develop in ways, nor can economic policies be adopted, which are incompatible with an underlying balance on our external accounts. We cannot, for example, allow the economy to grow if that growth produces large imbalances in our foreign trade. For a concrete example of the problems here, we can look back to the so-allied `stop-go' cycles of the 1950s and 1960s. This is not just a historical exercise: the basic difficulty it points up is still with us. <br />
<br />
<br />
48 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE STOP-GO CYCLE </span></h4>
For much of the 1950s and 1960s Britain was characterized by short bursts of expansion in economic activity, followed by bouts of contraction or recession: the 'stop-go' cycle, in which the 'stop' signal was a balance of payments problem. Typically, the cycle would run like this: for one reason or another - possibly to reduce unemployment - the government would attempt to expand the economy. Growth would be induced by raising demand through tax cuts, increases in public spending and so on. <br />
<br />
This would cause output to rise and unemployment to fall in Britain; consequently incomes would rise, consumer expenditure would rise, and so would spending by firms on raw materials and equipment. But as this happened, the 'external constraint' would begin to make itself felt. The problem was this: with given prices, Britain's exports are essentially determined - in the short term - by world demand, that is, by the level of world income. Imports, however, are determined by the level of income in Britain. So as the government expanded the economy, imports would grow faster than exports, because the world economy would not be matching Britain's short-term acceleration in growth. The result of imports outpacing exports was thus a balance of trade deficit, and a balance of payments crisis. The foreign currency reserves in the Bank of England would fall as Britain used more foreign currency to pay for imports than it earned from exports. The government effectively had only one response to this: to throw the gears into reverse, and slow down the rise in British income. It would, in a word, deflate the economy - reduce spending and incomes by increases in taxes, raise interest rates (which would have the effect of attracting foreign capital), and cut government expenditure, and so on. The 'stop-go' cycle was essentially a short-term process, and in the context of the 1950s and 1960s was not too serious, since both the world economy and the British economy were growing at record rates anyway. (It should be mentioned, perhaps, that the stop-go cycle cannot be held responsible for Britain's poor relative performance in those years, since other countries - such as West Germany - experienced the same problems, if anything in a more severe form). <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
GROWTH AND TRADE - COMPONENTS OF THE CRISIS 49 </div>
But the point of all this - and it is a very important one - is that there was (and is) an external constraint on British growth. It was simply not possible for Britain to grow at a faster rate than that which was compatible with balance of payments equilibrium. And this constraint could be extended to unemployment: Britain could not employ more workers than was consistent with external balance. Moreover, this external constraint is not confined to the short term: it also affects the long-run attainable rate of growth in the UK. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE LONG-RUN CONSTRAINT </span></h4>
In the long run, Britain faces a constraint which is analogous to that of the stop-go cycle. As the economy grows, demand for imports grows: some are demanded directly, as raw material inputs for pro-duction; others indirectly as people spend part of their growing incomes on imported goods. As this happens, exports must expand in order to maintain a basic balance of payments equilibrium. If this does not occur, then there will have to be a slowdown in growth, and a slowdown - or even contraction - in incomes and employment until external equilibrium is restored. This is the problem which policies of tariff protection - widely advanced by such people as Wynne Godley and the Cambridge Economic Policy Group - are meant to overcome. <br />
<br />
This problem of an external constraint, of course, confronts all of the successful industrial economies. How have they solved it? <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND EXPORT PERFORMANCE</span> </h4>
Here we must return to the process of economic growth, and outline the connection between it and a successful external performance. As we saw earlier, success in economic growth involves success in research and development, in the innovation of new products and processes, and involves directing these activities towards growing, high-demand markets. These markets need not be, indeed cannot be, exclusively home markets. On the contrary, export markets are necessary in order to recoup the large development costs typically associated with modern <br />
<br />
50 • TIIE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
innovation. But innovation of itself plays a large part in opening up these markets, since a great deal of international competition is not just price competition (though successful innovation does tend to lower prices) but is in the areas of quality and design. This is especially true in high-income countries. Thus it is resources devoted to innovation which open up the possibility of economic growth; but it is precisely the same thing which delivers success in export markets. The Japanese example is, by now, a rather trite one to deploy; but it is simply the most extreme case of a general phenomena. Cars, cameras, motorbikes, consumer electronics are all areas where the rewards for innovation and product quality are high; these rewards include the expansion of export markets, and by that fact the overcoming of the external constraint on growth. So the successful economies removed the external constraint by exporting the same innovation-based high technology manufactures which made their growth possible in the first place. Moreover the effects were cumulative. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CUMULATIVE GROWTH AND CUMULATIVE DECLINE </span></h4>
Economies which succeed in generating innovation-based growth, and in consequence a high-technology export pattern, can readily find themselves in a kind of spiral of success. Strong export performance and high growth generate the resources for investment in further innovative effort; this in turn produces further export and growth success, and the cycle can repeat itself. Again, this is particularly noticeable of Japan, but the pattern of innovation <b>→</b> export success <b>→</b> growth<b> → </b>further innovation is one which can be found in the export specialisms of a number of countries. We might call it a 'virtuous circle', as opposed to the converse 'vicious circle' of decline, which is equally possible: low growth and low incomes, feeding into low investment and innovation levels, further low growth and so on. <br />
<br />
Important consequences, for Britain, flow from such considerations. If this picture of the mechanisms of economic growth is correct, then Britain's low growth rates of output and productivity - which were traced in the previous chapter - cannot simply be shrugged off. This is because they imply that the technological frontier being set by <br />
<br />
GROWTH AND TRADE — COMPONENTS OF THE CRISIS • 51 <br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
the most advanced industrial economics is moving continuously <i>away from</i> the technological levels attained by the UK economy. If both high and low growth are cumulative, then Britain will be falling further and further behind; and because competitiveness at the level of the world economy means <i>technological </i>competitiveness, then the possibility emerges of Britain finding great difficulty in competing <i>at all</i>. The consequences of that, for a country like Britain, would be desperately serious. <br />
<br />
It may seem, of course, that this picture of cumulative decline and potential collapse is overdrawn. Yet it would account, for example, for the fact that Britain's performance, relative to other countries, has worsened over the 1970s.<b> </b>The fact that Britain has entered a period of absolute decline would accord with these ideas of a cumulative slide. Finally there are the recent trends in Britain's foreign trade position. Here the situation is very worrying: it seems to indicate that Britain is becoming systematically less able to survive in the world economy. The place of manufacturing and manufactured exports - precisely the products for which technological innovation is so crucial - are central here; and it is here, in the underlying trade position, that the real British crisis is to be found. </div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">BRITAIN'S TRADE STRUCTURE: THE EMERGING CRISIS </span></h4>
Now let us try to combine these ideas about growth and foreign trade to assemble a picture of the problems confronting Britain. First, we need to look at Britain's exports and imports of goods (visible trade) and services (invisibles), that is, at the items which make up the current account of the balance of payments. Three types of traded item are important: <br />
- raw materials, food and fuel; <br />
- manufactures; <br />
- 'invisibles': banking, insurance and so on. <br />
Since the first half of the nineteenth century, Britain has had a quite specific structure of trade in these categories. Firstly, it has run a large <i>deficit</i> in the first item: about half of food consumption, and a considerable volume of raw materials, are imported, while historically, <br />
<br />
52 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
exports in these areas have been small, hence a deficit. This deficit on raw materials has been offset by large surpluses in the other items, namely manufactures and invisibles. Overall, the current account was never actually an exact balance — it didn't need to be — but over a run of years this structure generated a rough balance. The general picture can be seen, for example, in the figures for 1972, a year selected more or less at random (see table 8). <br />
<br />
<i>Table 8. Current account balance, 1972 (£ million) </i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">- 1,498 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Food, beverages, tobacco </span>(deficit)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> <br />
- 811 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Basic materials </span>(deficit)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
- 707 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Mineral fuels and lubricants</span>(deficit)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
+ 457 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Semi-manufactured goods </span>(surplus)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> <br />
+ 1,688 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Finished manufactured goods </span>(surplus)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> <br />
<u>+ 123 Other <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">(surplus)</span></u></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">- 748 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Visible balance </span>(overall deficit) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u> </u><br />
+ 995 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Invisible balance </span>(surplus) </span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u> </u><br />
<u>+ 247 </u></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u>current balance </u></span>(overall surplus) </u></span><br />
<br />
Source <i>UK Balance of Payments 1983</i>, Tables 1.1 and 2.3. <br />
<br />
The offsetting deficits and surpluses can easily be seen; they have been an almost permanent fixture, in much this form, in Britain's peace-time external accounts for many years. <br />
<br />
Recently, however, things have changed. The first development has been a shift in emphasis for the direction of trade: the EEC has taken considerably more of our exports, and developing countries less. Much more important than this, however, has been the emergence of North Sea oil, which has turned Britain into a major exporter of oil, running large surpluses on the current account. As recently as 1976 the deficit on trade in oil was nearly £4bn but by 1980 there <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">GROWTH AND TRADE — COMPONENTS OP THE CRISIS </span></h4>
was a surplus of £273 million. The move from deficit to surplus on oil is one reason why the UK is now running a strong current account surplus. It was an unforeseen development, and moreover a very fortunate one indeed. It is fortunate for a very simple reason: it has come just in time to offset a precipitous worsening of the picture in one of the central categories of Britain's external accounts — in manufacturing. The surplus here which — with the surplus on 'invisibles' — has underpinned the UK's international position, has been eroding fast. Manufactured imports have been growing at a considerably faster rate than exports, and the result, inevitably, is a sharp decline in the trade balance in manufactures. In 1971 the value of Britain's manufactured exports was 97 per cent higher than that of manufactured imports; in pm it was 48 per cent higher; in 1980 it was 23 per cent higher. In 1983 Britain's manufacturing trade went into deficit. The trend is steadily downward, and the implication is clear: not only are British manufactured goods competing poorly in international markets, they are competing poorly against imports within Britain itself. The collapse in our manufacturing output — down 13 per cent since 1971 — is reflected in a collapse in our trade in manufactures. <br />
<br />
This would not matter if oil was a permanent fixture. But of course it is not: North Sea oil will reach its peak of production in the mid 1980s, and in the 1990s output will begin to decline. This particular item will be removed from Britain's balance of payments, and Britain will return to its historic position, of depending on manufactures. But the manufacturing output on which Britain will have to rely has disappeared. The consequence of Britain's failure to match the investment levels, the technological standards and the design skills of its competitors is the erosion of its industrial manufacturing base. The capacity to re-enter the world of technology-based manufacturing on the required scale is, as things stand, non-existent. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CONCLUSION </span></h4>
This, then, is the crisis which faces Britain. De-industrialization has undercut the foundations of the precarious structure of economic activities which is the British economy. This process has been masked <br />
<br />
54 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
by the discovery of oil, which has prevented the deterioration in manufactured trade from leading to a collapse of the exchange rate. But sooner rather than later the flow of oil which now sustains the balance of payments - and thus the living standards of Britain's people - will slow and then end. When that happens, the British economy as it now exists will become non-viable, since there seems little likelihood of Britain smoothly replacing exports of oil with exports of manufactures. The actual development of the situation, and its outcome, are virtually impossible to predict. But Britain will then face stark choices: it must either reconstruct its industrial base - a problem which will involve heavy investment expenditures, and thus considerable sacrifices in consumption and the living standards of Britain's people - or accept dramatically lower levels of real incomes as the exchange rate deteriorates. The following chapters trace the development of this impasse, before we move to some of the strategic questions of policy which must be faced if this crisis is to be overcome. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="color: red;">3 </span></i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<hr style="text-align: left;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="color: red;">The Long Decline </span></i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
The path of the British economy since the late nineteenth century has been one of persistent decline relative to its main industrial competitors. While the pace of the decline has altered from time to time, it has never in peace-time been arrested, let alone reversed. It is the background against which our current predicament should be viewed, for some - though not all - of our current problems are nothing more than the cumulative effects of that decline. And some - though not all - of the forces causing the decline are still at work in the modem UK economy. Understanding it, therefore, is a part of understanding our present malaise. The decline has had two main aspects. The first can be expressed in terms of the figures for national income (or the total value of goods and services produced annually in Britain), and the economic indicators associated with these figures. Since around 1880, Britain's rate of growth of national income has been significantly lower - often less than half- than those of its main competitors. At the same time, the growth rate of productivity (or output per worker) has been slower: again, often less than half those of competitor countries. The productivity measure is particularly important because it affects the overall growth rate, the competitiveness of British exports, and the incomes of the British population. Finally, Britain's share of world trade in manufactures has declined, from about<b> </b>40 per cent in 1880, to less than 7 per cent a century later. These disparities in growth rates meant that first Germany and the USA, then France, Japan, Scandinavia and a number of other economies began to grow at a faster pace than Britain, then to overtake and surpass British levels of income per person. In 1981 this group of countries included, for the first time, a socialist one, East Germany. <br />
<br />
56 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
In 1880, of course, Britain dominated the world economy, in production, in trade, and in finance. As other economies industrialized and grew, a decline from Britain's position of pre-eminence was entirely predictable. But it is important to be precise about what form that decline might be expected to take, for while some aspects of decline were inevitable, others were not. In the first place, as the world economy grew, and as world trade grew, Britain's share in world output and trade would clearly fall. Moreover, during the period of industrializing growth, as other economies reached towards Britain's income level, their growth rates would he higher than Britain's. If they were to attain British levels of productivity, then their growth rates of productivity would also be higher. This much could be expected. But a smaller share of world output and trade remains compatible with high levels of productivity and income. There is no reason why, in the process of world growth, Britain's levels of productivity and income should ultimately have fallen below those of other countries. In recent years, for example, Sweden's share of world output and trade has fallen, while its income and productivity levels remain among the highest in the world. Although it might be too much to expect a levelling out of growth rates and incomes in the advanced countries, large and increasing disparities would be un-expected, particularly in the case of Britain, an economy which had been at the frontier of industrial advance. Yet a gap in incomes and productivity not only emerged, it widened unceasingly over a long period; this was entirely unexpected and certainly was not inevitable. The end result has been that of the European 'industrial market economies' Britain has one of the lowest levels of productivity, and lowest levels of income per person. <br />
<br />
Accompanying this relative income decline, and in fact underlying it, is the second aspect of overall decline. It consists in a decline in the technological level of the economy, an inflexibility in responding to the direction and opportunities of technological advance. What is involved here is the problem raised in the previous chapter: the capacity of an economy to transform its industrial structure. Economic growth does not consist of simply performing the same economic activities on a larger scale. It involves not expansion, but change: the construction of new industries in response to changing patterns of <br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE • 57 <br />
demand and technological possibility, and the demise of old industries where the demand for their products is falling. Even where a product remains unchanged, it may be necessary to change the process of production in order to remain competitive and to survive. The capa-city for such change is an essential component of overall economic growth, and'of growth in incomes: British industry turned out to lack that capacity, at least in the degree required. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the structure of the advanced economies changed. New industries - such as chemicals, and electrical products - emerged, and old ones either disappeared or were transformed from within by new methods of production. To 'decline' in this context meant to stick with the old industries and old methods of production, and to develop the new only inadequately. This is precisely what happened in Britain. <br />
<br />
Before describing this process, however, something should be said about the effects of relative decline. Many have consoled themselves, over the past century or so, with the thought that relative decline means only that we are growing slower than others; it does not mean that we are not growing at all. If the total world economy is growing, then relative decline is quite compatible with an absolute improvement in output, exports, living standards and so on. In the period with which this chapter is concerned, from 1880 to the eve of the Second World War, per capita income in Britain increased by over 100 per cent, even though in other countries it was increasing faster. From 1880 to the First World War, Britain's share of world trade declined, but the actual volume of exports in fact doubled. Unfortunately these comforting thoughts can involve illusions, in a number of ways. The first problem is that relative decline, although compatible with growth, may indicate that the economy is not performing as well as it could. It may indicate inefficiency, wasted resources, possibilities for better results which are not being explored. In a country plagued, like Britain, with continuing problems of poverty, this possibility cannot lightly be ignored. Secondly, if the overall system begins to stagnate, as it has done in recent years, then relative decline can become absolute decline.<br />
<br />
Finally, and most importantly, consistent relative decline can impair the technological basis of the economy, and thus its entire future. If <br />
<br />
58 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
economic growth and technological change go hand in hand, then a poor growth performance indicates a low rate of technological change. Clearly, these aspects overlap each other and are cumulative: low growth = low level of technological transformation = further low growth, and so on. The point is that low relative growth can mean an emerging gap between the actual technological level of the economy, and the technological frontier set by the leading economies. If this gap becomes wide enough, then ultimately an inability to compete internationally may result; there may come a <i>'</i>critical point' in this process, beyond which absolute decline and industrial collapse set in. The account which follows describes some industrial aspects of Britain's relative decline. The overall process was very complex, being tied up, for example, with Britain's position as a foreign investor country, with the role of London as a financial centre and the role of sterling as a 'world currency', with government economic policies (which were often suicidally ill-chosen), and with the effects of trade wars and shooting wars. But for the time being these complexities will be put to one side, and the emphasis will be on what happened in Britain's industrial economy rather than why. This process of development and decline will be contrasted with the experience of other industrialized economies, particularly Germany. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE STRUCTURE OF BRITISH INDUSTRIALIZATION</span> </h4>
British economic growth really began in the late eighteenth century, and was ultimately spread across a wide range of industries and products. The so-called 'industrial revolution' actually had precious little that was industrial about it in a technological sense: it consisted to a great extent of changes in the organization and management of work, in new methods of marketing, finance and the control of enter-prises. Inside this broad wave of economic change and expansion, however, occurred a truly spectacular growth in a relatively few industries. These industries came to have a quite disproportionate weight in the economy as a whole, and particularly in exports. Morn British capital investment was concentrated in them, and their massive export success made possible a new economic structure based on the <br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE • 59 <br />
import of large quantities of raw materials and a major part of the nation's food supply. <br />
<br />
Since they were the bedrock of Britain's economic system, they have become known as the 'staple' industries. They were - in approximate order of appearance - coal, textiles (especially cotton), iron and steel, and engineering (especially shipbuilding, but also railway components and machine manufacture). <br />
<br />
Of these, probably the most important was the textile sector. From 1760, when the industry first began to expand, to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the value of output grew from around half a million pounds annually, to approximately £15 million. Throughout the nineteenth century this growth continued, at compound rates of between 3 and 6 per cent per year; the value of annual output topped £100 million in the late 1860s. By a judicious combination of economic efficiency and military/political force the few serious competitors were destroyed, and major international markets were opened up. From the start the industry was export oriented. In 1830 no less than so per cent of all British exports were cotton textiles. This declined gradually to just under 25 per cent by the eve of the First World War (which even so remains a remarkable percentage for only one commodity group). Within the industry, the proportion of output sold abroad was even more striking: in the early 1820s about half of industry output was exported, but by the beginning of the twentieth century this had risen to 80 per cent. The significance of all this is perhaps obvious. Levels of employment in the cotton industry were heavily dependent on continued success in export markets, so was-the balance of trade as a whole, and so were those 'ancillary' industries whose fortunes were in some way linked with cotton (either because they sold inputs to the industry, or because they sold things to cotton workers). The expansion of coal output during this period was almost as striking. Between 1800 and 1830 output doubled (from it to 22 million tons). In the next fifteen years it doubled again, and this dramatic growth was maintained: by 1913 production was almost 300 million tons per year, and nearly a million men were employed in the pits. Once again, exports were an important component of sales, rising from 2 per cent of output in 1800 to over 30 per cent by 1913. <br />
<br />
60 • THE. BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
This first wave of growth in the staple industries was succeeded, in the mid nineteenth century, by a second phase of industrialization. This time it involved not just Britain, but other European economies and the United States. The new phase was not simply a prolonged economic boom - lasting from about 1850 to the mid 1870s - it was also an important structural shift. The pivot of the shift was metal: in particular, the development of major stet capacity, and of industries using steel (such as shipbuilding, railways and machines). Even when growth rates began to slow down towards the end of the century, expansion in these industries continued: European steel output increased by no less than eighty-three times between 1870 and 1913. In Britain, production of pig iron grew from 2.75 million tons in the early 1850s, to nearly to million tons by 1907; and by the end of the period so per cent of output was being exported. Steel output grew even faster, from just over 300,000 tonnes in 1871 to nearly 8 million in 1913. And similar dramatic increases can be traced in the iron and steel using industries, shipbuilding in particular. <br />
<br />
This story of growth in the staple industries is, of course, a familiar one, for it forms the centrepiece of most accounts of the industrial revolution. As I pointed out earlier, the emphasis on the 'industrial' aspects of Britain's economic transformation is in some ways over-done, for many industries retained handicraft methods of production, with very few indeed using steam power or mechanized techniques. Economic growth in this period extended into most sectors of the economy, including such non-industrial activities as agriculture. Yet there remains an important justification for focusing mainly on the staple industries. This is that these industries absorbed an enormous amount of investment, provided the bulk of Britain's export earnings, the majority of manufacturing employment, and were in many ways the driving force of Britain's economic growth. As the British economy entered the twentieth century, these four industries provided a quarter of all employment, 40 per cent of all output, and three-quarters of all exports. The structure of British industry was therefore highly unbalanced, concentrated on only four industrial sectors. The fact that the advanced sector of the economy had such a very narrow basis meant that, although the staples were vital to the overall performance of the UK economy, they made Britain intensely vulnerable to <br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE • 61 <br />
shifts in the pattern of world trade. Such shifts might occur because of the declining importance of Britain's 'basic' industries, or because of the rise of competitive pressures within them. Failure or decline in even one of the staple industries might have serious effects not only on employment and incomes within it, but also on export earnings; and through this there might be serious impacts on a wide range of incomes and jobs in Britain. Should any of these industries face significant difficulties, it would have been essential for the British people to develop new industries to take their place. In fact this problem was not an abstract one, but a real development: by the late nineteenth century difficulties in the staple industries were not just appearing, they were accumulating. <br />
<h4>
<span style="color: red;">THE COMPETITIVE CHALLENGE </span></h4>
In terms of world trade in the staple products, two kinds of problem had to be faced in the late nineteenth century; more precisely, two forms of competition. The first of these was within the domestic markets of the other developing industrial economies. Their economic growth obviously meant the expansion of their own industries, often on the basis of imported British machines and even British workers. In many eases they developed textile industries first, but soon followed up with iron and steel, machines and so on. American and German textile, steel and engineering firms emerged. France and Italy began less vigorous but still significant industrialization, while in the east the nascent Japanese textile sector embarked on a rapid expansion. The initial impact of these industries was<b> </b>felt, naturally enough, in their own home markets. But for Britain, these were export markets: the development of an Italian textile industry, for example, selling to its own domestic market, would inevitably mean a contraction of British exports unless other markets could be found. This was the first type of competitive problem. <br />
<br />
However, it was the second type of competition which held greater dangers, for it concerned the finding of 'other markets'. In their own markets the emergent foreign industries had certain intrinsic advantages which meant that they could sell their products even if they did not match British levels of efficiency: the protection of tariffs, for <br />
<br />
62 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
example, and lower transport costs. However, if they could match British costs of production, then their goods would be cheap enough to compete with British goods elsewhere, in 'third country' markets. This might be achieved through the use of a more advanced technology, or through better management, or cheaper labour, or a combination of these factors. Moreover such a challenge might be thrown out by a number of economies simultaneously, and thus could be world-wide in scope. It could erode Britain's share not only of the domestic markets of other industrializers, but also of the expanding markets of the European periphery, of Australasia, of Latin America. These were vital to<b> </b>continued British export success, and ultimately to the pattern and rate of economic growth in Britain. This second form of competitive challenge to the British economy was potential in 1870. By 1900 it was real. <br />
<br />
Let us take, as an example, the iron and steel industry. In 1870 Britain was the leading producer by far, turning out five times more pig iron and over twice as much steel as Germany, its nearest European rival. But the German industry began to expand, taking over its home market, and towards the late nineteenth century its growth accelerated. Between 1893 and 1913 its production of pig iron grew at nearly 7 per cent per year, compared to less than 1 per cent growth in Britain. At the same time German steel output grew at 8.3 per cent per year, as opposed to 3.6 per cent in Britain. More significant than these growth disparities, however, was the fact that German growth was based on larger plants and the most modern processes, while the doubling of British output over the same period involved no major new technical processes. In 1870 British plants had been consistently larger than those of Germany. By the turn of the century, however, the position had been reversed: new German steel plants were typically three to four times the size of new British plants, and the output of the average mill in Westphalia was equal to that of the biggest mills in Britain. At the name time the US industry was growing fast, also on the basis of larger plants. These size differences were important, for they led to so-called 'scale economies'. These occur in a number of industries: as the scale of output grows, the plant becomes more efficient, and costs per unit <br />
of output therefore fall. This is because <br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE • 63 <br />
of, for example, economies in the use of fuel, or in the handling of bulk raw materials. The possibilities for such economies were aggressively explored in the German industry, and successfully put into practice. To give just one example of the order of the economies involved, it has been pointed out that, in post-smelting processes, British plants used over seven times more coal per ton of output than their German counterparts. <br />
<br />
The result of all this, for the German industry, was cheaper steel. Between 1883 and 1910 German steel prices fell by 50 per cent; British prices were up to a third higher. Inevitably the cheaper prices of the German industry led to increased demand which promoted further growth. In 1893 German steel output was for the first time greater than that of Britain; by 1913 it was two and a quarter times as great. By 1910 German exports of iron and steel were larger than Britain's. They were penetrating markets - such as Australia, Southern Africa, Canada - which had hitherto been regarded as a British preserve. German steel was even selling rather well in Britain itself. <br />
<br />
This pattern of foreign production, then foreign competition, leading to a falling UK share of world trade, can be traced as a gradual but inexorable development in the other staple industries. In 188o, for example, Japanese firms such as Mitsui and Co. began importing cotton spinning machines from the Lancashire firm of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platt_Brothers">Platt and Co</a>. They produced cotton themselves, and acted as an agent, selling the machines to other firms. Soon Japan no longer imported textile manufactures. By the late 1890s it was successfully exporting to the Asian markets which had until then been dominated by Britain. (As a postscript, it might be added that in the 1980s Mitsui is busy consolidating its position as one of the largest companies in Japan and indeed the world; in 1982 Platt's went bankrupt.) Developments such as these, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, produced sharp changes in the shares of world trade of the major industrialized economies. Britain's share began the downward trend from which it has never permanently recovered, as table 9 indicates. <br />
<br />
64 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS<br />
<i>Table 9. Share of World Trade in Manufactures (%) </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1883 1913 <br />
17.2 23.0 Germany <br />
3.4 11.0 USA <br />
37.1 25.4 Britain </span> <br />
Source: D. H. Altkroll and H. W. Richardson, <i>The British Economy 1870-1939</i>, London, 1969, p 154<br />
<br />
At the same time the rate of growth of industrial production and productivity was slowing quite significantly in Britain. From the early nineteenth century, industrial output had grown at rates of between 35 and 40 per cent per decade; this growth slowed to under 25 per cent in the 1870s, then to only 16 per cent the following decade. A slight recovery in the 1890s was followed by a further slowing of growth in the early twentieth century; 9 per cent growth in the first decade was followed by a 5 per cent fall in the second (under the destructive impact of the war). The overall growth rate of net national product from 1899 to 1924 was only 0.5 per cent per year: Britain had entered a period of stagnation.<br />
<br />
It seems natural to ask about the relation between the weakening export performance and the slowdown in growth. There are those who attribute the deceleration in growth to falling demand for British exports; on the other hand it is possible to argue that it was the other way around, that emerging weaknesses in British industry were gen-erating export failures. However, to put the problem in terms of one-way causal relationships like this seems misleading, since growth and export performance are clearly interrelated. Poor industrial performance in terms of growth and productivity is likely to affect the prices and quality of output, which in turn will certainly inhibit export sales. At the same time, restricted export markets will reduce overall demand and profitability, which may reduce the desire and ability of firms to invest in new plant and new techniques; this will further limit performance, and at worst the whole process can become cumulative. <br />
<br />
It should be said at once that export performance is affected by <br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE 65<br />
many things other than the technical efficiency of particular industries and the quality of their products. The rate of growth of the world economy, the level and composition of domestic demand, and the structure of exchange rates can all exert a big impact on export sales. However, the efficiency and technological level of industry remains a central issue, and a weakening export performance is an indication that something may be seriously wrong in this area. It was this which, at the turn of the century, began to give rise to increased concern in Britain, and to widespread discussion in the press, in Parliament, and elsewhere. The principal issue bothering those who thought about it at the time was an apparently increasing technological gap opening up between Britain on the one hand, and Germany and the United States on the other. In part their success was built upon substantial technical advances within the staple industries on which Britain depended so heavily: in those countries such industries were transformed from within, while in Britain they remained static and rigid in their technical structure. However, these technical gaps within the staple industries were only a part of the problem. The competitive problems for Britain within the existing industrial structure were being overshadowed by another development, which was ultimately to be of greater significance. This was a shift in importance between industries, a change in the structure of the industrial economy as a whole. In the face of this new transition, the UK economy once again appeared rigid and inflexible. The problems of decline were multiplying. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY</span> </h4>
The advanced capitalist economies are characterized by relentless technical development and large-scale transitions. The process of industrialization and the growth of the staple industries was itself such a transition, away from an earlier capitalist economy dominated by handicraft manufactures, by woollen textiles, and by agriculture. In the late nineteenth century a new phase of transition began, as new and dynamic industries emerged. These became the leading echelons of twentieth century industrial advance. They are often described as 'science-based' industries, though this can be misleading since the <br />
<br />
66 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
relationships between science and industry are far from direct. Nevertheless, they all bear a distinct relation with research and development skills, and most of them - both products and the processes by which they were made - depended on new R & D techniques and institutions. Many of them also required large-scale and long-term finance, and a degree of industrial coordination between firms. The most important of the new industries were chemicals, electrical engineering and vehicles. Around them were ranged an array of subordinate but also important industries, such as glass, precision instruments, optical devices, and so on. In the first two of these industries - chemicals and electrical products - and ultimately in the third, vehicles, the German economy proved outstandingly successful, while Britain barely rose to the challenge of the transition. Where it did, the results were often incomplete, or in some way at odds with the main tendencies of twentieth century industrial development. The first stages in the transformation were felt in the German chemicals industry. They began with the unglamorous and seemingly unexciting product of textile dyestuffs, which had previously bccn based on such natural products as cochineal, but which were now the outcome of chemical processes. German firms rapidly secured dominance within the product group: by 1880 they held 50 per cent of the market throughout the world. Within twenty years this had risen to 90 per cent, and a number of the major German firms had gone multinational. The significance of this, in the words of the historian David Landes, lay in the fact that dyestuffs 'were only one corner of a new world: the scientific principles that lay behind artificial colourants were capable of the widest application'.[1] These principles were exploited in the development of an enormous range of products, from explosives, to film, to artificial fabrics and ultimately to the first plastics. In all of these products German firms were pioneers in development. The British chemical industry, by contrast, was not only smaller but less innovative, being oriented around the production of much less sophisticated products, such as soap, bleach and the earlier types of dyestuffs. By the beginning of the First World War the German chemical industry was undisputed. world <br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE • 67 <br />
leader in an industry which was becoming increasingly central to the operations of the industrial economies. <br />
<br />
Similarly impressive were German achievements in electrical engineering. The world-wide growth of this industry was staggering by any standards. In 1880 the German electrical industry consisted of less than two thousand people, working mainly on telegraphic equipment. In Britain at the same time, numbers were roughly comparable, with something under one thousand workers. Neither country possessed a public power station or a grid, and anyway there was no commercially feasible light bulb, let alone domestic electrical equipment. Sixty years later both countries were covered by unified power grids; Germany was generating 60 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, and Britain 33. Over 140,000 people were employed in the German industry by 1907. <br />
<br />
But although the industries developed rapidly in each country, they did not develop in an equivalent way. It is worth quoting Landes once again, on the growth of, first, the electrical supply industry, and then electrical manufacturing: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Here, as in chemicals, the most striking achievements occurred in Germany. The parallels are numerous: the belated start, the rapid rise based on tech-nological excellence and on rational organisation, the concentration of pro-duction, the strong position on the world market ... Even more impressive was the German eltxtrical manufacturing industry. It was the largest in Europe - more than twice as big as that of Britain - and second only by a small margin to that of the United States. The firms, as in the chemical industry, were large well-financed enterprises, strongly supported by the capital market and the great investment banks ... Their products were in-genious, solidly made, competitively priced; financial support made possible generous credit to customers. As a result, German exports on the eve of the war were the largest in the world, more than two and one-half times the United Kingdom total, almost three times the American [2]</blockquote>
German exports made up, in fact, half of all world trade in electrical goods. And it is in the changing pattern of trade that the new industrial transition can be seen reflected. In table 10, which shows the composition of exports by Britain and Germany, the breakdown is a fairly crude one, yet it clearly indicates important differences in industrial emphasis. <br />
<br />
<br />
68 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<i>Table 10. Composition of exports by commodity group, on (%) </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
UK Germany<br />
13.3 11.0 Coal <br />
16.7 28.9 Metals <br />
l0.0 17.7 Machinery <br />
6.1 4.2 Transport equipment <br />
5.1 14.4 Chemicals <br />
48.8 23.9 Textiles <br />
</span><br />
Source: A. Levine<i>, Industrial Retardation in Britain</i>, 1880-1914, London, 1967, p. 35 <br />
<br />
The most notable thing, perhaps, about this table is the way in which British exports remained so overwhelmingly dependent on textiles - nearly half of all exports - and on coal and metals. All of these industries were, as noted above, intensely vulnerable to foreign competition. The German export structure, on the other hand, placed far more emphasis on the new growth sectors, on steel, chemicals and machinery (which in table to includes electrical equipment). Within these categories, German performance was far superior. In chemicals, for example, Britain's exports, in the words of one historian, 'consisted largely of older products produced with older technology' [3] while in such 'new industries' as electrical goods, scientific instruments and so on, British exports made up well under 3 per cent of export earnings. <br />
<br />
Britain's declining share of world trade, outlined in table to above, thus consisted of two quite separate processes. The first was an increasingly poor performance in the old 'staple' industries. The second was a failure to construct adequately the new industries whose importance was growing at the beginning of the twentieth century. This latter problem played a large part both in weakening export performance and slowing growth. <br />
<br />
Once again, it should be emphasized that the world economy and world markets were growing at that time. So British products and industries were not wiped out by their competitive failures; on the contrary, output and exports grew, but at a slower pace than Britain's main competitors, and slower than the world average of industrialized <br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE • 69 <br />
countries. Table 11 indicates this, and shows also that the differences were quite marked. <br />
<br />
<i>Table 11: Production and exports of manufactures </i><br />
(volume in 1911-13 as percentage of volume in 1881-5) <br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Production Exports <br />
162 775 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">UK </span><br />
363 290 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Germany </span><br />
377 537 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">USA </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1</span>0 239 </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">World average </span><br />
Source: <i>I. Svesmilson, Growth and Stagnation in the European Economy</i>, Geneva, 1951, p. 219. <br />
<br />
However, although the British economy was growing, it was entering a new economic era with an industrial structure still organized around the main activities and technologies of the previous industrial phase. In the face of an increasingly sophisticated industrial challenge, British industries and enterprises had three broad strategics available. The first was simply to do nothing: to accept exclusion from an increasing number of world markets, to become an essentially marginal supplier of manufactures. The second was to retain the existing structure of industries, but to seek markets in which Britain had a built-in advantage. In practice this could only mean Empire markets. The third strategy was to engage in major programmes of reinvestment, modernization and technical change. British manufacturers essentially accepted the first of these alternatives, though with growing world trade in manufactures the conse-quences were not fully apparent until after the First World War. However, one immediate result was that British exporters did not share fully in the major growth of the European and American markets in the pre-war period (and after the war Britain's already declining share collapsed utterly). To some extent, the second strategy came into play: British exports to the Empire steadily expanded, from about 30 per cent of UK exports in the mid nineteenth century, to nearly 45 per cent in the mid 1930s. Moreover some of the staple industries - particularly <br />
<br />
70 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
textiles and iron and steel - depended on Empire markets even more heavily than these numbers indicate. Yet even here, British performance was surprisingly weak. In one group of fifteen manufactured goods, for example, British exports to the Empire increased by 91 per cent between 1895 and 1907. Yet in the same period German and US exports of the same goods to the same Empire countries increased by no less than 129 and 359 per cent respectively. <br />
<br />
More significant for the future was the strategy of re-equipment and structural change which was not adopted. Its absence meant that the British economy faced an incipient crisis of exports and growth. Two things masked the underlying problems. The first was improvements in the terms of trade, or the relationship between export and import prices. Prices of imports over this period became cheaper, which meant that Britain could afford to pay for more imports with a given quantity of exports. In practical terms, this meant a rise in the standard of living, as the prices of, for example, foodstuffs fell, even though export performance was not good. The second factor was the astonishingly large investment incomes being earned by Britain's wealthy investors abroad. Between the 1850s and 1913, the interest and dividends received in Britain from British investments abroad were substantially greater than the total net outflow of investment funds; this overall inflow of funds enabled Britain to import quantifies of goods which would have been out of the question if financed by exports alone. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE FIRST WORLD WAR: CRISIS AND REORGANIZATION</span> </h4>
We have seen in the previous section that British economic per-formance in the forty years before the First World War was characterized by an increasingly weak performance in the old staple industries, compounded by the non-development of the new, research-based industries which were growing rapidly elsewhere. Inevitably, the economic demands of the First World War forced substantial industrial changes. It was a matter of more than embarrassment when it emerged that the dyes for British army uniforms were imported from Germany. And the German lead in <br />
<br />
THE. LONG DECLINE • 71 <br />
chemicals - and in consequence, explosives - clearly had to be cut back. <br />
<br />
The government faced formidable economic problems. Firstly, there was the difficulty of organizing any production at all in the context of a severely restricted labour supply. Over five million men were called up in the course of the war, and it became necessary for the government to intervene heavily in the allocation of labour to industry, and in the training and employment of women workers. Secondly, there was the problem of ensuring that resources went to the right industries: that luxury goods production, for example, did not grab inputs needed for munitions and so on. Thirdly, there was the problem of creating industries which either did not exist, or which were too small for the needs of war. Finally, the population had to be fed. <br />
<br />
These problems were all successfully solved through an increasingly complex system of government control and intervention. The government ended up rejecting decisively the frenetic calls to fight the war with 'business as usual', with which the war had opened. First, it took control of imports and exports, and of a large proportion of British shipping. Next, and perhaps most importantly, came the munitions industry. Government direction here involved not just the manufacture of arms and ammunition, but complete control of raw material supply and purchase, of all ancillary industries, and even of the manufacture of the necessary tools. By the end of the war the ministry had organized a major supply process involving three and a half million workers, and over twenty thousand production establishments. This effort was a formidable achievement, and arguably the basis of eventual military victory, if victory is the appropriate word. But it was certainly an economic success, as the official history of the Ministry of Munitions pointed out: 'the practical application (of control) to munitions and non-munitions industries, aided by the control of materials and the operation of the priority principle, resulted in an enormous increase in output, more efficient industries and great economies of production' . At the same time, the government engaged in a wide range of other economic activities. Some of them, as Professor Sidney Pollard has indicated, were of epoch-making significance: <br />
<br />
72 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Scientific research, for example, unduly neglected by British industrialists, was stimulated by the government which set up in July 1915 a department to promote scientific research in industry ... The discovery of applied science by British industry may be said to have dated from those years, though it was still in an embryonic state.[4]</blockquote>
And the government was instrumental in establishing such industries as ball hearings, scientific instruments and modem chemical products, tungsten manufacture and so on. It also played, for obvious reasons, the central role in the expansion and modernization of the tiny aircraft industry, and in the rapid growth of car and truck production. It controlled imports rigorously, and marketed about 8o per cent of all food sold in Britain, which was done through a controlled price system which prevented profiteering and contained inflation; purely in terms of nutrition, the British population survived the war in much better shape than the German. Economic and industrial achievements such as these were surely the only positive result of a period which was otherwise one of unremitting horror. Britain entered the war with an outdated industrial structure. It emerged from it, despite the economic chaos of the post-war world economy, with at least some of the technical basis for modernization. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">WASTE, TURMOIL, RECOVERY: THE INTER-WAR YEARS </span></h4>
The economic control system of the war had unequivocally succeeded, and one might think that the problems of reconstruction could have been tackled with the same administrative apparatus (or at least some version of it). Certainly the problems facing the post-war economy justified the term 'emergency'. Yet, in the words of one economic historian, "contrary to the explicit intentions of the War Cabinet and the Ministry of Reconstruction, the controls were frenetically disbanded by Lloyd George's government elected in 1919" [5] Britain was returned post-haste to the free-market, <i>laissez-faire</i> economics of the pre-war period. This happened, however, in an infinitely more hostile economic environment. Nevertheless, against heavy odds, new industries began to emerge in the post-war world. The economy finally began the transition into <br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE • 73 <br />
modernity: unfortunately it did so in an incomplete way, producing a curious mixture of success and failure. <br />
<br />
For the first time, the 'new industries' came to have a significant weight in the economy. The motor vehicle industry, for example, began a dramatic expansion, doubling its number of workers between 1923 and 1938. In 1913 Britain had produced about 34,000 cars and trucks; this reached nearly 150,000 by the mid 1920s, and no less than 493,000 vehicles in 1937. This was nearly a quarter of the net output of the entire engineering sector. During this period also the chemicals industry expanded and was reorganized, with the formation of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Chemical_Industries">ICI</a> in 1926 out of a myriad of smaller, uncoordinated companies, the bits and pieces which had hitherto comprised the industry. It rapidly moved into new products and processes, to become a major success. Entirely new products, such as artificial fibres and fabrics (meaning essentially viscose, or 'artificial silk'), emerged, to become the basis of large-scale companies - such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtaulds">Courtaulds</a> - and industries. And between the wars the electrical engineering industry more than doubled its size, employing nearly 350,000 people by 1938. All of these 'new industries' grew rapidly in the 1930s, both in terms of output and employment. Yet against this expansion had to be set stagnation if not outright collapse in the old staple industries. Output in textiles, shipbuilding and mining grew very slowly, and employment fell. The massive unemployment in these industries in the early 1930s was only the worst phase of a prolonged depression. Recovery came only in the late 1930s, and even then was weak (with the exception of steel: but its sharper recovery was entirely due to rearmament demand, and was facilitated by high tariff protection). The collapses were in part caused by a general decline in the level of world trade, and the wider use of tariff barriers around the world. But they were exacerbated by the way in which low productivity in Britain inhibited the ability of these industries to compete. One historian has spoken recently of <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
differences in productivity between British and foreign industries of such an order to be unattributable to statistical error. For 1936 ... in relation to the corresponding British industries, physical productivity per man in German coalmines and coke ovens was so per cent higher, in cotton spinning, rayon and silk between 20 per cent and 23 per cent higher, and in blast </blockquote>
<br />
74 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
furnaces, steel smelting and rolling between to and 20 per cent higher. Comparative figures for the USA were even more striking: productivity was substantially higher in all US industries and enormously higher in some, with a maximum difference of 200 per cent for blast furnaces.[6] </blockquote>
To a certain extent, dependence on the staple industries for export receipts declined, from 42 per cent of export earnings in 1929 to 37 per cent in 1937. But the volume of exports in 1937 was only 77 per cent of the 1929 figure, which indicates the seriousness of the collapse of the staple exports. This led, of course, to serious unemployment in those industries; in each of them, unemployment at least doubled between 1929 and 1931, and was slow to recover. In coal, over 40 per cent of the workforce was unemployed; in iron and steel about half; and in shipbuilding about 60 per cent were out of work. Since the average level of unemployment for the whole country, at the bottom of the slump in 1931, was 22 per cent, it can be seen that the old staple industries bore the brunt of the depression. Unemployment in Britain was therefore not just an effect of a major world recession; it was also the price to be paid for the concentration of industrial resources in mines, mills and shipyards - 'unwanted places', in Professor Sayer's words [7] — producing products which were of declining industrial importance and, moreover, doing so inefficiently. Growth in the 'new industry' products ameliorated but did not offset this collapse.<br />
<br />
Overall industrial development during the inter-war period was therefore a complex mixture of success and failure: success in actually generating new industries, failure in either improving the performance of the old, or in having the new grow fast enough to absorb the masses of unemployed thrown out by the contraction of the staple industries. Despite the expansion of the chemicals industry, for example, by 1938 it was still employing less than half the number of workers who had been employed in the German industry before the First World War (and this was only partly the result of labour-displacing technical improvements). <br />
<br />
Furthermore there were potentially serious problems within the new industries, likely to inhibit their competitiveness, export performance and indeed whole future. These were to do with their technological level and the technical character of their products. The <br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE • 75 <br />
future of these industries lay in mass markets, in high-volume production, in innovation both in the products themselves and in the process of their production. This in turn placed a premium on design, where new standards were required which could link high quality with cheapness and large-scale production. But in many of the British 'new industries' another route was taken. In cars, for example, the market was restricted to the well-off, largely because of a very uneven distribution of income in the society as a whole. In 1938 there were 39 cars per 1,000 inhabitants in the UK; in the USA it was 194. This led car producers to aim not at a mass market, but at high-quality specialization: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In 1939 the six leading British producers, making roughly 350,000 private ears, turned out more than 40 different engine types and an even greater number of chassis and body models, which was considerably more than the number offered by the three leading producers in the US, making perhaps 3,500,000 cars [8] </blockquote>
At the same time German production, though initially lower than the British, was growing faster and on the basis of mass-market, low-priced cars. Its methods were exemplified by the Volkswagen 'beetle', a type which eventually sold 20 million world-wide. In Britain, be-cause car ownership was so restricted, it came - as so many things do in Britain - to be tied up with social status. This meant that it could be positively dangerous to produce a low-priced car, as Ford found to their cost in the 1930s: 'nobody wanted to keep down with the Joneses', as some recent commentators remarked of one Ford failure.[9] <br />
<br />
Similar problems of design and method and market strategy can be found in other 'new industries'. Employment in electrical engineering doubled, it is true; but so did the level of imports into the UK, particularly from the USA. In terms of design, quality and price British radios, vacuum cleaners and so on were little match for the American competition. The flood of imports was only stemmed in 1932 with the introduction of protective tariffs; unfortunately, while these did protect employment in the industry, they also sheltered its limitations in terms of design, quality and production. <br />
<br />
76 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CONCLUSION</span></h4>
This chapter has been concerned with what happened in the UK industrial economy between 1870 and the late 1930s, rather than why it happened. Some explanations will be considered in later chapters; for the time being, what matters is the course of British economic development, not the reasons for it. Two broad trends have been identified. The first is a weak growth performance, both in terms of output and productivity. This is true both in relation to Britain's own historical record, and also in comparison with its major trading rivals. Table 12 tells the story to the eve of the First World War. <br />
<br />
<i>Table 12. Long-term growth rates, 1870/1 - 1913 (% per year) </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Industrial Industrial Exports<br />
production productivity (18<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">8</span>0-1913) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">2.1 0.6 2.2 UK<br />
4.7 1.5 3.2 USA<br />
4.1 2.6 4.3 Germany<br />
3.1 n/a 2.6 France</span><br />
Source: D. H. Aldcroft, ed.,<i> The Development of British Industry. and Foreign Competition </i>1875-1914, London, 1968, p. <br />
<br />
The trends visible in this table were continued after the war, as the USA recovered in the mid 1930s, and as Germany reflated its economy vigorously, behind tariff barriers, after Hitler's accession to power. <br />
<br />
The second trend, far less easily captured in figures, was a rigidity in the face of technological change. The British economy did not respond with the flexibility and vision necessary to take advantage of new technological opportunities, and thereby to solve — or help to solve — its competitive and employment problems. 'Britain's industrialisation process, was exceptional,' as two historians recently pointed out, 'as one in which there was a period (two or three decades after 1870) when the birth rate of new industries in the British economy was very low indeed."[10] And when those industries finally emerged, their growth was in many ways restricted, and their<br />
<br />
THE LONG DECLINE • 77 <br />
developmcnt inadequate. It was this rigidity, combined with the non-modernization of the old staple industries, which underlay Britain's relatively poor growth performance. <br />
<br />
It should be pointed out that there has been a major debate in recent years, among economic historians, over whether or not the British economy 'failed' in some sense in the late nineteenth century. Was its performance due, for instance, to a failure by entrepreneurs to recognize and exploit new opportunities in products and processes? Was there a failure by the banking system or by investors in the providing of industrial finance? There are some influential economic historians who take the view that, given Britain's particular circumstances (its available resources, its inherited industrial structure, the world economic context) it is unreasonable to expect anything other than what happened. They reject the idea, therefore, that anyone should be blamed for what happened. But even the strongest proponents of this view accept that the consequences of what happened were serious: they accept that, 'with the benefit of hindsight we can sec that twentieth century Britain has paid a considerable price for the industrial concentration that led to the export of a few commodities to relatively few markets by the eve of the First World War ... the loss to the economy was enormous.' [11] <br />
<br />
The long-term significance of the industrial rigidity of the British economy, and the decline which it generated, lay not just in the unemployment and misery of the 1930s, tragic and pointless though they were. It lay in the fact that the industrial structure developed at that time, with all its inadequacies and failures, was the basis for the next phase of development: that of the Second World War and its aftermath. Though British economic performance was to improve dramatically, it remained handicapped by its industrial heritage, and indeed was to continue to repeat the errors of a previous generation. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i>4</i></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i> </i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><hr />
</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"> <span style="color: red;"><i>The Post-War Boom</i></span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
The post-war economic era, for the advanced economics of Europe and North America, divides into two distinct phases. The first runs from about 1950 to 1973: a phase of full employment, relatively low inflation and of sustained economic growth at un-precedentedly high rates. Then the 1970s ushered in a period of much more hesitant growth, of high inflation and unemployment: an experience in marked contrast to that of the previous quarter of a century. This chapter deals with the factors underlying the post-war boom; it discusses the main areas of expansion which motivated it, and then moves on to consider Britain's performance during those years. Two central points will emerge. The first is that the boom will not easily be recreated; in fact it may have gone for good. The second is that, in Britain's performance in those years, we can clearly discern major problems in industrial performance and technological development. We arc living with the legacy of these problems. Much of the following discussion is inevitably in outline form, for our under-standing of both the boom and the stagnation/inflation recession which followed it is at a very preliminary stage. But the main lines of development can certainly be identified.<br />
<br />
The boom itself was far from inevitable. Few, at the end of the Second World War, can have foreseen the path of economic development which lay ahead for Western Europe. Where the economies were not in physical ruins, they faced enormous problems of conversion from war production. Where there were not ghastly scenes of hunger and deprivation, there were seemingly intractable difficulties in creating jobs for the demobilized millions of men and women. It would have been a rash economist indeed who predicted a future of prosperity and full employment emerging from this post-war chaos. <br />
THE POST-WAR BOOM • 79 <br />
And indeed, most economists held out little hope, feeling that the best which could be achieved would be an avoidance of the grim years of instability and depression which had followed the First World War. In Britain, influenced by policy ideas coming from Keynes and his associates, the government had committed itself (in a 1944 White Paper called 'Employment Policy') to policies aimed at maintaining 'a high and stable level of employment'. But what did this objective of, 'full employment' actually mean? Most, including Keynes himself, thought it would involve at least 5 per cent of the workforce permanently out of work, and few gave much for the prospects for growth. The actual outcome was, of course, very different from such gloomy prognoses. There followed a quarter of a century of rapid growth at rates which had never before been achieved by capitalist economies. As we saw in Chapter 1 the European economies expanded at about 5 per cent per year. Over the whole post-war period to 1973 this meant a doubling of annual output every 14 years, or a staggering 400 per cent increase in incomes in about one generation. Japan, especially from the late 1950s, grew even faster. There were many sceptics when Prime Minister Ikeda announced a plan to double income in ten years, with a projected annual growth rate of 7.2 per cent. In fact, from 1959 to the early 1970s, the Japanese economy grew at nearly 11 per cent per year, doubling its output every seven years. Prices rose surprisingly slowly; even in Britain, which had the worst record on inflation, the average inflation rate between 1948 and 1973 was under 4 per cent. And unemployment was in effect no problem; on the contrary, almost all of the advanced economics pulled in immigrant labour to satisfy growing demand for labour. So for the advanced economies these were years of outstanding success. It was a success in which Britain shared, though in a hesitant and ambiguous way which complicates assessment of Britain's record. The facts are that over the post-war period Britain grew at a rate of just under 3 per cent per year; thus, over the twenty-five years, annual output doubled. Incomes, in terms of real weekly earnings, doubled also. The proportion of national income devoted to new investment in the economy more than doubled in relation to the pre-war era. In even more striking contrast with the pre-war world was the employment picture. In the twenty years before the war <br />
<br />
<br />
80 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
unemployment was never less than a million; for thirty years after the war, until 1975, it never, except for a couple of weeks, rose above a million. The average proportion of the workforce unemployed between 1920 and 1938 was 10.6 per cent; between 195t and 1973 it was 1.9 per cent. All of this implied a spectacular improvement in the standard of living of the population, as incomes rose, as working conditions improved and the working week shortened, as nutritional and housing standards improved, and as ownership of consumer durables such as washing machines expanded. At the same time the construction of the National health Service meant better access to medical care, while the improved provision of unemployment pay, child allowances and sickness benefits sharply reduced the economic risks to which the pre-war British population had been exposed. Harold Macmillan was right in 1959: Britain had indeed never had it so good. <br />
<br />
There is a problem in evaluating this record, however. Should we regard it as one of success or failure? The difficulty is a simple one: if we are to say it was a success, then we should really ask, a success in relation to what? In fact, two quite different pictures seem to emerge depending on what we use as a standard of comparison. If we compare post-war Britain with its own previous history, then the 1950s and 1960s are years of unqualified success. Table 2-3, outlining the growth of output and of output per worker points this up. <br />
<br />
Table 13. Growth of GDP and GDP per man-year in the UK (%) <br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> GDP GDP per man-year<br />
1856-1873 2.2 1.3 <br />
1873-1913 1.8 0.9 <br />
1924-1937 2.2 1.0 <br />
1951-1973 2.8 2.4 </span><br />
Source: <i>R.C.O. Matthews et al, British Economic Growth 1856-1974, </i>Oxford, 1983. <br />
<br />
Note that after the Second World War the growth rate accelerates; but even more noticeable is the growth in productivity - in output per worker - which jumps to nearly two-and-a-half times the pre-war <br />
<br />
THE POST-WAR BOOM • 81 <br />
rate. What makes the post Second World War growth all the more remarkable is that it occurred in the context of full and expanding employment, something which was really quite new for Britain. Moreover it was relatively steady growth: the earlier periods in table 13 contained sub-periods of slump and stagnation - from 1899 to 1924, for example, income grew at barely 0.5 per cent per year. So in these historical terms the post-war years are years of straightforward success.<br />
<br />
The picture changes sharply, however, when we make the comparison in international terms. Table 14 gives us both a historical comparison and an international one; it picks up the way Britain's growth accelerated after the war, but also shows its poor performance relative to others. <br />
<br />
Table 13. Long-run GDP trends in Europe (% inc. per year) <br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1870-1913 1922-37 1953-73 <br />
1.6 1.8 5.3 France<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">2</span>.8 3.2 5.5 Germany<br />
1.5 2.3 5.3 Italy<br />
3.2 0.8 5.1 Austria<br />
1.9 2.4 3.0 UK</span><br />
Source: A. Mahe, ed., The European Economies: Growth and Crisis, London, 1982, p. 22. <br />
<br />
These higher growth rates of the European economies were not simply a matter of catching up from a lower level, or recovering from lower levels of output due to war damage. Many European economies had indeed been hit harder by the war than Britain, and one might expect them to grow faster while they rebuilt. But the important thing is that their growth rates were maintained, and they soon overtook Britain. Having done so, they continued their rapid growth until Britain's income levels were far surpassed.<br />
<br />
Thus we have a contrast between Britain's performance seen in a historical light, and its performance seen in an international context. 'Hence,' as the authors of a major recent study remark, 'arises the <br />
<br />
<br />
82 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
persistent dilemma in the study of British economic growth in the post-war period: is the task to explain why Britain did so well or why it did so badly?' [1]<br />
<br />
Resolving this dilemma seems to depend on what it is we want to know. If, for example, we want to assess the effects of some change within Britain - such as the adoption of new types of government economic policy - then we should use Britain's own historical record; in that ease the post-war period is one of success. If, however, we are concerned with Britain's competitive position, then international comparisons are appropriate, and Britain's record looks much less happy. For our purposes it is the international context which matters, since we are concerned with the way Britain's record in technological development affected both its trade performance and its growth path. So in assessing Britain's past and present performance we need to begin with the post-war boom itself, looking at the factors underlying it, the extent to which Britain lagged behind comparable economies, and finally at the reasons for this lag. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE BOOM </span></h4>
At the end of the Second World War the United States exercised unequivocal political, technological and economic leadership over the non-communist countries of the world. The war had massively expanded the US economy and produced an acceleration of technical advance, where others had barely survived. And the US government grasped the opportunity which this offered: to refashion the world economy, if not in its image, then at least to its liking. American foreign policy thus laid exceptional emphasis on economic objectives in the reconstruction of the post-war world, and developed forceful and on the whole clear ideas about the instruments which would achieve those objectives. The objectives were in fact complex and various, but one had overwhelming priority: to prevent the further expansion of communist regimes in Europe, and to enhance the ability of Western European capitalism to survive any socialist challenge. Clearly this implied flourishing European market economics. The American strategy to achieve this had three main components. They were: <br />
<br />
THE POST-WAR BOOM • 83 <br />
<br />
<i>1. Marshall aid. </i>In order to raise their levels of both consumption and investment, the European economies needed to import both goods and technology from the US. But how could they pay, when they were unable to export enough to the USA to generate the dollars needed for American imports? The US government was acutely conscious of this problem. It therefore eschewed the rigid demands for reparations and repayments of war loans which had followed the First World War, and instead granted aid under the so-called Marshall Plan. Over a four-year period from 1948 some $12.5 billion in grants and credits were extended to Europe. This helped to overcome what one writer has called 'the fundamental imbalance between the heavily strained European economies and the technologically-superior productive apparatus of the United States [2].<br />
<br />
<i>2. Trade liberalization.</i> <br />
Perhaps the most uniform reaction to the depression of the 1930s had been the adoption of policies of protection. In order to prevent or slow the rise in unemployment, governments had tried to cut imports by protective tariffs, quotas and duties. International trade slowed down in consequence, and this in turn hampered growth and recovery. The Americans, partly though not solely in their own self-interest, were desperately concerned to prevent both a return to a 'protectionist' trading environment, and the re-establishment of protected •ones like the British Empire. They un-hesitatingly used their political influence, in a most determined way, to restore free international trade. The ultimate result was GATT - the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - 'the world's first multi-lateral trade order', a significant move towards free international trade. <br />
<br />
<i>3. A stable international financial system.</i> <br />
If the advanced economies were to grow then international trade must grow; this implied the need for a regular system of finance and payments. The central requirements for a world trading and finance system were that it should be stable and predictable, with a basic 'world' currency which was in adequate supply. At the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 the Allies agreed on a structure based on fixed exchange rates, pegged against the dollar, which was itself pegged against gold at the rate 835 = 1 oz of gold. Two new institutions - the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank - were set up to aid countries with balance of payments difficulties, and to finance development projects. <br />
<br />
84 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
The US dollar thus became the basic currency of world trade, the supply of dollars into the world economy eventually being assured by persistent US balance of payments deficits, which the US covered by, in effect, exporting dollars. <br />
<br />
These three building blocks - Marshall aid, trade liberalization and the Bretton Woods system - made up the basic framework: there were, however, expansionary factors at work, which promoted the dramatic burst of growth outlined above. The first was the technological lead of the USA itself. Since the USA was the clear technological 'leader' others had the opportunity of drawing on its technological know-how by importing US equipment. And since a large backlog of technological possibilities had built up over the war years, European enterprises had the opportunity to cut their costs sharply and raise profits by deploying US technologies. This led to a wave of investment in Europe: the rate of growth of the stock of capital - factories, machines, etc. - accelerated, from under 2 per cent per year over 1913-50, to nearly 5 per cent per year over 1950-73. The result was sharp increases in the growth of output and also increases in productivity. The second factor at work was government economic policy. Much though the Keynesian era is now decried, the policies of expansionary demand which were widely adopted produced results, as Angus Maddison rightly points out: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The main achievement was success in nurturing a buoyancy of demand which had been created during the war and Marshall Plan period and which kept the economics within a zone of high employment. The lowered attention to risks of price increases or payments difficulties, and the absence of crassly perverse deflationary policies were the most important features differentiat-ing post-war demand management from pre-war policy. The payoff was much bigger than could have reasonably been anticipated ... given the favourable supply factors in Europe and Japan, growth performance reached unparalleled proportions. [3]</blockquote>
The pay-off was so big because, in a context of high and stable demand, enterprises were acutely conscious of the risks of not investing: they would face an inability to meet demand, a loss of market share, and reduced profits, So they invested, and the 1930s and 1960s were <br />
<br />
THE POST-WAR BOOM • 85 <br />
thus years of exceptionally high investment. This was the biggest single contributory factor in the accelerated growth of the post-war boom. Accompanying these developments was the final factor: a major expansion of world trade. Exports from the industrialized countries grew at 7 per cent per year in the 1950s and 10 per cent per year in the 1960s. Within this expansion of trade, the most dynamic and important part was played by trade in manufactures between the advanced capitalist countries.<br />
<br />
We can, then, sum up the post-war boom as follows. Within the context of a stable international financial system, policies facilitating growth and full employment were adopted; Western governments in general promoted buoyant demand within their economies. These measures met a ready response on the production side of the economy. Enterprises took full advantage of available technological opportunities in meeting rising demand. The high levels of investment which ensued led to rising productivity, profits and incomes; and this maintained the impetus behind further investment and growth. Over this period prices were relatively stable for three reasons. Firstly, the growth in productivity kept down costs of production even though incomes were growing; since industrial prices are based on costs, then price increases were constrained. Secondly, raw material prices -especially for oil - were low. Thirdly, the fixed exchange rate system inhibited the inflation rates of individual countries (because, with fixed rates, if a country raises prices then it loses out in export markets, and must then depress demand in order to get the balance of payments back into equilibrium; this tends to return the rise in prices back to the international 'norm'). <br />
<br />
This account of the post-war boom has concentrated, so far, on quite general pre-conditions for accelerated growth. In previous chapters, however, it was emphasized that economic growth is very much a matter of technological change: of new processes, and new products. This involves the commitment of resources to research and development, to innovative improvements in the performance and design of products which are in growing demand. So we turn now to the products on which post-war growth was based, and then to the growth records of different countries in terms of their innovative performance within these product groups. <br />
<br />
86 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">FAST-GROWING PRODUCTS IN POST-WAR GROWTH AND TRADE </span></h4>
Post-war Western European growth was founded on the construction of a consumer society. As income grew, and as income inequalities evened out somewhat, markets for consumer goods expanded. Large numbers of people now had access to products which had previously been the preserve of an affluent minority. Pre-eminent among such products were cars, and consumer durables (record-players, radios, refrigerators, freezers, washing machines and so on). Expansion in these areas naturally promoted expansion in the production of inputs to such goods: in steel, chemicals, machine tools, electrical and electronic components and so on. The growth of all of these products was rapid, but that of cars was particularly spectacular, as table 15 indicates. <br />
<br />
Table I5. Output of private cars (thousands) <br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
W. Germany France Italy Britain Spain <br />
1950 219 237 100 523 0 <br />
1960 1,877 1,136 596 1,362 42 <br />
1969 3,380 2,168 1,477 1,729 379 </span><br />
<br />
Source: drawn from B. R. Mitchell,<i> European Historical Statistics 1750-1970</i>, London, 1981, Table E25, p. 469. <br />
<br />
The table shows that total car output increased, in these countries, by 730 per cent in less than thirty years; note that Britain's increase was considerably lower (about 230 per cent), and that despite an initial advantage it was rapidly surpassed by France and Germany. Consumer goods matched this kind of expansion: Lars Anell has pointed out that, in effect, 'homes turned into small factories for the production of an ever increasing amount of goods and services ... a person working at home now draws on greater machine investments than a factory worker before the First World War.' [4] In general, the growth of world trade reflected this pattern of production growth. Particularly fast-growing products in internantional<br />
<br />
THE POST-WAR BOOM • 87 <br />
trade included office machinery, consumer durables, cameras, machine tools, cars and trucks, plastics and general chemicals. <br />
<br />
Within this structure of growth and trade, two questions arise in evaluating the performance of any particular economy. The first concerns its output mix. Was it actually producing and exporting within the fast-growing sectors of world production and trade? Secondly, if it was in the right product groups, was it actually producing them well enough? Was it matching its competitors in terms of product performance, quality and price? Concretely, this means, was it devoting enough in the way of research and development resources to the task of innovation; was it keeping pace with technological advances in products and processes? <br />
<br />
On the first of these questions - was the output mix right? - there are some formidable statistical problems in making inter-country comparisons. But the evidence indicates that Britain's output composition has not been wildly out of line with that of other major industrial economics. Similarly with exports: a study some years ago suggested that the proportion of UK exports in the fast-growing sectors of world trade was much the same as other advanced countries. But if there seems no problem in the broad types of goods being produced, there may remain considerable problems in the detailed characteristics of these goods. Britain may, for instance, be producing cars and radios, but what if they do not match the performance standards, quality, reliability and general technological level of competing cars and radios? This is very much a matter of the commitment of research and development (R & D) resources. So in examining Britain's relatively poor post-war performance it remains to look at the question of industrial R & D, and the contribution it has made to Britain's economic performance. It is in this area, in fact, that we find serious problems; it is the weaknesses here which underlie Britain's economic decline. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">BRITAIN'S RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (R & D) RECORD </span></h4>
An important first point to make about R. & D and technological change is that there are no simple measures of innovative performance.<br />
<br />
88 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
In this section the level of R & D expenditure in any particular area is taken as an indicator of the commitment to technical innovation in that area. But it should be noted that technical change can occur without formal R & D spending. New technologies can be imported rather than self-developed, for example. However, in practice it turns out that output growth and export success are closely linked with direct spending on R & D, so there is a strong case for taking that as the first measure of innovative activity.<br />
<br />
Two central aspects of R & D are important. The first is the level of spending on R & D activity, the amount of funds actually devoted to such work. So question one is, is the <i>scale </i>of R & D expenditure adequate? This is important because the amounts of money spent on R & D often need to be very large. Recent research on the aircraft and computer industries, for example, has shown that 'research, development and design costs exceeding £100 million are by no means uncommon for a new generation of products and they have been known to reach £1,000 million'.[5] Scale is thus important because there is no point being in some industries at all unless an adequate level of R & D funds are committed. The sums involved in modern R & D are frequently so vast that governments often play a large part either in the provision of such funds, or in the overall coordination of R & D expenditure.<br />
<br />
Next on the agenda is the <i>direction </i>of R & D, or its allocation: that is, it must be spent on the right sorts of activities. Given that the sums involved are huge, they invariably require a large volume of sales of the subsequent product if the development costs are to be recovered. This means that R & D expenditure must be directed towards products and processes where demand is strong and growing. And if possible it must be used in areas where a country has some kind of competitive advantage.<br />
<br />
Against the background of these considerations, how has Britain performed? In terms of the level of R & D expenditure things do not seem serious: Britain devotes about the same proportion of industrial output to R & D as other major countries. But because our output and income are less than other countries, this means that the absolute level of spending is less. Moreover, it has been pointed out that 'Britain was the only OECD (i.e. advanced) country where industry-<br />
<br />
THE POST-WAR BOOM • 89 <br />
financed R & D activities decreased absolutely between 1967 and 1975. [6] More significant than the level of R & D for Britain, however, has been the activities on which it has been spent. <br />
<br />
Recall that the central products on which post-war growth and trade have been based are vehicles, machinery (including consumer durables) and chemicals. These are <i>not</i>, as it happens, the areas on which Britain has concentrated its research and development effort. Rather, Britain has poured massive R & D resources into three other areas: aircraft, defence products (especially military electronics), and nuclear reactors. These preoccupations absorbed over 50 per cent of British R & D in the late 1960s (total industrial R & D in 1968-9 was approximately £650 million; just over £360 million went on aerospace, electronics and reactors). This pattern of R & D expenditure in the post-war years was very different from that of our competitors, as table 16 shows. It looks at the way R & D expenditure is distributed among activities by five major countries in a typical year of the post-war boom. <br />
<br />
Table 16. Industrial distribution of R & D expenditure in 1962 (%) <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">UK France W.Germany Japan USA <br />
35.4 27.7 - - 36.3 <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aircraft </span><br />
10.3 9.0 19.4 12.7 15.6 <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Vehicles & machinery</span> <br />
24.0 25.7 33.8 28.0 25.5 <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Electrical machinery & instruments</span> <br />
11.6 16.8 32.9 28.3 12.6 <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Chemicals</span> </span><br />
Source: C. Freeman and A. Young, <i>The Research and Development Effort in Western Europe, North America and the Soviet Union, </i>Paris, OECD, 1965. <br />
<br />
Thus, Britain put 35 per cent of its R & D effort into aircraft; Germany and Japan — zero. Rather, Germany and Japan concentrated on electrical products and chemicals. The thing which stands out about this table, therefore, is the way in which German and Japanese R & D has been concentrated in the really dynamic growth areas, the areas where markets were big and growing. <br />
<br />
<br />
90 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
Table 17 below, in a wider and more general way, also shows this. It is based on research into the R & D specialisms of a range of advanced economies, and it highlights the way in which the fastest<br />
<br />
<i>Table 17. Some comparative strengths and weaknesses in innovative performances </i><br />
<br />
<b>Comparative strengths</b> <br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><b><i>Comparative weaknesses</i></b></span></div>
<b>Belgium </b><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Ferrous and non-ferrous metals; stone, clay, glass; chemicals</span> <br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><b><i>Transport equipment; household appliance</i></b></span> </div>
<b>France </b><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Railroad equipment; motor vehicles and bicycles; soap and cleaning products</span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><b><i>Radio and TV; household appliances; machinery</i></b></span></div>
<b>W. Germany</b> <br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Machinery; chemicals motor vehicles</span> <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><i><b>Petroleum; food; ship and boat building; radio and TV</b> </i></span></div>
<b>Italy </b><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Household appliances; textiles; chemicals</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><b><i>Radio and TV, ship and boat building; electrical transmission and distribution equipment</i></b></span></div>
<br />
<b>Japan </b><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Radio and TV; ferrous metals </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><b><i>Petroleum products, machinery, ordinance and missiles</i></b></span></div>
<br />
<b>Netherlands</b> <br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Electrical and electronics; petroleum; chemicals </span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><b><i>Aircraft and missiles, transportation equipment</i></b></span></div>
<b>Sweden </b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Metals and metal products; household appliances; motor vehicles; machinery; ship and boat building</span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><b><i>Chemicals, petroleum; textiles, radio & TV</i></b></span></div>
<br />
<b>Switzerland </b><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Drugs; chemicals </span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><b><i>Petroleum, transportation equipment</i></b></span></div>
<br />
<b>UK</b><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Aircraft and missiles; engines and turbines; non-ferrous metals </span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red;"><b><i>Household appliances, radio and TV</i></b></span></div>
<br />
Source: K. Pavitt, ed., <i>Technical Innovation and British Economic Performance</i>, London, 1980, p.56 <br />
<br />
THE POST—WAR BOOM • 91 <br />
-growing economics of Europe and Japan concentrated their innovation effort on the mundane but vital commodity groups — vehicles, machinery products, chemicals — which provided the real thrust behind post-war growth.<br />
<br />
Britain's areas of specialism were thus ill-chosen, to put it mildly. Aeroplanes may be glamorous products, but they were simply not very significant in terms of market size. In 1961, for example, total exports of the products in table 16 above, by the nine biggest market economics looked like this (table 18): <br />
<br />
<i>Table 18 Export markets 1960-61 (total exports of nine economies) ($ million) </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">7215.2 Machinery, general </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">6086.6 Chemicals </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">5062.4 Vehicles </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3837.6 Electrical machinery and instruments </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1551.2 Aircraft </span><br />
<br />
Source: drawn from <i>'Fast and Slow Growing Products in World Trade', </i>National Institute Economic Renew, no. 25, 1963, Table 2, p.24 <br />
<br />
This picture has, alas, altered very little since the early 1960s (except that the level of British R & D has declined). When the same group of nine European countries was surveyed in 1975, Britain was still carrying out 42 per cent of total aerospace research; and Britain still lagged badly in research in chemicals, mechanical engineering, and electrical and electronic engineering.<br />
<br />
In terms of government-financed R&D the picture is especially depressing. Government-backed R&D is particularly important in view of the large sums involved. The distribution of this crucial expenditure is especially interesting. In 1975, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands all put 50 per cent or over of R&D funds into basic scientific and technological research. Britain put in under 20 per cent. Only one country, France, spent over IT per cent of such funds on defence R&D (France spent 29.6 per cent). Britain however put 46.4 per cent of government R&D into defence. <br />
<br />
92 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
This pattern of research expenditure by Britain - that is, concentration on aircraft, military electronics and nuclear power - inhibited Britain's economic growth for three reasons. The first is that these were not and are not products on which major economic growth could be based, for the markets were simply too small. As we saw above, the export market for aircraft in 1960-61 (where Britain put 35 per cent of its R&D effort) was about a quarter of the size of the export market in chemicals (where Germany spent 33 per cent of its R&D funds). The nuclear reactor market appears to be neither large nor profitable, and the enormous research and development programme in Britain has resulted in the export sale of precisely two reactors (and those sales were twenty-five years ago). Secondly, these are all product groups in which Britain not only has a competitor, but the most formidable competitor it would be possible to have: the USA. Any rational policy for R&D should involve specialization not just in areas of growing demand, but also in areas where competitive pressures are not overwhelming. Even if Britain's aircraft R & 13 had produced the best aircraft in the world, which it did not, it would anyway have been difficult to sell them in the American market. One cannot but agree with Sir Arthur Knight, former chairman of the National Enterprise Board: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It seems that much of our massive programme of investment in defence-related high technology products was directed towards products which the Americans were bound to be able to manufacture more competitively ... but these new activities were interesting and exciting and so they attracted a high proportion of our best young technologists; whereas in Germany the best young people were attracted into building up export-oriented, more down-to-earth mechanical engineering activities.[7] </blockquote>
<br />
Thirdly, these are not research areas which generate 'spin-offs', that is technological breakthroughs which have other uses and applications. We saw in Chapter a that German chemical expertise in dyestuffs generated a range of new products ranging from explosives to plastics (indeed a German book on applied chemical research in the early twentieth century bore the evocative title One Thing Afier Another). These spin-offs have played a large part in the continuing success of the German chemical industry; but they are not a conspicuous feature of British post-war R & D. <br />
<br />
THE POST-WAR BOOM • 93 <br />
One could, therefore, sum up the post-war British technological record in this way. Even when British R & D resources were larger than those of competitors - which they are no longer - they were ludicrously mis-allocatcd. Britain concentrated on 'glamour' areas where markets were in fact derisory and the competition overwhelming. Furthermore, these problems, writes one R & D expert, Christopher Freeman, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
were exacerbated by some extraordinarily inept public decision-making in relation to 'big' technology throughout the 50s and 60s. Concorde is the extreme example of unproductive but huge investment. Commercial and market factors were frequently ignored ... it took a long time before any government was prepared to stand up to the expert but special pleading of a high technology lobby in full cry. This applies particularly to aircraft and nuclear reactors, where prototype development and testing can be very expensive.[8]</blockquote>
The consequence of this research and development disaster was that British industry was progressively outstripped in technological terms by rival producers. New products and processes do not just happen - they require resources, and the resources simply were not committed to the job. Inadequate R & D meant that the UK lagged as the technological frontier was pushed further out by competitors; Britain increasingly failed to meet the new standards of product design, performance and quality which research was generating elsewhere. First. this meant a declining share of markets, and economic growth which was slower than more innovative rivals. Hence the relatively slow growth of the 1950s and 1960s; Britain really prospered mainly because world markets were expanding. Then, as the world economy slowed down, inadequate R & D meant industrial collapse and unemployment as British manufacturing failed even to be in the same game as competitors, let alone to compete. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The eventual outcome (writes G. F. Ray) can best be seen in the penetration of imports of all types of products into the UK market, probably manifesting itself most clearly in consumer goods. To take just two examples; the British audio industry, which had been significant, lost most of its markets because it neglected the growth areas of the tape recorder, the cartridge and the cassette; in the past live years about 10,000 jobs have </blockquote>
<br />
94 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
been lost in the television industry through lack of R & D ... but the best illustration can be found in the pathetic record of the UK motorcycle industry ... its market was first flooded with Italian scooters and mopeds and later by Japanese models which offered better performance at very competitive rates. The outcome is the virtual disappearance of the British industry.[9] </blockquote>
And this pattern of inadequate R & D, leading to loss of market share and then stagnation and collapse, has been amply documented in other industries. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">SUMMING UP: BRITAIN IN THE BOOM</span> </h4>
The argument, then, is that Britain performed poorly during the years of the post-war boom. Economic growth depends on the emergence of new products and processes which provide the focus for major programmes of investment. Britain failed to devote adequate resources to appropriate forms of research and development; and since R & D is the activity by which opportunities for new investment are searched out, this had serious long-term effects on Britain's growth prospects. The problems were masked during the long boom, because growing world markets offset Britain's increasingly poor performance. The reckoning arrived with the end of the boom, and it rook the form of declining manufacturing employment and output: <i>'de-industrialization'</i>. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE END OF THE BOOM </span></h4>
The analysis outlined above suggests that Britain's post-war prosperity was largely an effect of a world boom in which Britain per-formed, on the whole, poorly. A return to economic growth will thus imply overcoming economic problems internal to Britain, but will also involve restoring some semblance of stability to the world economy. The latter, however, will not be easily achieved, and it would be rash to think either that a world recovery will happen, or that it would benefit Britain if it did.<br />
<br />
The post-war boom collapsed in the early 1970s under the impact of a series of strains and shocks. The strains began with the Vietnam <br />
<br />
THE POST-WAR ROOM • 95 <br />
war. The United States faced the prospect of financing this very unpopular war in the context of considerable social upheavals; these upheavals, particularly among the poor in the decaying central city areas, had led to a vast increase in government spending on health, education, employment and welfare programmes. This warfare-welfare combination was hideously expensive and the obvious need was for tax increases to finance it all. The government, however, was desperately concerned about opposition to the war, and had no desire to fuel it further. So there were no tax increases; and the first consequences were massive deficits in the government budget, as well as increases in the money supply. A further consequence was balance of payments deficits, as the US increased its imports to maintain its consumption levels as its own industry switched towards expanded production for war.<br />
<br />
These balance of payments deficits were financed simply by paying out dollars. This was possible because the basic currency of the post-war world economy was the dollar. In effect, people would accept dollars in payment for goods, knowing that the dollar was backed by gold (at the rate $35 = 1 oz gold). However by the late 1960s, the combination of US budget deficits and balance of payments deficits had pumped a huge volume of dollars - far greater than the US gold reserves - into the world financial system (and particularly into the European financial system). Dollar holders in Europe began to switch out of dollars. In the second week of August, 1971, this movement accelerated dramatically as nearly at billion moved through the ex-changes. US gold and foreign currency reserves could not stand the strain. In order to solve this problem the US government needed first to control its expenditure (and the war was still continuing, under President Nixon), and then to devalue its currency (and thus accept a reduction in income). There was, however, an alternative. In the words of an eminent banker, 'it appeared preferable to the US government simply to destroy the international monetary system'.[10] The Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates based on dollars collapsed, as the United States devalued, imposed import controls and stopped converting dollars into gold. No agreement could be reached among the advanced countries on a system to replace the Bretton Woods arrangements. For want of anything better, a confused <br />
<br />
96 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
system of floating rates emerged, injecting considerable uncertainty into the world economy.<br />
<br />
The world of floating rates permitted a sharp increase in inflation. Previously, fixed rates had constrained inflationary pressures - no one could inflate out of line with everyone else without a balance of payments crisis. Now, inflation simply resulted in a depreciation of the exchange rate. Within the uncertain framework of the post Bretton Woods system, governments were almost uniformly anxious about exchange rate and balance of payments problems. Invariably, therefore, they adopted policies based on restriction of economic activity; caution was carried to recessionary lengths, and contributed in a major way to the slowing down of growth.<br />
<br />
At the same time, for Western Europe, the technological opportunities which promoted post-war growth began to shrink as Europe caught up with the American technical lead. This was a main aspect of a slowing down in productivity growth which began in the late 1960s, in almost all of the advanced economies, and which in turn slowed down the possibilities for growth. <br />
<br />
Finally, of course, came the OPEC price rises in 1973-4, and subsequently in 1978-9, which exacerbated inflationary pressures and generated major problems in the world financial system as the rises pushed many countries into serious balance of payments deficits. Many countries filled these deficits by borrowing from private banks, and the consequence has been a major international debt crisis. <br />
<br />
The international context of the market economics is, therefore, now one of uncertainty and fluctuation. Some of its problems - such as the slowdown in productivity growth - are not well understood, and may not be solvable. Some problems - such as those of the international financial system - may be capable of solution; but solutions here will require a degree of political consensus and commitment which appears very unlikely to emerge. The post-war boom is unlikely, therefore, to reappear. 'World in dishevelled condition' reads a memorable entry in the diary of Keynes's Russian-born wife Lydia; she was writing in 1945, but things are the same and are likely to remain so. However, even in the unlikely event of a renewed international boom, Britain's internal problems will remain. Indeed, the material presented in these chapters indicates that the problems <br />
<br />
THE POST-WAR BOOM • 97 <br />
of low and misdirected innovative activities, hence poor investment and growth record, now threaten the viability of the British economy. It is these problems on which Britain must concentrate, and it would be foolhardy indeed to pin hopes on an international recovery. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i>5 </i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<hr style="text-align: left;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="color: red;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Crisis in Prospect</span> </i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
Previous chapters have argued that Britain's problems are long term in character, and have become cumulative, self-reinforcing. One central feature of Britain's industrial development is easily found: it is a low rate of growth, compared to similar economies. We have seen that relatively slow growth characterizes Britain's performance for at least the past century, and is particularly noticeable over the whole of the post Second World War years, a period in which Britain has declined from relative prosperity and economic health to relative poverty and economic debility. It has been possible also to outline some of the mechanisms underlying that performance. Economic growth is based on flexibility, on technological renewal, on constant transition, on the systematic development of new products and processes. This requires the commitment of resources to research and development, which is the process by which opportunities for investment and growth are searched out. Britain's slow growth record is based on a lack of dynamism, and on some very poor decision-making, in this area: it has failed in the development of new products and processes, and has failed to match the technological standards being set elsewhere. To an important extent responsibility for this predicament mast he laid at the door of government, since the research and development resources needed by a modern industrial economy are so large that governments inevitably play a major role in their provision, coordination and use.<br />
<br />
So Britain's modern economic development is based, like that of any advanced economy, on a particular pattern of technological development. Rigidity and a lack of dynamism in technological research have led to lost markets and restricted demand, and to a consequent slowing in output and income growth. Failure to develop new techniques<br />
<br />
THE CRISIS IN PROSPECT • 99 <br />
of production means that productivity growth is restrained or non-existent, and opportunities to produce at lower cost are missed. Slow growth and stagnating incomes in one period mean that resources for developing new technologies in subsequent periods are limited. Limited profits, limited investment, further limited growth — this cycle can rapidly become self-perpetuating. These problems have been spelled out in Chapters 3 and 4, which tell a dismal story of persistently inadequate and miscalculated research resources, and of increasingly worrying economic performance by the economy as a whole. The cumulative character of this cycle of development opens up the possibility of a critical point being reached in the long run, a point at which Britain will not merely be a poor competitor and slow grower, but will be unable to compete and will begin to decline not relatively but absolutely. But as we saw in Chapter t, that absolute decline has happened: it has in fact been with us for a decade. The long run has arrived.<br />
<br />
This growth record underlies the rather stark claim made in the introduction to this book: that the British economy is in crisis, in the sense that its traditional structure is no longer viable. It was suggested that those who think that the crisis is actually over, that we are leaving the danger zone rather than about to enter it, are mistaken. Mistaken also are those who think that a mere change of government will suffice to improve matters. This is because the first group mis-understand the nature of the transition which Britain is experiencing, while the latter seem to deny that it is taking place. The remainder of this chapter discusses the kind of 'structural' crisis which Britain is undergoing, and then goes on to consider some of the problems and possible futures before us. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">A STRUCTURAL CRISIS? </span></h4>
In the first place, what is meant by talking of a 'structural crisis'? The `structure' of an economy could refer, for example, to its pattern of ownership and wealth, its institutions (firms, unions, government agencies, etc.), to its political and legal character, and so on. And 'crisis' could mean anything from unforeseen difficulties to major cataclysm. In this book the `structure' of the British <br />
<br />
<br />
100 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
economy has referred to three things, and their inter-connections. They are: <br />
1. the division of economic activities which characterizes Britain; that is, the framework of sectors - agriculture, services, manufacturing, primary industry, government - which make up the British economy; the composition of output which they produce; and the pattern of employment which they involve; <br />
2. the pattern of trade, that is of imports and exports, which connects this economic framework to the wider world economy; <br />
3. the levels of income and standards of living which this frame-work of production and trade makes possible. <br />
<br />
The 'structure' of the British economy can be summed up as follows. Britain, like most advanced economics, consists of a small but productive agricultural sector; a large industrial sector with manufacturing as its focus; and a service sector which has been increasing consistently in size. Agriculture employs less than 3 per cent of the workforce. The other sectors are characterized by marked, changes: in the 1950s, manufacturing and services each employed about 42.5 per cent of the workforce. Since then manufacturing has declined sharply, to less than 30 per cent of the workforce, while service employment is now somewhere over 50 per cent. This domestic economic structure is connected to the world economy through a particular pattern of trade: Britain has traditionally been a net exporter of manufactures and financial services, and a net importer of food and raw materials. The trade pattern underlies Britain's balance of payments, which forms a major constraint on its rate of growth and level of income. The real incomes and standards of living of the British population are an effect both of its level and type of domestic economic activity, and its ability to trade with the world and thus consume imports.<br />
<br />
To say that Britain is in crisis is to say that it is no longer capable of supporting this structure of production, employment and trade. If the pattern of production and trade is not viable, then Britain's levels of income are also unsustainable. It cannot support, in other words, its traditional pattern of consumption.<br />
<br />
In fact, as previous chapters have shown, the assertion that the 'traditional' structure might, at some time in the future, no longer <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS IN PROSPECT • 101<br />
function, is not quite correct. It no longer functions now. Britain is no longer a significant net exporter of manufactures, their place in our export structure having been taken by North Sea oil. This erosion of Britain's trade surplus in manufactures is not a recent development the general trend has been adverse for many years. Thus, in 1971, Britain exported manufactures which had a total value approximately twice that of manufactured imports; now the value of imports is greater than that of exports. One way of showing this trend is to plot the ratio of the value of exports to the value of imports in manufactures. When the ratio is greater than one, we have a surplus; when it is equal to one the surplus has disappeared. The following diagram (fig. 1) plots precisely this relationship, and the downward trend is clearly evident. <br />
<br />
Figure 1. Ratio of value of manufactured exports to manufactured imports, from 1971 <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikMfr-dRo-qxsC7RL21dKu-vv2x2VFZF8-Y2D3iff123snJYxzCvrhdu6YlXooFvbIklxftzPIuTaihFH7KcunaZamL8pdIWcFuq6hyphenhyphen6Z-lxQJfEyuQ-0hY6NsWur7eTir-2w8pancZuib/s1600/manufactured-imports-v-exports-71-82.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The ratio of manufactured exports to imports is 2:1 in 1971 but the graph falls to 1:1 in 1982 and still falling fast" border="0" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikMfr-dRo-qxsC7RL21dKu-vv2x2VFZF8-Y2D3iff123snJYxzCvrhdu6YlXooFvbIklxftzPIuTaihFH7KcunaZamL8pdIWcFuq6hyphenhyphen6Z-lxQJfEyuQ-0hY6NsWur7eTir-2w8pancZuib/s640/manufactured-imports-v-exports-71-82.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></div>
Source: Calculated from Table 2.3, 'Analysis by Commodity', UK Balance of Payments 1982. p15. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
102 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
One important point to note about this diagram is that the downward trend began well before North Sea oil came on stream. We cannot, therefore, ascribe this structural shift — as various economists and government spokesmen have done — purely to the effects of North Sea oil. One of the central supports of Britain's international economic position has, in effect, crumbled. <br />
<br />
So the crisis can be summed up in terms of Britain's decline as a major producer of manufactures. Manufacturing industry has been at the core of Britain's output, employment and export structure. Yet in the period 1970 to mid 1981, employment in manufacturing declined by 2.9 million workers, or 32 per cent. Output declined by 10.2 per cent and the export surplus in manufactures disappeared. Were it not for North Sea oil, Britain would be confronting desperate economic problems now. Instead, oil has permitted Britain to continue to consume imports as though nothing had changed. Since the ability to consume imports is part and parcel of our real income, i.e. of our real standard of living, it has helped to maintain our levels of income despite the decay of the traditional structure underlying those income levels. This would not matter if oil was a permanent fixture. But of course it is not. <br />
<br />
The critical questions for the future of the British economy thus turn on the transience of North Sea oil. In order to understand the effects of the decline and eventual disappearance of oil, we need to consider first what its impact on the UK economy has been we can then go on to outline some of the possibilities implied by its removal. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">IMPACT OF NORTH SEA OIL ON THE UK ECONOMY </span></h4>
Oil produces effects on the economy in two main ways. In the first place it massively strengthens the balance of payments, since it turns Britain from a big net importer of oil to being a smallish net exporter in 1976, for example, Britain imported nearly £4 billion of oil; four years later in 1980 this had completely turned around and became a net export of approximately £300 million. This strengthens the pound against foreign currencies, and enhances Britain's ability to consume <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS IN PROSPECT •. 103 <br />
imports (which can be paid for with the dollars earned from oil). It might also be expected to improve Britain's growth prospects by removing to some extent the external constraints on growth which were outlined in Chapter 2. In any case, as the pound strengthens, imports become relatively cheaper and this is one of the main mechanisms by which the benefits of North Sea oil are delivered to the British population generally. In the second place oil affects the government budget, via taxes on the profits being made in oil and gas production. Other things being equal, this would reduce the amounts of tax which individuals would need to pay (a second mechanism by which benefits are delivered), or it would enable the government to expand its activity (in, say, public investments) without increased general taxation or borrowing. <br />
<br />
In fact the enhanced prosperity and government opportunities made possible by oil have largely been swamped by the effects of recession. Recessionary economic policies meant that prospects for growth were rejected. The collapse of manufacturing meant that instead of increasing prosperity, North Sea oil simply enabled us to stay where we were. The possibility of tax reductions or in-creased government activity were lost because of increases in government expenditure on unemployment pay and the other expenses of recession. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">POSSIBLE EFFECTS OF DECLINE IN OIL </span></h4>
The fact that the prospective benefits of North Sea oil were missed dots not mean that the decline of oil will be of little consequence. Because it has not permitted prosperity but only masked the effects of crisis its advent has had little noticeable impact on Britain; its disappearance is a different matter. The critical problem is this: when oil begins to decline, Britain's non-oil exports will need to expand significantly if current levels of income are to be maintained in the long term. Can Britain adjust to a world in which it must export manufactures or services on a much larger sale than it dots at the present? If not, then it must reduce its consumption of imports, and hence its real income and standard of living, in order to maintain a basic balance of payments equilibrium. As oil declines, what <br />
<br />
104 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
are the prospects for reestablishing that structure or something like it? <br />
<br />
What, in other words, are the prospects for the development of the crisis? The key things to consider are firstly the likely developments, and secondly their time-scale. Here we face some major difficulties, since we are talking about an uncertain and unknowable future. It would be rash to hazard any particularly definite predictions, especially since this book is not an exercise in forecasting or futurology. Nevertheless the main elements in the situation can be outlined, as well as some of the tangible and intangible factors governing the chronology of developments. <br />
<br />
The key factor must clearly be the rate at which oil output will decline in the late 198os and early 1990s. A long slow decline in oil production would certainly be easier to cope with than a more or less sudden cut-off. Part of the problem here is that medium- and long-term projections for output are very uncertain. On current estimates however, oil output in the North Sea will retch its peak in 1984-5 and will begin to decline thereafter, probably at a rate of about 4 to 5 per cent per year. Britain will remain self-sufficient until the early 1990s, possibly even as long as the turn of the century. From a peak annual production of approximately 100 million tonnes it will still be producing significant amounts (i.e. to be counted in tens of millions of tonnes) well into the twenty-first century. For Britain, `self-sufficiency' means something in the region of 75 to 80 million tonnes of oil per year. So if these figures and rates of decline are roughly correct then Britain will be self-sufficient in 1990, but will need to import 15-20 million tonnes per year by 1995, and about 30 million tonnes per year at the turn of the century. At current prices, this would take us back- very roughly - to the 1976 position, of importing about £4 billion of oil products per year.<br />
<br />
Of course all of these projections are fraught with uncertainty. Recoverable reserves in the North Sea are not known with any great accuracy, and there is always the possibility that new fields will be discovered which will alter the general picture. This is unlikely, but not out of the question. On the other hand any increase in GDP in Britain would increase our oil consumption and thus affect our overall oil balances. <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS IN PROSPECT • 105 <br />
What will be the effects of a slowing of oil production? The most important concern the exchange rate and Britain's external position. As oil output begins to decline in volume (leaving price changes out of account here) the contribution by oil to the balance of payments and to the government's budget will also decline. This will exert downward pressure on the exchange rate. But much hangs on the extent and speed of any exchange rate slide, and this is unpredictable to say the least. If the exchange rate was determined only by current transactions (exports and imports of goods and services) then we might expect a steady gradual slide, if there were no offsetting in-creases in other exports. However, there are also capital account movements to consider. On the one hand the government may be able to engineer movements of capital into Britain, and this would ameliorate an exchange rate depreciation. On the other hand, holders of capital might take a longer view, and feel that in the face of a steadily deteriorating trade position Britain was not the place for their money. In that case we could expect a large-scale movement of capital out of Britain, and a more or less sudden and catastrophic collapse of the exchange rate. This seems to be the most likely development. <br />
<br />
Either way, the ultimate effect will be on the living standards of the British population. Exchange rate depreciation means that the prices of imports rise. This has an inflationary effect, but more importantly it reduces the real incomes - that is to say, the real amount of goods and services that are consumed - of the British people. Ultimately, the result of an unrestrained exchange rate collapse is a sharp contraction in incomes, though it may also have dramatic effects on inflation (as in Weimar Germany and many developing countries today) and on employment. One of the characteristics of underdeveloped countries is precisely this form of exchange rate and balance of payments constraint: such countries are unable to export enough to pay for the imports which would be needed if the economy were to increase its levels of employment and income. It is this kind of prospect which faces Britain as a result of the decay of its traditional export structure and manufacturing capability. A great deal depends, therefore, on whether anything will happen to offset or prevent this kind of exchange rate collapse as oil output declines. <br />
<br />
106 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CAN BRITAIN ADJUST TO IMPORTING OIL? </span></h4>
The crucial question is whether Britain can adjust to a world in which .we must increasingly import oil and consequently raise net exports to pay the bill. One approach would argue that this is no problem, that the declining.exchange rate would cause an automatic readjustment: as the exchange rate slides, exports from Britain become cheaper and imports to Britain become dearer. This would increase the sale of exports and decrease the volume of imports, thus keeping the balance of payments in constant equilibrium and generating a structural change in our economy to cope with our changed economic environment and resources. Elementary economic theorizing tells us that this is how things will pan out: in this view, the spectre I have raised above simply will not and could not materialize. However as the next section of this book argues, there is a great deal in elementary economics -and even in advanced economics - which is not to be trusted. Will exchange rate depreciation increase our exports by cheapening our goods? An important point to bear in mind - one emphasized in earlier chapters - is that manufactured exports are successful not simply because they are cheap, but because they are of high quality, good design and so on. Their technological characteristics are at latst as important as their price, which is why in the past devaluations and exchange rate depreciations have not had strikingly successful effects in improving Britain's manufactured exports record.<br />
<br />
There is little reason to believe, therefore, that an exchange rate slide will somehow suffice to reinstate manufactured exports in Britain's export structure. And here it is important to recall that we will be facing the decline of oil with a seriously eroded manufacturing base. It is no use, for example, for Britain to be able to manufacture machine tools cheaply if Britain does not in fact possess a machine tools industry. At the moment, that industry has in effect collapsed, and no amount of exchange rate depreciation will bring it back to life. These thoughts are even more worrying if we reflect that there seems little evidence that the present collapse in manufacturing will be reversed over the coming five to ten years. What evidence is there that the sharply downward trend in British manufacturing has been arrested, let alone that the basic industrial framework needed in the <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS IN PROSPECT • 107 <br />
future is being restored and reconstructed? Given that no significant change has occurred in the overall technological level of British manufacturing, that there has been no sign whatever of significant increase in the levels of research and development work, and continuing decline in productive investment, it would be surprising indeed if the whole trend of post-war development was suddenly reversed, and 1995 finds Britain with a manufacturing sector capable of dramatic export expansion. The conclusion must be that the decline of oil will not, in all probability, result in some smooth adjustment process by which manufactures regain their former place in Britain's trade pat-<br />
tern. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">DEVELOPING SERVICE EXPORTS - AN ALTERNATIVE? </span></h4>
But of course there is no law of economic life which says that Britain must export manufactures; there are other possible exports, notably services of various kinds. There are many who argue that Britain can and should develop its service exports as part of the solution to our economic problems.<br />
<br />
However the arguments for increased service exports are often less than convincing. The question should be asked, what kinds of services can Britain sell, and what quantity of them? In the past, Britain's main earnings from services have been derived from two areas: travel (i.e. tourism) and financial services (insurance, banking, investment services and so on). What possibilities are open to expand earnings in these activities? In terms of financial services, the City of London is in many ways a very efficient and competitive centre, but that does not mean that it is capable of accelerated growth. For a start, the world market for services is not growing particularly fast (it is growing more slowly than the market for manufactures, for example). More important perhaps is the fact - often forgotten - that Britain faces increasingly severe competition in this area. For a long period Britain had an effective monopoly in financial services, with London as the principal world centre; even after that monopoly disappeared, there were relatively few major world financial markets. But recent years have seen a rapid expansion of regional and offshore centres, and <br />
<br />
<br />
108 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
major new markets (as in, for example, Hong Kong). These increasing competitive pressures in the financial arena parallel the competitive pressures which British manufacturing faced in the middle and late nineteenth century. They make it very unlikely that Britain can hope to solve its forthcoming balance of payments problems through increased exports of financial services.<br />
<br />
Similar considerations apply to tourism. When people talk glibly of expanding earnings here it is simply necessary to ask, how many more German tourists, for example, do we need to make up the shortfall in export earnings elsewhere? Suppose we were to go back to the position of 1976, with a £4 billion deficit (in 1976 pounds) on our trade in oil, and assume no significant increase in present manufacturing or financial exports. Then, assuming that every tourist who enters Britain converts 42,000 of foreign currency into sterling, we would require a mere two million extra tourists. Given that world tourism is in decline at the moment such a development would be remarkable, as well as ghastly to experience (for both Britons and tourists). In any terse, it is simply not on the cards, and we cannot look to it for any important contribution to the balance of payments problems we face.<br />
<br />
Much the same can be said for other developing areas in service trade. Computer software, for example, is often held up as an expanding, dynamic activity, with export markets open to it. This is indeed true, and certainly Britain has skills in this field. But other countries have such skills also, and competition is increasingly fierce. Of course Britain should develop this industry, as vigorously as possible, but it is sheer fantasy to think that it is likely in itself to provide any sort of basis for sustained economic recovery. As with other sectors of the service economy, we can find here no panacea for our problems. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE CRISIS AND RECOVERY </span></h4>
Britain is in the throes of a serious economic crisis, in which its traditional economic structure is no longer viable. As North Sea oil output declines, we must face the prospect of a serious worsening of our foreign trade position, which will ultimately affect the lives of most of the British population. As we have seen, there seems little <br />
<br />
THE CRISIS IN PROSPECT • 109 <br />
likelihood of solving Britain's problems by recourse to expansion of other sectors of the economy, such as services. Just as the decline of manufactures is at the heart of Britain's decline, so the reconstruction of manufacturing industry must be the central component of a re-invigorated British economy. Even the so-called 'old' manufactures such as steel and vehicles remain dynamic and growing sectors in world trade and output. The manufacturing sector retains its historic and characteristic role as a central focus of the growth of demand, output and international trade. Recovery from the crisis is in large part a matter of reversing the trends of the past century, of setting a flexible, dynamic and forward-looking manufacturing industry in place of one which has proved so technologically rigid and ultimately moribund. <br />
<br />
But how is this reconstruction to be achieved? In the first place, major decisions must be taken with respect to economic policy. These concern the principles which should guide overall policy making, and the kinds of institutions and mechanisms which should exist to carry out policy decisions. To discuss the problems here, even in outline, is an enormous and complex task, well beyond the scope of a single book and perhaps of a single author. Yet the task should not be dodged, and the following sections of this book try to outline some of the problems in two important areas. The first is in the field of general economic policy: specifically, the kinds of ideas about the economy which guide the formation of policy. Economic theory is often misunderstood and misapplied, yet it also often forms a strategic guide for the formation of broad types of economic policy which have far-reaching implications for all of us. In order to begin thinking about policies for recovery we need at some point to tackle the question of what economic theory can and cannot do in assisting with the task at hand. So the next section looks at recent debates and advances in economic theory, at their relevance and irrelevance to the concrete and urgent problems ahead for Britain. The final section of the book considers industrial policy: the problems it must solve, the ways in which it is formed and carried out in some other countries, and the changes which might be needed in this field in Britain. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">PART TWO </span></span></span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<hr style="text-align: left;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">THE ECONOMISTS</span></span></span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<hr style="text-align: left;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">INTRODUCTION</span></i></h3>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Advanced research, in economics as in other sciences, often appears arcane and obscure; often it is arcane and obscure. But the basic ideas which guide economic theory can be set out straight-forwardly, and it is important to do so for a number of reasons. Foremost among them is that the formation of policies to solve the present crisis must depend in part on theoretical ideas about the workings of the economy. Economic theory is far from being the only basis for policy making but it can be a crucial component of it. And recently, theory and policy seem to have become more and more intertwined: the most important single issue in contemporary theoretical debate concerns the effectiveness of government policy, while policy disputes in Britain have increasingly taken the form of wrangles over theoretical matters. An interesting symptom of the closer relation between theory and policy was the recent double appearance of a major theoretical article, more or less simultaneously, in a specialized academic journal and a House of Commons policy report. if, then, policy discussion is increasingly dependent on economic expertise it is important that we should be able to assess - at least in general terms - the, pronouncements of economists. And for this it is necessary to have some grip on the issues which are really at stake in economic debate. <br />
<br />
However, the relation between economics and policy has another dimension, to do with the general social and political influence of economic ideas. Keynes once remarked, in a much-quoted passage, <br />
<blockquote>
that the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly under-stood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe </blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
114 - THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
themselves to be quite exempt from intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.' [1]</blockquote>
<br />
There is an important degree of truth in this passage. Certainly in Britain one particular academic economic idea has been of quite exceptional importance: this is the notion that private-enterprise, free-market economies arc efficient, necessary and socially desirable. Clearly, such an idea is central to monetarist economics and conservative political thought; yet it is also to be found in Keynesian economics and all parts of the British parliamentary political spectrum. But to what extent is the idea correct? It is often assumed — both by supporters of Thatcherite <i>laissez-faire</i>, and supporters of the 'mixed economy' — that there is an adequate theory of the free-market economy which lends support to economic policies focused on a private-enterprise market system. This is not so. Certainly there is a consider-able body of sophisticated theory — which the following chapters will describe — but when it is examined closely, one can sec few grounds for applying its conclusions to the UK. This does not mean that market systems and market economics can or should be rejected in making policy. But the case for <i>some</i> kind of state intervention and state economic activity becomes overwhelming; the crucial questions for the future concern the level of intervention and the forms of intervention. There are many possibilities. And here lies a further reason for examining economic theory: to understand some of its limitations, what it can and cannot show. <br />
<br />
However, there are some real difficulties in understanding the structure of modern economies and the sources of dispute within it. These are mainly to do with the way that the divisions have been presented, in recent years, in terms of a distinction between 'monetarists' and `Keynesians'. What is the basis of this distinction? It often appears as though purely technical questions are at issue, concerning monetary policy, or the nature of inflation; and many economists do in fact assert that the disagreements are essentially practical in character. lint this is seriously misleading. The reason is that many of the 'technical' disputes only make sense in the context of different theoretical starting points, different basic concepts. Looked at in this <br />
<br />
INTRODUCTION • 115 <br />
way, the main disagreements concern not straightforward technical matters, but ideas about the elementary structure and properties of market-type economies. This is where the differences begin, and the divergences which emerge can be very sharp indeed. The following chapters are principally concerned with these basic theoretical points of departure, and their broad implications for policy. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i>6 </i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<hr style="text-align: left;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i>Free Markets and Monetarism </i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
Monetarism is simultaneously one of the most widely known and most misunderstood of economic doctrines. It owes its fame to three main sources. The first, within the economics profession itself, is a group of monetarist economists who have successfully forced the profession to sit up and take notice of some analytical problems which it had preferred quietly to ignore. The second is the ebullient personality of Milton Friedman who - through books, articles, his television series and any other medium of publicity springing to hand - has insistently claimed public attention for his 'Chicago' version of monetarism. Finally there is the government of Mrs Thatcher. Hers is not the first administration to attempt a systematic application of monetarist policy principles - various Latin American military dictators beat her to it - but the 'Thatcher experiment' is by far the most important of these attempts. Since these 'sources' are really quite diverse it should not be surprising that they do not always see eye to eye on what 'monetarism' actually means. And this is, perhaps, the first point which should be made about it: it is simply not a unified doctrine, particularly at the level of practical policy.<br />
<br />
As an example of this one might take the Thatcher administration's policies on government spending. A central policy aim of the Conservative government has been to narrow the gap between what the government spends - on health, education and so forth - and its income in the form of taxes: it has done so by cutting expenditure and increasing the tax burden. This 'gap' between expenditure and tax income is the deficit in the government's budget, and it must be filled by borrowing: it is the basis of the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement (PSBR). Mrs Thatcher's economic ministers believe <br />
<br />
<br />
TREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM • 117 <br />
that a large PSBR generates increases in the money supply, which in turn fuels inflation. Since inflation is a supreme evil, they argue, we must cut the PSBR in order to cut the money supply, which will cut the inflation rate. But other monetarists believe no such thing. For some, monetarism is quite compatible with high levels of government spending and large amounts of government borrowing: they may not like government spending, but that is not because they think that it increases the money supply or is necessarily inflationary. Milton Friedman has taken this view, and recently wrote that he 'could not believe his eyes' when reading the British government's economic strategy document setting out these ideas. To give a further example, at the risk of labouring the point: Sir Geoffrey Howe, the former Chancellor, once appeared on television armed with two graphs, one showing the increase in prices, the other showing the increase in unemployment. Pointing to the fact that they have risen more or less simultaneously, he concluded that rising prices caused rising un-employment: 'Higher inflation means higher unemployment', he announced, concluding that we must beat inflation to cure unemployment. Many monetarist theorists believe nothing of the sort. For them inflation is a purely price phenomenon with no 'real' effects: when the money supply increases, prices rise but output and employment are in theory entirely unaffected or are affected only temporarily.<br />
<br />
Such discrepancies in belief could be multiplied without any trouble at all. What they imply is that monetarist theory should nor be identified with Thatcherite policy. But it is nevertheless important to set out the broad theoretical foundations of monetarism, since they have to do with a theory of markets, and it is of course the beneficial properties of free-market systems which are at the core of Conservative economic policies. But the proponents of free-market economics often seem to understand little of the theory which is supposed to support their views. At the same time, monetarist theory has often been misinterpreted by its critics. Both as a theory and as a principle of policy making it is frequently denounced as a<i> </i>'narrow dogma'<i>,</i> an attempt to bring a single idea - control of the money supply - to bear on economic problems which are so numerous and complex that they require an approach which is much wider in scope. Yet the portentously named 'neoclassical general equilibrium theory' which is the <br />
<br />
118 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
real core of monetarist thinking is by no means narrow. In fact it is an economic theory of wide horizons, of considerable structural complexity, logical rigour and breadth of scope. Even though it is rarely well understood, even within the economics profession, its ideas and its conclusions have a pervasive influence both among economists and among those, such as journalists and politicians, who are prone to refer to what they think economics proves. The most important disputes within modem economics concern the properties and the applicability of this general equilibrium theory, even though it is usually in the background rather than the foreground of much economic analysis. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">MARKETS AND EQUILIBRIUM</span> </h4>
General equilibrium analysis is the study of the interactions of large numbers of economic agents (individuals, firms) who are connected by systems of markets. It secs the economy not as a conglomeration of separate markets, but as a set of interrelated markets, where what happens in one market affects what happens in another. It is concerned with the implications of this market interdependence: if markets, and the prices which are established in them, are interdependent, then the decisions of economic agents must also be interdependent to some greater or lesser extent. The relationships of such an economy are likely to be very complex; general equilibrium theory attempts a rigorous analysis of this complexity. <br />
<br />
The theory starts from the idea that a fundamental problem for any economy is <i>coordination</i>: the desires of consumers for various products must be coordinated with the production system (so that the right amounts of different goods are produced); at the same time, the production system must be coordinated with suppliers of raw materials, machines and labour, so that the right quantities of inputs are available to produce the required goods. In a word, if the economy is to be viable at all, there must be <i>compatibility</i>; the economic needs of consumers must be compatible among themselves, and also with the capacity of the system to produce. Any economy will therefore need some mechanism which will allocate its resources of labour and materials among different types of<br />
<br />
FREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM • 119 <br />
production so as to produce a coordinated, compatible configuration of output. <br />
<br />
Since the late nineteenth century, the mainstream of economic theory has seen markets and prices as precisely such a coordinating mechanism. In this approach, prices are normally seen as signals, delivering two kinds of information which should be harmonized in any efficient economy. On the one hand, price signals the intensity with which consumers demand any particular product, while on the other it signals the costs incurred, the resources used up, in producing it. This idea is associated in turn with a theory of how prices are formed in individual markets, a theory which accords with what many people often regard as elementary and reasonable. It runs as follows: as consumers, we do not normally have a need or demand for any <i>specific</i> quantity of a good to be produced. The amount which we will want to buy is variable, depending primarily on the terms on which it is available. In other words, if a product bears a high price we will want to purchase a relatively low quantity of it; if the price falls we will tend to buy more; and at a low price we will buy a relatively high quantity. In the jargon of economics, there is an inverse relation between the price and the quantity purchased. So for every price at which goods might be offered, a different amount will be purchased by consumers; and since there is therefore a whole range of possible price-quantity combinations, there is no way - at this point in the analysis - of saying what the ruling market price might actually be, or what quantity of goods will be sold. <br />
<br />
However, a similar, though converse, line of analysis can also be applied to production. If the costs of producers rise as they increase output then they will require the incentive of a higher price if they are to produce more and still cover their costs. Therefore at low prices they will supply low quantities of goods into a market; as prices rise they will supply more, and at a high price they will supply a relatively high quantity of the good. Producers also have a range of price-quantity combinations, but in the opposite direction to consumers: for them, the higher the price the more they want to trade in the market. Such considerations lead to a theory of what the market price will actually be. The argument is that there will normally be one price - and one price only - at which the quantity demanded by <br />
<br />
120 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
consumers is equal to the quantity which producers will wish to supply. This is called the <i>equilibrium price</i>. It is the only price which will clear the market, meaning that all demand will be satisfied and all goods sold. It is the only price which will leave producers and consumers satisfied with - not wanting to change - the quantity of goods being traded (if the price is above the equilibrium price, then the market will not clear: producers will want to sell more than consumers want to buy; their responses to the price signal will no longer be compatible). <br />
<br />
Now there are some interesting problems even at this early stage in equilibrium analysis, which are often skated over in economic theory. Firstly, these concern whether equilibrium prices exist, even in theory, for particular markets: it is quite easy to envisage markets exactly like those described above for which there is no equilibrium price. Secondly, there is the question of whether these prices are stable. The stability problem concerns what happens when the price is not at the equilibrium level: when the market is in what the jargon calls disequilibrium. Under such circumstances, does the market work to restore the equilibrium price and the equilibrium quantity traded? Again, it is a fairly simple matter to envisage wildly unstable markets, which show no tendency to restore the equilibrium price if they are disturbed.<br />
<br />
But suppose these problems are suspended or ignored or regarded as trivial in practice? What then happens if a market is in dis-equilibrium? If the price is above the equilibrium price then there will be unsold stocks, because producers will supply into the market more goods than consumers want to buy. Producers might then be expected to lower their prices in order to induce consumers to buy these stocks. As they do so, consumers will buy more, but at the lower prices now ruling, producers will want to produce less. In effect, there will be a succession of changes in prices and quantities traded until the equilibrium price is reached or restored. If prices are flexible in this way, then it is straightforward to see how this kind of market might act as a mechanism of coordination. Suppose that consumers, considered as a group, decide for whatever reason that they want more of a product. This means that, at the ruling price, they will want to buy a quantity larger than the existing equilibrium quantity. <br />
<br />
FREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM • 121<b> </b><br />
Another way of putting this is to say that they are prepared to pay more for the presently available quantity; they will bid up the price since they are in competition with each other for the going amount. As the price rises producers will supply more, because it will be profitable to do so, until a new equilibrium price-quantity combination emerges which satisfies the increased demand. The market, with its changing price signals, will have smoothly transformed an in-creased desire for the product into increased output Producers can pass on cost information in a similar way. If oil reserves begin to diminish, for example, then costs of producing a barrel of oil will rise; the market price will rise and consumers will buy less. Once again the price system is coordinating, encouraging a level of consumption which will conserve oil, making demand conform to resources.<br />
<br />
This kind of theory of individual markets is known as partial equilibrium analysis. The harmonious picture it presents involves some rather obvious flaws as an image of reality, and some subtle theoretical problems. Before looking at them, and before seeing how a 'general equilibrium' of the whole economy might be conceptualized, it is important to say something about one other individual market: the market for labour. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE LABOUR MARKET</span> </h4>
Sellers of goods (producers) will in the main be sellers in one market and buyers in another; they usually need to purchase labour in order to manufacture output. Now the basic equilibrium 'model' of the economy normally describes the labour market in a similar way to the goods markets outlined above. That is, it suggests that buyers of labour (producers, firms) will buy more labour as its price falls, and less labour as its price rises. Sellers (workers) will supply increasing quantities of labour as the price rises, and vice versa. As with any commodity, there will be an equilibrium price at which the quantity of labour demanded equals that supplied. The 'equilibrium price' thus established will be the going wage rate, while the 'equilibrium quantity' will be the number of workers employed. <br />
<br />
One very important point should be made about the labour market <br />
<br />
122 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
when it is analysed in this way. This is that the equilibrium quantity associated with the equilibrium price can he described as 'full employment'. The reasoning behind this is as follows: at the equilibrium price, everyone who wants a job can get one. Anyone who is unemployed, and wants a job, can get one by offering to work at a lower price, a lower wage rate. By lowering the price of labour employers will be induced to raise the quantity employed. This means that no one can, in general, be unemployed against their will; and this is a working definition of full employment. This, in turn, explains why monetarists are apt to describe unemployment as 'voluntary', and it underlies the remarks of more than one government spokesman on the need for workers to 'price themselves into jobs'.<i> </i>Thus a central interpretation of unemployment in the general equilibrium approach - though it is not, as we shall see, accepted by all general equilibrium theorists - is that unemployment is a temporary phenomenon associated with a quite restricted range of causes: these are invariably to do with wage rates being too high, perhaps because of trade union activity, or a mistaken reluctance to take a pay cut. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM: A FIRST PICTURE</span> </h4>
A 'general equilibrium' can be defined as an economic state in which all individual markets are simultaneously in equilibrium. If such an equilibrium is possible, and if the economy tends towards it (both rather big ifs, as it happens), then the general equilibrium state will clearly be of considerable interest and importance. This is because the particular character of such an equilibrium will determine some very important things about the economy. If all markets are in equilibrium then we will know - from the prices and quantities which are established in them - the following: the overall level of income, the number of people employed, the rate of wages, the profit rate, the types of output which are produced and the quantities of each type, and the relative prices of all goods and services. All of these things interlock. The wage rate will determine the quantity of people employed; the quantity of people employed, in conjunction with the available capital stock, will determine the quantity of output; the quantity of output will determine the total level of income, because <br />
<br />
FREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM • 123 <br />
the value of output will be equal to the value of the incomes (profits, wages) earned in producing it. The way in which people spend their income will determine a structure of demand, which will in turn affect the relative prices of goods. The intensities of demand for the various goods will determine which goods it is profitable to produce, and hence the composition of output. All of these relationships and quantities will moreover be fixed simultaneously. <br />
<br />
All of this depends, it should be emphasized, on the operation of the separate and apparently unconnected markets which make up the economy. Since the time of Adam Smith (a particular hero to monetarists like Milton Friedman), but more particularly since the late nineteenth century, it has been a central theme of main-stream Western economics that market economies do work in this kind of way. It is argued that if all markets operate freely, then the structure of the economy and the amount it produces will be fully determined by the choices made by individuals. In choosing which products to buy, and how much of them to buy, in deciding where we will work and for how long, we are in effect engaged in the formation of a collective decision concerning the making and working of the economy. And in attempting to get the best value for money, in attempting to maximize our incomes, in socking out the most profitable opportunities for business, we are certainly helping ourselves as individuals, but we are also doing something more. We are improving the efficiency of the economy, raising its output, increasing the economic welfare of all. Moreover, this co-operation and coordination can extend world-wide, as long as there are markets freely operating internationally as well as within our own country. <br />
<br />
In many respects this vision of the economy is a noble one. It places the responsibilities for economic decision-making squarely on individuals. It gives short shrift to political elites or economic vested interests who might want to usurp crucial economic decisions, either from private greed or from the belief that they know, better than the rest of us, what is good for us. This <i>'free market'</i> theory is, in one sense, thoroughly libertarian; its impact on the economics profession in the West would be difficult to exaggerate. <br />
<br />
124 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE ECONOMICS OF 'WELFARE'</span> </h4>
It seems a natural extension of the approach outlined above to suggest that the outcomes which emerge from freely operating market systems are beneficial; in fact, could not be bettered. Once again, such views can be traced back to Adam Smith. But in modern 'neoclassical' economics such positive assessments of the market system are not regarded as just matters of opinion. There is a major branch of economics, 'welfare economics', which studies the effects of economic processes on the welfare of individuals and groups. It takes a highly formal, abstract and mathematical approach to the topic and for that reason it would be impossible accurately to describe its procedures here. But it is important to set out one of its most famous results, which has had a deep influence on the thinking of many economists. This result is frequently used as an argument in support of the free-market economics analysed by general equilibrium theory. Welfare economics shows (that is to say, <i>proves</i> in the sense of a logical or mathematical proof) that a fully free-market economy produces, out of all the economic outcomes which could be produced, the best for the welfare of its people (given the income distribution, the available technology and people's preferences for goods). This best-possible outcome is known in the jargon as a 'Pareto optimum', and although a free-market economy is not the only way to achieve it (in abstract theory Soviet-type centrally planned economics could do just as well) it is the method which, for obvious reasons, has fascinated Western economists. The relation between welfare economics and general equilibrium theory is simple. It turns out that a competitive economy in general equilibrium is also a Parato optimum. This result is the scientific basis for claims, which are frequently heard but rarely justified, that the free-market capitalist economy is the most efficient, welfare maximizing economy possible. <br />
<br />
However, it is always prudent to be a little suspicious of those who start talking of the best of all possible worlds. And since it is not for nothing that the monetarist version of general equilibrium theory has been described recently by a distinguished critic as 'the economics of Dr Pangloss', it will be useful to look in more detail at the theoretical difficulties which lurk in the background of Milton Friedman's rather <br />
<br />
FREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM • 125 <br />
euphoric picture of competitive capitalism. What kinds of limitations are there in the theoretical methods which general equilibrium theory uses to depict the economy? How far do these limitations vitiate it as a theory of the real-world economy? Are the conclusions based on it sound? <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM: THEORY AND METHODS</span> </h4>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
We can start by reconsidering the idea of 'general equilibrium' itself. It was defined as a simultaneous equilibrium, simultaneous balancing of supply and demand, in all markets of the economy. What is involved in this? <br />
<br />
In the discussion of partial equilibrium (equilibrium in one market) earlier in this chapter it was suggested that the quantities demanded and supplied for any commodity depended on its price. In fact I should have said, depended <i>mainly</i> on its price: there are some further factors to consider. For example, the prices of other goods will be an important matter. The quantity of butter demanded might depend partly on the price of margarine (because they are 'substitutes': if the price of margarine falls then people might just buy more margarine and less butter) and partly on the price of bread (they are called complements: if the price of bread rises people might eat less bread and hence less butter). The quantity of butter demanded also depends on people's incomes, which in turn depend on the prices of other commodities. If the price of carpets falls, then the incomes of those who manufacture them are likely also to fall, and they may demand less butter in consequence as they 'economize'. It can easily he seen, through this kind of argument, that the equilibrium quantity of butter demanded will depend on its own price and the prices of a great many other, perhaps <i>all</i> other, commodities. This means that the market equilibria of most or all goods are completely interdependent: we cannot describe what is happening in one goods market without taking into account what is happening in all. This is why it is necessary to study equilibria as both <i>general</i> and <i>simultaneous </i>in the market economy. There are a number of reasons why the study of 'general equilibrium' is important. Firstly, there is the question of whether a market <br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> 126 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">economy is actually viable. Clearly, market systems are only worth supporting and maintaining if they actually work, in particular as mechanisms of coordination. But in theory they only work in so far as general equilibrium is possible: if equilibrium in the butter market is not compatible with equilibrium in the carpet market, then something has to give. One way or another people's demands for goods will not be effectively coordinated with the production system (because dis-equilibrium in the carpet market means that there will be either overproduction or unsatisfied demand). Of course, if just one market is out of equilibrium, then there is no great problem. But what if equilibrium in half the markets of the economy means dis-equilibrium in the other half? Or if, because of the interdependence of all markets, no equilibrium is possible in any market? The result will he chaos. Markets will not be solving the basic economic problem of what should be produced, in what quantities, etc. Market economies tend to look rather chaotic and unstructured; if general equilibrium is possible in theory, then there is at least the possibility of an underlying order. <br />
<br />
Secondly, there are questions about the properties of a general equilibrium. Does it generate full employment? Does it encourage economic efficiency? Finally there are questions about 'movement' in the economy. Can we explain shifts and changes and modifications in the economy in terms of movement towards general equilibrium? Does it give us some insight into the dynamic forces which are in play in the economy? These kinds of concerns make the existence of general equilibrium an important theoretical problem. <br />
<br />
Now for the sixty-four-thousand dollar questions. Seeing that any one market equilibrium depends on most or all other markets, it is likely to be a very complex matter. In view of this complexity, is it at all possible that a general equilibrium of all markets might exist? If such a general equilibrium position is attainable for the whole economy, is there only one equilibrium state, or two, or three, or what? Is such an equilibrium stable? If general equilibrium is reached, does the economy stay in it, or return to equilibrium if some unforeseen shock to the system (such as a basic rise in the price of oil) occurs? These questions turn out to be far from easy to answer. <br />
<br />
But the investigation of such problems has been a core preoccupation</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
FREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM • 127 </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">of Western economists in the modern period. The most influential line of attack on them has derived from the pioneering work of the nineteenth-century French-Swiss economist Leon Walras (1834-1910), usually regarded as the first to pose and solve the big conceptual problems of general equilibrium adequately. His work is frequently praised in rather reverential terms; as one major authority, Joseph Schumpeter, has put it </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">his system of economic equilibrium, uniting, as it does, the quality of <i>'revolutionary'</i> creativeness and the quality of classic synthesis, is the only work by an economist that will stand comparison with the achievements of theoretical physics.[1] </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">The Walrasian method, set out in his <i>Elements d'ivonomie politique pure</i> (1874) runs broadly as follows: the specific price-quantity combinations which describe consumer demand in any one market can be represented by mathematical means, with an equation. The quantity demanded will be related to the price of the good, and all other relevant prices. In mathematical terms, the quantity demanded will be an inverse function of the good's price, and functionally related to other prices. Similarly with the quantity supplied: this will also be some multiple of prices, a direct function of the price of the good itself, and functionally related to other prices. Since we know that, in equilibrium, the quantity supplied will equal the quantity demanded, we can bring these two equations together to form a small simultaneous equation system. If the equations can be solved, then it means that an equilibrium exists; the specific values of the variables, when the equations are solved, will give the actual price and quantity. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;">However, the equations describing any one market are related to the equations describing most or all of the other markets. So in fact the simultaneous equation system must be very large. The whole thing rapidly becomes very complex, because a very wide range of descriptive equations is in fact needed. The system requires equations specifying the relationships between the welfare of consumers and the number and composition of the goods they consume; it needs equations describing the production system, in particular the relation between output and the quantities of labour and capital input; it needs supply and demand equations derived from or related to these </span></div>
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
128 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
types of equation. Appropriate equations are needed in description of every consumer, every product, every process, every market in the economy. And this very large set of equations, with an enormous number of unknown variables, must solve simultaneously if this mathematical picture of general equilibrium is to be viable. It may seem an abstract, perhaps rather far-fetched approach, and in some ways it is. But it is worth emphasizing that it is simply a precise statement of what we must be able to prove, if more general statements (to the effect that market economies are efficient, welfare maximizing and so on) are to hold water. Another way of putting it is to say that if this mathematical picture of the economy does not work, then there is no completely sound theoretical basis for economic policies aimed — as Mrs Thatcher's are — at extending the free-market, private-enterprise economy. So does the equation system solve? <br />
<br />
It turns out to be possible. It has been shown that the equation system is solvable, that in theory a state of general equilibrium in all markets can exist, that the equilibrium is unique (there is only one possible equilibrium to which the economy will tend), and that it is stable. This was a considerable achievement. Admiration for it, however, should be qualified, for there were some marked peculiarities in the way the results were achieved. <br />
<br />
These are not necessarily particularly important in theoretical terms; but they are absolutely crucial when conclusions from Walras's theory are applied in practice. The problems in Walras's approach relate, firstly, to the simplifications he had to adopt about the nature of the economy, and secondly, to the way in which equilibrium was actually achieved. <br />
<br />
First, the simplifications. An economy, however small, is clearly a complex thing. Any mathematical 'model' of it will therefore need to simplify many features of it; these simplifications are known in economics as 'initial assumptions'. They are the restrictions which must be put on the complexity of the economy in order to make the mathematics of the model of it workable. The restrictive assumptions of Walrasian General Equilibrium theory include the following: <br />
<br />
1. There is full and free competition (known as 'perfect competition') in the economy. If all prices are established competitively, then no buyer or seller is in a position to fix prices — they are 'price takers', <br />
<br />
FREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM • 129 <br />
they must take the prices established in the market. This means that there must be no monopolies (markets with only one seller) or oligopolies (markets dominated by a few large producers), since such firms can set their own prices. <br />
<br />
2. There is no historical time: the approach is static, the problem being set up as one concerning economic organization at a particular moment in time, not as one of an economy moving through time. <br />
<br />
3. Everyone has 'perfect knowledge'; everyone can get, immediately and costlessly, all the information — and specifically price information — which they need about the economy. There is no uncertainty about the future. <br />
<br />
4. There are no 'externalities' in the economy. These are costs (such as pollution) or benefits (such as the acquisition of skills) which are not included in private transactions. There are also no 'public goods' (broadly speaking these are goods or services for which no market price can be easily or realistically charged: defence, street-lights, radio or television programmes). <br />
<br />
5. Products in any particular market are 'homogeneous', meaning that they are exactly the same in terms of qualities — the only differences between them can be their prices. There is no 'product differentiation'. <br />
<br />
6. There are no 'economies of scale'. This means that there are no production processes where efficiency can be improved by increasing the size of the operation (i.e. where doubling the inputs might lead to more than doubled output). This is not a full list of the necessary assumptions; there are also usually some quite stringent assumptions made about the nature of production processes. Subsequent research has shown that some of them can be removed or qualified without affecting the existence of general equilibrium. But there is one which remains essential if it is to be claimed that the market system maximizes social and individual welfare, and that is the first. There must he perfect competition. In particular this means that prices must be flexible: if there is any change in consumers' demand, or conditions of supply, then prices must shift in response. <br />
<br />
'Assumptions' like these clearly take us a long way from the real world economy, which in the case of Britain is characterized by </span></span><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<br />
130 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
imperfect competition (monopolies like telecommunications, oligopolies like cars, oil, chemicals, bread); considerable uncertainty about the future; many externalities; some public goods; strongly differentiated products; industries with marked economics of scale; and some <i>very</i> inflexible prices. But these are only the most obvious difficulties in applying the 'general equilibrium' approach to the real economy. Some more subtle, but ultimately more devastating, difficulties emerge when the question is asked, how is equilibrium attained, and how quickly is it reached? This question is clearly of considerable interest if general equilibrium theory is to be used to argue the merits of free markets in general and Mrs Thatcher in particular. Yet it is precisely in this area — how equilibrium is reached — that intractable problems arise. <br />
<br />
It is worth considering this matter in some detail; but why is it so important? Suppose, for instance, that the economy is in dis-equilibrium. This means that markets are not clearing — quantities supplied are not equal to quantities demanded. Consequently there may be unsold stocks combined with shortages, less than capacity output, unemployment and so on. It is obviously vied to know whether there are forces which will cause equilibrium to be attained. The speed of adjustment to equilibrium is also important: if it takes twenty years for full equilibrium to be attained after an oil price rise, then it might not be advisable to rely on free market forces. Walras solved neither of these problems in a realistically acceptable way. <br />
<br />
On the first problem — how is equilibrium attained? — he employed a method which might politely be described as 'mythical'. The difficulty is this: establishing general equilibrium means establishing a set of prices which will enable all markets to clear. This implies that prices must actually be set or changed. But it has already been assumed (in the first assumption noted on p.128) that all economic agents are price <i>takers</i>, not price makers: nobody sets prices, they have to take what the market offers. By what agency then, are prices established or changed? In order to get round this impasse, Walras assumed the existence of a mythical 'auctioneer', overseeing the economy in a rather god-like way. The auctioneer would take 'advance bids', as it were, for all the goods in the economy. Where demand exceeded supply he would raise prices, and vice versa; then a new set of bids would be taken. The auctioneer would keep on adjusting potential <br />
<br />
FREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM • 131 <br />
prices until the bids revealed a set of prices which would equate supply and demand in all markets. These prices would then be declared the ruling prices, and all trades would take place. The process is one of successively getting nearer to the equilibrium prices; Walras called it <i>'tâtonnemette'</i><b> </b>(normally translated rather inelegantly as 'groping'). This approach also solves — if that is the word — the problem of how fast equilibrium is attained. Since the whole thing is set up in advance by the auctioneer, equilibrium occurs <i>instantaneously.</i> (Time therefore does not enter Walras's theoretical world; how it might be brought into this kind of analysis is a complex matter, susceptible to a range of interpretations.) Finally, general equilibrium occurs simultaneously in response to the final bids; so there can be no shortage of demand in the economy — demand is simply not a problem. <br />
<br />
One might sum up the story so far by saying that Walras achieved a great deal, but at a great cost: that of realism, of applicability to the concrete world. But his work should not idly be rejected on that account, however. No one can solve all theoretical problems at once, and very drastic simplifications may be in order to help work out intractable problems. There is nothing new, in scientific work, in this kind of thing, at least as a starting point. On the other hand it must be said that general equilibrium theorists have not made notable progress on some of the problems noted above in the seventy or so years since the death of Walras. No really convincing theory has emerged on how general equilibrium is attained in a fully competitive economy. The theory remains mired in its central contradiction: if the market economy is to be the best of all possible worlds, then we must all be price-takers; but attaining equilibrium requires price makers. You can't have it both ways. This problem is not a trivial one: it means that if some measure of realism is introduced into the analysis, then the conclusion that the free-market economy maximizes efficiency and welfare cannot be sustained. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">MONETARISM AND GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM THEORY</span> </h4>
In the light of the story presented above, monetarism can be seen in terms of two distinct ideas. The first and most important has nothing <br />
<br />
<br />
132 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
to do with money. It is simply that monetarists treat the general equilibrium model as the appropriate starting point for discussion and analysis of economies like Britain. Certainly the model is a simplification - but it is an accurate and realistic one. Consequently they regard conclusions drawn from the theory as applicable and relevant to real-world economies in general, and Britain in particular (despite the fact that few would claim that the theory gives a full and complete description of the economy). Monetarists tend to be prepared to use ideas drawn from general equilibrium theory to answer questions about the actual operation of real economics. To take an example: monetarists believe that there is a 'natural rate' of unemployment, a rate which cannot permanently be reduced by expansionary government policies. What determines this rate? Milton Friedman's answer is as follows: the natural rate <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
is the level (of unemployment) which would be ground out <i>by the Walrasian system of general equilibrium equations,</i> provided that there is embedded in them the actual structural characteristics of the labour and commodity markets.[2] (My italics.) </blockquote>
Using the general equilibrium system in this way seems to lead more or less directly to a belief in the self-regulating properties of the market economy. The model demonstrates desirable properties if markets are free. Therefore if the economy is left to its own devices it will not only reach full output and full employment, it will also - because of competition - produce goods and use labour in the most efficient way. Monetarism involves one further central idea, which concerns the money supply. More precisely, it concerns the role of money in general equilibrium type models. The idea is that money is simply a means of accounting, something which expresses the prices of goods relative to each other, and which facilitates transactions. This leads to a 'quantity theory of money' (actually a theory of the price level), in which the general level of prices is determined by the size of the money stock. As an influential economic idea this has a long history, stretching back into the eighteenth century if not beyond. In essence it is very simple: if commodity A costs £10 and commodity B costs £5, then doubling the money supply will cost £20 and B to<b> </b><br />
<br />
FREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM • 133 <br />
cost £10. This is inflation, a change in the general level of prices. It changes only 'nominal' prices, not the real relationships between the commodities (A still costs twice as much as B). Modern monetarism puts this idea to use in opposition to an idea associated with Keynes: when there is unemployment, the government can increase the money supply in such a way as to increase overall demand in the economy. This will lead to an increase in output (as producers satisfy the increased demand) and in employment. The monetarist argument is that this is an illusion: we know from the quantity theory that increasing the money supply can ultimately only lead to an increase in prices. An increase in the money supply can therefore have no 'real' effects: it changes the general level of prices, though not their relation to one another. It cannot alter the amount of goods being produced, or the number of people employed (in which case, of course, it is difficult to see why inflation is such a significant economic problem). <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CONCLUSION </span></h4>
What the above discussion has tried to indicate is that monetarism consists of a set of technical propositions - mainly concerning the price level and the money supply - grafted on to a more general theory of the market economy. It is perfectly possible to reject the former while accepting the latter. And many economists, politicians, journalists and so on do precisely that, though they rarely have any serious understanding of the scientific limitations of free-market economics. Arguably the single most influential economic idea in British society is the notion that free markets work: that they generate efficiency, 'consumer sovereignty', and freedom of choice. Yet the rigorous scientific theory of market systems - Walrasian general equilibrium theory and its derivatives - shows if anything that such notions are true only under very restrictive conditions. In fact those conditions are not met and cannot be met in any real economy. Although this does not mean either that market systems do not work, or that they are inferior to available alternatives, it does imply that we should hesitate before accepting the arguments of free-market apologists, especially concerning economic policy. The next chapter will <br />
<br />
136 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
exert great influence - his collected articles could perhaps stand as a systematic statement of the free-market position. This is not the place for a discussion of the role of financial journalism in forming the climate of opinion in Britain. But it could be suggested that it is a significant role; and not the least significant thing about it is the utterly uncritical character of its acceptance of free-market positions (even where it has swung away, under the impact of events, from support for hard-line monetarism). For that reason it is important to set out the theoretical basis of support for free-market policy positions, since the solution to Britain's problems must involve a challenge to them. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE 'NEW CLASSICAL MACROECONOMICS' </span></h4>
Within the economics profession, monetarism is normally associated with a wider body of ideas - also based on general equilibrium concepts - usually known as the <i>'new classical macroeconomics'</i>. It is distinguished by a thorough-going opposition to government policy interventions in the economy, claiming to prove the case for laissez-faire, for leaving the economy to its own devices. Hence the reference to <i>'classical'</i> economics - in the tradition of such writers as Adam Smith and David Ricardo - which is supposed to be essentially laissez-faire economics, and also the foundation of laissez-faire economic policy in the nineteenth century. What is the basis of this new argument against policy intervention? At one level, matters are very simple. Suppose that one takes the free-market, general equilibrium model of the economy seriously, either as a description of the real economy or as an appropriate starting point. That model, as many have assumed and as Walras proved (albeit rather oddly), works beautifully in economic terms without a government. It seems to follow directly that government intervention should be avoided or minimized or restricted to enforcing contracts. That kind of argument is hardly convincing when one remembers the very restrictive assumptions necessary to make the theory work, but none the less it is an important component of monetarist and free-market thinking. They do believe in the self-regulating properties of market economics. The advantages of a <br />
MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY • 137<br />
privatized, competitive economy have been frequently cited by Conservative spokesmen as the rationale behind the Thatcher government's attempts to sell off publicly-owned enterprises, to cut government expenditure and so on. But the <i>'new classical macroeconomics'</i> goes further than this rather general position; the theory claims also that government policy interventions in the economy are either completely ineffective, or positively harmful. This section examines the two most influential arguments advanced in support of such claims: the <i>'crowding out'</i> theory, and the <i>'rational expectations hypothesis'</i>. The first of these has probably been the more important in terms of practical policy making, while the second has obsessed academic economists. There are, in this kind of analysis, essentially two kinds of government activity in the economy. They are fiscal policy and monetary policy. Fiscal policy concerns the economics of the government budget, that is, its tax and expenditure decisions. When the government decides to spend a certain amount, say on defence or on hospitals, it is affecting two things initially: the level of its control over the economic resources of society, and the level of total spending in the economy. When it makes tax decisions it is affecting the amount of income left to the population after tax, and thereby it affects the level of people's consumption expenditure; once again, this affects the level of total spending in the economy. The problem is this: suppose the government runs a deficit in its budget; suppose it spends more than it earns. This obviously increases total expenditure. But does it increase total income and output (and, in consequence, total employment)? The other main policy instrument, monetary policy, concerns the size of the money stock and the level of interest rates (if the government increases the money supply then interest rates tend to go down, and vice versa). Suppose the government increases the money supply. The question is, does the resulting increase in demand generate increases in real output and employment, or not? The arguments mainly concern fiscal policy, though they also have a monetary aspect, since the way in which government expenditure is financed can have effects on the money supply. The 'crowding out' thesis has a number of variations, of which two are particularly important. The first concerns the implications of increasing govern-<br />
<br />
138 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
merit control of real economic resources. The second concerns the effects of the ways in which government expenditure is financed. <br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">"CROWDING OUT"</span></h4>
The first of the 'crowding out' arguments runs as follows. Suppose that the government increases its expenditure on health or defence, financing the increased expenditure with increased taxes. This will reduce the share of national income available to the private sector, which is made up of employers and employees. One or both of these groups will therefore have to accept a reduction in their real income. If workers bear the brunt of the reduction then there are no adverse effects for the economy as a whole (in terms of output, employment, exports and so on). But if they do not accept the wage reductions implied by increased taxation, if they insist on higher money wages to compensate for the increased tax burden, then one of two things will happen. <i>Either</i>, exports will be reduced, as a result of increased costs. This will lead to a balance of payments crisis of one form or another, and the government will have to contract economic activity in order to reduce imports. The end results are likely to be unemployment, a decline in national income, and inflation. <i>Or</i>, on the other hand, increased wages could mean reduced profits (it is argued by 'classicals' and Marxists that this occurred on a significant scale in Britain in the post-war period to 1974). If the profits of firms decrease, then they will be reluctant to invest in new plant and equipment. Lowered rates of investment mean lower output and national income, and fewer jobs. Once again, unemployment and recession are in store. So, either way, increased levels of government intervention are positively harmful. <br />
<br />
The second part of the 'crowding out' thesis concentrates on finance. Suppose that the government increases its expenditure but does not increase taxation. It must then finance its expenditure, which it an do in two ways. Firstly, it could increase the money supply, in effect printing money. If one accepts the 'quantity theory of money' this must be purely inflationary with no permanent real effects. Secondly, it can sell bonds to the public: at the moment it sells many billions of pounds worth of various kinds of bonds per year. If this <br />
<br />
MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY • 139 <br />
happens, then people - mostly through insurance companies, pension funds, etc. - will spend money on bonds that might otherwise have been spent in the private economy. In other words, if the government spends £10 billion more than it 'earns', financed by bond sales, then £10 billion of private expenditure is 'crowded out' of existence. The overall effect on demand must be zero. However, there is a further aspect of this to be considered; the government must pay interest on the bonds that it sells. If it wishes to sell more bonds in order to spend more, then it must raise the rate of interest. This of course raises the cost of borrowing for firms (and everyone else) and lowers the amount of investment they are prepared to undertake. Once again, the effect is to depress the level of activity in the economy. The conclusion, in consequence, is that government activity is either use-less or positively harmful.<br />
<br />
The crowding out thesis raises some important problems which have been neglected by those who take the view that government economic activity is automatically beneficial, and that government expenditure can be raised almost without limit. But it is also true that important criticisms can he directed against 'crowding out' ideas. The 'real crowding out' variant assumes, for example, that private economic activity is the only 'productive' activity in the economy, on no very clear grounds; moreover it is not obvious that the poor investment and growth record of the UK economy is due to crowding out and low profits. It could be that profitability and investment are affected more by a whole history of poor investment and technology decisions, than by relatively recent government actions. The issues here remain unresolved; all that can he said is that they are important. As for 'financial crowding out', it can perhaps simply be said that there is little evidence that investment is significantly affected by interest rate changes in the UK (although the American picture appears to be different). <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE 'RATIONAL EXPECTATIONS HYPOTHESIS'</span> </h4>
Although 'crowding out' theories are of considerable interest,, they have taken second place - as a theoretical approach - in recent years to attacks on government intervention deriving from the so-called <br />
<br />
140 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
`rational expectations hypothesis' (which will hereafter be called `R E H'). <br />
<br />
Non-monetarists often stem slightly embarrassed in talking about the rational expectations approach. As Frank Blackaby, of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, recently put it: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When I try to explain this hypothesis to non-economists they tend to stare at me with wild surmise, and accuse me of joking when I say that serious economists have serious conferences devoted to the examination of this proposition. [1] </blockquote>
The reason for his diffidence is that the REH is built on what at first sight appears to be an absurd idea: this is that all individuals, all economic agents, in the economy act as if they are in possession of a full-scale theoretical model of the economy, which they use in taking decisions and plotting their economic activities. The model is a correct one, and can be used to assess the likely results of government policy actions; agents therefore act in the light of such assessments (which are necessarily correct). The model which they possess just happens to he the monetarist version of the general equilibrium approach. Stated as baldly as this, it must inevitably seem ridiculous. But this is to neglect the way the argument runs; some important points are made along the way. REH starts with the idea that people's expectations of the future are a central aspect of the choices which they make today. Suppose a firm is considering borrowing money to finance a new plant, and the rate of interest is 18 per cent. Then the expectation of the firm's planners about the rate of inflation, or future interest rates, will he of great importance in its decision. If they expect a general rate of inflation of say 12 per cent over the next year, then they will expect their money earnings to be higher than they are today. They will therefore be more willing to borrow than if they expect a rate of inflation of zero. The REH suggests that economic decision-makers - individuals or firms - will do two things in forming their expectations: <br />
1. They will use all available information which is relevant to their decision, and they will process and evaluate the information in an intelligent and rational manner. <br />
2. They will reflect on their past performance in expectation-<br />
<br />
MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY • 141 <br />
forming, and in particular on their errors. They will not keep on making the same old mistakes. This means that they will not make systematic errors in their expectations of the future. (REH is not particularly clear about how expectations are formed and the correct model developed. But it seems to be that it is the revision of past mistakes, the elimination of errors, which leads to a sort of evolutionary adaptation towards the correct monetarist view of the world.) <br />
<br />
So, expectations of future developments are central to current economic decisions. Since people consider all pertinent developments in making those decisions, it follows that they will take the effects of government policy into account. This means that the actual effects of any government policy adopted today will be determined in large part by the expectations which people form concerning those effects. This is a simple point, and it is true that it has been neglected in many forecasting models of the economy. How does REH put this idea to use? <br />
<br />
REH asserts that, if the government adopts an expansionary fiscal or monetary policy (that is, if it tries to expand economic activity by spending more or increasing the money supply) then people will expect inflation. They will be correct in this, having learnt the truth of the monetarist position through bitter experience. These 'inflationary expectations' will ensure that inflation does occur, because prices will be adjusted to accord with expected inflation. More importantly, people will not think that the inflationary price rises represent real increases in demand in the economy, and hence an opportunity for growth. This is a very important step in the argument: people will not be deceived; they will not mistake inflation fur a higher level of demand. <br />
<br />
But how can this lead to the proposition that the government cannot increase the level of output and employment? litre it is necessary to return to the so-called 'natural rate of unemployment'. In discussing the general equilibrium model of the economy, it was suggested that there was an equilibrium price-quantity relationship in the labour market, this being defined by 'classicals' as `full employment'. The corresponding unemployment defines the 'natural rate of unemployment'. Once the equilibrium price and quantity are reached, then unemployment can be reduced only in two ways. Either, <br />
<br />
142 THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
workers can accept a lower wage (encouraging employers to use more labour), or employers can offer a higher wage (encouraging workers to supply more labour). Consider the second of these cases. Under what circumstances will employers offer a higher wage? One way would be if they thought they were facing increased demand, and consequently higher prices, for their products. What happens if the government tries to generate such an increase in demand?<br />
<br />
The 'classical' argument is that unemployment could be reduced below its 'natural rate' by inflationary government action, in the following way. People could mistake the general price rise for a real increase in demand. Firms will think they are facing an increase in demand for their particular product; workers will think that any in-crease in wage rates is an increase in the real wage. But both are mistaken. If the inflation consists of all prices rising simultaneously, then all prices remain the same in relation to each other. However, while the mistake persists, employers will demand more labour in order to meet what they think is an increased demand for output, and workers will supply more labour in response to what they think is an increase in the wage rate. Once people realize their mistake, once they see that it is inflation which is occurring - and not a real increase in demand and wages - then output and employment will fall back to their original level (hut at a higher level of 'nominal' prices). One of the explanations of why all this occurs is that, in the words of a leading monetarist, 'suppliers receive information about the prices of their own goods faster than they receive information about the aggregate price level'. But the upshot is that unemployment can only be reduced - by the government or anybody else - when people make mistakes about the rate of inflation: when, in the jargon, they make expectational errors about the future course of inflation. <br />
<br />
<i>But </i>. . . the rational expectations hypothesis tells us that people do not make expectational errors <i>systematically</i>. They correct their mistakes, and learn to make correct appreciations of the inflational effects of government policy actions. The conclusion is obvious and important. If the government can only affect the level of output and employment through errors about the inflation rate (which is what the 'natural rate' theory says); and if people do not make systematic errors about inflation (which is what REH tells us); then it follows <br />
<br />
<br />
MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY • 143 <br />
that the government cannot systematically affect the level of output and the level of employment. Government policy, in particular employment policy, is thus proved ineffective. This is the central theoretical argument of the 'new classical macroeconomics' against government policy intervention, and hence for a policy of <i>laissez-faire</i>. (Of course, the same argument cuts both ways: if employment cannot be above the full employment level, it cannot be below it either. This makes the existence of long-term recession rather difficult to explain.) As a basis for discussing economic policy, theories such as these seem almost entirely inadequate, for reasons which will be discussed in the next section. However, the objections should be neither to the idea that economic agents behave rationally, nor to the idea that the expectations which they hold are of great importance. On the contrary, it is correct and important to emphasize that expectations of what the future might hold can be of great economic significance currently. It is ironic, however, that the economist who first really stressed this was none other than J. M. Keynes. The theme of expectations and uncertainty about the future runs right through his major work, though it has been neglected by many of his followers. Of course, the thrust of the 'new classical' approach is to introduce the concept of expectations and to remove uncertainty, but they are nevertheless right to emphasize that expectations about the future include expectations about the effects of current policy. This is particularly important when one turns from the theoretical world of general equilibrium to the real economic environment in which we live. This environment is characterized by concentrated economic power: large firms control the vast majority of output, large banks control the financial system, large unions dominate the labour market. A relatively small number of decision makers effectively control a very large number of important economic decisions, in the course of which they can and do weigh up the likely effects of government policy, and adapt their actions accordingly. The Ford car company, for example, is said to employ economists whose sole task is to predict exchange-rate changes (they are supposed to he very good at it). The decisions taken by such firms, on the basis of their expectations, have effects. In a sense, however, economic policy has always concerned itself with <br />
<br />
144 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
such matters, for a perennial theme in policy making is the need to sustain 'confidence'. When people use this word they are invariably referring to the need to induce a certain set of expectations (usually profits) in large corporate managements. To speak of expectations in this sense is meaningful and important; to use the existence of expectations to prove the necessary ineffectiveness of policy is quite another matter. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE 'NEW CLASSICAL MACROECONOMICS' AND ECONOMIC POLICY: SOME PROBLEMS</span></h4>
The 'new classical macroeconomics' has been increasingly influential in recent years, both within the economics profession (though there remain many sceptics) and among those who make or comment on policy. This writer is firmly among the sceptics, though certainly the 'new classical' system has performed one signal service. It has set out, in a thorough way, the theoretical basis of 'free-market' policy making. This section will be doing something that the apologists of the free market rarely do, namely taking a look at the underside of the theory, at its weaknesses. In the light of these weaknesses it seems difficult to see rational justification for any form of <i>laissez-faire</i> economic policy. The first major problem for the 'new classical' system lies in the restricted nature of the theoretical model on which it is based. That model only works on the basis of some extreme simplifications, such as that all prices are not only flexible but adjust more or less instantaneously to shifts in supply and demand. However in outlining these stringent 'assumptions' (in Chapter 6, pp.128-9) the dimensions of this problem have, if anything, been understated. For example, the full general equilibrium model requires a very large number of 'futures' markets (markets in which trades are undertaken today for completion in the future) if it is really to work. But the assumptions (perfect competition, perfect knowledge, price flexibility, etc.) are sufficient to clarify a major difficulty for the 'free-market' model. The difficulty is this: if any of these assumptions do not hold in general, then a general equilibrium may exist, but it will not be one in which full employment is achieved, or in which efficiency is possible,<br />
<br />
<br />
MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY • 145 <br />
or in which the social outcomes can be claimed to be the 'best possible'. In fact, there is an interesting result in 'welfare economics' known as the 'second-best theorem'. It shows that if any one of these conditions is violated (i.e. if there is 'imperfect competition' in only <i>one</i> market) then in order to achieve the 'next best' result to the 'best of all possible worlds' optimum, intervention is required throughout the economy, quite possibly in <i>all </i>markets. In other word; it is no use having a bit of competition, a bit of the free-market economy, or a bit of <i>laissez-faire</i>. It is a case of everything or nothing: if the initial assumptions do not hold in <i>their entirety</i>, then <i>none</i> of the beneficial outcomes which are beloved of Conservative economists and their journalistic hangers-on necessarily follow.<br />
<br />
Now clearly no serious person could claim that thew assumptions or conditions hold in the UK economy, or any other for that matter. The monetarist response to this tends to be to acknowledge that the economy does not work like the 'model', but then to suggest that this is only because we tolerate 'imperfections' (such as monopolies or trade unions). Therefore we should rid ourselves of rigidities and imperfections in markets - which are the only true cause of un-employment, recession and so on - and the economy would work as the model suggests. However, this ignores the fact that many of the assumptions not only do not hold, but could not possibly hold. Some of the assumptions are straightforwardly impossible: no conceivable economic organization could deliver perfect knowledge, absence of uncertainty or instantaneous price adjustment. Others are unrealistic in a different sense. Such things as imperfect competition (i.e. oligopolistic or monopolistic industries), or economies of scale, or 'externalities', are not 'imperfections'; they are precisely the product of the natural development of the economy. They are not just the basis of the way our economy functions, they are the outcome of it, and it is pointless to fulminate against them. Other 'imperfections', such as taxes, or the way in which public goods - like television or defence - are provided, are simply part and parcel of the institutional structure ofour society; this is a matter which is systematically avoided by general equilibrium theory, which explicitly ignores the institutional organization of economies. (This may be theoretically justifiable in my opinion, so long as the results are not used in pronouncements about policy.)<br />
<br />
146 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<br />
However, it is not simply in its assumptions or axioms that the free-market model is impoverished in policy terms. It is also restricted in the very nature of the theoretical system which emerges. The crucial economic policy debates in recent years have concerned firstly, monetary policy, and secondly, government economic activity. How far does the general equilibrium approach and its 'new classical variant, illuminate matters here? Recall that, in the Walrasian system, equilibrium is achieved simultaneously and instantaneously via the 'auctioneer'; he sets up all the trades in the economy, which occur all at once. Money is not necessary to these trades. Certainly it is easy enough to introduce money into the analysis: you simply call one commodity — any commodity —'money', and reckon the prices of all goods in terms of it. But the Walrasian economy is essentially a 'barter economy — it would work adequately without money and a financial system. Much the same can be said of government. The Walrasian model of the market economy generates full employment, maximum efficiency, optimum welfare and presumably peace on earth. There is virtually nothing for a government to do, apart from ensuring that contracts are enforceable, and providing some public goods. The supporters of free-market economics are therefore in the peculiar position of advocating detailed monetary and government policies on the basis of a theory which requires neither money nor government. <br />
<br />
Perhaps related to these weaknesses is a further difficulty. This is that the problems which we face in the real world are simply not problems in the model. Consider inflation: in red life it poses problems. It affects the distribution of income, for example, because it hits so unevenly. In recent years the prices of basic commodities have increased faster than those of luxury goods, and this has made the poor poorer in real terms (since even where their incomes have kept pace with the general rate of inflation, they have risen slower than the prices of the basic goods on which most of their incomes are spent). Yet in the monetarist, 'new classical' model, inflation has no real effects — all prices change in proportion, including wages, and every-one is affected identically. No one either benefits or loses, there is no effect on output or employment. So why on earth is it a problem? in particular why is it necessary to advocate recession-inducing economic <br />
<br />
MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY • 147 <br />
policies in order to reduce it? (Actually there is a 'cost' of inflation in the monetarist approach, which it is almost embarrassing to record. It is a 'shoe leather' cost: as inflation proceeds we with to hold less cash, because the value of money is diminishing. So we keep it in the bank since the interest earned will maintain the value of our cash even though prices are increasing. But because we are economizing on cash we must make more frequent journeys to the bank for cash, thus wearing out shoe leather. This, for monetarism, is a significant cost of inflation. It is for this that, at the time of writing, three million British unemployed are doing their bit in the struggle against inflation.) <br />
<br />
Similar things can be said of unemployment as an economic problem. Unemployment can only exist because of a too-high wage rate in the new classical system, and this cannot be more than temporary. Consider the current unemployment in the UK. This can only be the result of 'expectational errors' — past or present — on the part of workers. The government is adopting a policy of monetary restriction; this leads to falling wages. Workers think, mistakenly, that their real wages are falling because money wages are in effect falling. Because of this expectation of falling real wages workers wish to work less. Soon, however, they will see that all prices are falling, and that real wages are not falling, and they will offer to work more. Any unemployed who are not in this position can, however, still get a job by accepting a lower real wage. Thus all unemployment is either temporary or voluntary in the monetarist model. These interpretations have been seriously offered in explanation of the current recession in Britain. <br />
<br />
These kinds of weaknesses clearly raise doubts about the applicability of the model to questions of practical policy in the real world of the economy. The matter of 'applicability' is a problem in itself, to do with the grounds on which monetarists think that their results can be used in practice. What is involved is a complex issue of scientific method, which certainly cannot be treated adequately here. But a certain amount can be said. The difficulty is this: too many monetarists think, like many people, that a theory consists simply of a statement about the world, which can be easily shown to be true or false. Actually any really adequate theory is much more than this, it is <br />
<br />
148 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
much more complex. A fully developed theory must do many things. It must elaborate a range of general concepts which set out its problem area, or 'domain', and it must develop further concepts in order to solve the puzzles and perplexities of the theory. It must specify what is to count as evidence, and it must have methods of assessing the relevance and meaning of evidence. It must have criteria for deciding what will count as an explanation or a proof. And finally it must set out the conditions under which its results can be used.<br />
<br />
General equilibrium theory, despite its many achievements, fails in a number of these areas, but most importantly in the last. Far too many 'equilibrium' economists simply assume that the theory does actually describe the real economy (or the real economy as it would be without distortions). They also assume, again without serious argument, that results obtained with the drastically simplified model are actually applicable to the messy and complex world of policy making. To accept such ideas at the present stage of development of the theory requires, however, not a scientific approach but its opposite: an act of faith.<br />
<br />
Yet these easy and unjustified assumptions are an integral part of the arguments for laissez-faire, and for less extreme forms of free-market policy making. The <i>'</i>rational expectations' approach seems to go even further, by assuming not only that the monetarist version of general equilibrium is true, but also that it is obvious. To be precise, it assumes that we can draw inferences about the real workings of the economy which, if we are intelligent and rational, would lead us to monetarist conclusions. Quite apart from the way this consigns opponents of monetarism to an outer darkness of irrationality and stupidity, this is a fanciful notion. Can one, for example, draw inferences from money supply figures which will correctly predict, in detail, the future course of inflation? The answer is simple: no. One wonders what remains of the basis of claims of policy ineffectiveness.<br />
<br />
The final word on the policy pretensions of general equilibrium theory can best be left to Professor Frank Hahn of Cambridge, one of the very best of the modern general equilibrium theorists: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have always regarded competitive General Equilibrium analysis as akin to the mock-up an aircraft engineer might build. My amazement in recent years has accordingly been very great to find that many economists are passing the </blockquote>
<blockquote>
MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY • 149 <br />
mock-up off as an airworthy plane, and that politicians, bankers and commentators are scrambling to get seats. This at a time when theorists all over the world have become aware that anything based on this mock-up is unlikely to fly, since it neglects some crucial aspects of the world, the recognition of which will force some drastic redesigning. Moreover at no stage was the mock-up complete; in particular it provided no account of the actual working of the Invisible Hand [2] </blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">ALTERNATIVES IN GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM</span></h4>
The central weakness of general equilibrium theory lies, it has been emphasized, not so much in the theory itself as in the rather blithe use which is made of its results. True, the theory is sketchy and restricted in many ways, despite its mathematical complexity; and it is also true that criticism could be directed against the equilibrium approach as a whole. But there are developments of general equilibrium theory which move beyond the naiveties of its monetarist and new classical variations. This section will briefly outline some of these alternative positions within general equilibrium theory; it will discuss first the <i>interpretation</i> of general equilibrium, and secondly its <i>development</i>.<br />
<br />
General equilibrium theory is frequently interpreted as a descriptive theory of the capitalist economy. Another account has been offered, however, by Professor Hahn, in which general equilibrium is seen not as an investigation of the capitalist economy as such, but rather of its effects on economic 'welfare'. Since Adam Smith, a persistent refrain in economics has been that market systems work ultimately to the benefit of all. They produce what was described in Chapter 6 as an 'optimum', a 'best possible' solution to the economic problem of what should be produced, and how, and of who should get what. It turns out to be relatively simple to show that a Walrasian general equilibrium is such an optimum. It is a 'best possible' arrangement in the sense that nothing could be changed without making someone worse off. Now suppose that the focus of the analysis is shifted. Instead of treating general equilibrium theory as an analysis of market economies with certain interesting 'spin-off' conclusions about economic welfare,<br />
<br />
<br />
150 • THE. BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
let it be treated directly as a theory of welfare. Turn the analysis on its head, as it were: start with full employment, maximum efficiency and general economic bliss, and then ask, what characteristics do markets have to have for these desirable ends to be achieved? What would a market economy have to look like if these results were to be produced? General equilibrium tells us the answers to these questions. It tells us, for example, that the economy must consist of a large number of markets and futures markets (many more than exist in any real economy); that these markets must be fully competitive —no one can set prices in them; that prices must be flexible; that there must be perfect knowledge and an absence of uncertainty; and so on, and so on. These 'answers' are of course simply the 'initial assumptions' described in Chapter 6, looked at in another way. What conclusions can be drawn from this interpretation? <br />
<br />
The broadest conclusion is that general equilibrium theory, far from being a foundation of free-market economic policy, is actually a disproof of the practicality of such a policy. General equilibrium theory formulates the conditions necessary for a valid laissez-faire policy; since those conditions are not met, then policies which have the 'market mechanism' as their basis should be labelled 'handle with care'. In particular we should be careful about the argument that government interventionist policies cannot improve on laissez-faire, as Professor Willem Buiter has recently pointed out 'While economists — in their less guarded moments — frequently advance variants on this argument, it has no sound foundation as a generally valid proposition, either in economic theory or in careful empirical observation.'<br />
<br />
This kind of interpretation, it should be said, is hardly common among general equilibrium theorists. In the main they remain committed to the idea that the objective of the theory should be to describe the principles on which the real economy works. Where this has been taken seriously it has led to attempts to make the theory in some sense more 'realistic'. There there are two broad strategies. The first involves a straightforward modification of the 'initial assumptions' in favour of a measure of realism. If it is assumed, for example, that prices and wages are not flexible — that they are 'sticky' and unresponsive to changes in demand — then it is simple to show that disequilihrium' positions exist for the economy. These positions are<br />
<br />
MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY • 151<br />
<br />
characterized by unemployment and restricted output; since firms cannot sell the quantity of output they would like to sell, and workers cannot sell the quantity of labour they would like, these positions are known as 'quantity-constrained' or 'quantity-rationed' equilibria. <br />
<br />
One obvious Conservative objection to this is to say that the 'quantity constraints' are due only to the inflexibility of prices, to rigidities which the government should attempt to remove. The second major strategy, therefore, accepts the possibility of flexible prices, and shows how quantity constraints can still emerge. One way of doing this is to introduce real time into the analysis: if the economy adjusts to equilibrium in a series of steps, through time, then at each of the steps there will be a certain level of unemployment or unsold output and / or unsatisfied demand. This is, again, relatively straightforward once we move away from the instantaneous adjustments of the Walrasian model. Another approach is to acknowledge that agents actually have to set prices and that they do so in conditions of uncertainty, and in particular without knowing how a price change might affect any quantity constraint that they face. As with the introduction of time into the analysis, this is reasonable and plausible, and leads to 'quantity constraints' even with flexible prices. Unused resources and unemployment can be a more or less permanent feature of such an economy. These types of equilibria turn out to have strange features: for example, it may be possible to increase output and employment by increasing the money supply ... <br />
<br />
These kinds of results are now fairly well known, and acknowledged, in general equilibrium theory. They push that theory directly into Keynesian territory, for it was Keynes who initiated the analysis of states of equilibrium with unemployment (a result which, prior to his work, was considered impossible). In doing so they undercut the monetarist claim that its economic basis, general equilibrium theory, licenses an economic policy of non-intervention and <i>laissez-faire</i>. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CONCLUSION </span></h4>
In assessing economic policy pronouncements it is important to understand the basis on which they are made. Economic policies <br />
<br />
<br />
152 - THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
which emphasize the operation of free markets are invariably based - either explicitly or implicitly - on general equilibrium theory, for it is the most complete available model of the free-market economy. The status of that theory is therefore of considerable import-ance. <br />
<br />
But the theory has many problems. In recent years there has been considerable debate within the economics profession over results - especially concerning economic policy - which have been 'proved' on the basis of general equilibrium theory. However, even though many dispute these results, it remains true that the overwhelming majority of economists still accept and teach a broad view of the market system which is consistent with general equilibrium theory or derived from it. The consensus is that markets work, more or less well, and that some form of 'market economics' is the appropriate framework for both theory and policy; it is an article of faith that free markets produce desirable outcomes. <br />
<br />
But the theory simply does not support such conclusions, especially in the field of policy. This is why I believe that Professor Hahn was quite right when he suggested, a few years ago, that 'the vulgarizations of General Equilibrium which are the substance of most text-books of economics are both scientifically and politically harmful'<b>.</b> The problem is that the vulgarizations have, with a vengeance, stepped out of the pages of the textbooks, and out of the lecture theatres where they can do only intellectual damage, into the world of policy making. Policy making in Britain has been marked by a disastrous over-confidence in the capabilities of the market economy, and a careless belief in the essential correctness of market economics. Objecting to all this does not mean that markets are useless or inefficient, nor need it mean that governments either can be or should be all powerful in the economic domain. On the contrary, the arguments advanced here against 'free-market' economic policies involve no presumption that 'planning' of some sort could work any better. It does mean, however, that greater care should be taken in assessing the role of private enterprise and market forces in economic recovery. Furthermore it means ;hat the economic role of the government should be put on the agenda once again: if general equilibrium analyses of the economy <br />
<br />
MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY • 153 <br />
show anything, it is that it is very unrealistic to place any great faith in market forces alone. The crucial questions for Britain concern the forms, objectives, limits and control of intervention. It is not simply general equilibrium theory, but economics as a whole, which is unfitted to answer such questions. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">8</span></span></i></h3>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Keynes and Intervention</i> </span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
In view of the fact that monetarist and 'new classical' ideas are often presented - especially in the policy field - as a counter-revolution against a prevailing Keynesian orthodoxy, it may seem strange to discuss them in apparently reverse order, with Keynes coming after the monetarism which is ostensibly a reaction to his thought. Yet there is a good reason for this sequence. Keynes, like modern monetarists, saw his work as a theoretical revolt against an established economic orthodoxy, which he called 'classical economics', a heading which lumped together such writers as Marshall, Jevons and Walras. Now modern monetarism is in large part a reassertion, or more accurately a reformulation, of the central ideas of this older orthodoxy against which Keynes set his face. Hence the term 'new classical macroeconomics'. Because monetarism is very much a revival of an older doctrine, it continues to make sense to discuss Keynes and Keynesianism as a rejection of the 'free-market' economics which monetarism has resuscitated.<br />
<br />
There is a problem in outlining and discussing Keynesian economies, however. Just as monetarism is not a unified doctrine, but rather a range of often discrepant ideas sharing a broad vision of the efficacy of markets, so Keynesian economics is not one theory but many. Within the varieties of Keynesianism, however, there is very little in the way of a core of shared concepts. The result is a diverse set of ideas and theories which are not easily summarized; some parts of Keynesian economics converge towards the neoclassical system, with its emphasis on the market mechanism, while others veer off towards Marxian economics, with its picture of a dynamic yet unstable economy in which markets fail to harmonize different needs and interests, and instead reflect a world of power, politics and struggle. <br />
<br />
KEYNES AND INTERVENTION • 155 <br />
Between these extremes lies an enormous variety of intermediate positions which defy description, let alone systematic analysis, in one chapter or even one book. However, the differences between them boil down to quite fundamental - and in some ways quite simple - disagreements about the properties of market systems. As we saw in Chapter 6, the neoclassical view holds that markets coordinate economic activities by conveying information. This information concerns supply and demand conditions - conditions of production on one side, and consumer needs on the other - and the signal which conveyed the relevant information was the changing price of the product in the market. But do things really work like this? And if they do not, what are the consequences for the economy as a whole? Is it possible for market economies to generate not full employment but recession, not wealth but unsatisfied needs? In one way the answer to such questions seems very straightforward: one only needs to take a look around. But in analytical terms things are not so plain, since we are concerned with the theoretical implications of a particular model of the economy, rather than the often confused and confusing evidence of the real world.<br />
<br />
Before going on to the theory, it is worth saying something about why controversies about it exist at all within Keynesian theory. After all, Keynesian economics, unlike monetarism, is based on a specific text by a specific author: John Maynard Keynes, of course, and his book <i>The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money</i>. It seems strange, therefore, that there should be disputes among Keynesian economists as to the meaning of Keynesian economies, as to its core concepts, as to what ideas are necessary to Keynesian theory and what are not. Presumably Keynesian ideas are defined by the text of the General Theory, and controversies about the meaning of Keynesian economies can be resolved by an appeal to that text. Unfortunately things are not so simple. In some ways the General Theory is in the great tradition of path-breaking scientific texts, meaning that it combines analytical innovations of great power, scope and complexity with passages which are confused, internally contradictory, generally tricky to decipher or just plain wrong. This mixture of advances and problems is characteristic not just of Keynes, but also of most of the major texts of scientific breakthrough. <br />
<br />
An important implication of all this is that the labour of under-<br />
<br />
<br />
156 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
standing, of working out and constructing the meaning of texts is an integral and normal part of scientific practice, in economics as in ' other disciplines, and it cannot really be dodged. Within Keynes's work the central problems revolve around the fact that the work is presented as an explicit rejection of what he called <i>'the postulates of the classical economics'</i> yet appears to involve an equally explicit acceptance that sometimes those very postulates are valid. The issues here are frequently fudged both in textbooks of economics and popular and journalistic representations of Keynes, yet they arc crucial to any real understanding of the status of modern Keynes-based economics. They hold the key both to the continuing relevance of Keynes, and to the areas where his work may be an unreliable guide to policy. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">KEYNES'S CHALLENGE TO MARKET ECONOMICS </span></h4>
On the basis of its account of market systems and the 'market mechanism', neoclassical economics reaches three main conclusions: <br />
Firstly, that capitalist economics are basically stable (they are not subject to major fluctuations in output and employment). <br />
Secondly, they tend towards a full-employment level of output. <br />
Thirdly, in consequence, there is no real case for government intervention to ensure stability and growth and to promote full employment. Within the neoclassical approach, deviations from full employment and stability arc ultimately the result of market imperfections, meaning that somewhere along the line supplies and demands (of goods, or of labour) are out of alignment because prices are not moving smoothly enough to equate supply and demand. Unemployment is a consequence of wage rates being too high. The level of output is closely related to profitability, to the amount enterprises find it profitable to produce: the way to get them to produce more is to cut their costs (especially of labour) and to raise their margins of profit. This leads in practise to a concentration on what are often called 'supply side' policy measures: wage restraint and tax cuts, to raise the post-tax return from production and hence increase the incentive to produce; ideas like these have been a familiar theme of Thatcherite policy in the UK and 'Reaganomics' in the United States. <br />
<br />
KEYNES AND INTERVENTION • 157 <br />
Within this approach, then, the level of output is determined by decisions by producers, in which costs of production are the crucial clement. The emphasis is, therefore, on factors governing the supply of goods rather than the demand for output. Behind this lies a theoretical argument, to the effect that demand is not a constraining factor in the output of goods and services. This position is set up by open or covert reference to a hoary economic principle known as 'Say's Law', normally expressed as 'supply creates its own demand'. The underlying idea can be put in a number of ways. For example, the basic motivation behind offering a good for sale in a market is to earn the wherewithal to buy some other good: thus the supply of some good is in effect a simultaneous demand for some other good. This point applies to labour as much as to commodities, and the conclusion follows that the overall demand for goods is equal to the quantity which people wish to supply. Another way of getting to the same result is to note that the price of any commodity can be de-composed into the incomes earned in producing it. The total value of cars, for example, produced annually in Britain is equal to total costs of production plus profits. But these costs (wages, and other inputs) and profits in fact constitute an income for someone or other — for workers, or suppliers of materials, or shareholders in the firm. So the sum of these incomes is equal to the total value of output, and this is true not just for car production but for the production of each and every product or service in the economy. It seems to follow that demand is not a problem for the sale of output as a whole: the process of production creates exactly enough incomes to buy the total output. Of course there may be problems for individual products, for which demand may be inadequate, but there is no possibility of a shortage of overall demand. <br />
<br />
It is here that Keynes's objections begin: his argument is that demand <i>is</i> a problem, and that we cannot simply invoke Say's Law to get round it. To begin with, if we are concerned with the level of employment, then this will depend on the number of workers firms wish to employ. But this is a matter not just of the wage rate (the price of labour in the labour market), but also of the amount of goods that firms can expect to sell to consumers. But the amount of goods that consumers will be able to buy will itself be dependent upon their <br />
<br />
158 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
incomes, which depend in turn on their wage rate and the number of them in employment. There is therefore, a complex interdependence between wage rates, incomes, the demand for goods, the demand for workers and the resulting levels of employment and unemployment. None of this is adequately reflected in the simple demand-and-supply approach to unemployment of neoclassical market economics. One criticism, for example, of the neoclassical approach is to point out that when it suggests wage cuts as a solution to unemployment, it is implicitly assuming (a) that this will not affect the overall demand for goods, and (b) that the demand for goods is already at a full output, full employment level. But suppose this is not the case? Then un-employment will result not just from factors in the labour market, but because the overall level of demand is not sufficient to encourage enterprises to produce the maximum output of which they are capable: there is, in short, 'demand failure'. Say's Law does not hold, and rather than supply creating its own demand, demand is a complex phenomenon, determined by many factors; moreover it can determine the level of supply and output. It is this demand problem, and the recognition of demand failure, which forms the connecting thread between the varieties of Keynesian doctrine: in one way or another, all see the problems of unemployment and recession as caused by it. The differences lie in the way in which they describe the emergence of demand failure, and the reasons which they give for the persistence of unemployment once demand failure has occurred. <br />
<br />
Before going on to describe the Keynesian approach to recession and unemployment, a preliminary but important point should be made about the time horizon of the analysis. Economists often distinguish between two sorts of time-period, namely the short run and the long run. The difference is that in the short run the economy operates with the available, given stock of capital and equipment, so its level of output is in large part determined by the extent to which that array of equipment is actually used. In the long run it is possible to change the stock of equipment itself, both in composition and quantity. In the long-period analysis, therefore, changes in the potential output of the economy are considered. Now the Keynesian approach is quite firmly <i>short term</i> in character: it assumes that potential output is given and fixed, and concentrates on the actual output which is <br />
<br />
KEYNES AND INTERVENTION • 159 <br />
achieved; this is because, in one of Keynes's better known remarks, 'in the long run we are all dead'. One might want to quibble with this as a principle for policy analysis (after all, we are not all going to be dead at once, with any luck); nevertheless we do live in the here and now, and output now is of great importance. The point here is that Keynesian economics is abstracting from questions about the long-term development and structure of the economy; it explicitly brackets out, therefore, the issues concerning growth and change which were raised in the first section of this book. Some of the implications of this will be discussed below. <br />
<br />
The question of demand failure has two aspects. The first concerns the impulses which generate output fluctuations, recession and unemployment. The second concerns the mechanisms which keep an economy in an unemployment state. But before describing these processes, and the debates to which they give rise, we need to outline the make-up of 'demand' in the economy as a whole. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">AGGREGATE DEMAND </span></h4>
Keynes and Keynesian arc concerned not so much with the demand for individual commodities, as with total or 'aggregate' demand in the economy. Typically, four components of aggregate demand are distinguished. <br />
<br />
1. <i>Consumption demand:</i> for goods to be consumed more or less immediately, by individuals or households. This can include durable goods such as cars or washing machines, which are rather arbitrarily classified as consumption goods if individuals buy them and invest-ment goods if firms buy them. <br />
2. <i>Investment demand:</i> essentially for goods which will yield an income in the future - machines, equipment, buildings, inventory, etc. <br />
3. <i>Export demand:</i> that is, demand for all types of British goods outside Britain. <br />
4. <i>Government demand</i>. This is in turn divided into demand for current goods and services (typewriter ribbons, civil servants' pay) and capital transactions (buildings, equipment, etc.). <br />
<br />
In addition to these components of aggregate demand there is a further market which must be mentioned since it has important inter-<br />
<br />
<br />
160 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
actions with these 'goods' markets, and affects aggregate demand. This is the so-called 'money market'. Within this market money is exchanged for financial assets. A simple form of such a market is an ordinary deposit account we hand over money to a bank, and receive in return an account on which interest is paid; this asset can be reclaimed as money simply by a withdrawal. In an economy like Britain's, the money market is exceptionally complex, with a very wide range of financial assets on offer, ranging from building society accounts, to shares, to insurance policies, to government bonds. Each of these types of asset comes in a wide variety of forms. In the simple Keynesian system it is assumed that there is a market for only one asset, government bonds, which are in effect IOUs issued by the government in return for money, investors get a regular interest payment and a promise to repay the total after some specified time. <br />
<br />
Now let us try to see some of the ways in which these types of demand and market can interact to generate demand failure. In doing so we will concentrate on two forms of demand only: consumption and investment <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CONSUMPTION AND INVESTMENT </span></h4>
Suppose we consider a simple economy which produces two types of goods, namely consumption goods (for immediate or more or less immediate consumption) and investment goods (for future use). As these goods are produced they will generate incomes, in the form of wages and profits, to the workers and capitalists who produce them. These incomes will be equal to the value of output. Now with their incomes, people can basically do two things: they can spend them, or they can save them. In the case of saving they are postponing expenditure until some time in the future. <br />
<br />
It is easy to sec that if this economy is to be in equilibrium, that is if it is to be stable, and without forces operating to change the level and types of output and employment, then there must be a definite relation between what people decide to do with their incomes, and what the economy is actually producing in terms of consumption and investment goods. For the consumer goods producers to be producing exactly the right amount of output, so that they do not have unsold <br />
<br />
KEYNES AND INTERVENTION • 161 <br />
stocks, and so that people do not have unsatisfied demand, the consumption goods output must be equal to the amount which people decide to consume out of their incomes. In this way there is exactly enough - no more, no less - consumption goods demand to buy the consumption goods output. If consumption goods demand is greater than the output of consumption goods, we can assume that output will rise to meet the demand (providing that the economy is not already at maximum output). Conversely, if demand is inadequate to buy consumption goods output, then output will contract. So it follows that consumption goods demand and output will tend to equality. <br />
<br />
This implies that investment must be based on that part of incomes not consumed - on savings, in fact. If total output is equal to total incomes in value, and if consumption output equals consumption expenditure, then the amount of savings must equal the amount of investment. The amount of income which people decide not to consume must somehow provide the demand for investment goods, either by being spent directly on them, or by being recycled through the financial system to be spent on investment goods. But how does this happen? What is it which makes the savings of the economy just adequate to finance the investment which is being undertaken (in new factories, machines, and so on)? Clearly savings and investment will not be equal all by themselves - except by some very unlikely accident - since decisions to save and to invest are made by two quite different sets of people. It is individuals who save, but firms who invest. Only by some bizarre chance will they decide to save and invest exactly the same amount. So what kinds of mechanism operate to keep savings equal to investment, and thus keep the economy in balance? <br />
<br />
In the system of neoclassical economics, it is argued that this problem is solved - as are most problems within it - by the operation of the price system and the market mechanism. Savings and investment are seen as the supply of, and demand for, investible resources. The price of these resources is the <i>interest rate</i>, the basic function of which is to equate savings and investment. If people decide to consume less and save more, then the supply of investiblc resources has increased, and we might expect the price - the interest rate - to fall. Like all price changes, this is a signal. On the one hand it signals that investment resources are cheaper, and can therefore be expected to <br />
<br />
<br />
162 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
earn a greater return. More abstractly, perhaps, it signals that people are postponing consumption now for consumption some time in the future, and so enterprises should invest to be able to produce in the future. So enterprises invest more, and a new equilibrium emerges, with lower consumption but higher savings and investment and a new interest rate. Overall demand remains exactly what it was - the fall in consumption is offset by increased investment. People's savings decisions, therefore, do not affect aggregate demand. This is what Alfred Marshall - in many respects the founder of the English neo-classical tradition - presumably had in mind in a remark quoted by Keynes: '... a man purchases labour and commodities with that portion of his income which he saves just as much as he does with that he is said to spend'. in this approach, therefore, output and income stay at full employment levels, and the interest rate is the mechanism which makes savings equal to investment, thus keeping output and incomes in balance, and the economy stable. <br />
<br />
Keynes's work is an attempt to disrupt this story of full-employment stability, to rethink it in ways which make it possible to under-stand the occurrence and persistence of recession. Two central strands of his argument concern the nature of the interest rate - what it is and what it does - and the consequences of any fluctuation in consumption spending. Let us begin with the interest rate, and then trace the way in which changes in consumption demand can generate a recession and unemployment in which no forces are in play to get the economy out of its unemployment predicament. <br />
<br />
In the first place, Keynes contests the idea that the interest rate is the price of invcstible resources in the broad sense; it is not determined by the supply and demand for investment. Rather it is a monetary phenomenon. It is the price of money, and is determined in the money markets. As such it is governed by the supply of money (determined by the government and the nature of the banking system) and the conditions governing the demand for money (such as people's need to finance transactions, and the advantages of holding money rather than interest-bearing financial assets). Out of these interacting supply and demand conditions an interest rate will emerge. 'Savings' do not enter the equation here: Keynes's crucial point is that changes in the volume of savings do not in themselves change these monetary <br />
<br />
KEYNES AND INTERVENTION • 163 <br />
conditions which determine the interest rate. So increases or decreases in savings do not produce interest rate shifts which adjust the level of investment so that it is equal to the new level of savings. But this equality must be brought about if the economy is to be in equilibrium. This brings us to Keynes's fundamental idea, which is that the equality of savings and investment is brought about not through variations in the interest rate, but through increases or decreases in the amount of total national income. Perhaps the best way to see the process is to consider the effects of a fluctuation in consump-tion, and then to examine what happens to the savings-investment relation. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE DEVELOPMENT OF A RECESSION </span></h4>
Suppose that people decide, for whatever reason, to consume less and to save a higher proportion of their income. The immediate result of this will be twofold: in the first place savings will now be higher than the going level of investment; and in the second place there will be a fall in the sale of consumption goods, as people consume less in order to save more. Consequently firms in consumption goods industries will have stocks of unsold goods. They will therefore reduce their outputs of such goods in response to the falling demand. As these firms reduce output there will as a consequence be falls in the incomes of those producing; firms will lay off workers until they have just enough to produce the new, lower, level of output. So there will be a lower level of overall income in the economy. But as incomes fall we might expect further falls in the level of consumption; and as consumption falls firms will cut back output and employment further. This next round of output restrictions means further falls in incomes and then consumption. The economy thus enters on a downward spiral, in which the first-round effect of a fall in consumption spending is 'multiplied' by second- and third-round effects. In effect, the system has 'positive feedback', for the original disturbance is amplified by the way in which falls in consumption and income reinforce each other to generate a major disturbance. Clearly this contrasts sharply with the 'negative feedback' of the neoclassical theory, in which a consumption cut - meaning an increase in saving - leads to <br />
<br />
<br />
164 THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
interest rate falls which increase investment and thus dampen down the effects of the initial disruption to stability. <br />
<br />
In the Keynesian approach, therefore, a fill in demand produces economic 'echoes' which enlarge the demand problem yet further. This effect is known within the Keynesian system as the 'multiplier' relation: the multiplier describes the ultimate change in income resulting from some initial change in aggregate demand. Of course multiplier effects are not argued to continue ad infinitum: a cut in consumption will not lead to an ultimate income of zero. Rather the system will settle down to stability at some new - and lower - level of income. The main determinant of this point will be the savings-investment relation. Remember that the downward spiral began be-cause people decided to consume less and save more; thus investment and savings were no longer equal and a general demand imbalance emerged in the economy. This generated falls in output and income. However, as income declines, not only does consumption decline, but also savings begin to decline: people who are earning less tend to save less. Eventually, income will fall to a point which reduces savings back to the original level of investment. At this point consumption demand will once again be equal to consumption output, and the system will be stable, in equilibrium. The actual level of output at which this occurs will be determined by two main forces: people's decisions as to the amount they wish to consume out of income, and the level of investment which enterprises wish to undertake. But it is investment which is the crucial, 'active', element: once the level of investment is fixed, then income will either grow or fall to make savings equal to it. It will fix a level of aggregate demand to which output and income will adjust. But in the Keynesian system there is no necessity for this to be at a full employment, full output level; the economy may well settle down at a level where savings and investment are equal, but output is well below the maximum attainable. <br />
<br />
Note the crucial difference between this account and the neoclassical approach. Each involves a mechanism which equates savings to investment, but these 'adjustment' mechanisms are very different and entail very different economic outcomes. In the neoclassical world it is the interest rate which adjusts, forcing investment and saving into line; income remains unchanged. In the Keynesian theory, the <br />
<br />
KEYNES AND INTERVENTION • 165 <br />
burden of adjustment is on income, which falls until a new equilibrium point is reached. In the neoclassical story there is but one equilibrium point: at full employment. For Keynes there are many possible equilibria, depending on the aggregate demand situation: full employment is but one possibility among many, and by no means the most likely. Left to itself, there is no guarantee that the economy will generate the right volume of demand: indeed the chances are over-whelming that it will not. Thus the neoclassical system of economics is what Keynes referred to as a 'special case' - the case of a full employment level of demand. His own account therefore outlines the 'general' case - thus the title '<i>General</i> Theory' - in which unemployment is the rule rather than the exception. In his own words, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I argue that the postulates of the classical theory are applicable to a special case only and not to a general case ... Moreover the characteristics of the special case assumed by the classical theory happen not to be those of the economic society in which we actually live, with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous if we attempt to apply it to the facts of experience. [1] </blockquote>
Before moving on to the various interpretations and constructions which have been put upon Keynes's work, a further point should be made about the picture of 'demand failure' which has been sketched. This is that, in principle, this kind of demand failure can arise from any of thc components of aggregate demand. The case of a change in consumption spending has been described. But similar results would have occurred with a fall in investment, with sudden cuts in govern-ment expenditure (though here the picture is complicated by questions of finance), or with falls in exports. Given that all of these categories of expenditure are capable of fluctuation, then a case begins to emerge for intervention - in practice, by government - to maintain levels of aggregate demand at a volume corresponding to satisfactory levels of employment. <br />
<br />
From this follows the basic Keynesian policy principle: that the government does have an economic task to perform. But it is a limited one, of 'demand management' in response to any prospective demand deficiency. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="color: red;">9 </span></i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<hr style="text-align: left;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="color: red;">Rewriting Keynes:<br />
Variations on the General Theory </span></i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
The publication of the <i>General Theory</i> in 1936 had a major impact on the economics profession and its thinking about persistent unemployment, but that impact was complicated by the difficulty of understanding all of the elements of Keynes's argument. Years of discussion and debate followed, not because of the well-known penchant of economists for debate, but because of rail problems and confusions in Keynes's text. Almost immediately fellow economists began to publish papers and books either interpreting Keynes's work as a whole, or subjecting parts of it to critical analysis. Because of the complexity of Keynes's work, some of these interpretations were necessarily simplified, concentrating on quite specific aspects of the argument. Joan Robinson's <i>Introduction to the Theory of Employment</i>, published as a guide to students in 1937, focused on the determination of the interest rate and levels of investment, though in some respects it was even wider in scope than Keynes's book. By far the most important of these post-Keynes interpretations was a paper by J. R. Hicks, published in the journal <i>Economica</i> in 1937, in which he developed some relatively simple diagrams to display what he took to be the main thrust of the argument in the <i>General Theory</i>.[1] Within the rather narrow world of professional economics, the paper became a smash hit, and was rapidly reproduced in textbooks. This is still the case. To the present day, when students learn the analysis of the economy as a whole, and the 'Keynesian' system, they almost invariably learn not Keynes, but Hicks's version of Keynes. Even after the monetarist counterrevolution, there is hardly a textbook which does not employ Ilicics's diagrams, and generations of econ-omics students have been trained - and have gone on to practise professionally - without ever reading Keynes. So one way of under-<br />
<br />
REWRITING KEYNES: VARIATIONS ON THE GENERAL THEORY • 167 <br />
standing the modem debates about Keynes would be to see them not as concerning Keynes directly, but rather as being about the validity of the Hicksian interpretation of Keynes, and its pervasive effect within the world of economics teaching. So the following pages begin with the Hicks model of Keynes, and go on to the theories and debates which it has engendered. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE HICKS MODEL </span></h4>
In the Hicks version, Keynes's account of the economy involves the operation of two overall markets: a goods market, in which consumption and investment goods arc bought and sold, and a money market, in which financial assets are traded. In the money market people are essentially making a decision as to whether to hold their wealth in the form of interest-yielding government bonds or non-interest-bearing money. Hicks's model is essentially a simple and elegant way of showing the interaction between these two markets, so that the equilibrium level of income can be depicted. <br />
<br />
Let us take first the goods market. Once again, government expenditure and exports will be left out of the picture; aggregate demand is therefore made up of consumption spending and investment demand. So national income will be equal to the total of consumption plus investment. Rut remember that investment is the 'active element' here; for any given level of investment, national income will adjust, so that it generates exactly the right amount of savings. In other words, people will make some decision about the proportion of their income they will consume and the proportion they will save; given that decision, income will adjust to make savings equivalent to investment. It follows that whatever determines the amount of investment will determine the size of national income. Now Keynes's analysis of the investment problem is a complex one, but one theme in it stresses the role of the interest rate. Keynes, like the ncoclassicals, suggests that a fall in the interest rate will produce higher investment, and a rise in interest rates will lower investment. Hicks makes the interest rate effectively the only determinant of investment in his model (some of the objections to this will be discussed below), and this leads to a simple relation between the rate of interest and the level of <br />
<br />
<br />
168 THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
income. As the rate of interest falls, investment rises, aggregate demand rises and income rises. The rise in income will be just sufficient to generate a new level of savings equal to the higher level of investment. This means that every equilibrium point in the goods market, that is every point at which investment equals savings, will also correspond to a particular level of income, and to a particular value for the rate of interest. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQ4VNdRqkHwaOjWTDQcX9QLTZTZnwqyz_X8d8HkivrG9doMFfjERx0gwQPTS7dheUdxnPchIQsqV9HbLfB5Y3V3tXUs7AnRB6POX118szYKkEw8jVXW0Ol_wLZECU9z3TIONEiHjjrZnf/s1600/IS-curve.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQ4VNdRqkHwaOjWTDQcX9QLTZTZnwqyz_X8d8HkivrG9doMFfjERx0gwQPTS7dheUdxnPchIQsqV9HbLfB5Y3V3tXUs7AnRB6POX118szYKkEw8jVXW0Ol_wLZECU9z3TIONEiHjjrZnf/s320/IS-curve.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
The first of Hicks's diagrams (fig. 2) illustrates this idea. On the vertical axis, the symbol '<b><span style="color: red;">r</span></b>' means the rate of interest, and on the horizontal axis, the symbol '<b><span style="color: red;">y</span></b>' means national income: lower interest rates are associated with higher income and vice versa. Hicks calls this the <span style="color: red;">'IS' curve</span>. It traces out the combination of rate of interest and national income at which investment is equal to savings and the goods market is therefore in equilibrium. To repeat, <br />
<br />
REWRITING KEYNES: VARIATIONS ON THE GENERAL THEORY • 169 <br />
it simply says that, given people's consumption decisions, a lower interest rate means more investment, which means a higher level of income. At every point along the curve investment will be equal to saving, and so we have the quintessentially Keynesian idea that equilibrium can occur at almost any level of income. <br />
<br />
Because the curve traces out a range of possible incomes, however, we have no way of knowing which will emerge as the <i>actual</i> level of income. That will depend on whatever the interest rate in fact turns out to be. So the question is, what determines the interest rate? As indicated, for Keynes the interest rate is a monetary phenomenon, emerging from the money markets. Hicks's model also depicts this process, once again showing a relationship between the interest rate and national income. <br />
<br />
Hicks's version of Keynes's money market theory runs as follows. If there is a given amount of money in the system, then people can do two things with it. They can use it to finance transactions, or they can hold it as an asset (since money is a store of value). For any given level of national income, people will require a certain amount of money to finance current transactions. As income rises, they will need more 'transactions cash' and as income falls they will need less. If the money supply is fixed, then the amount of money available for holding as an asset will simply be whatever is left after the 'transactions demand for money' has been satisfied. So as income rises, the quantity of money available for holding as an asset falls; and vice versa when income falls. Now the alternative to holding money as an asset is to switch it into some other financial asset, namely interest-bearing government bonds. Without going into the details of the way the bond market operates, it is argued that there is an inverse relationship between the return on bonds (which is the interest rate) and the amount of 'asset money' there is in the system, after the 'transactions demand' has been taken are of. The larger the amount of asset money, the lower the interest rate; if the amount of asset money falls, then the interest rate rises. Once again this implies a definite relationship between the interest rate and the level of national income. If the money supply is fixed, then the higher the level of income, the higher will be the requirement for 'transactions' money, the lower will be the amount of 'asset money' and the higher will be the rate of <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
170 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
interest. In the money market there will be a direct relationship between the rate of interest and the level of income. The second of Hicks's diagrams (fig. 3) illustrates this. <br />
<br />
Figure 3. Hicks's LM Curve.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj89sTk2NXFg6r7UrtLMvVziKRw1lFjJbZd10mUHYzVzxTR4DYey60bzMD7TPbbjo9Ho_BABWNTzst5EJZErUQq2EvB-EGEGuyJcuF1k30aUfZda2ZHQrwQ7Zjt4DFmcguSyRanozqvTRfj/s1600/Figure+3+LM.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj89sTk2NXFg6r7UrtLMvVziKRw1lFjJbZd10mUHYzVzxTR4DYey60bzMD7TPbbjo9Ho_BABWNTzst5EJZErUQq2EvB-EGEGuyJcuF1k30aUfZda2ZHQrwQ7Zjt4DFmcguSyRanozqvTRfj/s320/Figure+3+LM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
This time we are tracing out all the combinations of interest rate and income which keep the money market in equilibrium, meaning that the supply of money is just equal to what people want to hold, both as transactions and asset money. Hicks called this curve the '<b><span style="color: red;">LM</span></b>' Curve.Because Hicks's two diagrams involve the same variables (the rate of interest and the level of income) they can be put together (fig. 4) to find the combination of interest rate and income which will deliver simultaneous equilibrium in both markets. <br />
<br />
The equilibrium point is given by the intersection of the <b><span style="color: red;">IS</span></b> and <b><span style="color: red;">LM</span></b> curves: at this intersection, the rate of interest (marked as r*) and <br />
<br />
REWRITING KEYNES: VARIATIONS ON THE. GENERAL THEORY • 171 <br />
Figure 4. Equilibrium. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGLcrPlpd7WYFRovLo2kKe5xrsKeuKWcu75P22TIj82coiFSIaUH1P7QpnsU4q0p6clkVQomi8t3T8lq5e5dQClqZqfXFG5kR195SGvXoN_R3yTJWTP6PnvbhkjBlfn7hj0vRrdrghDcCX/s1600/scan361.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGLcrPlpd7WYFRovLo2kKe5xrsKeuKWcu75P22TIj82coiFSIaUH1P7QpnsU4q0p6clkVQomi8t3T8lq5e5dQClqZqfXFG5kR195SGvXoN_R3yTJWTP6PnvbhkjBlfn7hj0vRrdrghDcCX/s320/scan361.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
income (y*) are at the only values which give equilibrium in both markets. Thus we have determined the actual level of income which will emerge from the interaction of goods and money markets. And, to repeat, the central point of Keynes's work is that this equilibrium point is variable. It depends, for example, on the particular nature of people's savings and consumption decisions, on the decisions of entrepreneurs as to how much they will invest, on the supply of money in the system, on the decisions of people in financial markets as to whether to hold money or bonds. There is no guarantee whatsoever that the equilibrium level of income which emerges will be sufficient to employ all of the available workforce. <br />
<br />
It may well be an equilibrium at a low level of income and a high level of un-employment. <br />
<br />
<br />
172 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE CAREER OF THE HICKS MODEL </span></h4>
There is no doubt that the Hicksian approach — or the <span style="color: red;">IS</span>-<span style="color: red;">LM</span> model as it is most widely known — has been one of the real success stories of modern economics. The reasons are very straightforward: it is easy to each to students, there is no great problem in expanding it, and it can be used to explore the implications of a wide range of economic alternatives. It is relatively simple, for example, to open up the model to include foreign trade and the balance of payments, and to include government expenditure and taxation. And by changing the positions of the curves and changing their shapes (that is, making them steeper or shallower) it is possible for students to analyse the effects of different assumptions about how the economy works.<br />
<br />
In fact, the uses of such a model go well beyond teaching. Underlying the curves on the diagrams are equations which specify, for instance, the relationship between the amount people consume and the level of national income. It is possible to use statistical techniques to spell out the actual value of the variables in these equations, and then to calculate what national income would be if, for example, the government were to cut taxes by a certain amount, or raise its expenditure by printing money, or whatever. These procedures underlie the so-called 'forecasting' models which are used to predict our short-term economic futures; the government uses such a model, the 'Treasury model', which consists of about 800 main equations. So, although the diagrammatic approach I have outlined above is extremely basic, it is capable of being extended in very sophisticated ways. <br />
<br />
The question is, however, to what extent are these diagrams an adequate representation of the ideas Keynes was concerned with? Recall that Keynes saw his work as a distinct break with the neoclassical system; in many ways his views on neoclassicism were scathing. The problems with the Hicks model begin with the fact that it is quite unclear just how far the Hicks version reproduces this rejection. Is the Hicks version of Keynes really inconsistent with the neoclassical approach which Keynes claimed was so mistaken? Or is it in fact simply a variant of neoclassical market theory, in which the demonstration that the economy can generate permanent unemployment <br />
<br />
REWRITING KEYNES: VARIATIONS ON THE GENERAL THEORY • 173 <br />
and recession is achieved by sleight of hand? These questions arise because it is possible to make the Flicks model generate results which are in effect those of the neoclassical system. <br />
<br />
In the neoclassical view, for example, employment depends on the real wage rate, and unemployment is a consequence of wages being too high. This leads to the idea that unemployment can be cured by wage cuts, an idea which seems incompatible with Keynes's account which is based on demand failure, on an inadequate level of demand for output. Yet it is possible to use the Hicks approach to suggest that from a position of unemployment, wage cuts will indeed do the trick and restore full employment. This has been such a central part of recent debate, that the issue is worth examining. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">WAGE CUTTING AND UNEMPLOYMENT </span></h4>
Firstly, the discussion of wage rates and unemployment always makes the distinction between money wages and real wages. Real wages are the actual amount of goods that can be bought with the money wage; broadly speaking it is the money wage divided by the price level. If money wages are unchanged and prices rise, then real wages are falling, and vice-versa. Now the simple 'supply and demand' theory of labour always makes employment depend on the real wage; but with constant prices, clearly a cut in money wages will be a cut in the real wage. So all it takes is for workers to accept a cut in money wages and employment will increase. <br />
<br />
Keynes directs a number of criticisms towards this idea. In the first place, there is the question of whether the demand for products is independent of the wage rate. In the simple neoclassical story it is necessary to assume that prices of products, and the quantity of them which is demanded, are not going to be reduced by any reduction in wages. Now, this may be reasonable for a single product, but it is certainly unreasonable to think of the whole economy like this. If wages fall, then costs will fall, and the process of competition will force firms to lower prices in line with costs. If prices fall in the same proportion as money wages, then real wages (i.e. the money-wage) price ratio) will be constant, so what incentive is there for firms to hire more workers? On the whole, of course, prices would not fall as <br />
<br />
<br />
174 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
much as wages - because wages are not the only cost of production -but even so, Keynes argued in the <i>General Theory</i>, neoclassical economics had really given no serious thought to what would happen to prices in the event of a general wage cut. However, neoclassical theorists have produced a range of answers to these objections. These tend to rely not on the direct effects of wage cuts - though it is still maintained that wage cuts directly increase employment - but on various indirect effects. The most important indirect effects are as follows. <br />
<br />
1. If wages and prices fall, this means that the purchasing power of money, and wealth generally, has increased. The money balances held by money holders will have increased in real terms, in terms of what they can buy. So money holders become more wealthy, and will consume more, thus increasing demand. Wage cuts will therefore not lea to a demand problem. (This process is known in economics as the 'real balance effect'.) <br />
<br />
2. Output will rise because wage and price cuts will have an effect on exports, which will become relatively cheaper abroad. So employment will increase as a result of the effect of wage cuts increasing exports. <br />
<br />
3. As wages and prices fall, the amount of money needed in the system for business transactions will fall; so the 'real' quantity of money in the economy will rise, if the money supply is unchanged. This will cause the interest rate to fall, which will increase investment spending and thus demand will be maintained. These answers to Keynes gave rise to a very particular interpretation of his work. This is that Keynes's work, far from being a new 'general' theory is in fact just a variant, a special case of the old neoclassical system. Keynes gets his results only by imposing restrictions on the old neoclassical theory: in particular that wages are not flexible, that they do not shift in response to changes in supply or demand. If they did, if workers would accept wage cuts when there was unemployment, then there would be no unemployment. In addition, Keynes imposes other sorts of restrictions, such as the idea that investment is not particularly responsive to changes in interest rates. In essence, Keynes makes the mistake of not recognizing mechanisms (1) and (3) above. His work therefore makes no break, at a theoretical <br />
<br />
REWRITING KEYNES: VARIATIONS ON THE GENERAL THEORY • 175 <br />
level, from the neoclassical economics he affects to supersede; it is the same system, but with a few arbitrary and unwarranted assumptions - notably that wages are 'rigid' - tacked on. <br />
<br />
These kinds of assessment of Keynes's contribution were intensively explored in the dominantly neoclassical economics profession of the United States after the Second World War, being summed up at length in such works as Patinkin's <i>Money, Interest, and Prices</i>. Two sorts of conclusion emerged. One was that Keynes was irrelevant, the only serious economic theory being the neoclassical general equilibrium system described in Chapter 6. The second suggested that Keynes had a point, of limited theoretical significance it is true, but of considerable practical importance. But these conclusions have also given rise to fierce criticisms, so that at present there is simply no overall consensus on what Keynesian economics actually is. There are only factions, the most important of which are discussed below: they can be called, respectively, the 'neoclassical synthesis', the 'Cambridge school', and 'new Keynesianism'. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE NEOCLASSICAL SYNTHESIS </span></h4>
One particular economist dominates the neoclassical synthesis: Paul Samuelson, whose textbook <i>Economics</i> has been sold by the million to generations of students. The central device of the neoclassical synthesis, as the name suggests, is an attempt to reconcile Keynes with the neoclassicism he ostensibly rejected. This is done by admitting the core of the neoclassical objections - by admitting that wage cuts would restore full employment, for example - but arguing that in the real world wages are not, in practise, flexible. Keynes is wrong in a theoretical sense, but he is right in the sense that the world actually works the way he says it does: wages are rigid, prices are not generally flexible, etc. As a practical doctrine, and as a guide to policy, Keynes is useful: he shows how we can expand aggregate demand up to the full employment level. But on a theoretical level, the neoclassical analysis of markets is valid.<br />
<br />
The acceptance of such ideas within the economics profession has led to a teaching approach which is anomalous, to say the least. Students are normally taught an economics which is divided in two: <br />
<br />
<br />
176 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
into <i>micro</i>economics, which deals with the market and production decisions of people and firms, and <i>macro</i>economics which deals with the economy as a whole. The microeconomics component of teaching is almost purely neoclassical: it emphasizes the role of markets, of flexible prices, and suggests that market systems are efficient and welfare-maximizing. The macroeconomics part, however, suggests quite the reverse: it deals with the occurrence of unemployment, trade cycles, recession and instability.<br />
<br />
Not surprisingly the two do not mesh very well. It would be wrong to suggest that this neoclassical version of Keynes, in which his work is integrated with the market economics he hoped to supersede, is a straightforward distortion. Keynes certainly did not work out the micro-economic implications of his ideas. More-over, he himself suggested that his thought was compatible with the neoclassical model. At the very end of the <i>General Theory</i> he explicitly made the suggestion that his work applied only to periods of unemployment.<br />
<br />
His ideas, he suggested, should be used as a guide to getting the economy back to full employment, and then the neoclassical analysis would apply once more. This passing remark by Keynes has been taken up by many British Keynesians, who therefore seem to have Keynes's warrant for a belief in free markets which is hardly less extreme than some monetarists. But this is hooked up with a belief in a particular form of state intervention, namely that the government should simply try to expand demand, and let the market do the rest. However, is this all that Keynes has to sty? We turn now to the theorists who argue that although Keynes flirted with neoclassical ideas, the central thrust of his work was very different. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL </span></h4>
In England such writers as Joan Robinson, Richard Kahn, Nicholas Kaldor and G. L. S. Shackle, mainly but not exclusively based in Cambridge, have consistently argued that the Hicks version is a mis-leading one. Specifically the neoclassical synthesis finds no place for a manlier of important problems which Keynes discussed at great length in the <i>General Theory</i> and which are central to his analysis. <br />
<br />
REWRITING KEYNES: VARIATIONS ON THE GENERAL THEORY • 177<br />
<br />
Here just one of the crucial Cambridge objections to the Hicks model will be emphasized. This is that it is a static model, like the general equilibrium system, in fact. It concentrates on the factors determining income, output and employment at one moment in time. It is, as it were, a snapshot of the economy at the instant of equilibrium.<br />
<br />
This approach does indeed make some of Keynes's work almost incomprehensible. To take an example, in 1937 Keynes published an article in an American scholarly review, the <i>Quarterly Journal of Economics</i>, to explain the 'simple fundamental ideas' of his just-published book. The article makes odd reading for anyone brought up on the Hicks model. In the first place it begins with a longish, rather philosophical, discussion of the nature of 'uncertainty'. We live, says Keynes, inside a historical process, a progression from past to future. We cannot predict this future. It is not that we know what might happen, and can make some estimate of the probability of things occurring (as in throwing a dice, where we know that some number will come up, and can assess the probability of any particular number turning up). Rather, the problem is either that we cannot reliably assess the probability of some possible event (such as the third world war occurring next year), or simply that we do not know what events might occur. What kinds of ecological problems will the next generation face? Will a cheap substitute for oil be discovered by 1995? On such matters we just don't know what is on the historical agenda.<br />
<br />
Such considerations, Keynes goes on, are of great economic importance. This is because a large number of economic decisions are made with respect to the future. The most important of these are investment choices: when firms invest in new plant and equipment, they are constructing the capacity to produce output in the future. They do so, of course, because they aim at making profits in the future. But such a decision must involve a range of assumptions about what the future will hold: for example, that the interest costs of the capital being used will not rise significantly, that the machinery being installed will not become rapidly obsolete, that demand for the product to be produced will not suddenly evaporate, and so on. But none of these things can be known: they are <i>uncertain</i>. Uncertainty, <br />
<br />
<br />
178 - THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
argues Keynes, also pervades the money markets: when wealth holders decide to keep their wealth in money rather than bonds, they do so because they are worried that bond prices might fall, and they will lose out. This decision, however, has effects on the interest rate, so that interest rates are also affected by uncertainty and the vague and shifting expectation of what the future holds in store. But, of the various factors which affect income, Keynes writes, 'it is those which determine the rate of investment which are the most unreliable'. Investment is based on <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
expectations that have no foundations in circumstances, but take their cuts from the beliefs of others, and that will be sustained by hopes, undermined by fears and continually buffeted by the <i>'news'</i>.[2]</blockquote>
There is, it follows, no reason for investment determined in this way to correspond to the 'full-employment' level. On the contrary, it will do so only by very unlikely accident. Thus 'full, or even approximately full, employment is of rare and short-lived occurrence ... an intermediate situation which is neither desperate nor satisfactory is our lot'. <br />
<br />
This distinction between a world which is static and certain, and one which is historical and uncertain is at the core of the Cambridge objection to the Hicksian approach. From it flow complex issues and problems which cannot be treated here. Underlying everything, however, is the belief that the static equilibrium approach of Hicks - a method based on describing the equilibrium position of the economy at a moment in time - should be abandoned. Rather we should be thinking in dynamic terms, of an economy moving through time, in which changes - in the stock of capital, for instance - are happening constantly. Finally we should be thinking in terms of an economy in which uncertain expectations exist, and should bear in mind their complex political and economic effects. These ideas, the Cambridge school argue, are Keynes's central theme and lasting contribution. The problems arise from the fact that although Keynes was thinking of <i>dynamic</i> problems - of a changing, shifting, unstable economy - he did so with an analysis which was really <i>static</i> in method. It was borrowed, in fact, from Marshall, whose ideas he was attempting to displace. It is the resulting confusions which have given rise to the <br />
<br />
REWRITING KEYNES: VARIATIONS ON THE GENERAL THEORY • 179 <br />
<br />
debates and differences, and to the bizarre result of a textbook Keynes being assimilated with his neoclassical enemies. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">'NEW KEYNESIANISM'</span></h4>
<br />
Cambridge criticisms of the neoclassical version of Keynes had been made since 'Keynesian' economics first came to dominate economics during and after the Second World War. But in the late 1960s a new line of criticism began to emerge, based not just on the problems of uncertainty and so on, but on more fundamental questions about the nature of market economies. Associated with the names of Professors R. W. Gower and Axel Leijonhufvud (both of the University of California at Los Angeles), the new critique of neoclassicism based its account of effective demand failure on the failure of markets to act as advertised in the neoclassical system. It has given rise to an increasingly substantial academic literature aimed at exploring the ways in which markets do and do not really coordinate economic activities. <br />
<br />
Like the Cambridge critique, the new Keynesianism begins with a straight rejection of the Hicks IS-LM model, which as Leijonhufvud remarked, 'seems to me a singularly inadequate vehicle for the interpretation of Keynes's ideas'. This inadequacy stems from the way the Hicks model can be grafted on to a neoclassical theory so that, for example, wage cuts can cure unemployment. Against this, the new Keynesian approaches argue that Keynes's work is founded on basic objections to the neoclassical story of the market mechanism. To understand the Clowcr-Leijonhufvud arguments it is necessary to take a step back to the Walrasian general equilibrium system described in Chapter 6. There we saw that, if all markets in the economy are in equilibrium, and if complete and 'perfect' competition reigns, then full output, full employment and general bliss will be the result. The problems lie in finding the equilibrium prices which will deliver this result. Walras used the device of an 'auctioneer' who by a process of trial and error - comparing offers and bids - worked it all out. This trial and error process was called<i> tâtonnement, </i>and through it the full set of equilibrium prices emerged. The problem, however, is that the real world doesn't work like <br />
<br />
180 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
that. What are the implications, then, of the absence of an 'auctioneer' and the absence of <i>tâtonnement</i>? <br />
<br />
In the first place, what happens if we are out of equilibrium? This means, by, definition, that supplies and demands of some goods arc not going to be equal. At disequilibrium prices, though, some traders will be unable to sell all of the goods, or all of the labour, that they would like to. But this must mean that their incomes - which are earned by selling goods - must also be constrained; these traders are earning less than they would like to be earning. And it follows that their demand for other goods will also be curtailed. So right away the economy has run into a demand problem - the quantities of goods which people actually can purchase are less than those they would really like to buy. Professor Cower therefore distinguishes between <i>notional </i>demand - the demand for goods which would exist if the economy was in a full-employment equilibrium - and <i>effective</i> demand, which is the amount people can actually demand, given their incomes. And it is easy to show that where anyone fails to make their desired sales, then the lowering of their effective demand in other markets will lead to 'multiplier' effects through which the initial disturbance is amplified. Unemployment, and less than full output, will be the result. <br />
<br />
This kind of unemployment follows simply from the failure of the economy to find the set of equilibrium prices at which the full-employment level of trading will take place: as Leijonhufvud remarks, 'to make the transition from Walras's world to Keynes's world, it is sufficient to dispense with the assumed tâtonnement mechanism'.[3]<br />
<br />
So we have an unemployment position characterized by thc existence of people who would like to work but cannot, <i>as well as</i> a form of unsatisfied demand for the goods these people might make. The unemployed would like to buy goods, but cannot because of the lack of purchasing power deriving from their own unemployment. There is a 'communication' failure: the unemployed have no mechanism for sending a message to firms, to say that if they were hired, they would buy goods. But in the absence of a sign that demand is increasing, firms will not increase output, and therefore will not hire more workers. The price system - which in the neoclassical theory conveys information and coordinates activity - is simply failing here. It doesn't convey <br />
<br />
REWRITING KEYNES: VARIATIONS ON THE GENERAL THEORY • 181 <br />
the information needed to connect potential demand with the ability of the economy to produce: <i>'The market signals</i> presupposed in general equilibrium analysis <i>are not transmitted</i>,' as Leijonhufvud puts it.<br />
<br />
Note that such a recession does not result from wages being 'too high', and it cannot be cured by wage cuts. This is because a car firm, for example, will increase output and employment only if it thinks demand is rising. An offer by workers to work for less is not, in itself, a signal that demand is increasing, and therefore will not increase overall employment. The general problem here has been described recently by Professor M. L. Weitzmann:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The market system suffers from a <i>'failure to coordinate'</i> the desired consumption and production plans of all agents because the unemployed lack the mans to communicate or make effective their potential demands. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
In a modern economy, many different goods are produced and consumed. Each firm is a specialist in production, while its workers are generalists in consumption. Workers receive a wage from the firm they work for, but they spend it almost entirely on the products of other firms. To obtain a wage the worker must first succeed in being hired. However when demand is depressed because of unemployment, each firm secs no indication that it an profitably market the increased output of an extra worker. The inability of the un-employed to communicate effective demand results in a vicious circle of self-sustaining involuntary unemployment. There is an atmosphere of frustration because the problem is beyond the power of any single firm to correct, yet would go away if only all firms would simultaneously expand output. [4]</blockquote>
These kinds of 'coordination problems', as a source of effective demand failure, are only one part of the 'new Keynesianism'. Their significance lies in the fact that they take the Keynesian attack right to the limn of the general equilibrium system, to its theory of the market mechanism and its beneficent results. It is at this point that some modern Keynesians join up with general equilibrium theorists such as Hahn (see Chapter 7) in contesting the often rather facile use by monetarists of the ideas of general equilibrium. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CONCLUSION </span></h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was suggested in the introduction to Part Two that the confrontation between 'monetarists' and 'Keynesians' over the past few years </div>
<br />
182 • TIIE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
has been a rather spurious one. This is because the real theoretical dividing lines lie nor between these doctrines but within them. When we look at the theoretical underpinnings of these doctrines it is relatively easy to trace the beginnings of such internal divergences: they concern the way markets, and the 'market mechanism' are understood. Do market systems operate smoothly and efficiently, to coordinate and harmonize the economic activities of people? Or are they clumsy and inflexible, a poor basis for economic decision-making?<br />
<br />
The issues discussed in the previous chapters may seem abstract and hardly relevant to Britain's current problems. But they arc of great policy relevancy, since politicians, policy makers and commentators are often circumscribed in their thinking about economic problems by ideas about the way they think the economy really works. In Britain the most important of these ideas has been a belief in the market mechanism. A bizarre feature of economic and political debate over the past few years has been the way in which the thirty post-war years have been labelled as years of ever increasing state intervention, with an ever increasing distortion of free markets. The 'Keynesian' policy makers of those years have been condemned as full-scale interventionists, trying to guide the economy from above, with devastating results. In fact their belief in markets was scarcely less extreme than that of the monetarists.<br />
<br />
So question one on the agenda is whether economic theory gives us any grounds for a belief in free markets, and free market economic policies, as a basis for solving our problems? The answer seems to be 'no'. Keynesian theory, and the work of some general equilibrium theorists, suggests that market economies are nor the self-stabilizing, welfare-maximizing machines which neoclassical economics would have us place our faith in. This point seems to have been demonstrated fairly conclusively, and most economic theorists would probably accept it. But where does this leave us in terms of policy, in terms of the choices which face Britain if it is to escape its current predicament?<br />
<br />
The inadequacies of free-market theories and of the policies based on them open up the question of state intervention. Both Keynesian and some general equilibrium theories indicate that an unguided economy is unlikely to perform well. But this general point does not <br />
<br />
REWRITING KEYNES: VARIATIONS ON THE GENERAL THEORY • 183 <br />
mean that we can jump to the conclusion that any particular form of state intervention is justified. Keynesian theory has very little to say on how the economy should be managed. In the past, Keyncsians have tended to support fiscal policies - essentially policies based on state expenditure and tax decisions - to maintain aggregate demand; the key idea was to maintain an 'adequate' level of demand, and then allow the economy to take care of itself.<br />
<br />
But policy interventions of that type seem to offer little in the face of the problems outlined in the first section of this book. These problems are specific ones concerning manufacturing performance, and the R & D, investment, engineering and educational inputs to that performance. Keynesian policies of demand management are aimed elsewhere; they are pitched at an abstract level which brackets out the specific problems of industrial organization which face Britain. For this reason it is necessary to explore such problems directly, without relying on policy panaceas derived from the highly abstract preoccupations of theoretical economics. It is not that theoretical economics is not important, not a worthwhile and necessary activity. It is simply that it is time for politicians and others to stop thinking that it can offer simple answers. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">PART THREE :</span></span></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><hr />
</span></span></span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">WAYS OUT </span></span></span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i>10</i></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i> </i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><hr />
</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i> </i><span style="color: red;"><i>What went wrong?</i> </span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
The account of Britain's economic crisis presented in the first part of this book was essentially descriptive: it outlined the key processes in Britain's economic decline without seeking to explain their final causes. The concern was with what happened rather than why it happened. The account had this emphasis because of the striking way in which economic discussion in Britain often fails to sort out what the crucial issues actually <i>are</i>. Frequently, debate takes the form of assertions about who caused some particular ill-defined problem, with no clarification of the nature of the problem itself, let alone of how the causal mechanisms work. So in concentrating on the problems an attempt has been made to avoid the game of naming the guilty men. Partly this is because there arc frequently no guilty men to name: many problems occur because of the structure of the economy, rather than because of particular actors within it. But also it is usually unclear how pinning the blame helps to elucidate solutions, which is what we really should be interested in.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, many of the attempts to explain Britain's predicament also imply a programme of action to solve the problems. Where the explanations arc dubious, as they often are, this can lead at best to no apparent solution and at worst to misguided solutions which are likely, if anything, to make matters worse. So before going on to look at some policy measures aimed at promoting industrial recovery in Britain a critical look will be taken at some of the main explanations which have been on offer over recent years. All of them have limitations in one way or another, and can easily constitute obstacles rather than aids to clear thinking about Britain's difficulties.<br />
<br />
In what follows, three types of explanation of the UK's problems are assessed. The first argues that British managers and industrialists <br />
<br />
<br />
188 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
have failed. They have lacked enterprise, they have lacked the technological skills of foreign managers, they have not invested enough: they are bad 'entrepreneurs'. This approach is known in the economics literature, therefore, as the 'entrepreneurial failure' thesis: it pins the blame on British capitalists.<br />
<br />
The second thesis argues that Britain's trades unions and working practises are at fault in various ways; British industry is 'overmanned'; it is strike prone, and unions arc too rigid in their opposition to the changes in work practises which technological change involves.<br />
<br />
The third thesis looks not at particular people, but at an economic process. It argues that Britain's problems stem from insufficient investment. This thesis is not necessarily separate from the previous two, in that poor management and bad industrial relations are frequently cited as the cause of low investment. But in either version inadequate investment is the immediate cause of Britain's problems, and raising investment would serve to overcome them. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">ENTREPRENEURIAL FAILURE</span> </h4>
The hypothesis of 'entrepreneurial failure' has had a long and happy run. It has been a mainstay of academic explanations of British decline since the late nineteenth century, and has also had a significant popular impact. As recently as 1982 it surfaced in a series of television programmes called - rather predictably - 'The Betrayal of Britain' on ITV; and reappeared almost immediately on the BBC, as part of the aeries of reflections on Britain, by the then head of the London School of Economics, Professor Ralf Dahrendorf. The theme has a number of variations, but a typical version runs as follows. The massive and spectacular growth of the UK economy in the early nineteenth century - the industrial revolution - was the result primarily of vigorous entrepreneurship. Go-getting owner-managers, alert to every opportunity, occasionally going to excess (eighteen-hour days for seven-year-old children, etc.) but otherwise entirely admirable, pushed Britain to World leadership. They built up fortunes, and deservedly so. But what of their descendants? They alas, lacked the go-getting spirit; frequently they just wanted to use their fortunes to become country gentlemen. They did so, and this meant that the <br />
<br />
WHAT WENT WRONG? • 189 <br />
enterprises which had produced-their fortunes became stagnant. Firms became moribund at the top, as the vigorous entrepreneurship of previous years disappeared. This story often ends with moralizing conclusions of the 'clogs to clogs in three generations' variety.<br />
<br />
<br />
When we get down to specifics, the charges against late-nineteenth-century entrepreneurs are as follows. Firstly, they neglected to take up technological improvements which would have raised productivity and maintained a higher rate of growth. Critics usually point to certain developments in chemicals technology, steel production and textile manufacture where innovations which were adopted elsewhere were not taken up in Britain. Secondly they lacked engineering expertise, and failed also to employ enough engineers and managers with a technical training. Thirdly, they were, unadventurous in marketing.<br />
<br />
The problem with this argument is that, although it is not difficult to find examples which seem to accord with the general thesis, its implications are rarely fully spelled out. In recent years, however, a number of economists and historians have tried to set up the argument in a rather more rigorous way. Their objections to the entrepreneurial failure line begin by asking two questions:<br />
<br />
1. What does it actually mean for the British economy to have 'failed' in the late nineteenth century? and <br />
2. What would entrepreneurs have to do, or not do, to be responsible for this? The answer to the first question is that Britain could be said to have failed if it had unused economic resources (of labour, for instance; if, in a word, there had been unemployment) which could have been used to produce extra output; or if it could have got more output with the resources of land, capital and labour it was using. In other words, if Britain had used the same inputs, were there products, activities, processes, technologies it could have used which were more productive than the ones it <i>did</i> use? The answer to the second question is that entrepreneurs would bear the responsibility for failure if they had failed to adopt these productivity-improving opportunities.<br />
<br />
Now the evidence indicates that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the slowdown in growth occurred, Britain did not suffer from large-scale unemployment, of the kind that has plagued <br />
<br />
190 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
it in the twentieth century, and in general resources do not seem to have been under-utilized.<br />
<br />
This leaves the question of whether productivity-increasing opportunities existed. From the point of view of enterprises, anything , that increases productivity increases profits (at least in the short run). So the question becomes, did entrepreneurs have opportunities to make profits (by engaging in new activities, using new technologies) which they did not take up? Now the 'entrepreneurial failure' hypo-thesis normally lays emphasis on some quite specific technical missed opportunities: the open-hearth process in steel, the use of American production techniques (involving, for example, interchangeable parts) in mechanical engineering, a new technique (ring-spinning) in cotton manufacture, and the 'Solvay process' in alkali production (one of the most important of chemical processes). Added to this is a charge that British industry underemployed scientists and under-invested in research.<br />
<br />
Those who reject the 'entrepreneurial failure' hypothesis advance two kinds of answer to these charges. The first is one of concrete, practical investigation. Was it actually more profitable to introduce these new techniques? Entrepreneurs are in business to make profits, so they can hardly be blamed for not taking up new techniques unless they are foregoing opportunities for profit. Various studies have argued that, in fact, these new techniques did not offer extra profits, and so businessmen can't be blamed for not adopting them. The second argument here is that if, say, some new process (in steel, or chemicals) was more productive and hence more profitable, entrepreneurs who adopted it would have made super-profits. Others would have noticed the ringing cash registers of the successful adopter (it is difficult to keep secrets in business) and would have followed suit. So, in these industries - which had in the main a large number of firms - only one adopter would suffice to change the whole basis of the industry. The fact that no one went for these supposedly profitable processes leads one to suspect that they weren't profitable at all.<br />
<br />
On these kinds of grounds, then, British entrepreneurs of the late nineteenth century can be acquitted of blame for Britain's industrial problems. Certainly the structure of the world economy was changing, <br />
<br />
WHAT WENT WRONG? • 191<br />
and the British people were to suffer heavily for British economic concentration on what were becoming outmoded industries; but it seems unreasonable to blame businessmen for not foreseeing all this, for not foreseeing, as one historian has put it, 'the trick which history was about to play on them'.<br />
<br />
This is not to say, of course, that problems of entrepreneurship and the quality of management might not be important at other times and in other industries. Occasionally there is suggestive evidence. The British motorcycle industry declined at least partly in consequence of a failure to innovate. Yet this was not because the possibilities for innovation did not exist. Designers at BSA produced, in the early 1950s, new designs for bikes which anticipated the successful Japanese designs of a decade later. They were never put into production, and so there may be some evidence of 'entrepreneurial failure' in that industry. But this would require careful analysis. In general we should be suspicious of easy assumptions of managerial fallibility and entrepreneurial failure; suspicious also, presumably, of Mrs Thatcher's attempts to restore the values of Victorian entrepreneur-ship: if they never went away they do not need restoring. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE UNIONS </span></h4>
The sins of trades unions are such a perennial theme of British economic and political discourse that it is difficult to know where to start. Three primary assertions are made:<br />
- that Britain is 'strike prone', with an industrial relations climate which lowers output and inhibits technological change;<br />
- that British industry is 'overmanned', and this is the cause of low productivity growth; - that union 'monopolies' cause, like all monopolies, a rise in the price of the commodity being sold (in this case, labour)<br />
- British wage rates are thus too high.<br />
The first thing that should be said about these assertions is that it can be difficult to resolve them simply by referring to the available evidence. In each case they involve international comparisons: Britain can only be strike prone, for example, if it has more strikes than comparable countries (obviously, if all have the same strike record, <br />
<br />
<br />
192 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
then Britain's poor relative performance is not explained by strikes). But the statistics we use to make such comparisons may not be consistent, and this poses comparability problems. Leaving such problems asidc, the evidence is often ambiguous. For example, Britain is in general no more 'strike prone' than a number of other countries. It has considerably less days lost per thousand workers than, say, the USA, Italy or Canada. On the other hand, American strikes - in the ear industry, for example - arc often ritualized, semi-formal affairs, whereas British strikes arc more random, more often unofficial and more damaging in terms of lost output. Finding a balance in the often conflicting statistical evidence can be no simple matter.<br />
<br />
Such problems of evidence also appear in discussions of 'over-manning'. Although there are a number of studies which indicate that UK industries employ more workers for a given output than foreign industries, many appear to incorporate rather elementary weaknesses. A typical problem is that of 'ancillary workers', that is workers who perform some function within a plant, but take no direct part in production, such as cleaners. It is often unclear from comparative studies whether ancillary workers are included or not: thus reports claiming that British Steel uses more workers per ton of steel output than German plants tended to neglect the fact that ancillary labour was subcontracted out in the German plants - and not included in the labour figures - whereas all British ancillary workers were employed by British Steel Corporation, and counted-in. Furthermore, claims concerning 'over-manning' are only relevant if workers are using similar amounts and types of equipment; sometimes this is the case but more often it is not.<br />
<br />
Quite apart from these statistical and interpretive difficulties there arc some analytical problems. What, for instance, are strike proneness and overmanning meant to explain? We have seen in previous chapters that Britain's problems involve persistently low rates of growth: it is low growth rates of output and productivity that we should be trying to account for. But there is a crucial distinction to be drawn between factors which affect the <i>level</i> of productivity (i.e. of output per worker) and factors which affect the <i>rate of growth</i> of productivity. 'Overmanning' will affect the level of productivity: if Britain uses the same type of machines as country X, but twice as many workers, then <br />
WHAT WENT WRONG? • 193 <br />
the level of output per worker in Britain will be half that of country X. But the rate of growth of productivity is determined by such things as increases in capital per worker, improvements in the technical efficiency of machines and so on; overmanning will not necessarily have any impact here, and so rates of growth in Britain and country X will be the same. Similar considerations apply to strikes. Strikes and overmanning will not affect rates of growth unless they are getting consistently worse, relative to competitors. One rarely secs systematic evidence presented to this effect. It might be added, more-over, that so-called 'overmanning' does not necessarily make production in Britain more costly or less profitable. If overmanning is accompanied by relatively low wages (as it is in Britain compared with most of Europe), then overmanning may even be accompanied by cost advantages rather than disadvantages. Certainly neither strike proneness nor overmanning will suffice - at least not in the glib way they are usually deployed - as explanations of Britain's economic malaise. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">INVESTMENT </span></h4>
'Investment' is that part of current income and output which is devoted to adding to the capital stock: that is, to increasing the quantity of machines, buildings, equipment and so on at the economy's disposal. In a general way, the size of the capital stock in different countries is central to understanding international differences in productivity. The reason why output per worker in Britain or Germany or France is so much higher than in India or Ghana is not that European workers are miracle men; it is simply that European workers have a substantially greater capital stock to work with. This rather trite observation can readily be transformed into an explanation of Britain's slow growth record. Britain's output grows slowly because its capacity to produce output grows slowly; its capacity to produce output, that is its capital stock, grows slowly because it invests less than other economies. Low investment is therefore the source of the problem.<br />
<br />
Two kinds of evidence can be used to support this argument. Either we can look at rates of investment (that is, the proportion of <br />
<br />
194 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
national income used for investment) or we can look at the size of the capital stock per worker. In the long run these amount to much the same thing, since the amount of capital per worker is normally in-creased only by investing more over a period. But there are complications: a large part of the capital stock is inherited from the past, so it is not just <i>present</i> investment rates which matter, but also past rates: thus two countries may have similar investment rates now, but different capital stocks because of past investment decisions. Secondly, because the investment rate is a ratio, two countries may have the same rate of investment, but different absolute amounts of investment, and hence different sized capital stocks. If country A and country B both have investment rates of 20 per cent, but B's income is twice A's, then in absolute terms B will be investing twice as much as A. These considerations produce some analytical problems which will be outlined below. <br />
<br />
But first some of the evidence. On <i>rates</i> of investment, the statistical sources make a number of important distinctions within the overall investment figure. Firstly, they distinguish between gross and net investment: that is, between total investment (which includes replacement of existing capital goods which have worn out) and new investment (the construction of completely new plant, equipment and so on). Secondly, they distinguish between overall investment (which includes, for example, domestic houses), industrial investment (including mining, oil, construction plant) and purely manufacturing investment. Thus in comparing Britain and West Germany, we might for some purposes - such as comparing technological levels in manufacturing - be interested mainly in net manufacturing investment. If we were interested in the Keynesian problem of the total level of demand we might consider gross investment for all sectors. A typical historical comparison of investment rates is as follows: it shows that gross investment in Britain was slightly less than in West Germany or Italy. But net investment - that is, investment actually devoted to increasing the capital stock - was very substantially less, particularly in manufacturing (see table 19).<br />
<br />
In a more recent year, 1978, Britain invested about 18 per cent of GDP, as opposed to 21.5 per cent in France and Germany, and 30.2 per cent in Japan. A number of writers have taken such figures as the <br />
<br />
WHAT WENT WRONG? • 195<br />
<br />
Table 19. Investment rates in three European countries 1953-60<br />
<hr />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">All industry Gross investment. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">W. Germany Italy UK</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">16.3 16.3 14.5 Gross investment % of GNP<br />
14.6 14.7 8.9 Net " " " "<br />
13.3 13.8 10.7 Gross " " " " manufacturing only<br />
11.0 11.6 5.9 Net " " " " manufacturing only</span><br />
<hr />
Source: A. Lamfalussy, <i>The United Kingdom and the Six</i>, London, 1963, pp. 92 and 94<br />
<br />
<br />
main explanatory factor in Britain's slow growth: we have invested less in total, and also less in net terms (which means that our capacity to produce has expanded more slowly than competitors [7]). This approach seems confirmed when looking at investment per worker, and the amount of capital stock which each worker has to work with. In both these areas Britain appears to lag, as tables 20 and <br />
<br />
Table 20. Gross investment per head, 1974-7 ($) <br />
<hr />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 1974 1976 1971 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1,900 2,800 3,200 Norway <br />
1,500 1,900 1,900 Sweden <br />
1,400 1,500 1,800 Japan <br />
1,400 1,500 1,700 W. Germany <br />
1,300 1,500 1,600 France <br />
1,200 1,300 1,500 USA <br />
680 750 790 UK</span> <br />
<hr />
Source: A. Maddison, 'Long Run Dynamics of Productivity Growth', Banca Nationale di Lavaro Quarterly Review, no. 128, 1979, p. 19. <br />
<br />
<br />
196 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS Table 21. <br />
Manufacturing investment per employee ($) <br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> UK Neth. US <br />
1970 604 1,633 2,145 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1974 92<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">0</span> 2,743 2,785 <br />
1975 <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1</span>,006 3,108 2,947 <br />
Sweden France Japan Italy <br />
1970 1,207 1,439 1,317 751 <br />
1974 2,443 2,288 2,141 1,469 <br />
1975 2,943 2,682 1,768 n.a. </span><br />
Source: C. J. F. Brown and T. D. Sheriff, 'De-industrialization: a background paper', in F. Blackaby, ed. De-industrialization, London, 1979, p. 247<br />
<br />
21 show. Table 20 deals with gross investment per person. A similar picture emerges when looking simply at manufacturing investment (see table 21). <br />
<br />
Finally, these low investment rates appear to have resulted in low levels of assets per worker, that is low levels of capital per worker, as table 22 indicates in looking at different firms within the same industry in different countries. <br />
<br />
<i>Table 22. International comparison of assets per employee, 1976 </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Motor industry</span> Assets per employee (k) <br />
British Leyland 8,505 <br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">11</span> Japanese firms [average] 42,020 <br />
Electrical engineering <br />
GEC (UK) 9,725 <br />
Siemens (Germany) 16,479 <br />
Hitachi (Japan) 34,680 </span><br />
<br />
Source: F. E. Jones, 'Our Manufacturing Industry — the Missing £100,000 Million' Nat. West. Bank Quarterly Review, May 1978, pp. 8-17. <br />
<br />
WHAT WENT WRONG? • 197 <br />
This story of low investment can be multiplied using a wide range of statistical sources, and has led many people to argue, therefore, that low investment is at the core of Britain's economic difficulties. <br />
<br />
Against it, two types of objection have been raised. The first argues that Britain's investment rates have not been notably lower than competitors, especially if we confine ourselves to the crucial category of investment in machinery and equipment. True, Britain invests less overall, but about the same in this area. A recent argument to this effect used data from OECD sources (table 23). On <br />
<br />
Table 23. Investment as % of GDP, 1978 <br />
Plant, machinery, transport Total investment <br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">10.9 30.2 Japan <br />
9.2 18.1 UK <br />
9.1 21.5 France <br />
8.9 21.5 Germany <br />
7.8 18.8 Italy <br />
7.3 18.1 US </span><br />
Source: <i>Lloyd's Bank Economic Bulletin</i>, No. 33, September 1981, p. 1. <br />
<br />
directly productive investment, the argument runs, Britain is second in the league rather than at the bottom. Certainly it is less in absolute terms than other economies, because our G D P is lower, but the rates of investment compare well. The problem is that the returns from our investment seem much lower than competitors': our growth rate was much lower than, for example, the French growth rate, from a similar rate of investment. This leads the author to conclude that 'in relation to her growth performance, the U K may have been investing too much rather than too little'.[1] <br />
<br />
A number of objections could be offered to this type of argument — we could tell a different story by looking at different years, say, or we could argue that it is absolute amounts of investment that matter for productivity, rather than rates (and here Britain is distinctly lower than comparable economics), or that past rates have been very low. However, the matter rests not just on statistics: there are analytical <br />
<br />
198 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS<br />
principles involved. These lead to another argument, which accepts that Britain has had low investment, but suggests that this explains nothing. Rather, low investment is the problem to be explained. <br />
<br />
This latter argument has a number of facets. In the first place, it points out that the relation between investment and economic growth is a two-sided one. On the one hand, investment promotes growth by increasing the economy's capacity to produce output, and by increasing the productivity of workers. But on the other hand, investment <i>depends</i> on growth: it is only if demand and output are growing, and expected to keep on growing, that it is worthwhile investing in order to increase the capacity to produce. As the American economist Edward Denison has pointed out, 'a rapid increase in capacity is induced by rapid growth'.[2] Expanding markets are a primary motive for investment, so when the economy is growing only slowly, enterprises lack this crucial motive; thus low investment and low growth become mutually reinforcing. Such considerations recently led David Stout, economic director of the National Economic Development Office, to remark that 'I have come increasingly to take the view that British industrial investment behaviour has been much more of a symptom than a cause of our low growth rate.' [3]. <br />
<br />
Thus growth in incomes and demand produces opportunities for investment, and slow growth stifles such opportunities. But there is another sense in which low investment is an effect rather than a cause. 'Opportunities for investment' depend on more than fast growth: they depend also on firms and industries vigorously seeking out new activities. This search for new products and processes - a search which takes the form either of invention and innovation, or of using the available innovations of others - is what makes up the R & D activity whose importance was so heavily emphasized in earlier chapters. Research and development can be seen as the process by which areas for profitable investment are found; and from this derives the economic significance of the inadequate levels and types of R & D in Britain, which were charted in Chapter 4. This has led to an inability to find areas of investment able to generate both reasonable returns and a reasonable growth rate. To stress low investment as the source of our problems is, therefore, to put the cart before the horse. As David Stout points out, it is like telling someone who wants to be a<br />
<br />
WHAT WENT WRONG? • 199 <br />
long-distance runner to eat more (since it is noticeable that athletes eat more than other people). In fact, you need to start with training: it is only later that more food becomes necessary. From all of these perspectives, then, it is a mistake to think that low investment is the source of our problems, and a mistake also to think that simply jacking up the investment rate will solve anything. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CONCLUSION </span></h4>
In developing this critique of some standard explanations of Britain's past decline and present malaise, it should not be suggested that these explanations are completely without merits. The thesis of 'entrepreneurial failure', for example, is the subject of continuing debate among economic historians. Though it would be rash to predict the outcome of the debate, since there is much research still to be done, it could be argued that the idea that the British economy 'failed' is in some sense correct. And while it is probably also true that the blame for this cannot be pinned on entrepreneurs, there may nevertheless be managerial problems in British industry in the modern era. As for trades unions, while one may feel sceptical about the 'overmanning' idea, it would be foolish to claim that they bear no responsibility for the messy problems of the British industrial relations scene. But even if they are seen as incompetently led, obsessed with short-run questions, and blind to the effects of their actions on fellow workers this hardly menu - as criticisms of the 'overmanning' thesis indicated -that they have caused long-run decline, industrial collapse, and deepening unemployment. It seems sensible to sec industrial relations problems in much the same way it was suggested we view low investment: as an effect rather than as a cause of Britain's economic difficulties.<br />
<br />
So none of these factors - entrepreneurship, industrial relations, investment - can be dismissed as problem areas within the British economy. On the contrary, they involve complex and seemingly intractable problems which must be. overcome. The point, rather, is that the stories which are based on them do not stand up as single all-encompassing explanations of Britain's decline into crisis. We should have a care, therefore, not only with the explanations, but also with <br />
<br />
<br />
200 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
the panaceas which people are prone to base on them. The most important victims of simplistic explanations of Britain's problems are Britain's political parties. The Conservative project of 'restoring the balance of power in industrial relations', and the pride it takes in what is so brutally called the 'shake-out' of labour (i.e. increased unemployment), which is alleged to have reduced overmanning, is heavily based on the naiveties of the overmanning thesis which have been criticized above. The emphasis within recent Labour programmes on raising levels of investment is similarly short-sighted, quite neglecting the fact that investment rates by themselves explain very little. The tragic consequence of all this has been a concentration by British politicians on economic issues which are to greater or lesser extents peripheral to our real and urgent problems; in effect, they have not seen the wood for the trees. If the crisis is to be resolved, therefore, future policies must abandon what might politely be called the 'indirectness' of past and present policy measures. Policies should be based on a much more realistic assessment of our future prospects, and of the mechanisms which have made them so bleak. Furthermore, they should be aimed at the most direct possible solution of those problems. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i>11</i></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i> </i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><hr />
</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i> </i><span style="color: red;"><i>Industrial Recovery: The Policy Problems</i> </span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"> </span></h3>
As British oil output declines in the late 1980s and through the 1990s, only a major expansion of some other export sector or sectors will prevent a stark decline in the level of real income in Britain. Failure to expand non-oil exports will lead to a more or less drastic depreciation of the exchange rate. Certainly this will make some British exports more competitive, but it will do so only to the extent that British costs - meaning primarily wages - do not rise in response to the increased prices of imports such as food. In addition, Britain's import bill will presumably fall as the falling exchange rate makes imports more expensive. But these mechanisms for maintaining balance of payments equilibrium have a real adjustment process underlying them, namely decreased consumption and decreased standards of living for the British population as a whole. The burden of the British crisis will then no longer be borne only by the unemployed; it will be felt by everyone. <br />
<br />
Avoiding further falls in income, and alleviating Britain's chronic unemployment, requires growth in industries capable of both exporting and competing with imports inside Britain. We cannot hope for such an expansion in service industries such as financial services, tourism and transport which have provided the bulk of Britain's 'invisible' earnings in the past, for reasons which were elaborated in Chapter 3: these are not major growth sectors in the world economy, and in each of them Britain faces intensive competition. Britain's recovery therefore depends on a revival of manufacturing, for in this sector, although competition is intense, world demand and world trade are growing. <br />
<br />
But such a revival seems very unlikely to occur as things stand: there is no sign of the large-scale increases in innovative and investment<br />
<br />
202 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
activity which would be required <i>now</i> for any recovery in the late 1980s or early 1990s (since there are significant lead times involved in most industrial manufacturing projects). Nor is it likely that such increases will occur on the necessary scale in the slowly growing British economy of the middle and late 1980s, since investment rarely expands in an environment of recession and depressed demand. Manufacturing recovery must therefore be engineered; that is to say, it must become a primary objective of economic policy. <br />
<br />
But to say that the overriding priority for economic policy in coming years should be a reconstruction of Britain's manufacturing capability begs a number of difficult questions. To what extent, for example, can such a project actually be an objective of economic policy? What kinds of economic and institutional obstacles stand in the way of carrying it out? Are the available policy instruments adequate for the task; and if not, what kinds of measures are needed? <br />
<br />
Policies for industrial reconstruction face two kinds of difficulties in economies like Britain. In the first place there are economic problems, to do with the economic mechanisms by which decentralized, private-enterprise market economics actually generate increased industrial investment and growth. Secondly, there are problems of policy instruments: the measures, powers and institutions through which the government can affect the economy, and which constrain the kinds of effects it can produce. When these economic and instrumental problems arc examined against the background of Britain's problems, the need for new types of policy and new types of institution to carry them out begins to emerge. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE ECONOMICS OF INDUSTRIAL INVESTMENT </span></h4>
If output, employment and incomes arc to grow in Britain, then the problems of low and poorly directed R &D activity, and low industrial investment, which are at the core of Britain's economic decline must be overcome. However, as we saw in Chapter 10, investment tends to follow growth in incomes and expenditure, not precede them. Enterprises invest in order to satisfy the demand generated by increases in income, they do not aim at generating income increases via investment. <br />
<br />
INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY: THE POLICY PROBLEMS • 203 <br />
In practical terms this means that as economies move out of recession, expanding consumption usually precedes expanding investment; these expansions of consumption demand are in effect the signal which tells enterprises that it is worthwhile to invest once again. In a market economy, in which all enterprises make investment decisions in isolation from each other, there are no general incentives other than demand expansion which will provoke investment increases. <br />
<br />
This is why there is a fundamental difference between the growth patterns of capitalist and socialist economies. Socialist economics do possess a central planning institution which tells enterprises when and how much to invest: thus economic growth in those societies is 'investment-led'. This is why, historically, they have had both a good growth and employment record, but also a poor record on the provision of consumption goods: beginning with the process of investment means that incomes are being generated (i.e. for workers in the investment projects) before consumption goods are produced as the end-product of that investment. Maintaining high investment levels has thus meant that incomes have consistently outrun available consumption goods in those societies — hence the coexistence of high growth, high employment, steady income growth, and shortages. <br />
<br />
It is another story in capitalist economics. Here, 'investment-led' growth tends to be the exception: not unknown, but rare. Rather, growth is initiated by an expansion of demand elsewhere. This need not be in consumption expenditure: 'export-led' growth has historically been very important, both in Britain (where our early nineteenth-century industrialization was fed by massive export demand) and in other economics. But in practise, particularly in the post-war era, attempts to stimulate growth in Britain and elsewhere have taken the form of policies to stimulate consumption demand, in the hope that investment would respond. The idea was to create a 'virtuous circle' of growth; increases in consumption leading to increases in investment, leading to increases in productivity and incomes, leading to further consumption increases and so on. For many years and in many countries, this more or less worked. But now we arc trapped in a 'vicious circle' of decline. The question is, how to break out of it? <br />
<br />
The main difficulty is that consumption-led growth appears not to be on the cards. This is because Britain's manufacturing performance <br />
<br />
<br />
204 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
is so poor that consumption increases have not fed through into increased demand for British products, and hence to investment in British industry. Consumption increases have been spent quite disproportionately on imports, especially of manufactures: as the British economy returned to slow growth in 1983, it was noticeable that increases in consumers' expenditure had no effect on British manufacturing output. It is therefore not open to British policy makers to engineer industrial reconstruction and investment via a consumption boom. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the problem is not simply that we cannot stimulate renewed economic growth by a direct expansion of consumption in the economy. It would not necessarily help to act on investment, either. It has been emphasized above that in the normal operation of capitalist market economics investment tends to follow the expansion of consumption demand. But this has not prevented governments from attempting to act on investment. On the contrary, they have adopted a wide range of measures to increase investment, ranging from tax concessions to subsidies and so on. And such measures have had some effect. The problem, however, as previous chapters have emphasized, is not simply the amount of investment, but also the productivity of that investment. The fact is that investment in Britain has not produced the same increases in output that it has in other economics: it has not been as effective. This is because the projects in which investment has been embodied have not had the degree of research and development input which generates the design and production quality on which real market success is based. The fundamental British problem lies not at the point of investment, but much further back: at the R & D stage; when products are planned and the marketing and investment strategies for them are developed. As David Stout has put it <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In an economy in which relatively slow growth and declining manufacturing competitiveness are a century-old problem, spread across almost every sector, it is tedious but necessary to find out what has gone wrong market by market, and to direct policy to the recapturing of demand. Investment has its place in the vicious circle of slow growth, but it is not the right place to break into the circle when the productivity of existing capital is low.' </blockquote>
INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY: THE POLICY PROBLEMS • 205 <br />
The central tasks are in the fields of product design, technological standards, and production quality. They are, in other words, not in the area of investment but rather in the development of projects which are worthy of investment. For this, however, the available policy instruments are inadequate. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">INSTRUMENTS OF POLICY </span></h4>
<br />
These considerations suggest that the focus of economic policies for reconstruction should be quite limited - on the formation of viable projects within the manufacturing sector - yet those policies must also have economy-wide effect. Now although it is not unheard of for countries to adopt policies restricted to small groups of industries, yet which have large-scale effects - Chapter l2 describes such a policy - it is in fact unusual. Certainly Britain has no experience of such policies, at least in peace time. Rather, policies which have significant effects on the overall level of income tend to be general in scope and diffuse in impact. In the economic jargon, such policies are aggregative, meaning that they operate on the whole economy as an aggregate. In Britain, economic policy making is concentrated either on fiscal policies - which concern government tax and expenditure decisions, and are presented in the Budget each March - or monetary policy, which primarily affects interest rates. These policies affect everyone: they expand or contract incomes over the whole economy or a large part of it. Such policies form the centrepiece of both Keynesian and monetarist economic strategies, and are the main policy legacy of the doctrines discussed in Part Two of this book. Their limitations begin from the fact that they can break into the vicious circle of decline at one point only: that of demand. In practise they boil down to policies of deflation (monetarism) or reflation (Keynesianism). Now while it is true that the choice between these two strategies is an important one - it is difficult to see any recovery being sustained in a deflationary policy environment - it is also the case that the instruments with which they work are not suitable for solving Britain's industrial problems. Growth and reconstruction in specific, limited parts of the UK economy cannot be promoted with general policy instruments. What is needed is a specific policy <br />
<br />
206 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
instrument to enhance the supply potential of the manufacturing sector: an industrial policy. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">AN INDUSTRIAL POLICY </span></h4>
'Industrial policy' refers to the whole complex of measures, instruments and institutions which has as its focus the <i>structure of industry</i> (that is, the kinds of sectors and activities, and their relative sizes), the <i>composition of output</i> (the types of products being produced), and the <i>technological basis</i> of industry. Like many countries, Britain has had some sort of industrial policy for many years. What it has not had, and what it requires, is an industrial policy to which all other government policy preoccupations are subordinated; which has clearly articulated objectives for reconstruction; which is adequately funded and staffed; and which has powers sufficient to attain the objectives which are set for it. This is not, it should be emphasized, an argument for a central planning agency on the Eastern European model. It is an argument for a coordinating agency of the type possessed, in some form or another, by all of the fast-growing economies of the post-war era.<br />
<br />
The objectives of such a policy are implicit in the analysis presented in Part One of this book. If that analysis is even half-way correct, then Britain faces something akin to external collapse over the next decade or so. It may take five years to occur, it may take fifteen or even more: precise prediction would be rash. But as oil disappears, Britain's already low levels of income will decline catastrophically; the many effects of this will include an enforced contraction of such publicly funded institutions as the National Health Service. So the first objective of policy can be put very bluntly, and by itself it will be enormously difficult. It is to stave off this disaster. From this follows the primary task for economic and industrial policy: averting disaster means developing a nucleus of industries whose technological levels and product ranges will enable them to survive and prosper in the competitive trading markets of the world. As oil declines in the 1990s, they must generate an increase in manufactured exports at a rate determined by the rate at which oil revenues are falling. <br />
<br />
INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY: THE POLICY PROBLEMS • 207 <br />
Maintenance of Britain's income levels while oil declines is, however, but a preliminary task. Long-term prosperity for Britain requires that existing income levels are not merely sustained, but are significantly raised. So the industries which are developed in the disaster-averting phase of reconstruction must support Britain's external accounts during a second round of reconstruction, in which the technological level and productivity of a range of subordinate, domestic, industries is substantially enhanced.<br />
<br />
However, although the construction of a group of dynamic, externally oriented manufacturing industries is perhaps no more than a preliminary on the way to the solution of other, more serious problems, it is nevertheless the condition on which all else is based. The central problems for such a construction project lie in the field of product design, technological level, and standards of production. They are not in the field of investment, but rather in the area of generating projects which are worthy of investment. Of course, raising the funds and resources for large-scale investment will be difficult in itself. But first it is necessary to solve the problem of what to invest in. How can this be done? <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">A RECONSTRUCTION AGENCY</span> </h4>
What is needed is an interventionary apparatus which will coordinate and fund, in collaboration with enterprises, a substantial programme of research and development in an integrated range of products. It must then translate these programmes into investment projects, which it will carry out. This work has six major aspects, which one government agency should oversee. They are: <br />
— the scientific and technological aspects of industrial construction; <br />
— the commercial appraisal of prospective projects (in which the expertise of businesses in assessing the commercial viability of projects will be crucial); <br />
— the investment programme, in particular its timing, and the integration of one project with another; <br />
— the financial aspects of investment, that is the provision of funds on an adequate scale and over adequate time periods; <br />
<br />
<br />
208 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
— labour provision and training; <br />
— finally the macroeconomic implications - it will be necessary for all these activities to be carried out within a well-worked-out conception of their macroeconomic consequences.<br />
<br />
The task of a reconstruction agency need not be - in fact, cannot be - to carry out all of these tasks itself. In each of these areas there are adequate existing institutions, some of which will need to be expanded substantially. The central function of a reconstruction agency carrying out an industrial policy should be coordination and, where necessary, direction. Where other institutions are involved, their activities should be clearly subordinated to the overall needs of the industrial policy. An industrial policy of this type, and a powerful government agency to carry it out, are perfectly feasible for Britain, as they have been for a number of successful economics over the past thirty years. Yet many in Britain have ignored examples from abroad, and have maintained serious objections to industrial policies. How valid are those objections? <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">OBJECTIONS TO INDUSTRIAL POLICY </span></h4>
In Britain there is a strong tradition that policies of industrial intervention are at best useless and at worst positively harmful; a great deal has been heard of such arguments in recent years, since they reflect the views held by the government. Three sorts of argument are advanced. The first - a very abstract one - is based on the kinds of free-market economic thinking outlined in Chapter 6. It alleges, on theoretical grounds which arc rarely adequately spelled out, that since free-market economics tend towards optimal mixes and levels of output, it is folly to intervene in them. This 'optimality' property of capitalist economics is produced by individuals and firms reacting to the prices which are established in competitive markets. Since any intervention is going to alter those prices- by definition, since it aims at doing something the price mechanism is not already doing - then it will also make the optimal mix and level of output impossible to achieve.<br />
<br />
The second argument varies this original argument by concentrating<br />
<br />
INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY: THE POLICY PROBLEMS • 209 <br />
on those who would make the crucial decisions in an industrial policy. These people, it is held, will be civil servants. But why should bureaucrats be better at making economic decisions than businessmen? How are bureaucrats likely to have the information, the incentives, the experience, to make better decisions than industrial professionals? In fact, it is argued, there are no grounds for thinking that they will be more efficient, more forward looking, more entrepreneurial, than existing managers. Since industrial policy involves control by bureaucrats it should be rejected on efficiency grounds.<br />
<br />
The final type of argument is more practical. It looks at industries where there has been considerable state intervention in Britain, and argues that they are characterized by inefficiency, inflexibility and waste. Industries such as steel and coal have been badly led, inflexible in response to changing circumstances, and have in consequence required massive subsidies. The story can be extended into other state-run industries such as shipbuilding and airlines; even where state-owned industries are profitable - such as British Telecom - they are argued to be considerably less efficient (in terms of providing services) than their free-market equivalents elsewhere (such as the Bell telephone network in the USA).<br />
<br />
None of these arguments seem convincing, though all require an answer. Some of the problems of the free-market approach have been spelled out in Chapter 6. In the first place, such arguments almost invariably obscure the conditions which are necessary to make free-market systems deliver the goods: those conditions are so restrictive as never to be met in practise. At the theoretically abstract level at which this argument is made, there is in fact no great distinction to be made between free-market systems and planned systems. It is possible within economic theory to show that planned, interventionist economies can deliver exactly the same results, or better, than decentralized market systems. On a purely theoretical basis economic theory produces no presumption whatsoever in favour of free markets as opposed to intervention. Moreover, there are a wide variety of theories which claim that the isolated activities of individuals can always be improved upon by non-market forms of cooperation and collaboration - these approaches tend to draw on the insights of <i>'game theory'</i> in the analysis of economic problems. Surely the <br />
<br />
<br />
210 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
reasonable conclusion here is that this argument cannot be resolved purely at the level of abstract theory.<br />
<br />
On the question of bureaucrats running industries, there is certainly a problem. It can be agreed that bureaucrats are unlikely to run industries well, though they could hardly run them worse than some of Britain's free-enterprise businessmen. But the real point is, why should it be presumed that an interventionist industrial policy requires civil servants to run industry? The function of an industrial policy must be to provide coordination, collaboration and support, not to replace one set of managers with another. This point is very well put by Christopher Freeman: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is of count the strength of the free enterprise' argument - that only the managers of the firms in each sector have enough detailed knowledge and experience to make good decisions. The argument for the flexibility, speed and initiative of decentralised entrepreneurship remains extremely strong whether in private, public or mixed enterprises. No one should underestimate the dangers of bureaucratic delay and bungling often associated with over-centralisation. But in our view this does not absolve government from some responsibility for long-run strategy for investment and technology in each sector of the economy. Central overall responsibility needs to be combined with decentralised initiative in all mature industrial societies, whether capitalist or socialist, and we have to find a practical solution, not one based on doctrinaire positions.[2] </blockquote>
The final assertion, that state direction has in practise been a disaster in such British industries as steel, coal, airlines, shipbuilding and so on, is also problematical. Again it can be agreed that much of the British experience since the Second World War is a lesson in how not to carry out policies of industrial intervention. There have been two central mistakes. The first was to concentrate substantial economic support on essentially declining industries. Far too much in resources and effort has been devoted to a fruitless effort to prop up industries whose future was limited in any case, rather than attempting to pro-mote other industries whose output and employment would substitute for those in decline. As indicated in Chapter 2, economic growth amsists of transformations in the economy, and declining industries are as much a part of that process as emerging 'ones. The second mistake - though the word 'mistake' rather understates things - has <br />
<br />
INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY: THR POLICY PROBLEMS • 211 <br />
been in the quality of the interventionist decisions which were made. The disastrous histories of Concorde and the nuclear power programme do not need repetition here: the main point is that the crucial decisions were made on the basis of fantasies about Britain's economic and political place in the world, rather than according to commercial and economic criteria. In the discussion of Britain's R & D record in Chapter 4. it was suggested that these types of errors were particularly significant in Britain because of the degree of government involvement in the provision and control of R & D resources. <br />
<br />
The existence of these problems does not, however, indicate that there is no case for government industrial policy. It indicates the need for much more carefully considered programmes of such intervention. That is, the problems outlined above constitute an argument against a particular type of industrial policy; they are not an argument against industrial policy as such. Similarly, the argument for increased government involvement in, and support for research and development is not vitiated by the fact that it is the government which is largely responsible for Britain's R & D disaster in the 1950s and 1960s. The problem there lay in the principles on which the government intervened, not that intervention itself, as Freeman has pointed out: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... the major mis-allocation of government R & D expenditures in military, nuclear and aircraft applications over the past thirty years does not invalidate the general case for government sponsorship and encouragement of new technology, based on economic as opposed to prestige and military criteria.[3] </blockquote>
Force is added to these points if we bear in mind that virtually all of Britain's more successful competitors operate active industrial policies which, to greater or lesser degrees, and in a variety of forms, are of the type which has been advocated above. If industrial policies are doomed to failure, one is therefore tempted to ask, why are they Such a conspicuous feature of the policy apparatus in West Germany, Sweden, France and above all Japan, the most successful country of the post-war period? Perhaps the simplest way of suggesting that policies of industrial reconstruction and intervention can work is indeed to point to the case of Japan, an economy which is in many respects similar to Britain. Chapter 12 consists, therefore, of a description<br />
<br />
212 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
and discussion of the activities of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (M 1 T I) in Japan, an institution whose economic role and long-term effects have been of central importance in promoting Japan's past-war growth. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">12 </span></i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<hr />
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">Behind the Japanese Miracle </span></i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
This chapter describes the contribution of economic and industrial policy, and of one industrial ministry in particular, to the extraordinary growth of modem Japan. Most of us in the West are familiar with the outlines of that growth, and with some of the paradoxes it has produced. Where 'Made in Japan' was once such a symbol of cheap, imitative and shoddy products that it became almost a catch-phrase -- connoting both inferiority and presumption - it now stands for the highest standards of quality and reliability. Where once the Americans paternally fostered Japan's post-war re-construction, they now stand aghast at the competitor which has emerged. Rates of growth of output and productivity in Japan are the highest ever recorded by a capitalist economy (they have been matched in the post-war world only by the Soviet Union) and moreover have been maintained over very long periods. Between 1960 and 1978 Japan's national income grew at over 8 per cent per year; at the end of that period annual income was over 400 per cent of its 1960 level. In 1980, while Britain's manufacturing output fell 10 per cent, Japan's rose by 6 per cent.<br />
<br />
This growth success manifests itself in Japanese domination of a wide range of markets. As we all know, in certain consumer products, Japanese firms virtually have the field to themselves: in cameras, video recorders, motorcycles, audio equipment and so on. But Japan is equally innovative and successful in industrial technologies such as machine tools (particularly 'numerically', i.e. electronically, controlled tools), special steels, chemicals, plastics, special-function ships and newer technologies like industrial robots and fibre optics. In cars and trucks, many national industries - including the British - exist only <br />
<br />
214 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
on Japanese sufferance. Japanese manufacturers voluntarily restrict their exports of vehicles, since both they and the Western governments who pressure them into it know that with unrestricted free trade they would decimate the car firms of the West. This economic growth has been based on unrelenting transformation of the economy, on the structural and technical changes which were identified in Chapter 2 as the basis of industrial growth. In the 1950s Japan produced and exported the labour-intensive products of the few consumer industries which had existed in the pre-war world and survival the chaos of the war: textiles, clothing, simple metal manufactures, shoes, toys and so on. In the late 1950s the focus of the industrial drive shifted on to more technically advanced and capital-intensive industries and products: synthetic fibres, motorbikes, ships, petrochemicals, cameras. In the 1970s these technologies were extended into new product groups such as cars and domestic appliances, as well as electrical and electronic products such as television and stereo equipment. In the late 1970s came another change of direction, into the widespread application of electronic and microelectronic technologies: video equipment, computers large and small, robots, numerically controlled machine tools. In each of these areas - with the possible exception of computers, though here the situation is still unclear - Japan is world leader. This success may hold lessons for Britain, since it has occurred in an economy which has faced and overcome problems not too dissimilar from those which confront Britain today. Like Britain, Japan is a small, heavily populated island group, with a resource base in-adequate for industrial production, and a consequent need to import food and raw materials. Like Britain, its national income is heavily dependent on its export success; like Britain it must generate a trade surplus in manufactures. Unlike Britain it has been successful in doing so. But just as Japan's success is unique, so are the policy methods and institutions which it has brought to bear on its problems. The post-war economic success of Japan has been that of an economy guided and managed by the state to a degree un-parallelled in modern capitalism. If we are to learn anything from Japan, it must be from its techniques of industrial policy. <br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 215 <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">THE BACKGROUND TO JAPANESE GROWTH </span></h4>
A major difficulty in thinking about Japanese economic performance lies in disentangling the effects of particular policies and institutions (which might be transplanted elsewhere) from the specific and distinctive cultural traits of Japan (which are unlikely to be exportable). If it is the latter which are responsible for Japan's economic success, then there may be no useful lessons to be learned.<br />
<br />
Sorting out these issues of policy as against culture is very difficult for a Western observer. European images of Japan, as Endymion Wilkinson pointed out in detail in his <i>Japan versus Europe</i>, involve a very complex set of conceptions and images. There are ideas of Oriental exoticism which evoke aesthetic admiration from some and racial contempt from others; there are images of a feudal warrior society becoming a modern militarist power still embodying the samurai values of its feudal past; there are ideas of a people at once culturally refined and capable of great cruelty. Some of these conceptions are foolish, no doubt, but some more or less accurately depict features of a society with very different cultural forms and traditions.<br />
<br />
As Japan has emerged as a major world economic power there have been many who have ascribed its success to the way in which some of these supposed cultural features have been filtered into the economy. One of these factors - alleged to have a number of economic manifestations - has attracted considerable attention in the West. We might call it 'mutual commitment'. It is suggested that although Japanese society is hierarchical, having economic and social divisions like most societies, these divisions are submerged beneath a sense of cultural sameness, an identification of interests above and beyond personal interests. Great mutual loyalty springs out of this, and it has considerable economic consequences. In the first place, it makes possible consensus policies organized around a national interest. But its most striking manifestations are found within the Japanese enterprise, which has two quite distinctive features. The first of these features is the so-called 'lifetime contract', an undertaking by firms to guarantee jobs until retirement for their workers; as a formal commitment, this is almost completely absent <br />
<br />
<br />
216 - THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
from the Western industrial scene. At the same time there is an exceptional degree of loyalty by workers to the firm. Workers feel a primary loyalty to the employing company: they sing company songs, wear company uniforms, and so on. The climate of industrial and social harmony which results from all this is, we are sometimes told, the crucial determinant of Japan's extraordinary performance.<br />
<br />
To these advantages of cultural and economic nationalism and a docile workforce can be added other features, largely historical. The importance of very large corporations (<i>zaibatsu</i>), for example, which have long dominated the production system; and the close cooperation between such firms and the Japanese state which was a feature of Japanese industrialization following the Meiji restoration in 1868. It would be difficult, I think, to overestimate the importance which Westerners attach to such specifically Japanese cultural and social phenomena when they seek to understand Japanese growth. And it is not only Westerners: Professor Morishima of the London School of Economics in his book <i>Why Has Japan Succeeded?</i>, ascribes exceptional importance to the 'Japanese ethos', and traces it back to the way in which Confucian religious ideas were modified in the course of their import into Japan from China. 'While Chinese Confucianism is one in which benevolence is of central importance,' he writes, 'Japanese Confucianism is loyalty-centred Confucianism.' <br />
<br />
Now while it would be foolish to deny that cultural differences can and do have important economic effects, it does seem that there are many problems in looking to such factors as the primary cause of Japan's growth performance. Although the whole matter is a very complex one, two issues are particularly important. The first is whether this mutual loyalty, and consequently social harmony, really are a general feature of the Japanese economy and society, or whether they are in fact relatively recent developments which stand in need of explanation. The second question is whether the apparently unique Japanese enterprise relationships (lifetime contracts/worker loyalty) explain Japan's performance, or whether they could equally well be seen as effects - rather than causes - of that perfomance. More generally, do we need these 'culturalist' explanations, or can every-thing be well explained by economic factors of a rather more ordinary kind? <br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 217 <br />
Consider first the question of whether Japan really is a society of mutual commitment, of consensus, of social harmony. One might question whether it is a harmonious society today - given, for example, the organized violence associated with the protests over the second Tokyo airport - but it certainly was not in the fairly recent past. The inter-war years, as Robert Reich has pointed out, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
were marked by bitter struggles between factions in the army and navy, between the military and the large industrial groups called zaibatsu, between tenant farmers and landlords. Trade unions were suppressed by the authorities. Lifetime employment had little meaning in an industrial system in which most factory employees were young female textile operators whose working lives were two to three years, and in which half the population were poor peasants. National industrial policies were barely able to maintain stability after the financial panic of 1927, the invasion of Manchuria in tom the fascist attack on capitalism in the mos, the war with China from 1937 to 1941, the Pacific war, the economic collapse of 1946, the post-Korean war recession of 1954[1]. </blockquote>
The general picture which emerges of Japanese society prior to the beginnings of the 'economic miracle' is one of a factionally and socially divided system. It prompts the thought that it is economic growth which makes possible the emergence of a consensus, not vice-versa.<br />
<br />
Similar points might be made about the distinctive features of Japanese enterprises. Such phenomena as lifetime contracts arc made possible by Japanese industrial success, they are not the basis of it. They are not an option open to Western managers, given the insecurity of their economic environment, and the risks which their enterprises face. Lifetime contracts are best viewed as an expression, by Japanese managers, of confidence in continued growth, an expression of a belief that they do not face significant risks which threaten their corporate future. The real question is, why do Japanese corporate managers feel this way? What is it about their economic environment which promotes their confidence? And while worker loyalty may well be part of the 'Japanese ethos', we should remember that economic security, and particularly employment security, is very highly valued by people everywhere; once workers are guaranteed a degree of security, their loyalty to the firm that provides it may not be all that surprising. <br />
<br />
<br />
218 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC. CRISIS <br />
In other words we may not need notions of cultural and national solidarity, or the idea of a 'Japan Incorporated' to which they give Sc, to understand Japan's growth record. Rather we need to look at the economic environment within which Japanese firms operate, an environment which is set by the government. There are two aspects to this policy environment. The first is the general macroeconomic policy framework, which will be described only briefly. The second, much more important, is industrial policy and the activities of the ministry which carries it out. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">TIIE JAPANESE POLICY FRAMEWORK</span> </h4>
The general approach by Japanese policy makers has three distinctive features. The first is a firm rejection of some orthodox ideas on international trade, concerning both the types of goods which Japan should be producing and exporting, and the desirability of free trade as opposed to protection and import controls. The second is an equally firm commitment to the expansionary demand-management ideas associated with the economics of Keynes. This has taken the form not so much of the public expenditure programmes with which we are familiar in the West, as tax and expenditure policies designed to encourage investment (including government investment); but monetary policies also have been managed with an eye to maintaining low interest rates and easily available credit for investment. The final aspect is a kind of two-faced attitude to competition within the economy: in general the Japanese economy has combined a high degree of government intervention with the promotion of competition. Competition has been encouraged where it was felt that this would enhance efficiency; but it has been firmly discouraged where it would threaten the prospects for growth. More will be said about this - in the shape of concrete examples - below.<br />
<br />
All of these areas are of great interest, but one which deserves further comment, especially in the light of Britain's trade problems, is international trade policy. It is necessary to begin here by saying something about the basic economic theory of trade.<br />
<br />
The theory of international trade has generated perhaps the most consistently successful economic law' of all time (successful, that is, <br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 219 <br />
in terms of its acceptance by economists and politicians): the law of comparative advantage. Without going into details, the theory of comparative advantage is held to demonstrate three related points. The first is that countries should not produce all the types of goods which they are capable of producing, but rather should specialize. Specifically, they should sperialize in lines of production where they have a relative cost advantage. This does not mean goods in which a country has an absolute cost advantage, but rather in goods whose costs compared to more expensive lines are lowest, compared with competitors. Secondly, these costs will be determined by the relative availability of labour and capital; specifically, countries with a substantial amount of capital should specialize in capital-intensive goods, while countries with a large volume of labour should specialize in labour-intensive goods. Finally, countries should engage in free international trade - completely unrestricted by tariffs or other barriers - in the products of the resulting specialization. If these precepts are followed, world output, consumption and welfare will be maximized. Such propositions arc, therefore, an essential underpinning for the doctrine of free trade which is such a major component of free-market economics.<br />
<br />
But though it has been widely accepted and admired (Paul Samuelson, challenged to produce an example of a proposition in any social science which was both true and non-trivial, answered, 'the theory of comparative advantage'), the doctrine has always had its critics. There have been two principal lines of objection. The first is that if it was followed to the letter it would be likely to cement countries inside an existing division of international activities which they might not find to their long-term benefit. The second is that free trade makes it very difficult to establish and build new industries where that industry already exists, at a more advanced level, in other countries. The already existing industry is likely to have a competitive advantage - since firms' costs tend to decrease both with time and with size — and there have always been, therefore, arguments in support of the protection of 'infant industries'.<br />
<br />
The free-trade doctrine was rejected by the Japanese economic administration throughout the post-war period, but particularly during the years of construction. Discussing the decisions of that <br />
<br />
220 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
period, Mr Y. Ojima, vice-minister for International Trade and Industry, said that it was<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
decided to establish in Japan industries which required intensive employment of capital and technology, industries that in consideration of comparative costs of production should be the most inappropriate for Japan, industries such as steel, oil refining, petrochemicals, automobiles, aircraft, industrial machinery of all sons, and electronics including electronic computers. From a short-run, static viewpoint, encouragement of such industries would seem to conflict with economic rationalism. But from a long-range viewpoint, these are precisely the industries where ... demand is high, technological progress is rapid, and labour productivity rises fast.[2] </blockquote>
This attempt to construct a new industrial basis for Japan's trading position in the world was accompanied by a range of import controls to protect these industries in their formative period.<br />
<br />
But while it is one thing to set out the kind of industrial objectives listed by Mr Ojima, and to provide the trade and domestic policies to back them up, it is quite another thing actually to setup the industries. That required another set of policies and a specific institution to carry them out. We turn to that now, for it is here that we can find the main determinant of Japan's growth success. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">MITI: THE MINISTRY OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND INDUSTRY </span></h4>
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the <a href="http://www.meti.go.jp/english/">Ministry of International Trade and Industry</a> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_International_Trade_and_Industry">MITI</a>) in Japan's economic success, or the extent of its activities. MITI is responsible in Japan for the development and coordination of the main industrial sectors, and in particular those concerned with manufactured exports. Since its foundation in 1949 MITI has guided and in some cases controlled the import and use of foreign technology, the availability of foreign currency to firms, the process of research and development, the collection and exchange of technical information between firms, the number of firms in particular industries and the entry of new firms into industries, the expansion or contraction of whole industries, the availability of investment funds for firms from the Japan Development Bank and private banks, the application of monopoly and competition<br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 221 <br />
policy, the development of tax measures to promote growth, and long-range programmes of research in advanced technologies. It has also produced regular growth projections which form the basis of economic policy decisions by government in coordination with other ministries, and has played an important role in setting pay and income norms around which firms and unions negotiate.<br />
<br />
It should not be assumed from this list of activities and powers that MITI is all powerful, either with respect to firms in the economy, or other ministries. It attempted to consolidate the car industry around Nissan and Toyota, for example, and failed. It has been in repeated conflict with the government's Fair Trading Commission, which has limited some of its activities. Moreover, its statutory powers are quite limited, and there are a number of major industries in which it has had little involvement. Nevertheless, its impact has been very great. The following sections describe the objectives and functions of MITI,- its structure and its methods; finally, a concrete example of its role in one particular industry is given. <br />
<br />
<i>Objectives and tasks: </i><br />
'Industrial policy,' remarks the Japanese economist Ryutaro Komiya, is government policy that changes the allocation of resources among industries, or the levels of certain types of productive activity among firms within individual industries. It is designed to encourage production, investment, research and development, modernization and reorganization in some industries and not in others' [3] The primary objective of MITI is to use such a policy to promote economic growth of a type which will also generate a substantial balance of trade surplus in manufactures. <br />
<br />
<i>Structure:</i><br />
MITI consists of a central secretariat made up of nine bureau; each of which has a number of sub-agencies. All are well staffed by highly qualified civil servants. (Ronald Dore remarks on MITI's 'ability to recruit from the very brightest of the nation's talented graduates. Many of those recruits will have classmates in leading industrial firms, and career lines from the MITI bureaucracy can also run into leading positions in politics and public or private corporations. [4]) <br />
<br />
<br />
222 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
Five of the bureaux deal with broad industry groups: heavy industry, chemicals, textiles, coal and mining, and public utilities; they are, as Komiya remarks, 'the real makers of industrial policy'. There is a sub-agency for each particular industry within thcsc broad industry bureaux. Thus the Heavy Industry Bureau has agencies for steel, machine tools, cars, electronics, aircraft, railway equipment, and so on: the list is a very full one. As well as the five industry bureaux, there are four which deal with policy areas; they are the Bureaux of International Trade, Trade Development, Enterprises and Pollution and Safety. In collaboration with the minister's personal secretariat these bureaux work on general policy guidelines for the ministry as a whole.<br />
<br />
Corresponding to each MITI bureau and sub-agency are powerful industry associations, with representatives from all of the important firms in each industry. Each industry association has close links with the appropriate MITI sub-agency. Policy is not, therefore, made within MITI alone: it is made in a process of continuous interaction between MITI and the appropriate industry association. To this interaction businessmen bring the expertise and detailed knowledge which few bureaucracies are able to gather or assess. But MITI brings something which few businessmen are able to develop: an understanding of the technical and economic links between a developing firm or industry and other industries, and of the links between particular industries and the wider development of the economy.<br />
<br />
Finally, MITI has a number of specialist advisory councils, which bring in wider expertise on specific problems. They are, says Naoto Sasaki, 'composed of experts in matters deliberated by the respective councils, leaders of the industrial communities concerned, general consumers, leaders of the financial community, and talents from a wide variety of social strata such as workers, educators, mass media specialists and experts from the government agencies and offices concerned'.[5] The number of these councils varies: in 1970, for ex-ample, there were twenty-seven. It is generally agreed that their reports are extremely influential in the formation of policy and legislation. <br />
<br />
The final link in the structure of industrial policy formation is the <br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 223 <br />
banks. The most important of these is the government-owned Japan Development Bank, but private banks with loan commitments to particular industries also take part in the collaboration between the MITI sub-agency and the relevant industry association. As we shall see, the MITI relationship with the financial system is an important mechanism of its industrial control. <br />
<br />
<i>Methods of policy implementation: </i><br />
The particular measures available to MITI have changed over the years, as the economy has grown and changed its structure, and as the problems facing it have changed also. The following account concen-trates, therefore, not so much on measures which are necessarily in use at this moment as on the broad spectrum of measures which have been used over the whole of Japan's reconstruction and growth period. Over these years MITI has had six types of policy instrument avail-able to it. They were and are as follows. <br />
<br />
1. The ability to control the import and use of foreign technologies. Over a long period, any firm wishing to use a foreign patent had to obtain MITI approval on a case by case basis. But also, during the years of foreign currency shortage, MITI had the power to allocate foreign currency for technology imports, and thus to control the types of technology which were imported. <br />
<br />
2. The ability to modify competition and monopoly policy within any sector, and thus to control the number and size of firms in that sector. Competition often increases efficiency, but it can also increase risk, which inhibits the long-term investments needed for growth. MITI has always promoted growth at the expense of competition. But at the same time MITI has promoted the diffusion of new technologies from one firm to another - even where they are rivals - if this did not threaten the stability and growth of the industry. <br />
<br />
3. The ability to enact regulations on tax incentives or subsidies in order to encourage particular industries. <br />
<br />
4. The ability to draft and enact laws concerning import controls, tariff rates, export subsidies and foreign investment in Japan. <br />
<br />
5. The ability to encourage and control particular investment projects by controlling the availability of funds for such projects, either <br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
224 - THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
through the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_Bank_of_Japan">Japan Development Bank</a> or through the private banks with which MITI has close links. <br />
<br />
6. It can carry out particular research and development projects on its own account where these are not likely to be profitable for private firms within a reasonable time period. Such work has included, for example, major computer development projects; some recent priorities will be mentioned below. These policy instruments arc used vigorously and flexibly in many combinations in a wide variety of industrial circumstances. But MITI has four basic types of intervention, and it is an important point about Japanese industrial policy that all four are operated simultaneously. <br />
<br />
The first deals with the creation and sustenance of new industries, which, to the outside observer, has probably been the central aspect of Japan's post-war growth. <br />
<br />
Next are programmes of industry modernization, especially in sectors with a large number of small firms. Here MITI has encouraged the development of large-scale plants and enterprises, to reap the productivity benefits of economies of scale. <br />
<br />
Thirdly, there are policies to control capacity in particular industries, that is, to prevent excessive investment. Examples here include oil refining, petrochemicals and steel, all of which - at least in Japan, and for complex reasons - are prone to overcapacity. In many countries - including Britain - overcapacity has forced these industries into abrupt redundancies and the scrapping of capital equipment; MITI has consciously tried to prevent the emergence of such problems in Japan. <br />
<br />
Finally, by no means the least of MITI's intervention packages concerns declining industries. Policies here include subsidies over the period while industries are reduced in size or phased out, government purchase of obsolete equipment for scrapping, aid to workers in moving to other areas, and grants and subsidies for retraining. This is crucial to Japan's continued growth for, as suggested in Chapter a, economies must manage the process of decline and de-industrialization at least as well as they manage the process of creating new industries. Both complement each other in economic growth. Constructing a new industry: an example This section draws on the work of Professor Terutomo Ozawa in describing MITI's role in the construction - or more accurately <br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 225 <br />
reconstruction - of the Japanese synthetic fibre industry. It points up a number of important aspects of MITI's role. Japan developed a textile industry in the late nineteenth century on the basis of imported British technology. In the late 1930s the industry was shaken by the development of artificial fibres such as nylon and viscose in Britain, the USA and Germany. But patent information was quickly obtained from I G Farben in Germany, and during the Second World War a number of companies developed nylon production capacity. But the industry was shattered by the effects of the war: its personnel and production facilities were dispersed and more or less wiped out.<br />
<br />
Both the American occupation administration and the Japanese government saw the rebuilding of the textile sector as an important aspect of post-war reconstruction. The task became one of the first undertaken by MITI (at that time called the Ministry of Commerce and Industry). The procedure it adopted became typical of its methods: it oversaw the import of foreign production technologies of the latest type from a range of foreign producers; it carefully selected the firms which would be allowed to enter the industry; it restricted entrants in the early phase of development (so as to maintain profits and reduce risk) but nevertheless maintained a definite programme of entry (so as to maintain competition and keep firms on their toes); it provided low interest lams to firms via the Japan Development Bank and other banks; it provided R & D backup to develop and improve the imported technologies; and it also promoted the development of domestic technologies.<br />
<br />
All of these objectives are set out in MITI's policy document, published in May 1949, called 'A Policy for a Prompt Development of the Synthetic-Fibre Industry'. It is worth quoting at length, since it sets out a framework which has been followed many times since: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. Objectives: In the light of the export requirement of Japan's textile industry, it is imperative for the Government to foster the synthetic-fibre industry. Japan's technological capabilities in some synthetic fibres arc already near the state of full-scale commercialization with a good prospect for developing trade competitiveness. In order to achieve the output goals of synthetic fibres set forth in Japan's Five-Year Economic Reconstruction Plan, capital </blockquote>
<br />
216 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
and technological resources shall be allocated in a concentrated manner so that plants of efficient size arc constructed. <br />
2. Measures: <br />
a. <br />
As a first step, encouragement shall be given to the construction of plants for two types of new synthetic fibers, i.e. polyvinyl alcohol fibre (vinylon) and polyamidc fibre (nylon). b. <br />
One company shall be selected as a first-entrant firm for each of the fibres mentioned above, so that it can benefit from scale economics. As the market develops, other firms shall be assisted to enter the industry in tandem. <br />
c. <br />
Preferential construction funds shall be provided on the condition that once a plant is complete and successfully operated, it shall be open to visits by other companies and research institutions (at some appropriate remuneration), so that newly acquired knowledge and experience are disseminated for the development of the synthetic-fibre industry. <br />
d. <br />
In order to foster the second and subsequent entrant firms the Industrial Technology Agency of the Government shall guide and assist the development of alternative production technologies other than those used by the first entrant. <br />
e. <br />
The development of those industries which supply raw materials and intermediate inputs for synthetic fibres shall be encouraged. [5]</blockquote>
Of the two fibres one (nylon) required imported technology, while the other (vinylon) was developed in Japan. Two firms were seleettal, one for each fibre. Toyo Rayon, the firm which would produce nylon, concludtal a long-term licensing agreement with DuPont of the USA in top: for 30o million dollars it got the right to use the DuPont patent for fifteen years. But Toyo Rayon received relatively little in the way of detailed technical information — for its money it got 'only three sets of documents: patent documents, process specifications, and technical service manuals'.<i> </i>It ran into serious difficulties actually producing nylon of adequate quality. During this period, while the technical problems were being solved, MITI held off further entrants to the industry. But when Toyo Rayon moved into profit in 1934, it licensed another entrant, Nippon Rayon, this time using a Swiss technology.<br />
<br />
Throughout these years MITI encouraged domestic research into the development of new artificial fibres — to lessen Japan's dependence on foreign technology — and also authorized a joint venture <br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 227<br />
<br />
between Asahi Chemical and Dow of the USA to develop a new fibre called 'Saran. At the same time it closely monitored developments abroad, the most significant of which was the development of polyester fibres by ICI. MITI quickly sponsored a Japanese producer of polyester, who made enormous profits; a number of other producers followed, using different types of polyester technology, in the1960s. The pattern of development, and the wide variety of technology sources, can be seen in table 24. The general formula is for a pioneer entrant to be protected for several years, and then for a rapid entry of further firms: <br />
<br />
Table 24. Entry pattern of Japanese firms in synthetic fibres and their technology suppliers <br />
Company <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Toyo Rayon </span>1951 DuPont (USA)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Nippon Rayon </span>1954 Inventa AG (Switzerland)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
Toyo Rayon/Teijin </span>1958 ICI (UK)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
Kanegafuchi Spinning </span>1963 Snia Viscosa (Italy)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
Teijin </span>1963 Allied Chemical (USA)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
Kureha Spinning* </span>1963 Hans J. Zimmer AG (Germany) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Asahi Chemical </span>1963 Firestone (USA)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
Toyobo </span>1964 Chemtex (USA)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
Kurashiki Rayon </span>1964 Chemistrand (USA)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Nippon Rayon </span>1964 Inventa AG (Switzerland)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
Kanegafuchi Spinning </span>1967 Snia Viscosa (Italy)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Asahi Chemical </span>1969 Rohne-Poulenc S A (<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">F</span>rance)</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />
Mitsubishi Rayon </span>1969 AK TJ (Netherlands)<br />
& Glanztoff AG (West Germany) <br />
*merged into Toybo in 1966</span><br />
Source: T. Ozawa, <i>'Government control of technology acquisition and firms' entry into new salon: the experience of Japan's synthetic-fibre industry'</i>, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1980, no. 4 139-47 <br />
<br />
<br />
228 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
There have been, as Professor Orawa notes, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
many benefits from the strategy, with the staggered-entry formula particularly enhancing the Japanese firms' ability to absorb sophisticated foreign technologies. To be qualified as an early entrant, a firm had to demonstrate its technological and financial capabilities. Therefore the industrial groups competed in starching for new promising technologies conducting preparatory research, finding an appropriate foreign licenser, and securing the necessary investment funds ... the staggered-entry formula also served to strengthen the bargaining position of Japanese firms in negotiating with technology suppliers, because only one (or, at most, selected few) was permitted to enter a new industry at a time. [7]</blockquote>
Among the benefits of all this was the fact that Japanese firms were 'often able to come up with significant technological improvements' to the imported techniques. Certainly the results were impressive: Japan overtook Germany in the production of synthetic fibres in 1953, Britain in 1956, and became second only to the USA. Throughout the 19605, output grew at nearly 27 per cent per year. <br />
<br />
In the 1970s the world textile industry became more competitive and less profitable, particularly in advanced countries like Japan MITI, unlike government agencies elsewhere, did not try to fight this, and encouraged a kind of planned decline of the industry Some firms were encouraged to go out of fibres and into new pro-ducts; others were encouraged to merge to decrease the number of firms in the industry. In the face of slowing demand, the Japanese economy has moved out of fibres and into other products with a flexibility notably absent from other economies — in particular Britain.<br />
<br />
The 'MITI formula' of staggered entry, of substantial financial assistance, and of the use of a wide range of technology sources, can be traced in a number of successful Japanese industries. The above description of synthetic fibre development could easily be multiplied — well-known examples are petrochemicals, shipbuilding and alloy steels. <br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 229 <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">MITI AND RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT </span></h4>
Earlier chapters emphasized the importance of industrial research and development (R & D) in generating the product and process innovations on which modern economic growth is based. How did. the Japanese economy perform in this area, and what is the role of MITI in its research and innovative activity? <br />
<br />
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, in its period of reconstruction and then rapid growth, the Japanese economy relied heavily on technology imports; the above account of synthetic fibre development underlines this. It is important to recognize that the search for available foreign technologies is itself a research and development activity. Any search for new techniques is R & D, and the process of seeking out available and useful foreign techniques is part of this. <br />
<br />
MITI played a crucial role in encouraging firms to search for the best foreign technologies. It had two specific powers which enabled it to affect the general technical direction taken by the economy: it could control import licences, and it could control the issue of foreign currency needed to pay for imports. It set specific guidelines for technology imports: in 1950, for example, MITI issued a list of thirty-three important technologies it wished to see imported and developed. All but three were technologies for heavy industry. Almost all were geared towards industries or processes which held out the prospect of export markets. It was not until the early 1960s that the emphasis shifted to consumer goods technologies. However, it should be noted that this control over imported technologies has not been a permanent feature of MITI 's policy arsenal; it was used primarily in the 1950s and early 1960s, when Japan was very short of foreign exchange. As Japan began to generate large trade surpluses, and hence an ample supply of foreign currency, MITI's control over imports was no longer so necessary and was reduced. <br />
<br />
Of course technologies can also be developed domestically; it is important to remember, as two recent writers have pointed our, that<i> </i>'the usual emphasis on importing technology tends to obscure the fact that the Japanese economy is research intensive'. There are three significant features of this domestic R & D effort. <br />
<br />
<br />
230 • TIIE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
The first is that none of Japan's resources go into military R & D. It is claimed in Britain and the USA, both of which spend significant sums on military research, that such work produces important commercial 'spin-offs'. There appears, however, to be little in the way of convincing evidence for this frequently made assertion. Certainly the Japanese emphasis on 'civilian' R & D with a predominantly commercial orientation seems to have worked.<br />
<br />
The second distinctive aspect of Japanese R & D is that it is overwhelmingly applied to process and product development in a rather direct way, rather than being applied to basic scientific research. It is difficult to assess the effects of this, as Peck and Tamura point out in a recent Brookings Institute study of Japan: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is unclear ... what role the most advanced science plays in the technological change necessary for economic growth — and thus how much Japanese industrial progress is hindered by the comparatively low level of support for bask research in Japanese universities. Basic science is likely to be published extensively and to be freely available worldwide, and a long gestation period is likely to be necessary before its industrial application. Still there are suggestions that the lag between scientific discovery and economic application is growing shorter, so in developing new products it may become increasingly important to have the latest research easily available.[8] </blockquote>
But many argue that the connection between basic scientific research and high technology industrial activity is by no means as close as is often thought; consequently, Japan has got the emphasis of its R & D about right, given its economic priorities. The point here is that it is MITI which has set those priorities and is therefore responsible for the essentially pragmatic character of Japan's R & D effort.<br />
<br />
The final distinguishing feature of Japan's R & D is that a very large part of it is carried out by private firms and is funded by them; this proportion is much higher in Japan than in Western economies. Naturally this prompts questions about the impact of MITI in this apparently largely private research activity. It would be wrong to conclude, from the mere fact that firms carry out a large amount of Japan's R & D, that MITI's role is insignificant. MITI bureaux do formulate a clear picture of the strategically important sectors for the economy, and do have a role in guiding R. & D within those sectors. <br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 231 <br />
The principal mechanism of control is MITI's close links with the Japan Development Bank and with commercial banks. Since Japanese firms rely to a much greater extent than their Western counterparts on bank lending as a source of finance, control of project lending by MITI is a powerful instrument in any attempt to control the direction of R & D and investment expenditure.<br />
<br />
Important research is also carried out in Japan under the direct auspices of MITI. MITI's Agency of Industrial Science and Technology carries out about 2 per cent of all industrial R & D, concentrating on projects which are likely to generate substantial technological advances for large parts of the economy, yet not be appropriate for private firms to carry out. This may be because they arc too expensive, too risky or too long term. Recent projects include desalination plants, an electric car, large-scale information processing systems, a new generation of jet engines, a remotely-controlled undersea oil drilling rig, and a comprehensive integrated traffic control system for cities. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">CONCLUSIONS </span></h4>
The Japanese economy has been unique in the post-war world both in its remarkable growth record and in the institutions through which that growth has been organized. The Japanese example seems to undercut, in a most decisive way, assertions to the effect that state intervention inevitably has damaging economic effects, and that <i>laissez-faire</i> and the free-market system offer the only hope for economic prosperity. However, it is by no means the case that an economy like Britain either could or should imitate Japan. There are complex problems in assessing precisely what impact MITI has had on the Japanese economy, let alone why it has had any impact, and whether its activities are either desirable or capable of reproduction elsewhere. <br />
<br />
There are those who argue that we cannot ascribe Japan's growth record simply to MITI's industrial policy, because we do not know what would have happened in the absence of MITI. Perhaps, without MITI, Japan would have grown spectacularly in any case. This view does not seem particularly convincing. In the first place, MITI is simply the most extreme example of a phenomenon which is found in <br />
<br />
<br />
232 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
all of the more successful advanced economies, namely a coordinating mechanism which promotes innovation and investment across industries, and reduces the risks associated with such activity. The mechanisms differ in other successful economies - Scandinavia, West Germany, France - but they are there. This coordination process is conspicuous by its absence in the really slow-growing economies of the post-war period - Britain and the USA. It should also be noted that Japanese industries in which MITI has not intervened have tended to be much less successful. In addition to the synthetic fibre case described above, there was another synthetic fibre, acrylic, for which firms did not require foreign technology or MITI support. The result was, in Ozawa's words, 'a disastrous experience from the industry's viewpoint', and it was only after MITI intervention that the industry was stabilized.<br />
<br />
Finally, one might suggest that innovation and investment decisions have their greatest overall effect when they are coordinated both as to level and direction; when they are left up to the isolated projections of firms they are unlikely to have the coherence or sense of strategy which only a central institution like MITI can impart. <br />
<br />
Then there are those who argue that Japan's economic growth has involved unacceptable social costs. MIT I has systematically diverted the resources of Japan's economy into the pursuit of industrial growth. Some argue that while this has raised incomes dramatically, it has also meant that the social welfare systems which we take for granted in the West are either non-existent or utterly inadequate in Japan. Furthermore, Japan's growth has entailed major pollution and other environmental costs. A typical assertion is that of G J. F. Brown: 'Japanese achievements have involved the sacrifice of other objectives which are so highly regarded in the West as to make emulation impossible.' This conclusion prompts various thoughts. Should we, for example, think in terms of 'emulation' at all? And does applying lessons from Japan necessarily mean the sacrifice of welfare systems and environmental protection? We should remember that Japanese growth occurred on the basis of a very poor society which completely lacked a welfare framework. There may well, therefore, have been a straightforward choice between growth and welfare; or rather, no choice at all, since welfare systems are impossible without a <br />
<br />
BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE • 233 <br />
high level of income. But this may not be a problem, or not so much of a problem, in a society in which the basic welfare apparatus is already in existence (even if it is rather decrepit). <br />
<br />
Finally, there is the question of whether Japan's industrial policies and methods are so specific to its unique culture and society that they cannot be transplanted. Ronald Dore, for example, suggests that 'the unusual features of Japanese industrial policy derive not so much from specific imitable policy measures as from the ability of the bureaucracy, closely attuned as it is to thinking in industrial circles, to generate a consensus around particular interpretations of the national interest.' Well, granted that consensus is important in economic policy, how is it generated? Do we need, for example, to refer to the notions of cultural homogeneity and nationalist sentiment mentioned earlier in this chapter? Thcy certainly are inimitable. But we should remember that consensus cannot be achieved without a framework of discussion, debate and bargaining in which goals are worked out and methods of achieving them agreed. Japanese industry certainly has such a framework in the shape of MITI; but it also has powerful policy instruments to generate growth, and this in itself is likely to promote consensus. Japanese consensus, therefore, may not be so much a cause of its growth record, as an effect of an economic policy which is recognized to have widespread benefits. <br />
<br />
Under the circumstances - namely an impending economic crisis - it seems foolhardy in the extreme to write off in advance any lessons we can learn from Japan. The evidence seems very strong: the heavily interventionist industrial policy which has been described has worked spectacularly well in the face of economic problems not unlike those which face Britain today; we should draw the appropriate conclusions. <br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i>13</i></span></h3>
<hr style="text-align: left;" />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><i>Recovery </i></span></h3>
In economic terms the British people are living on borrowed time. The present situation is unstable: the inevitable slow-down in oil output in years ahead will force Britain to confront the consequences of the industrial manufacturing collapse which oil has masked. The precise course of Britain's economic future is un-predictable, and much could happen to deflect or postpone the effects of the 'manufacturing decline which was traced in the first section of this book; yet as Britain enters the mid 198os there seems no sign that further sharp decline - the crisis outlined in Chapter 5 - can be avoided.<br />
<br />
This judgement stands in contrast, of course, to the prognosis being promoted in Parliament and the media. Beginning in late 1982, and continuing throughout 1983 (reaching a crescendo during the general election in June) politicians and journalists spoke with such growing confidence of 'recovery' from Britain's recessionary plight that 'the recovery' is now as much part of the public vocabulary as 'the recession'. Two main developments fuelled this optimism. The first was a return to a slow growth in output - of the order of 1-2 per cent per year - which holds out the prospect of further non-inflationary growth. The second was the publication by the Confederation of British Industry of a series of surveys indicating increased optimism and confidence on the part of managers and business leaders, and suggesting that present growth trends will be maintained. <br />
<br />
To what extent does this recovery invalidate the arguments presented here? Has the picture of crisis been overdrawn? More specifically, does the industrial policy advocated earlier remain necessary? An industrial policy of the type sketched in Chapter 10 and concretely described through the Japanese example would require very dramatic <br />
<br />
RECOVERY • 235 <br />
changes in British economic policy making and in industrial organization. Financing it would impose real costs on most people in Britain. If recovery is in train, are the risks and costs and difficulties of such a policy still required or justified? <br />
<br />
To answer these questions, it is necessary to ask further ones, namely, what would really constitute a 'recovery' for the British economy, and would the present trends, if continued, deliver such a recovery? <br />
<br />
In the first place, the nature of 'recovery' must depend to some extent on the nature of the 'illness'. Now earlier in this book it was argued that Britain suffers from two separate types of recessionary problem. The first was a long-term decline stemming from a relatively poor manufacturing performance. This in turn has an effect of inadequate resources devoted to research and development work; moreover these resources were misapplied, being concentrated in the post-war era on nuclear power, aircraft, and military technology. This meant that only limited resources were available for the development of new products and processes in the really dynamic growth areas of manufacturing industry and trade. A lack of productive projects led in consequence to low investment and low growth; and a mutually reinforcing relationship between low growth and low R & D has ensued, the product of which has been cumulative decline. The second problem has been the 'Thatcher recession', which involved rather different mechanisms. Here, a restrictive monetary and public expenditure policy simultaneously depressed demand and raised interest rates, thus making the financial positions of firms increasingly precarious. They restricted their output, and ran down their stocks of goods, thus generating major output losses and in-creasing unemployment. These different types of recession imply different types of recovery process. <br />
<br />
From the depths of the 'Thatcher recession' recovery has required lower interest costs and demand increases (both domestic and international). With these developments, recovery is certainly possible and sustainable, and it has been this which has been occurring. Particularly if there is a continuing upturn in the world economy, output and incomes can continue to grow, and unemployment may stabilize or even fall. However, a number of reservations must be expressed <br />
<br />
<br />
236 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
about such growth. Firstly, it may well be constrained by the collapse of manufacturing over the past few years; the output losses since 1979 have not just occurred because firms have put their production capacity into cold storage, as it were, with the possibility of taking it out and starting up production again. They have also occurred because many firms have dosed down completely, scrapped their equipment, or sold it abroad (auctioneers selling used machines did very well in Britain in 1980 and 1981). We do not yet know the extent to which these closures will limit the recovery from the Thatcher recession; but the constraints may well prove very tight indeed. Secondly, in assessing recovery, we should set current growth against the background of the decline since 1979. This was very steep indeed, involving contractions of about 5 per cent in national income and about 5 per cent in manufacturing. So growth of this order is necessary simply to return to the income levels of 1979. None of the current projections indicate that this is likely, especially for manufacturing. Talk of recovery seems a little premature, therefore, even in terms of the growth which is being achieved.<br />
<br />
However, even if the output and income levels of 1979 are reached and surpassed, it does not follow that the deeper structural crisis of the British economy is being confronted. What is involved in recovery from this long-term crisis?<br />
<br />
Resolving the long-term crisis means restoring the UK manufacturing sector, in terms of its levels of output and employment, and in terms of its ability to compete against foreign manufactures both in international markets and within Britain. This improved competitiveness cannot be reduced to lower prices, which might follow from exchange rate depreciation or lower wages or both. As we have seen, competition in internationally traded goods is very much a matter of design quality, technological attributes, production standards and so on: in a word, non-price factors. Improving the non-price competitiveness of British manufactures implies overcoming the R & D problems and investment deficiencies which have been identified as the core of Britain's problems. The first indicators of recovery from this crisis, therefore, will not necessarily be increases in income and output. The primary indicators will be significant increases in research and development expenditure, and in investment in manufacturing projects. <br />
<br />
RECOVERY • 237 <br />
There is no sign whatever of this occurring on the required scale. Against the optimistic tone of the repent CBI surveys could be set a number of reports from the National Economic Development Office on problems of British industry. This office provides research and documentation for the National Economic Development Council, a tripartite organization of government, business and unions, which meets regularly to discuss economic problems and policy. NEDO reports are based on studies carried out by 'sector working parties' for individual industries; these studies are the result of research work using survey and statistical material, and the work of using survey and statistical material on particular industries. They are, therefore, rather more detailed and realistic than the CBI surveys, which are simply of 'opinion'. In general, NEDO reports give no grounds for optimism concerning the kinds of problems with which this book has been concerned. A typical extract from a recent report on the consumer goods sector reads: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are no indications from committees that their sectors can expect to increase their world market share significantly on present trends and policies. The expectations are of a hard struggle to retain existing shares and in particular to contain imports, and if action is not taken there will be a further deterioration in the position ... the committees identify the overriding requirement for improving productive efficiency, both by the greater application of existing technology and by new technological investment ... Many of these developments will entail major investment programmes - not just in capital equipment, but in R & D and in human resources. 'There is widespread concern as to whether the levels of profitability they foresee will justify or permit such programmes, together with the necessary marketing, design and product development, to be adequately funded. [1] </blockquote>
Few of the sector working parties report any positive shifts towards the R & D, investment and marketing strategies which are necessary for Britain's economic survival. Other NEDO reports on the general economic situation are equally gloomy, a prognosis shared by the Treasury documents leaked during the general election of 1983, which forecast continued low growth and the necessity for very large tax increases or cuts in public expenditure as a consequence.<br />
<br />
The crisis thus remains, and the present mild recovery will do <br />
<br />
<br />
238 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
nothing to resolve it. That can only happen through a thorough-going reconstruction of the 'supply side' of the British economy, of its technologies and the products which it produces. However, this will not occur on present policies, deeply though the Thatcher government is committed to allegedly 'supply-side'<i> </i>solutions to Britain's difficulties. The great merit of the Thatcher government is that it is the first for many years to recognize that some kind of transformation of the British economy is required; moreover, Mrs Thatcher and her economic ministers have correctly identified the source of the difficulties, in productivity and international competitiveness. They are right to emphasize that a reflation of demand will not in itself solve anything, and that income increases depend on growth in productivity and output. The tragedy of the situation is that the correct perception of the overall problem is accompanied by wildly inaccurate diagnoses of why the problems have emerged and, perhaps in consequence, policies which are at best ineffectual and at worst ludicrously in-appropriate and damaging.<br />
<br />
The ideology of <i>laissez-faire</i>, of relying only on the free play of market forces, is in practice a policy of demand deflation rather than of supply-side reconstruction. A true <i>laissez-faire</i> policy is quite impossible, as Mrs Thatcher and her ministers well know (they have not been slow to intervene in the economy, or to expand state power where their objectives have required it). However, the problem is that even the tentative steps which they have taken towards a non-interventionist, free market economy do nothing but exacerbate the long-term deficiency of the British economy, which lies in the field of strategic direction and coordination. It is the absence of effective coordination and purpose among the leading sectors of British industry, the failure of government to take the problems of industry seriously and to make overcoming those problems the core priority for economic policy, which has led Britain to its present impasse. The Thatcher government's belief in the 'market mechanism' is more extreme than that of previous governments, but it is not different in kind. All have placed excessive faith in the ability of the market to manage the job of economic and industrial development.<br />
<br />
However, the market mechanism is not working, and there is st. definite role for the government in market economics to integrate and <br />
<br />
RECOVERY • 239 <br />
coordinate the activities of the crucial sectors. This role springs from three aspects of complex industrial economies, namely the interdependence between industries, the future-oriented nature of investment, and the riskiness of large-scale R & D and investment projects. Interdependence springs from the fact that the outputs of one industry frequently form the inputs of another: the motorcar industry cannot expand without a concomitant-expansion of steel, glass, rubber, electrical components industries, etc. Making overall output plans compatible may therefore require a coordinating agency; this is particularly the case for future output plans which require investment. There is little point investing for output expansion in one industry if others are likely to remain stagnant. Finally, the uncertainty associated with large-scale projects requires that information and risks be shared. Many forms of coordinating agency are possible, but in practice the simplest and most effective are those of government.<br />
<br />
These issues are of course well known and accepted by most businesses and by all the 'sector working parties' of the National Economic Development Council. They are familiar also to the government, which carries out a wide range of industrial interventions. The real problem is not the principle of government activity in industrial development, but its scale.<br />
<br />
A policy of industrial reconstruction, of the type discussed in previous chapters, could readily be formulated and carried out in Britain. The institutions necessary for it already exist. Between them, the Department of Industry, the National Economic Development Council and National Economic Development Office, and the British Technology Group (an amalgam of the National Enterprise Board and the National Research Development Corporation, which has over 400 investments in UK industrial companies, and funds about 200 university research projects) possess the expertise required. They already carry out most of the functions of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry; they simply do so on a considerably smaller scale, with considerably restricted powers, and without the sense of dearly articulated strategic direction which characterizes the operations of MITI. It is perfectly feasible to expand and integrate their activities, and to link them with the leading sectors of the British industrial economy. What is primarily required is political <br />
<br />
<br />
240 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
imagination and commitment, and public acceptance of the costs involved.<br />
<br />
Those costs will probably be heavy, and will impose real sacrifices on most of the British population. Reconstructing British manufacturing industry will be neither easy nor cheap. However, if nothing is done, the costs of the impending crisis will be considerably heavier, and will not be temporary but permanent. On the other hand, if the period of reconstruction is likely to be arduous and even austere, at least we know the task can be accomplished, since there is a precedent for it: in 1940, in the face of a desperate military crisis, Britain carried out not only a military reorganization but a profound and successful economic restructuring which ensured its survival. It is going to have to do the same again. <br />
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">References </span></h3>
<i>Part One </i><br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 2: GROWTH AND TRADE - COMPONENTS OF THE CRISIS</span> <br />
[1]. S. Kuznets, <i>Modern Economic Growth Rate, Structure and Spread</i>, London, 1972, p.1. <br />
[2]. S. Kuznets, <i>Six Lectures on Economic Growth</i>, Illinois, 1959, p. 33. <br />
<span style="color: red;"><br />
CHAPTER 3: THE. LONG DECLINE </span><br />
[1]. D. S. Landes, <i>The Unbound Prometheus. Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present</i>, Cambridge, 1978, p. 276. <br />
[2]. <i>opp cit</i>., pp. 289-90. <br />
[3]. I. Drummond, 'Britain and the World Economy, 1900-1945', in R. Floud and D. McCloskey, <i>The Economic History of Britain Since 1700</i>, Vol. II, London, 1981, p. 290. <br />
[4]. S. Pollard, The Development of the British Economy 1914-1967, London, 1979, P. 54.<br />
[5]. N. Von Tunzelmann, 'Britain 1900-1945: a survey', in Floud and Mc-Closkey, op. sit., p. 240. <br />
[6]. B. W. Alford, 'New industries for old? British industry between the wars', in Floud and McCloskey, op. cit., p. 311. <br />
[7]. R. S. Sayers, A History of Economic Change in England 1880—1939, Oxford, 1967, p. 51. <br />
[8]. A. E. Kahn, Great Britain in the World Economy, New York, 1946, pp. 112- 13, quoted in Alford, op. cit., p. 320.<br />
[9]. R. Church and M. Miller, 'The Big Three: competition, management and marketing in the British motor industry, 1922-1939', in B. Supple, ed., <i>Essays in British Business History</i>, Oxford, 1977, p.173<br />
[10]. DA Alderoft and W. Richardson, The British Economy 1870-1939, London, 1969, p. 123. <br />
<br />
<br />
242 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
[11]. C. K. Hartley and D. N. McCloskey, <i>'Foreign trade: competition and the expanding international economy'</i>, in Foud and McCloskey, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 69. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 4: THE POST-WAR BOOM </span><br />
[1]. R. C. O. Matthews, C. H. Feinstein and J. C. Odling-Smee, British Economic Growth 1856-1973, Oxford, 1983, p. 7. <br />
[2]. Lars Anell, Recession, the Western Economies and the Changing World Order, London, 1982, p. 29. <br />
[3]. Angus Maddison, Phases of Capitalist Development, Oxford, 1982, p. 130. <br />
[4]. Anell <i>op.cit.</i>, p. 41. <br />
[5]. C. Freeman, 'Technical Innovation and British Trade Performance', in F. Blackaby, ed., <i>De-industrialization</i>, London, 1979, p. 68. <br />
[6]. K. Pavitt, ed., 'Technical Innovation and British Economic Performance, London, 1980, p. 6. <br />
[7]. Sir Arthur Knight, 'UK Industry in the Eighties', Fiscal Studies, Vol. II no.1, 1981, p. 3. <br />
[8]. Freeman, op. cit., pp. 68-9. <br />
[9]. G. F. Ray, 'Comment', in Blackaby, <i>op cit.</i>, p. 75. <br />
[10]. T. de St. Phalle, <i>Trade, Inflation and the Dollar</i>, New York, 1981, p. 115. <br />
<br />
Part Two<span style="color: red;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: red;">INTRODUCTION</span> <br />
[1]. J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London, 1974, p. 383. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 6: FREE MARKETS AND MONETARISM </span><br />
[1]. Quoted in V. Walsh and H. Gram, Classical and Neoclassical •emo of General Equilibrium, Oxford, 1980, p. 142. <br />
[2]. M. Friedman, 'The Role of Monetary Policy', American Economic Review, March 1968, p. 8.<br />
<span style="color: red;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 7: MARKET ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY</span> <br />
[1]. F. T. Blackaby, 'Common sense about economic policy, Open University, Brooman Memorial Lecture 1981, p. 12. <br />
[2]. F. Hahn, review of M. Becnstock, A Neoclassical Theory of Macro-economic Policy, in Economic Journal, Vol. 91,1981, p. 1036. 3. F. Hahn, 'The Winter of our Discontent', Economica, Vol. XL, .969, p. 330. <br />
REFERENCES " 243 <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 8: KEYNES AND INTERVENTION </span><br />
[1]. Keynes, opp. cit., p. 3. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 9: REWRITING KEYNES</span> <br />
[1]. J. R. Hicks, 'Mr. Keynes and the Classics: a suggested interpretation', Economica, 1937. <br />
[2]. J. M. Keynes, 'The General Theory of Employment', Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 51,1937, pp. 209-23. <br />
[3]. A. Leijonhufvud, Information and Coordination. Essays in Macroeconomic Theory, Oxford, 1981, pp. 6-7. 4. M. L. Weinman, 'Increasing Returns and the Foundations of On--employment Theory', Economic Journal, Dec. [982, pp. 787-8. <br />
<br />
Part Three <br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 10: WHAT WENT WRONG? </span><br />
[1] Lloyd's Bank Economic Bulletin, No. 33, Sept. 198r, p. r. a. E. Denison, in R. Caves, ed., Britain's Economic Prospects, London, 1969, P. 273. <br />
3. D. K. Smut, 'Capacity Adjustment in a Slowly Growing Economy', in W. Beckerman, cd., Slow Growth in Britain, Oxford, 197g, p. 103. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 11: INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY </span><br />
[1]. Stout, op. en., p. 104. 2. C. Freeman, 'Government Policy', in K. Pavitt, op. eit., p. 320. 3. C. Freeman, op. cit., p. 322. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 12: BEHIND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE </span><br />
[1]. It. B. Reich, 'Playing Tag with Japan', New York Review of Books, 24 June, '982, p. 37. <br />
[2]. Quoted in.C. J. F. Brown, 'Industrial policy and economic planning in Japan and France', National Institute Economic Review, no. 93,1980, p. 61. <br />
[3]. R. Komiya, 'Economic Manning in Japan', Challenge, May-June 1975, P. 13. <br />
[4]. R. Dore, 'Recent Trends in Japanese Industrial Policy, Political Studies, 1983, P. 109. <br />
[5]. N. Sasaki, Management and Industrial Structure in Japan, Oxford, 1981, P. 94.<br />
[6]. T. Onwa, 'Government control of technology acquisition and firms' <br />
<br />
<br />
244 • THE BRITISH ECONOMIC CRISIS <br />
entry into new sectors: the experience of Japan's synthetic-fibre industry', Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1980, no. 4, p. 146. <br />
[7]. Ozawa, <i>opp cit.</i>, p. 148. <br />
[8]. M. J. Peck and S. Tamura, 'Technology', in H. Patrick and FL Rosovsky, Asia's New Giant. Dom the Japanese Economy Works, Washington, 1976, p. 574. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">CHAPTER 13: RECOVERY </span><br />
[1]. NEDO, Report to the NEDC on the Sector Assessments, (83), t8, pp. A4, A. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">Index </span><br />
Agregate demand, 159-65, 167-8. 175, 183 <br />
agraculture, 39, 60, 65, 100 <br />
aircraft industry, 72, 88-93, 211, 235 <br />
-Japanese, 220, 222<br />
airlines, 209-10<br />
ancillary workers, 192 <br />
Anell, Lars, 86 <br />
artificial fibres, <i>see</i> synthetic fibres<br />
assets, 160, 169, 178 <br />
audio industry, 40, 93<br />
-Japanese, 213-14<br />
Australia, 30, 31, 32, 62, 63<br />
Austria, 30, 31, 81 <br />
balance of payments, 44-8, 52, 83, 85, 96, 100, 102-8, 138, 172, 201<br />
-deficit, 48-9, 51-3, 59<br />
-US, 95-6<br />
Bank of England, 45-7, 48 <br />
banking system, 20, 45, 51, 771 107, 143, 162-3<br />
-Japanese, 222-4, 231<br />
basic commodities, 146<br />
Belgium, 30, 31, 32, 90, 91 <br />
Bell telephones, 209 <br />
Blackaby, Frank, 740 <br />
bonds, government, 138-9, 160, 167, 169, 178 <br />
boom, economic, 78-97 <br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
borrowing, 20-23, 96, 116, 139, 140 <br />
Bretton Woods &Tate:11,45,83-4, 95-6 <br />
British Empire, 69-70, 83 Leyland, 17, 196 Steel, 192 Technology Group, 239 Telecom, 209 <br />
Britton, Samuel, 135-6 <br />
Brown, C J. F., 232 BSA, 191 <br />
Budget, 205 budget deficit, 20, 95, 136, 137 <br />
building industry, see construction industry building societies, too Buiter, Willem, 150 <br />
bureaucracy, 209, 210 <br />
Cambridge<br />
- Economic Policy Group, 49 <br />
- school, 176-9 <br />
cameras, 87, 213, 214 <br />
Canada, 25, 30, 31, 32, 35, 63, 192 <br />
capital <br />
- account transactions, 45-7 <br />
- expenditure, 19, 23, 38, 84, 159, 178, 193-9 <br />
- free-floating, 22, 46, 105 <br />
<br />
246 • INDEX <br />
capitalist economics, It, 654, 79-85, 124-5, 149-51, 156, 203-4, 208, 213 <br />
cars, private, 86-7 see also motor industry cash, holding, 147, 167, 278 <br />
CBI surveys, 234, 237 <br />
chemical industry, 18, 41, 57, 66- 68, 72-4, 86-7, 86-6a, 130, 289- 90 <br />
German, 66-8, 70-71, 89-92 see also petrochemicals child benefit, So <br />
China, 216, 217 choice, individual, 140-44 <br />
classical economics, 136, 138, 141-2, 154, 156 <br />
closures, industrial, 28, 236 <br />
clothing industry, 18<br />
- Japanese, 214 <br />
Cower, Professor It. W., 176-80 <br />
coal industry, 33, 35, 41, 59, 68, 73-4, 194, 209-10 Japanese, 222 see also mining <br />
comparative advantage, law of, 219<br />
competition, 50, 59-70, 74, 76, 92-4, 107-8, 201, 236, 238<br />
complements, 125 <br />
computer industry, 88, la Japanese, 214, 220, 224 <br />
Concorde, ix, 23, 211 <br />
confidence, 144, 234 <br />
Conservative economists, 226-17, 137, 145, 154 zoo see also Thatcherite polities construction industries, 18, 23, 26, 33, 35, 194 <br />
consumer Pods, 40-41, <br />
flo, 86-9, 93, <br />
159, 203, 213-141 237 <br />
society, 86-7 <br />
sovereignty, 133 <br />
spending, *8-26, 36, 54, 83, la, 137, 160-63, 167, 201 <br />
coordination, industrial, 2o6-22, 222, 232, 238 <br />
cost-benefit, 129 <br />
Courtaulds, 73 <br />
credit restrictions, 20, z6, 147, 235 <br />
crowding out, 137-6 <br />
current account transactions, 45-7, 51-2 <br />
Dahrendorf, Professor R., 188 <br />
decisions, economic, 177 <br />
decline, British economic, 55I,53-j7, 9198-106, 187-zoo, 203-4, 220, 234 <br />
defence spending, 23, 7t, 89-93, 729, 137-8, 145, 211, 230. 235 <br />
deflation, 48-2, 205, 238 <br />
de-industrialization, 13, 34, 36, 41-2, 53-4, 94 <br />
demand aggregate, 156-68, 175, a; consumer, 19, 26, 40-41, 48, la-20, 123,127-9, 155.159-44, 174, 235, 238 export, 259 failure, 15843, 165, 273, 279 government, 23, 159 increased, 141-2, at, 198, 202-5 inventory, 19-22, 26, 159-63. 235 management, 165, 183, 218 notional/effective, 280, 281 Patterns. 40-41, 63-4, 84, 88, 109, 1574, 202 and supply, 118-34. 144, 155-71 162 <br />
transactions, 66 unsatisfied, 151, 18o <br />
Denison, Edward, 198 <br />
Denmark, 30, 31, 32, 91 <br />
Department of Industry, 239 <br />
depression, inter-war, 73-5, 79, 83 <br />
design, British product, 50, 53, 64, 75, 85, 87, 93, 106, 205-7, zt3, x36 <br />
devaluation, 45, 65, 1o6 <br />
developing countries, 52 150-51 <br />
dollar, US, 83, 95 <br />
Dore, Ronald, 221, 233 <br />
drug industry, Swiss, 90 <br />
Dupont, 226 <br />
dyestuffs, 66-7, 70-71, 92 <br />
East Germany, 55 <br />
Eastern European economics, 2o6 <br />
economic boom, 78-97 <br />
growth, see growth, economic policies, 109, 113-15, 128, 133-4 Conservative, 117 <br />
government, 58, 71, 8z, 84, 98. 113, 141-53 and market economics, recessionary, 103 and recovery, 201 -12 theories, 109, 113-83, zoo <br />
Economics, 175 <br />
economies of scale, 62-3, 129-30, 145 <br />
education spending, 23, 116, 183 EEC, p <br />
efficiency, economic, 41, 59, 123. 224,126,129,131-3,244-6,150, 237 <br />
134-53 <br />
<br />
INDEX • 247 <br />
electrical engineering, 66-7, 73, 75, 196 <br />
industry, 4o, 57, 86, 89-92, 239 <br />
Japanese, 214 electricity industry, 33, 41 electronics industry, go, 86, 86-62 Japanese, 214, 220, 222 Elements trieottonsie politrque pure, 127 <br />
Empire, British, 69-7o, 83 employment levels and export market, 52-61, too, 105, 202 and income, 25, 44, 122-3, *37-8, 157, 173-5 and inflation, 117, 142, 148-7 and output, 26, 34-6, 7941, 84, 102, 237-8, 141-3, 156-1, 236-4o and recession, 71-6, 263-5, 182 <br />
engineering industry, 28, 35, 59-60, 6,, 73, 90, 183, 189 <br />
entrepreneurial failure, 188-91, 199 <br />
entrepreneurs, 77, 172, 209-20 see also industrialists equilibrium general theory, 117-36, 175-82 price, 120-22, 179-80 <br />
Exchange Equalization Account, 45-6 <br />
exchange rates, 22, 26, 45-7, 54, 65, 1o5-8. 143, 201, 236 fixed, 45-6, 83-5, 95-6 <br />
floating, 46, 95-6 <br />
expansion, economic, 84-5, 132, 141 <br />
expenditure consumer, 19, 48, 239, t6o, 265, 203-4, 237 <br />
government, 29, 20-23, 26, 48, <br />
140-53, <br />
<br />
<br />
see also market economics trade, 219 <br />
Freeman, Christopher, 93, 210, 211 <br />
Friedman, Milton, 116-17, 123-4,132 <br />
full employment economic theories, 122, 26, 132, 141-50> 155-65, 173-9 post-war, 78-81, 85 <br />
futures markets, 144, 150 <br />
gas industry, 33 <br />
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), 83 <br />
GEC, 196 general equilibrium theory, 117-34, 135-6, 140-53, 175, 177-82 <br />
General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 455, 466, 174, 176 <br />
Germany, 58, 61-71, 73, 74-6, 105, 225 see also East Germany; West Germany<br />
glass industry, 66, go, 239 <br />
Godley, Wynne, 49 <br />
gold reserves, 45. 83, 95 <br />
goods consumer, 40-41, 80, 86-9, 93, 146, 159, 203, 213-14, 237 market, 167-8 <br />
government activity, 100, 103 bonds, 138-9, 160, 167, 169, 178 intervention, 114, 136-45, 150, 456, 165, 176, 182-3, 203-12, 214, 139 spending, 19, 20, 22-3, 26, 48, 95, 116-17, 137, 205, 237 see also economic policies; <br />
<br />
248 • INDEX <br />
expenditure (continued) 116-17, 137-44, 165, 167, 172, 183, 205, 235 <br />
explosives, 66, 92 <br />
exports, 19-22, 30, 33, 44, 55-8, 64-5, 67-70, 74, 85, 87-8, 92, 00-103, toff-8, 138, 159, 165, 167, 174, 201, 206-7 <br />
see also balance of payments; im-ports; tariff protection; trade external constraints, 48-50 externalities, 129, 145 <br />
finance, international, 22, 46, 83-5, 95-6, 105 <br />
financial journalism, 135-6, 45 services, 107-8, 20! <br />
Financial Times, 735 <br />
Finland, 30-32 <br />
First World War, economic effects, 59, 69, 70-72, 76-7, 79, 83 <br />
fiscal policy, 137, 141, 183, 205 <br />
'follower' economies, 32, 43 <br />
food imports, 51-2, 59,90, too, 130, 201 prices, 27, 70, 72 <br />
Ford motors, 75, 143 <br />
forecasting models, 141, 172 <br />
foreign currency reserves, 454, to8 <br />
exchange markets, 45-6, 58, 95-6. investment, 7o <br />
France, 25, 30, 31, 32, 55, 6t, 76, 81, 86, 89, 90. 9x, 193, 194-7, 211, 227, 232 <br />
free markets, 19, 23, 116-34, 154 and economic policies, 135-53, t82, 208-12, 219, 231, 238 <br />
growth; investment; policy; research and development <br />
Great Depression, 18, 72-7 Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 18-21, 30-33, 104, 194-7 growth, economic, 14, 24, 29-33, 37-44, 55-94, 98-100, 156, 235 and balance of payments, 48-9, IO2-3 and industry, 58-65, 74-5, 210 and investment, 192,197-8, 202-5 <br />
Japanese, 243-33 and research and development, 87-94, 139, 202-5 'sustainable', 19, 78, 235-6 and technology, 42-4, 49-51. 56-8, 6a and trade, 64-5, 70, 82 <br />
Hahn, Professor F., 148-9, :52 'handicraft' methods, 6o, 65 health spending, 1 r6, 1374 <br />
Flicks, J. R., 166-73, 176-8 <br />
Hitachi, 196 <br />
Hitler, Adolf, 76 <br />
Hong Kong, 108 <br />
household appliances, 86, 89-go <br />
housing, 18, 80, 194 see also construction industry <br />
Howe, Sir Geoffrey, 12, 36, 117 <br />
ICI, 73, 227 <br />
Ikeda, Prime Minister of Japan, 79 <br />
IMP (International Monetary Fund), 22, 83 immigration, 79 imperfect competition, 130, 145 import controls, 72, 95 see also tariff protection imports, 22, 26-7, 30-31, 36, 44-5, <br />
<br />
INDEX • 249 <br />
51-2, 58-9, 70, 75, 83, 90, 93, 100-107, 138, 201, 204, 237 see also balance of payments; ca-pons; trade income(s) disposable,3 5731178-19, 21, 26-7, 30- 3 distribution, 29, 37, 75, 86, 124, 146-7 equilibrium level, 167-73 national, 18, 23, 25, 28, 32-3, 38, 43-4, 48, 55> 61, 79, 98, 103-5, 122-3, 138, 157, 163-4, 167-9, 172, 236 ureal,544,879, roc-103, t38, *73-5, 201-12 vrw, <br />
India, 193 industrial coordination, 206-12, 218-33, 239-40 decline, 8 7_2 187-200, 205;14,72' 1903;23948-1°9' <br />
interdependence, 239 <br />
reconstruction, 14, 201-12, 239 <br />
recovery, 12-14, *8, 94, 1o8-9, 187, 201-12, 234-40 <br />
relations, 191--3, 199-200 <br />
revolution, 0-61, 188 <br />
industrialists, 109, 187-91, 234 <br />
industry collapse, 33-6, 5477 <br />
wartime, 71-2 <br />
inefficiency, 57, 74, 209 <br />
inflation, levels of, 17-19, 27, 78-9, 85.96, 105, 114, 117, 133, 138- 42, 146-8 <br />
inflexibility, 209 <br />
innovation, technological, 49-50, 75, 87-94, 97, 191, 201-2 <br />
<br />
<br />
250 • INDEX <br />
innovation (consigned) see also research and de-velopment insurance companies, 49, 160 sales of, 45, 51, 107 <br />
interdependence, industrial, 239 <br />
interest rates, 23-26, 46-7, 137-40, 747, 160-456, 178; 205, 235 and <br />
national income, 167-73 <br />
intervention, government, 114, 136-45, 150, 46, 14, 176, 182-3, 203-14, 239 <br />
Japanese, 214, 224-33 <br />
inter-war years, 72-7 <br />
Introduction to the Theory of Employment, 06 <br />
inventory, 19...21, 26, 159-63, 235 <br />
investment choices, 177, z88 <br />
gross and net, 194-5 <br />
Japanese, 278-33 and output, 58-60, 66, 69, 79, 83-5, 138-9, 201-5, 235 <br />
policy, 201-5, 235-40 <br />
public services, 17 <br />
research and development, 42-4, 50, 94 <br />
and savings, 16o-64, 167-73 <br />
theories, 138-9, 160-64, 166-73, 178, 183 <br />
and trade, 4, 53, 69,97-8, 103,707 <br />
invisible track, 45, 51-3, 201 <br />
iron industry, 59-6o, 6t, 62-3, 70, 74 <br />
set also steel industry <br />
IS-LM model, ,68, 170, 172, 779 <br />
Italy, 4, 30, 31, 32, 35, 64 81, 86, 90, 91, 94, 192, 1047, 227 <br />
Japan, 14, 25, 30, 311 32, 35, <br />
40143-4,50,55,61,194-7,211-33 <br />
culture and history, 245-4, 233 <br />
Development Bank, 223-4, 225, 231 <br />
industrial policy, 218-33, 234, 239 <br />
post-war boom, 79, 84, 89, 90-94 94, 191, 211-33 <br />
research and development, 229-33 <br />
textile industry, Si, 63, 224-8 <br />
japan versus Europe, 215 <br />
Jay, Peter, 735 <br />
Jevons, WS., 154 <br />
Kahn, Richard, 176 <br />
Kaldor, Nicholas, 176 <br />
Keynes, John Maynard, 79,46, 113- 14, 143, 154-65, 218 <br />
Keynesian economics, 14, 84, 133, 151, 166-83, 194, 205 <br />
Cambridge school, 176-9 <br />
Hicks model, 766-72, 776-8 <br />
neoclassical synthesis, 175-6 <br />
Ncw Keynesianism, 179-81 <br />
Knight, Sir Arthur, 92 <br />
Kominya, Ryutaro, 221 <br />
Kuznets, Professor S., 38, 42 <br />
labour cost of, 62. 156-7 <br />
First World War, 71 <br />
immigrant, 79 <br />
market, 48, 121-2, 132, 742 <br />
mobility, 42 <br />
supply and demand, 173-5 <br />
training, zoo <br />
Labour party economies, zoo <br />
laissez-faire, 114, 136, 143-5, 148, 150-51, 234 238 <br />
Landes, David, 66-7 Latin America, 6a, Tin <br />
'leader' economies, 32, 43, 58 <br />
Lcijonhufvud, Axel, 179-81 <br />
lifetime contracts (Japanese), 245-18 <br />
living standards, 13, 3o, 37, 38, 54, 57, 70, go, Igo, 102-3, 105, 201 <br />
Lloyd Gtxtge, David, 72 <br />
LM curve, 770-72 see also I S-L M model loyalty, <br />
Japanese worker, 216-18 <br />
luxury goods, 46 <br />
machine tools industry, 86-7, ,o6 <br />
Japanese, 214, 222 <br />
machinery, industrial, 59-64 68, 89-9m, 48, 197 <br />
Japanese, zzo <br />
Macmillan, Harold, <br />
So management, 58, 6z, 787-94 799, 209-10 sec also entrepreneurs manufacturing, 13, 17-19, 24, 26, 33-6, 50-54, 59-65g 69, 93-4, too-tog, 194-8, 201-12 <br />
decline, loo-109, 234-7 <br />
output, 19, 25-8, 30-36, 39-42, <br />
48, 55, 117, 122, 130-31 143, 151, 1567, 174, 191-3, 206, <br />
234-40 <br />
market economies, 19, 23, 82-5, 96, 114-34, 135-53, 154-9, 176, 179, 18; 202, 238; <br />
ICC also free markets interdependence, 117, 125-6 <br />
Marketing, 58, 75, 189, 204, 237 <br />
Marshall, Alfred, 154, 162, 178 <br />
Marshall Plan, 83-4 <br />
Marxist economies, 138, I54 <br />
MSS markets, 6,, 64, 69, 75, 92-3 <br />
mathematical economics, 127-8 <br />
<br />
INDEX • 251 <br />
mechanical engineering, 18, 35, 90-92, 190 <br />
mechanization, 6o <br />
metal industries, 18, 35, 68, 90 <br />
Japanese, 214 <br />
microelectronics industry, 40.44 88, <br />
Japanese, 214, 220, 224 <br />
military technology, see defence spending mining, 33, 73, 194 see also coal industry MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry), 212, 220-33, 239 <br />
mixed economies, 14 <br />
monetarism, 14, 114-34, 736, 155, 176, 182 and economic 754, 205 <br />
monetary policy, 20-23, 24, 27, 114, 137, 141, 146, 205 restrictive, 147, 235 <br />
money market, 160, 162-3, 167-74 179 <br />
supply, 19-22, 117, 137, 138, 141, 169-74 174 and monetarism,132-3, x48,151 <br />
Money, Interest and Prices, 175 <br />
monopolies, 129, 130, 145, 191-3 <br />
Morishima, Professor, 216 motor industry, 35, 41, 50, 66, 72-3, 75, 867, 89-91, 109, 130, 196, 239 Japanese, 213-14,220, 222 <br />
motorcycle industry, 50, 94, up Japanese, 213, 214 <br />
multinational firms, 66 <br />
multiplier effect, 763-4, <br />
ifio munitions industry, 74 <br />
Polley, 135-531 <br />
<br />
<br />
252 • INDEX <br />
National Economic Development Office, 198, 237, 239 <br />
Enterprise Board, 92, 239 <br />
Health Service, 17, 8o, 206 <br />
Institute of Economic and Social Research, ago Research Development Corporation, 239 <br />
nationalized industries, 17, 21 see also public services neoclassical economics, 124, 154-5, 158, z6r-7 and Keynes, 172-6, 179, 182 <br />
synthesis, 1754 <br />
Netherlands, 30. 31, 32, 90, 91, 196 new classical macroeconomics, 136-8, 143-9, 154 'new industries', 65-7o, 73-5 <br />
New Keynesianism, 179-8s <br />
New Zealand, 6z <br />
Nissan, 22i <br />
Nixon, Richard, 95 <br />
North Sea oil, 13, 21, 34-6, 52-4, 101-4, 1o8, 201, 206-7, 234 <br />
Norway, 30, 31, 3z, 195 nuclear power, 40, 89, 92-'3, 21 Is 235 <br />
nutritional standards, 8o <br />
OECD countries, 25, 88-9, 197 <br />
office machinery, 87 oil industry, 33. 34-6, 41, 53-4, 90, toe-5,108, 130, 194,201,206-7, 234 <br />
Japanese, 220, 224 prices, 21, 24, 85, 96 <br />
Ojima, Y., 220 oligopolies, 129, 130, 145 <br />
One Thing After Another, 92 <br />
OPEC price rises (1973-4), i x, 29, 96 output, 19, 254, 30-36, 39-42, 48, 55, 117, 122, 130-33, 143, 151, 156-7,234-40 • boom, 84-7, 94 composition, zo6ff. crisis, 102, 202 <br />
industrial revolution, 59-65 <br />
inter-war, 72-5 <br />
overmanning, 191-3 <br />
post-war, 7941 <br />
real, 137-8, 141-2. 174 <br />
overcapacity, 224 <br />
overdrafts, 20-22 <br />
Keynesian, 158-9, 163-5 <br />
overmanning, 188, 191-3, 199-200 074412, <br />
Professor T., 224, 228, 232 <br />
Parcto optimum, 124, 149 <br />
partial equilibrium analysis, MI, 125 <br />
patents, 226 <br />
Patinkin, D., 175 pay, see wages <br />
Peck, M. J., 230 <br />
pension funds, t39 <br />
perfect competition, 128-9, 144, 179 <br />
knowledge, 129, 144, 145, 150 <br />
petrochemicals, Japanese, 213-14, 220-24 <br />
petroleum, see oil pig iron, 6o, 62 see also iron industry planned economies, 124 see also <br />
Eastern European economics; socialist economics plastics industry, 41, 66, 87, 92 <br />
Japanese, 213 policy <br />
expansionary, 84-5, 132, rot filed, 137, 141, 183, 205 <br />
industrial recovery, 201-12, 234 <br />
instruments, 202, 205-12 <br />
Japanese, 212-33 <br />
making, 58, 71, 82-4,98, 103, 109, 113-15,128,133-4,141-53,182 <br />
monetary, 20-27, 114, 137, 141-7, 205, 235 see also economic policies <br />
Pollard, Professor S., 71-2 pollution, 129, 232 <br />
population growth, 18 post-war boom, 78-97 <br />
Pove1131, 37, 57, 78, 98, 146 <br />
power, sources of, 33, ge, 51-2, 60, 63 see also coal; cies-tricky; nuclear precision instruments, 66, 68, 72 <br />
price equilibrium, 120, 141-2, 179-80 mechanism, 117-23, 125, 129-33, 144-5, 150-56, 173-4, 180, 208 takers, 128-31 <br />
prices competitive, 63-4, 87, io6, 128-9, 236 inflationary rises, 141-2, 146.7 poSt-War■ 79, 84-5 private enterprise, 114, 152, 202 Japanese, 230 <br />
product design and quality, 50, 53, 64, 75, . 85, 87, 93, io6, 205-7, 213, 236 differentiation, *29-30 mix, 39-41, 56-7, 87, 100, 118- 19, 155, 236 <br />
production was. 174 <br />
128, 136-8, <br />
<br />
INDEX • 253 <br />
lines, gi methods, 41-2, 58-61, 74-5, 129 wartime, 71, 78-9, 240 <br />
productivity, 27-32, 73-4, 80-81, 238 <br />
growth, 38-42, 55, 64, 84, 96, 99, 189-93 investment, 193-9, 202-5 <br />
profits, 21-2, 28, 43, 64, 84-5, 99, 123,138, egg, 156, 160, 177, 190. 237 <br />
PSBR (Public Sector Borrowing Requirement), 20, 116-17 'public goods, 129, 130, 145, 146 <br />
public ownership, 137 <br />
public services, 67, 33 <br />
Japanese, 222 <br />
quality, <br />
British product, 50, 53, 64, 75, 85, 87, 93, 106, 205-7, 213, 236 <br />
quantity -constraints, 151 <br />
theory of money, 132-3, 138 <br />
quarrying, <br />
radio, 75, 86-7, 9o, 129 <br />
railway industry, 59-60, go <br />
Japanese, 222 'rational expectations' hypothesis (REI), 137, 139-44, 147-9 <br />
raw materials, 20, 44, 48, 51-2, 59, 63, 85, 100, 118 <br />
Ray, F. G., 93 <br />
Reagan, Ronald, 156 <br />
real balance effect, 174 <br />
rearmament, 73 <br />
recession, 11-14, 17ff., 78, 103-5, 138. 145-7, 155, 158-9, 162-5 <br />
long-term, 143 <br />
Thatcher, 17-23, 25, 234-7 <br />
<br />
254 • INDEX <br />
recession (continued) world, 23-5, 74, 96 <br />
reconstruction agency,‘ 207-8; see also coordina-tion, industrial <br />
Japanese, 213 industrial, 14, 201-12, 234-40 <br />
post-war, 29, 72-5, 78-9, 82-3, 240 <br />
recovery, economic and industrial, 22-14, 18, 94, 108-9, 187, 201-12, 234-40 <br />
supply side solutions, 238 <br />
Rocs Mogg, William, 135 <br />
reflation, 76, 205, 238 <br />
Reich, Robert, 217 <br />
research and development (R & D), 43-4.49-50, 66, 85, 87-941107, 139, 183, 198-9, 202-5, 207, 235-40 <br />
government financed, 88, 91-2, 98, 211 Japanese, 224-5, 229-31 <br />
university projects, 239 see also innovation; technology resources, utilization of, I 89-90 Ricardo, David, 136 Robinson, Joan, 166, 176 robots, industrial, 41, 213-14 <br />
SaMUCIS011, Paul, 175, 219 Sasaki, Naoto, 222 savings-investment relation, 160-73 Sayers, Professor R. S., 74 Say's Law, 157-8 <br />
scale economics, 62-3, 129-30, 145 <br />
Scandinavia, 55, 232 <br />
Schumpter, Joseph, 42, 127 <br />
science-based industries, 65-70 <br />
scientific research, 72, 91-2 <br />
'second-best' theorem, 145 <br />
Second World War, economic effects, 77-82, 98, 210 <br />
service industries, 0, o, WO, 201 <br />
services, 45 exporting, 103, 107-8 <br />
Shackle, G. L. S., 176 shares, ,60 <br />
shipbuilding industry, 35, 59, 6o, 73-4, 90, 209-10 <br />
Japanese, 213, 214 <br />
shoe industry, r8 <br />
Japanese, 214 <br />
'shoe leather' cost, 147 <br />
shortages, 130, 203 <br />
sickness benefit, 8o <br />
Siemens, 196 skills, 129 <br />
Smith, Adam, 123, 124, 136. £49 <br />
soap products, 66, 90 <br />
social security, 23, 80 <br />
socialist economics, II, 55, 124, 203 <br />
South Africa, 63 <br />
Spain, 86 <br />
specialization, 219 <br />
spending consumer, 19, 48, 139, 160, 165, <br />
203-4. 237 <br />
government, 19, 20, 22-3, 26, 48, 18136:1270,5: 3324-544, 165, '67, 172-1 1 <br />
stagnation, 27, 57, 64, 78, 94-7 <br />
'staple' industries, 59-61,37,4658,,1695 -0. 70. 73-7 <br />
state intervention, 14, E 156, 165, ,76, 182-3, 203-12, 214, 239 <br />
Japanese, 214, 224-33 <br />
static equilibrium, 167-71, 1774 <br />
Steam power, 41, 60 <br />
Steel industry, ar, 59-63, 68, 7o, 73 - 06009. 189, 190, 209-10, 239 <br />
Japanese, 213, 220, 222, 224 <br />
sterling, 45-6, 58, rob <br />
'stop-go' cycle, 47-9 <br />
Stout, David, 198, 204 <br />
strikes, 188, 191-3 <br />
structural changes, 39, 65-70, 214 <br />
subsidies, 204, 209 <br />
substitutes, 125 <br />
supply and demand, 118-34, 144, 155-7, 162 <br />
-side solutions, 238 <br />
Sweden, 11, 30, 31, 32, 56, 90, 195-6,zir <br />
Switzerland, 29, 30, 31, 32, go, 226-7 <br />
synthetic fibres, 66, 73, 225-8 <br />
Japanese, 214, 225-8, 232 <br />
Tamura, S., 230 <br />
tariff protection, 49, 61-2, 73, 75, 83, 219 MX, 19, 20, 23, 103, 145, 172 Cuts, 26, 48, 156, 204 government income, 116, 138-9, 183, 205 <br />
increases, 48-9, 138, 237 <br />
technological progress, n, 4,32. 37, 38-44 and economic growth, 49-54, 56- 8, 62-3.64-5,74-5.76,78, 84-5. 87-94,98, 1071124, 139, 188-9, 205-12, 236 Japanese, 213-33 spin-offs, 92 telecommunications industry, 67, 130 television, 90, 94, 129, 145, 24 <br />
137, <br />
<br />
INDEX • 255 <br />
terms of trade, 7o <br />
textile industries, a, 35, 59, 6i, 63, 65, 66, 68, 70, 73, 90, 189-912, 2244 <br />
Japanese, 214, 222, 2244 <br />
Thatcher, Margaret, :7-18, 228, 130, nat <br />
Thatcher government, 116-17, 235, 137, 238 <br />
Thatcherite policies, 12-14, 17-23, 114, 117, 156 - <br />
Times, The, 135 <br />
tourism, 45, 107-8, 201 <br />
Toyota, 221 <br />
trade cycles, 176 deficit, 48-9, 51-3, 59 foreign, 13, 17, 22-5, 37, 44-54, 82, to8, 172, 218, 236 invisible, 45, 51-3, 201 Japanese, liberalization, 20n,18-2° 83-4 restriction, 213-14 surplus, sea visible, 45, 51-3 world, 23-5, 37, 55, 60-67, 73, 83-7, too, 109, 201, 206 <br />
trade union activity, 122, 143, 145, 188, 191-3 <br />
training, 42 <br />
transport industry, 62, 68, 197, 201 <br />
Treasury leak (1983), 237 model, 172 <br />
uncertainty, future, 129-30, 143, 145, 150, 177-8, 179, 239 <br />
underdeveloped countries, Jos <br />
unemployment, II, 17-22, 27, 34, 36, 48-9, 73-81, 93-4.117, 120, 130, <br />
<br />
256 • INDEX <br />
unemployment (continued) 1320-3• 138, 145, 154156, 158-9. 162-6, a71-6,180,189099-2oi, 235 benefits, 23, 8o, 103 'natural rate', 132-3, 141-2 tvoiuntarr, 122, 147 and wage cuts, 173-6, 179 <br />
United States, II, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 35,43, 6o, 6r, 64, 65, 67, 69, 70- 76;95.192,19S-7p 209, 230,232 leadership of non-communist world, 82-4 steel industry, 62 technological leadership, 92, 96 textile industry, 225-8<br />
university research projects, USSR, IL 43, 213 <br />
VAT, 21 vehicles, see motor industry Wee industry, 40, 213, 214 <br />
Vietnam war, III, 94-5 visible trade, 45, 51-3 <br />
Volkswagen, 75 <br />
wage(s) <br />
84. 89, <br />
239 <br />
cuts and unemployment, 173-6, 179, as levels, 11, 21, 26-7, 121-2, 138, 142, 146, 156-8, 160, 193, =I, 236 mil 173-5 Walras, Leon, 127-34, 136, 146, 149, 151, 154, 17940 water industry, 333 Weitzman, Professor M. 18r <br />
welfare economies, 123, 124-5, 127-9, 131, 145, 149-50, 176, 382 social, Japanese, 232-3 <br />
West Germany, 11, 25, 30, 31, 32, 44, 48, 55. 86, 90-92, 192-7, 211, 227-8, 232 <br />
Western European economies, 6o, 62, 78-84, 193 <br />
Why Has Japan succeeded?, 216 <br />
Wilkinson, Endymion, 215 <br />
women workers, 71 <br />
working <br />
-conditions, 8o <br />
-hours, shorter, 38-9, 80 <br />
World Bank, 83 <br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>zaibatzu</i>, 216-17 </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Acknowledgements</i></span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I would particularly like to thank Edward Bennet, who encouraged me to write theis book, and Phoebe de Gaye, who asked me questions which I struggled to answer in the following pages. For comments and help I am greatful to Setephen Hannah, of HM Treasury, and to colleagues in the Economics Department at the University of Keele: Sylvia Beech, Jayne Braddick, Pamela Davenport, Shirley Dex, Leslie Fishman, Athar Hussain, Peter Lawrence, Leslie Rosenthal and John Proops. I am greatful also to my students at Keele for heated discussions on some of the ideas presented here. A substandital part of this book was written in Norway and I would like to thank Bjorn Christiansen, Gro Fossen, Kunut Vidar Paulsen and Peter and Anne-Karin Cleaverley fro help while I was there. Finallym I would especially like to thank Kristine Bruland, my wife without whom this book could not have been written.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Pirate Note, 2016</i></span></span><i><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></i></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.clker.com/cliparts/6/f/5/8/1195437189943562677aurium_Pirate_Simple.svg.hi.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="126" src="https://www.clker.com/cliparts/6/f/5/8/1195437189943562677aurium_Pirate_Simple.svg.hi.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>This is scanned from a book - long out of print - and put online without permission from anyone, which is awkward. To ask the author to find time to ask their ex-publisher to find time to release copy-write for putting online would be more awkward, I think; better just to do it and hope nobody cares. If the author wants to have a go, Google Books might ask the publisher for him, and they already have a scan.</li>
<li>If permissions are a problem, then this can be posted on a free web server in Zimbabwe where a lot of copy-write law has been repealed. There's one called Flaxweb.</li>
<li>If permissions are not a problem, but the author wants it on his own web site or that of someone he knows, he just needs to cut and paste the text and then I'll take this page down. In order to distract anyone poised to complain, I will change the subject.</li>
<li>The reason for putting this book online is that post-crash economics students wonder what happened before the history they can read in Robert Peston. This book is in similar style and describes exactly what happened before we all worked in services and the balance of payments was balanced by debt. A review cropped-up on <a href="http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2012/09/which-economic-crisis/">http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2012/09/which-economic-crisis/</a> as a reminder of it.☠</li>
<li>Example.wordpress.org would be a better place to publish. I have a free wordpress account ready to move the text there, but published the draft here where it happens to be just because I heard someone in Port Talbot talking about "industrial strategy" and thought that good economics books ought to go online as soon as possible. I will publish a forwarding link if this text moves. Publishing here on blogspot is free but fiddly. There is no way to alter the online software nor get-around it; the html parsing system allows no internal links, the saving system often fails with large files, tables boxes and horizontal lines are only writable in raw html, available free blospot domains are rare, and skills learned don't transfer to much else. The default sitemap only covers 50 dated posts and no pages at all, making pages un-indexable by default.</li>
<li>This transcript is part of a writing hobby that leads where it goes, with digressions and off-shoots. The longest page in this economics cluster is about <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/bad-economics-teaching.html">studying economics at Keele University in the early 1980s</a>, on a course devised by Keith Smith's boss at the time.☠</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="st">It turns out that there were later editions of this book with extra chaptors. This is just the 1984 edition </span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="st">ISBN <span class="st">9780140225020</span></span></h4>
<span class="st"> Indexing info:</span><br />
<table id="metadata_content_table"><tbody>
<tr class="metadata_row"><td class="metadata_value"><h4>
<span dir="ltr">Business & Economics / Economic Conditions</span></h4>
<h4>
<span dir="ltr">Great Britain</span></h4>
<h4>
<span dir="ltr">Great Britain - Economic conditions - 1964-1979</span></h4>
<h4>
<span dir="ltr">Great Britain - Economic conditions - 1979-1997</span></h4>
<h4>
<span dir="ltr">Great Britain - Economic policy - 1964-1979</span></h4>
<h4>
<span dir="ltr">Great Britain - Economic policy - 1979-1997</span></h4>
<h4>
<span dir="ltr">Political Science / Public Policy / Economic Policy</span></h4>
<span dir="ltr"> Similar to:</span><br />
<h4>
<span dir="ltr"> Robert Peston - nothing about the 1980s - <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/550163.Robert_Peston?utf8=%E2%9C%93&sort=original_publication_year">recent books</a></span></h4>
<h4>
<span dir="ltr"> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/williamkeegan">William Keegan</a> - Britain without Oil: What Lies Ahead? and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/95181.William_Keegan">recent books</a></span></h4>
<h4>
<a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/keith.smith" rel="author">Keith Smith</a> - <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/keith.smith/research.html">research</a> - <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/keith.smith/publications.html">recent publications</a> - <a href="https://twitter.com/KeithSm49353997">Twitter</a> </h4>
</td></tr>
<tr class="metadata_row"><td>Back cover text:<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Why do so many experts now believe that the British Economy is on the brink of full-scale collapse? And what can be done about it? Despite government promises and newspaper headlines suggesting 'recovery', many economists now believe that Britain has reached a fundamental crisis point from which there is no going back. In this important new book Keith Smith explains the causes and unravels the significance of Britain's industrial failure, the full gravety of which has been masked by North Sea oil. But stark choices cannot be avoided as oil output declines over the next ten years. He also shows why the orthodocies of both monetarism and Keynesianism are fast becoming irrelevant in the face of this crisis, and argues for a programme of reconstruction which can draw on the lessons of Japanese policies for economic growth. Accessable, thoroughly researched and brilliantly argued, The British Economic Crisis is essential for an understanding of the key problems facing Britain today and will become a classic in its field. ISBN 9780140225020."</span></td><td><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com0Newcastle ST5 5BG, UK53.0039516 -2.274598299999979652.9991741 -2.2846832999999798 53.008729100000004 -2.2645132999999795tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-86186339963984622862016-02-29T19:07:00.014+00:002018-10-21T10:22:58.195+01:00guerrillafruit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
</h2>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">guerrilla fruit tree planting: where guerrilla get apple trees</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Some shops sell fruit trees under ten pounds on short special offers each spring - maybe February. Their web sites suggest ringing a branch to check if a special offer is still in stock. Stock is kept out of doors - maybe in a small bin by the front door to see if passing.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><a href="https://www.aldi.co.uk/store-finder"><b>aldi</b>.co.uk/store-finder</a></span> - has an offer page on their web site</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><a href="https://storelocator.asda.com/">storelocator.<b>asda</b>.com</a></span> - no web info<span style="color: red;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><a href="https://www.bmstores.co.uk/stores"><b>bmstores</b>.co.uk/stores</a></span> - the ones with garden sections - see web site</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><a href="https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/785.htm"><b>lidl</b>.co.uk/en/785.htm</a></span> - has an offer page on their web site</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><a href="http://www.poundstretcher.co.uk/find-a-store/"><b>poundstretcher</b>.co.uk/find-a-store/</a></span> - has an offer page on the web</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><a href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Fruits-/139004/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=&_ssn=gardeningexpertsince1855">Branded Garden Products</a></span> was cheap on ebay when checked April 2016 for people who buy enough to pay for the courier </li>
<li><a href="https://www.hotukdeals.com/search?q=fruit+trees">Hotukdeals searched for "fruit trees" during the past month</a> might find more<br />
Walk-in shops have trouble scanning bar codes for large objects and so have the same bar code for assorted trees, making stock control unlikely, so if you turn-up a week after stock has come-in, you are likely to get the trees nobody wants from a bunch of assorted - things with "cooking" on the label, pears or golden delicious. That leaves the problem of how to know the beginning date of the special offer.<br />
<br />
It's possible to subscribe to shop email offer lists via an email service like gmx that can divert all emails with certain words in them, or just to a spare email address and glance at it in spring, or to use a service like changedetection to try to monitor their web sites or facebook pages for certain words. Notes on hotukdeals suggest that February & March offers at aldi & poundstreacher are cheap. It may be possible to talk to humans in smaller shop branches like Poundstretcher and make arrangements, but that's not a tested idea.<br />
<br />
Bushes like thornless raspberry are cheaper and available at some of the pound shops. <br />
<br />
Very rare reductions of sale stock trees are worth pouncing-on but are like gold at the end of rainbows.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: purple;"><b>Explanatory Note:</b></span><br />
<fieldset>
<span style="color: purple;">So far, so good but there is a list of things I do not know headed <i>"guerrilla do not know"</i> further down: use control+F on most browsers to find it. After seeing trailers for Tarzan, I think I have an idea how guerrillas would speak if they could, and sometimes adopt the style in a tokenistic way or to provide positive images as some equal opportunities trainers suggest. Dogs horses and other animals are welcome to try to read this as well but I doubt they will be able to plant trees because they are smaller or have hooves.</span></fieldset>
</blockquote>
B&Q sell the odd little fruit tree all year and very occasionally table of clearance-price fruit trees, <a href="https://www.diy.com/diy/diamond-club/">which are cheaper if you look over 60</a> and get 10% off on Wednesdays with a special card. Stressful jobs and an unhealthy lifestyle help. Burgers. Addictive behaviour. Rough sleeping. Time inside. My partner - an ex teacher - got a clearance-price tree at £8 or £7.20 with a discount card; I don't know how rare that clearance price is, but the special card for white haired people is well known to anyone with white hair who goes to B&Q; a specially employed silverback pounces and says "do you have one of our Wednesday discount cards?". Those who have a spare email address for junk emails also get online accounts of transactions, which are useful for silverback guerillas who don't want to scan receipts.<br />
<br />Grafting is what people do if they want to make a living at this. If anyone is near SW14 8BP, I can lend special grafting pliers which I have never used but are meant to cut twigs in some V-shaped way so they are more likely to grow if bandaged together.<br /><br />
Norfolk's <a href="http://www.sandylanenursery.co.uk/catalogue-retail-2015.html">sandylanenursery.co.uk/catalogue-retail-2015.html</a> has offers on grafted bare root fruit trees usually only open to regular wholesale customers this spring 2016. No details online. Ian Sturrock and Son's youtube videos on grafting mention that a delivery of 1,000 bits of rootstock in bushels of 50 cost about 60p each at the time of the video, plus VAT and delivery, and rising to £2 each for smaller wholesale batches, and plus the time spent grafting because they're sold as stalks for grafting rather than as usable fruit trees. The supplier was Frank P Mathews. <br />
<br />
Warwickshire's mail-order-only firm, <a href="http://www.gb-online.co.uk/">http://www.gb-online.co.uk/</a> offers £2 rootstock and a wide range of fruit trees or mixed special offers on top of £7.50 delivery, and another trading name on ebay. Offers are often for future delivery at a fixed time of year.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.homebase.co.uk/en/static/AjaxStoreLocatorDisplayView?">Homebase</a> had £10 fruit trees and might be able to order the disease-resistant Egremont Russet or Spartan varieties or have them in stock. The trees are twice the price online but there used to be a regular three-for-two bare root fruit trees offer which brought the cost back down again if you value delivery at a tenner. Once in a blue moon - like when they want to clear space for Christmas trees or there's a blizzard - trees left on the shelves might be reduced under £10. That's mingey pair cherry and cooking apple trees that need adopting, or ones the new manager reduces by-mistake instead of watering. Moneysavingexpert has theories about how staff are instructed to allow haggling, if you get a medium-ranking one on a quiet day and ask if they'll do 10% off for buying two or three trees. It says that Homebase staff are allowed quite a bit of haggle.<br />
<br />
Ebay sometimes has spring-optimist sellers who think they can pay for a tree, ebay fees, paypal fees, and a courier for £10 or under. Searching "Distance: nearest first" and "price plus postage and packing: lowest first" works on the classification for<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a _sp="p2047675.l2706" class="thrd" href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Garden-Patio-/159912/i.html" itemprop="item"><span itemprop="name"><br />
Garden & Patio</span></a>><a _sp="p2047675.l2706" class="thrd" href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Plants-Seeds-Bulbs-/181003/i.html" itemprop="item"><span itemprop="name">Plants, Seeds & Bulbs</span></a>><a _sp="p2047675.l2706" class="thrd" href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Plants-Seedlings-/19617/i.html" itemprop="item"><span itemprop="name">Plants & Seedlings</span></a>><a _sp="p2047675.l2706" class="scnd" href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Fruits-/139004/i.html" itemprop="item"><span itemprop="name">Fruits</span></a></span></span></span><br />
<table style="width: 100%px;"><tbody>
<tr><td></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This is the same link with a search for <a href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Fruits-/139004/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Tree&_sop=15">price plus postage <span style="font-size: small;">&</span> packing, lowest first</a>.<br />
Searching this April 2016, there were offers after the first page or so. A search for Distance > Nearest First might get more locally-adapted and healthier trees of there are any. The ones available by mail order look small and likely to need a good spot to grow in for the first year or two.<br />
<br />
The cheapest seller on Amazon has trees delivered for not much more than the Homebase offer, but more spindly - a bit like Lidl and Aldi by the look of the photo. Groupon often have bulk offers from garden4less who have appeared on Rogue Traders apparently. Talking of which, I suppose it's rude to nab the odd pencil-thin new twig from someone else's apple tree, but a note on trashnothing or streetbank offering to collect apple tree prunings might get a reply, specially if you offer to prune the tree. That just leaves the job of buying rootstock or grafting onto something that comes to hand.<br />
<br />
People who want traditional orchard varieties - <a href="https://www.gov.uk/countryside-stewardship-grants">maybe restoring traditional orchards with a countryside stewardship grant</a> - might find local varieties and sellers via <a href="http://orchardnetwork.org.uk/">Orchardnetwork.org.uk</a> > <a href="http://orchardnetwork.org.uk/content/about-orchards">about-orchards</a> > <a href="http://orchardnetwork.org.uk/content/fruit-varieties">fruit-varieties</a> including suggested sellers. There's a free offer and request map on <a href="http://www.orchardmarketplace.org.uk/">Orchardmarketplace.org.uk</a><br />
Just from googling, ten trees for a bit over ten pounds each plus the same again for delivery come from Devon's Talaton plants incorporating adamsappletrees.co.uk. They are geared to small wholesale orders and other similar nursaries - such as one you can get to for collection of pre-paid trees by appointment - might try to match prices. <i>"As an example a tree can cost you as little as £8.00 for orders of more than 25 trees with further discounts on orders over £500"</i>, plus 20% VAT and delivery, says their web site. <a href="http://www.iansturrockandsons.co.uk/">Ian Sturrock and Sons</a> of Bangor have been known to reduce some common varieties to £11 + VAT + the same again for delivery at the end of March. There's a link to some of their videos at the bottom of this page.<br />
<br />
People who have done all this before are more keen to promote variety and local varieties and reduce blight. Orangepippin fruit trees are expensive but their web site compares disease resistance snd suggests varieties like Egremont Russet, Spartan and Bardsley, or what ever is healthiest in a particular part of the UK such as in towns or soils or temperatures or clusters of disease. This can be done even more cheaply by an expert: simply graft twigs from a healthy tree onto anything that can take the graft, but it takes a bit of skill and courage I guess. The cost of too many people taking a twig from a public tree on fallingfruit.org is high. Failed grafting mistakes look bad.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">guerrilla orchard space</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Councils, the ministry of transport and others have forgotten flower beds and verges and ticky-tacky where something can be planted and nobody cares - you just get a funny look from passers-by while you are doing it. Even the car parks round garden centres are in need of a few fruit trees. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/property/gardening/incredible-edible-guerrilla-gardeners-are-planting-veg-for-the-masses-in-west-yorkshire-8657717.html">Todmorden is a hotbed according to the Independant</a>. <br />
<br />
I've planted 4 trees in a graveyard, of which one was pulled-up or died and was left there, three in a wood of which the most public two might have gone and the other remains, one on busy tow-path near allotments, which was uprooted and taken, and several in a forgotten council flower bed at the end of my road. One of them turned-out to be in the shadow of another tree but the others are OK. I've left labels on the trees so that people don't pull them up by mistake, but the same labels encourage people to pull them up deliberately. Generally, I made a point investing not too much money or energy into each plant - I planted the cheapest possible trees in the quickest possible time and when I needed an excuse for a walk - so I didn't feel too grieved by the plants that didn't last.</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/logos/doodles/2016/first-day-of-spring-2016-northern-hemisphere-5727786629070848.4-hp.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://www.google.co.uk/logos/doodles/2016/first-day-of-spring-2016-northern-hemisphere-5727786629070848.4-hp.gif" width="640" /></a></blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">guerrillas use tools to plant fruit trees</span></h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSi5cBSB6qALipXec4tQ22RtmJbhKyrSjBeKWYuK9COEY3oS9iwvBLhbb3Dbs8uC_TSM3famvITDDQGAGYe95fUlvsti76XkohV-ZS7-OkIi66uSwxmnYlTeG6MaNpo0b7UqDm2Uk-i-Nc/s1600/100190_0b823d5d465c47688730%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="guerilla fruit tree planting: picture of the roots of a cheap tree" border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSi5cBSB6qALipXec4tQ22RtmJbhKyrSjBeKWYuK9COEY3oS9iwvBLhbb3Dbs8uC_TSM3famvITDDQGAGYe95fUlvsti76XkohV-ZS7-OkIi66uSwxmnYlTeG6MaNpo0b7UqDm2Uk-i-Nc/s320/100190_0b823d5d465c47688730%255B1%255D.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>A trowel or kitchen implement might help scoop hard soil, if you can saw through any little roots that hold soil down with a serrated knife like a bread knife. You can see from the picture that a tree bought with roots wrapped in cling-film or a tiny pot is no big deal to plant, but has a bit of trouble staying upright on the strength of its little roots. Something bought cheaply or reduced for quick sale might have even fewer surviving roots. I have not tried drilling a deep hole for a bamboo stick cadged from a supermarket car park verge, but expect the technique would work. Then you have to fasten the sapling trunk to the stick for a year or two, but you probably have a bit of black clingfilm just unwound from the root ball, so that will do the job.</li>
<li>A lack of embarrassment helps, and an ability to do the job relatively fast and dirty so that if the tree gets removed or dies or gets cut-down by the council, you continue like a good soldier. You need to enjoy the idea of strangers picking the fruit as well, unless it's possible to anticipate the earliest possible date you can get to the place and pick the stuff yourself. I don't know if there is a way of putting a net under the tree so that falling fruit is less likely to be eaten by slugs and more likely to be eaten by passers-buy. </li>
<li>Tools with strength to stamp-on, to wield, and lever: these help if easy to borrow and bring to the site: crow-bars, or picks and shovels, or spades, which are meant to be a cross between picks and shovels. Talking of stamping, <a href="http://veganline.com/" title="thick sole boots that mould to the shape of your feet, made in the UK">thick-sole boots that mould to the shape of your feet are available from Veganline.com </a></li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">nursing fruit trees for sale</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are several sites about this by enthusiasts. Someone willing to cut-off the bottoms of root stock and grow them up in the back yard, then make grafted-together trees to grow a bit more and show in the front yard might make a tenner from a hobby and another from selling via myhermes and ebay, classifieds sites with their own <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/no-such-thing-as-free-phone.html">mobile number for work</a> and a postcode or address, and a sale-or-return wholesale offer to someone with a market stall. It doesn't have the sound of a business that could make a living, because I imagine that there is machinery best used on a larger field that can cut-down the labour; there is also specialist skill like web design more easily hired from specialists by a larger organisation, and there is a long history of fiddling exchange rates and tariffs down by bad countries and up by richer countries. Then there is the cost of social insurance in richer countries which are skimped in the others. Lastly there is the price of housing in richer countries. <br />
<br />
But web design is getting easier and hydroponics could solve the labour problem as well: grow in troughs of sludge. Housing costs vary between people; you might have retired and just find yourself living somewhere with a garden. Anyway this could work as a hobby. You would need a sane council and landlord on your side to sell very obviously in the front yard if planning zones and tenancies forbid this.</blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">spades: a digression on buying picks and spades</span></h3>
<blockquote>
Spades are not completely necessary nor desirable if you want to look sane when stopped and asked what you are doing, but knives might be worse, and spades or picks can add leverage to the process of making a hole, and force to the process of of cutting clods and roots. Picks and shovels are good ways of moving a lot of earth; spades combine the two in a more suburban way as you know.<br />
<br />
Ebay is a source of mid-market shovels and spades made in a democratic welfare state - the UK - under the <a href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Shovels-Spades-/178983/i.html?_dcat=178983&Brand=Bulldog&_trksid=p2045573.m1684">Bulldog</a> brand. Prices on ebay start from the mid 20s, delivered new to Argos or second-hand. <a href="https://www.chillingtontoolsonline.co.uk/">Chillingtontoolsonline.co.uk</a> come from another UK factory - mainly making <a href="https://www.quickcrop.co.uk/blog/garden-tools-chillington-hoes-or-azadas/">pick-axe like adze tools</a> that are slightly cheaper and have a <a href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Hoes-Cultivators-/118868/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=chillington&_dcat=118868&Brand=Chillington%2520Tools&_trksid=p2045573.m1684">section on ebay</a>. There are also people on ebay selling a "ladies spade" and a "folding shovel", should the need arise; sometimes army surplus shops have folding shovels too apparently. <br />
<br />
Spades you can stand-on might be borrowable from <a href="http://www.streetbank.com/">streetbank.com</a> (which needs its own email address because it keeps sending updates) or neighbours, or cadge-able on <a href="https//www.trashnothing.com/">trashnothing.com</a> which includes Freecycle. That "might" sounds more positive when put the other way around. If you get a spade and change your mind, it will go quickly if put in the street with a sign saying "if you want it, take it", or advertised as a gift on trashnothing or for loan on streetbank. If you work out how to send it on myhermes, you could even sell it on ebay. There is no need to waste a spade.<br />
<br />
More complicated arrangements exist via <a href="http://www.conservationfoundation.co.uk/project.php?id=3">conservationfoundation.co.uk/project.php?id=3</a> which encourages tools from council tips to be sent to prison workshops for mending & giving. The danger is that handling time costs more than the cost of a spade dumped from an autocratic country with no welfare state and fiddled exchange rates, and a trip to a spade shop for you. Conservationfoundation tell donors that a spade costs them £8. This is before adding costs to council tips and prisons, minus any benefits to prisoners. Plus the cost of reading & writing words like "centre" and "community" which go-along with the thing as much as committees and un-invested reserves; words like "centre", "community" & "community" rot the will to live but - hey! - people survive those just as people survive time in prison.<br />
<br />
If you want the spontaneity that comes with owning a cheap spade, the usual shops have rust-able bendy spades for a tenner and Wickes slightly cheaper but Wilko, if you are near one, breaks the pattern and <a href="https://www.wilko.com/garden-hand-tools/digging-and-planting-/icat/digging-and-planting#esp_sort=sys_price&esp_order=asc&esp_hitsperpage=48&esp_cf=pdxttype&esp_filter_pdxttype=Spades">has spades for a fiver</a> delivered free to any of their branches if you pay online first. (Wilko is silent about selling fruit trees on its web site, except to say which branches have free a car park and so probably have somewhere to store them). BnM stores linked at the top of the page have a picture of a spade for the same price, and a note asking you to ring a branch in case they have one in stock. B&Q have them for £6.87. Asda doesn't advertise spades on the web site but sometimes has them on the shelves and much-reduced in clearance sales according to hotukdeals. Reviews of the Wickes one say that the bottom of the shaft can break when used with leverage for digging, so maybe it's not much better than a picture of a spade. Reviews of the Wilco spade range from "broke in half" to "makes digging easier".</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">guerrilla poo</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Compost is not necessary but a load of old leaves or anything you happen to make anyway could be buried a little way away or left on-top to stop weeds competing; softening of soil with a fork might help. If I understand the more expert advice right, it is to put nutrients are best some way from the trunk of the tree so that roots have to go further and so keep the thing upright. <br />
<br />
For more expert advice there are a couple of upmarket nurseries with stuff on their web sites. This one has a quick method for small trees in soft soil.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/articles/fruit-tree-planting-instructions">Orangepippintrees.co.uk/articles/fruit-tree-planting-instructions</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"For 1-year bare-root dwarf trees (i.e. with a dwarf root system) an alternative planting method is worth considering, known as "notch planting". Make two notches in the ground with a spade (in a 'L' or 'T' configuration), lever the soil out slightly, drop the tree into the gap (making sure the roots are spread out into the gap), and lever the soil back and firm down. This method may seem almost too quick and casual, but it has the great advantage of minimising damage to the soil structure, and provides much better anchorage for the tree than is possible with a conventional planting hole. However it only really works with maiden dwarf trees, and the ground needs to be light (or cultivated earlier in the year in readiness"</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://www.ameliasapples.co.uk/">Ameliasapples.co.uk</a> has twigs from loads of fruit varieties for grafting and there are probably videos on youtube to show how to do it. Twigs are £4.50 for one including £2 postage. Other suppliers might come-up under searches like "apple scion uk grafting".<br />
<br />
I have planted all trees so far without stakes, but council trees appear with grand stakes over an inch thick - often two of them - and rubber bungees to show the tree what it's expected to do when it grows-up. If anyone knows more about this than me and thinks that stakes are worthwhile, there are often old pallets around to dissect or such.<br />
<br />
So there you have it. Every time nothing much has happened in a week or you pass the grey oblivion of a DIY superstore, check for a very cheap fruit tree and keep it to plant it furtively where nobody cares. If enough people have dull weeks, there will soon be more fruit trees about, more chances for people to live without having to do day-jobs, and people will be happier.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">guerrillas talking to other guerrillas</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://www.guerrillagardening.org/">Guerrillagardening.org</a> is a site where you can post a picture of your work to show-off. There were some posts on message boards a few years ago in some major towns. Elephant & Castle was a hotbed. <br />
<br />
People with some kind of organised association in place with <br />
<span style="color: red;"><b>a</b></span> <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/07/setting-up-shop-with-uk-business-bank.html">bank account</a> <br />
<span style="color: red;"><b>a</b></span> governing document for a non-profit organisation<br />
<span style="color: red;"><b>a</b></span> folder of any papers to show the organisation exists and so get a bank account<br />
<span style="color: red;"><b>a</b></span> cover-story about planting trees with permission from the landowner <b><span style="color: red;">&</span></b> patience...<br />
can even get a grant to do the same thing. Basically, schools and associations.<a href="http://www.projectdirt.com/project/8729/"><br />
</a><a href="http://www.projectdirt.com/">ProjectDirt.com</a> > <a href="http://www.projectdirt.com/project/all">projects</a> > <a href="http://www.projectdirt.com/project/8729/">fundraising</a>) is a forum where people often post up-to-date details. Tesco & Olswang lawyers sometimes make grants.<br />
"To register volunteering opportunities, please use your project page or select the relevant option on an event form"<br />
Writing-in to say <i>"I have no organisation or right to plant but can provide receipts"</i> has not worked for me. I have some of the receipts, if anyone would like to fund me anyway. <br />
<a href="http://orchardnetwork.org.uk/content/grants-fundraising">Orchardnetwork.org.uk/content/grants-fundraising</a><br />
...links to three short lists of funders UK-wide, occasionally updated. <br />
It's annoying that people who just want to plant a fruit tree can't get a free fruit tree in exchange for a photo of where planted, because other groups do get the money. Groups that are not set-up t balance demands from conflicting interest groups, any more than their funders should be spending this money on trees instead of people. Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetry Park is an example of a group that employs paid people and volunteers, when the salary and possibly the volunteer effort could be used on social care as taxpayers expect when paying high taxes in a welfare state. To spend otherwise is like an insurance company failing to settle your claim but saying "we planted a daffodil instead".</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">The cost of an apple in lost government services like social care </span></h3>
<blockquote>
The £4,000,000 Big Tree Plant is closed to new applicants. As a minister, it would be hard to resist the thought: <i>"I can't do much with this budget, but I can get loads of trees planted"</i>, and with luck the scheme started a momentum of planting. <a href="http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=11612_WC0811-BTP-Final-report-Oct2013.pdf">A £48,000 research report</a> <a href="http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends68%5C0000285768_AC_20150331_E_C.pdf">funded by the Big Lottery Fund</a> which paid nearly half a million for <a href="https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/funding/search-past-grants/project-details?appid=200500">this</a> & <a href="https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/funding/search-past-grants/project-details?appid=200500">that</a> research reports states that community groups were asked to raise matched funding, and that it was hard for them to keep within the £4 per tree budget even with matched funding sometimes greater - so £8 or £10 a tree. That's before the central costs of government and large organisations organising the grant, small groups organising to claim it, and other groups like charities and councils processing requests for matched funding. Some of the trees were full size, but the figures suggest that DIY planting is cheaper, where a guerrilla is prepared to pay for the tree at a supermarket; special offer prices have been known to go down to £4 at poundstretcher at the end of March. <br />
<br />
A fault of <a href="https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/research/environment/green-spaces">this kind of research</a> is that it is twee, fey, safe; it does not mention hidden uses of the woodland for things like gay cruising and rough sleeping, nor the cost of endless committees encouraged by grant schemes. For example there is now a local scheme to be funded about £40,000 by Richmond Council for purposes including "opening up lines of site" near gay cruising areas which are then patrolled at further cost by police with bright torches and headlights. The group called Friends of Barnes Common that got £40,000 off taxpayers has just paid a visit to <u>Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park</u>, after an introduction organised by South West London Environmental Network (SWEN).<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhej56XXKu8EvjjjzNrR3K2lJzEdd_gr672kqCtkvN9u5YOw8IzldDe8whgIdfp3v1djJXCPDCX8XVVu4N23H7_CRmUuM1aq10i1OwFinAtc-a48NtlnmHxmMnyHJGBF4zAa3kiL-svbyeu/s1600/temp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="- being receptive to hosting public artworks - the bench was installed for free in the park through Annin Arts and a broker agency. - a tolerance to what people do in the park as long as it doesn't damage, disturb others or the wildlife - a constant vigilance and attention to the whole space, with a 'cracked window pane' approach to repairing and responding immediately to any anti-social behaviour - their approach to trouble: make it known to the people doing it that you know what they're doing and why they shouldn't be doing it. For example, if people are sleeping rough, Ken collects all their stuff, keeps it back at the centre and puts up a sign saying that sleeping rough is not allowed in the park and they can come and get their stuff to take it away, and he leaves a phone number they can call for support if they are homeless. Or for cruising or alcohol abuse, to leave a laminated sign in the location saying that the park staff know what's happening, and asking people to clear up after themselves and not to come back. To make visible what others are trying to make invisible means you deter them, because you've drawn attention to it. They have also contacted local support groups and networks to communicate about behaviour they don't want in the park. - Ken is very affable, energetic, friendly and approachable as a park mananger and avoids the more traditional role of a park officer Our thanks to Ken and Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park for an inspiring and insightful tour. We took lots of ideas and good practice away with us and really enjoyed the morning in this special place. " border="0" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhej56XXKu8EvjjjzNrR3K2lJzEdd_gr672kqCtkvN9u5YOw8IzldDe8whgIdfp3v1djJXCPDCX8XVVu4N23H7_CRmUuM1aq10i1OwFinAtc-a48NtlnmHxmMnyHJGBF4zAa3kiL-svbyeu/s640/temp.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
The quotes are clear; the conflicts of what counts as anti-social behaviour are not, despite Friends of Tower Hamlets Park getting an Observer Ethical Award from the person at The Observer who knows about ethics (<a href="http://veganline.com/ethical-fashion-forum.htm" title="What is Ethical Fashion?">What is Ethical Fashion? - and who got the idea going? It's a scheme to promote unfair competition from badly run countries, and you partly paid to get it going through taxes</a>).</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithoutPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1107136">Paying £174,700</a> out of local money when there is not enough for social care. I count that as anti-social behaviour. It's not complicated. The money spent for an employee with the initiative to work alone for a committee is the same as the money spent on a carer at a respite day centre for people with Alzheimer's and their carers, or for someone who works in an old peoples' home. It may be more.<br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom</a> or any other search for the avarage wage in the UK suggests high figures under £30,000, but living in London and answering to a committee is a tricky job that's worth more. <br />
<br />
Compare this to the salary of somone in a day centre, full time or part time, who provides a chance for people with alzheimers to get away from their carers. Or any other similar service. If you want to measure the number of people helped, you get a large number for the day centre person who uses tax money as intended by taxpayers, rather than the park keeper person as used by the committee people quoted above.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Taking rough-sleepers' bedding and giving it back with a phone number is, I think, anti-social behaviour because the phone call will not result in a hostel bed for the night in most, sane cases and is even less likely in eccentric and less sane cases like the people who have been evicted in the past but don't have any specific alms-house-style rooms available for people with mental health problems that make them bad tenants. I write "alms-house-style" because the layout of some old almshouses, round a courtyard but ground-floor and self-contained, is good for eccentric residents and probably doesn't need three-shift cover from wardens. <a href="http://www.thamesreach.org.uk/what-we-do/accommodation/bermondsey-project/">Thamesreach Bermondsey</a> scheme is a good recent example of what you see in old almshouse buildings all over the place. When I say "mental health problems" I mean problems as seen by neighbours; the person themself may be used to coping in their own way and not be keen to join a discussion group or take prescribed medicine or anything like that. The problem to society is one of containment that is fair to the contained person and fair to taxpayers. Prison is very expensive to taxpayers. A place in an almshouse-like building is much cheaper and fairer on the person who copes in their own way but troubles neighbours.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>"Cruising ... laminated notice ... park staff know what's happening and asking people to clear up after themselves and not come back." That's not behaviour that a council would fund towards a mosque, any more than they would find work to "open up lines of site" and then ask police to shine the brightest lights into prayer meetings. It's more like the old "no dogs no blacks no Irish" signs that could be seen in the odd pub decades ago, but, this time, our taxes pay for it.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">The best of both</span></h3>
<blockquote>
If the next minister wants grafters to get cheap cuttings, I don't know what to suggest. Something might come to mind later.<br />
<br />
If the next minister wants to allow cheap saplings to be planted on public ground, I suggest a scheme to encourage councils and anyone else who owns bits of communally-used land to write a cheap note on the web to say <i>"we do not prosecute well-intentioned planters of trees for human food, and may publish detailed guidance on our web site at..."</i> which initially refers to the ministry's own template or - more expensive to taxpayers - publishes a local scheme which is probably just the same and costs loads of taxpayers' money in officials' time that ought to be spent on social care and benefits.<br />
<br />
If the next minister wants planters to find cheap saplings, I suggest a talk with the ministers for tax and business to get more information published from tax offices about who makes what in the UK. For example, Poundstretcher sell young fruit trees at a fiver, plus or minus, as do Asda. The offer is to promote their brand rather than to make much profit, but it's unlikely they make a loss on each tree. Where do they get these trees at a fiver plus or minus? National statistics do not currently state these things. Some kind of list of who makes what in what minimum orders in the UK would be useful for anyone who wants to do anything, including that planting of orchards. The customs act, or some act like that, forbids HMRC from answering freedom of information requests about who makes what, so a change of law is needed.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">The cost of a tree in talk-time</span></h3>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
<a href="http://www.treehealthcare.co.uk/guerrilla-planting/">A blog quotes gives the view of a council employee:</a> a guy who was working as a Tree officer for Lambeth council [in the 1990s], ... had grown tired of officialdom and legal constraints in where he could plant Trees and how many he was allowed to plant and how many groups, departments and local people he had to canvas and the reports he needed to write up and the meetings he had to attend to convince council officials that he had covered every potential legal angle and spoken to every potential protagonist and smoothed every potential obstacle, just to plant a Tree in a grassed area, let alone on a street. So what he was doing was growing his own Trees and then going out at night time and planting Trees in London Parks and replacing ‘official’ but dead Trees in London streets with his own 5ft grown Trees.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/5908/19732401.pdf">A department for communities case study</a> from Southwark states that one group of people wanted public money to deny use of a park to another group of people, who were not members of the <i>"newly created park users group"</i>. They also denied park neighbours the time of the new council park manager who liked committees, and presumably took-up colleagues' time as well, by feeding-back the result of her user group meeting: <i>"The orchard was created to prevent an underused area of the local park from being used as a dog run where owners of unsociable dogs closed the gates at either end of the area and let their dogs loose. This made it impossible for people to walk in this area of the park due to the resulting dog dirt. The park was also home to drug sellers, drug users and prostitutes"</i>. So, unless the dogs, dog owners, prostitutes, (and cruisers or doggers who are deleted from minutes for fear of involving the equalities committee) turn-up for the committee, they loose their service despite it sounding over-used rather than <i>"under-used"</i>. I doubt that reps for all these groups want to spend their time on a newly created park users groups, and unsociable dogs do not have the ability to take part because they can't read or speak. I don't mean to say that the users group is all as bad as expected. The group in Southwark have a very cheap blogspot website and a note saying something like <i>"a notice has appeared telling residents not to do a list of things including urinating ... could the council be requested to remove this notice unless there is clear demand for it?"</i><br />
<br />
A lot of free woodchip would have helped, more space, and perhaps some apple trees, but no. The group web site says they are short of volunteers for the pointless task of weeding and mowing, when mulch would do the job, but ask people not to leave coffee grounds round the trees as mulch.<b> </b><i>"there have been grants from the London Woodland Grant Scheme for native hedging as well as from Capital Growth and Groundwork East London."</i><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/5908/19732401.pdf">Another department for communities case study</a><br />
This is an example of a Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens project.<br />
"In May 1998 the first meeting took place to begin clearing some overgrown plots on the margins of an allotment association site.<br />
• Community and public engagement is achieved through events and open days, and by taking part in neighbourhood forums, local food and other networks.<br />
• The orchard is managed by a small committee, and by the harvest-share members who take part in working meetings on the site. Subgroups look after areas such as composting, markets and events.<br />
• Working meetings take place twice a month during the growing season, and once a month in winter. Members share responsibility for the care of trees and bushes, mowing the grass, battling weeds, and harvesting fruit. Those with little fruit-growing experience learn by doing, and working alongside more experienced members.<br />
• In spring 2011 the group was reconstituted as an independent community association. The group has an annual general meeting to review the year, and plan ahead. There are also regular planning and social meetings in members’ homes"</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The cost per apple in talk time is not easy to calculate, except to say that it's high. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
National government puts a more positive spin on grants for orchards in a document<br />
written before the last election, including links to pages about how to get permission to plant. Each chapter links to more background pages online - usually the list of examples or pages that have moved:<br />
<a href="http://commonground.org.uk/">CommonGround.org.uk</a> from <<< england-in-particular.info, <br />
<a href="http://freshstartlandenterprise.org.uk/land-partnership/">Freshstartlandenterprise.org.uk/land-partnership/</a> from <<< LandPartnerships.org<br />
<a href="http://locality.org.uk/our-work/assets/assets-publications">Locality.org.uk/our-work/assets/assets-publications</a> see <i>"asset transfer legal toolkit"</i><br />
from <<< atu.org.uk /support/toolkits/communityspace<br />
<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160119175014/http://www.silvanustrust.org.uk/">Silvanus Trust</a> , who wrote the research report, closed at end of February 2016 after completing a <a href="http://goodfromwoods.co.uk/">Goodfromwoods.co.uk</a> web site about writing research reports that didn't mention how much grants to committees help committees reduce services for the kinds of people who don't sit on committees, like people who want a dog run in Southwark, or all kinds of marginalised groups who the grander rhetoric introductions hope to include with this kind of funding.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/11466/1973262.pdf">Community Orchards</a></h4>
How-to Guide - Department for Communities and Local Government, 2011 (<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160320110449/https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/11466/1973262.pdf">archived version</a>)<br />
Contents, <br />
3 Introduction, <br />
4 Community orchards, <br />
5 What are community orchards? (sort of begs a question about page 4)<br />
6 What can I use the orchard for? <br />
7 How do I start an orchard? <br />
8 Will I need planning permission? <br />
9 Where can I get funding to start my orchard? <br />
10 Sources of additional information and guidance</fieldset>
<br />
People who prefer the legal route say that the need for more consultation can lead to less clashes of taste amongst flower-planters, more local species being planted, and a better sense of community of a committee-ish sort; some map seen somewhere suggests that it works in primary schools and should probably be tried around care homes too. Anyone with control over forgotten verges round playing fields or car parks or old peoples' home gardens is in a good position to organise something. (Anyone good at setting-up groups might try a group to set-up bird tables near old peoples' homes too.)<br />
Another down-side to government funding is that it demonstrates that no similar scheme is available for industry; they realise that there is something wrong when orchards close, but not when the spade factory closes.<br />
<br />
Talking of spades for schools and community groups, there is the <a href="http://www.conservationfoundation.co.uk/tools/">http://www.conservationfoundation.co.uk/tools/</a> link suggesting how to give or get them on zero budget.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">guerrillas labelling saplings for other guerrillas</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Labels and cooking apples are two problems that go together if you have, by mistake, bought some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Grieve_apple">James Grieve</a> apple trees among the bargains. They are bitter to anyone who picks early to eat raw, rather like Czar plumbs, and bruise if left to drop. <br />
<br />
After looking on ebay at loop-lock labels that sell for £5 for 50 or 100, I saw that some are made of a non woven material which is better at keeping the ink from a marker pen. The one they use is Tyvek, also used in less stiff form as a roof lining, but any long-lasting fabric such as a weed control fabric could do as a snippet to retain marker pen ink and stick out not too much while all the other trees in the hood act natural.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">guerrillas using words like "habitat" & "native species"</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Somewhere on the net are details of wonderful resilient apple tree varieties like Bardsley Spartan and Egremont Russet - all available as twigs to graft-on, and one or two free versions of online maps like <a href="https://fallingfruit.org/">Fallingfruit.org</a> and <a href="http://fruitcity.co.uk/the-fruit-map">Fruitcity.co.uk/the-fruit-map</a> show trees in public places. One group in Hammersmith that shares a good pulping and juicing machine at least once a year - I think it's Abundance - but those details are getting too complicated to think about, as are details of how to cut the toes off an existing tree, use them as root-stock, and then graft a finger-like twig on to the root for free. I can only say that, as someone who does more blogging on the net than real things in real life, I have planted several cheap trees so far. If even blogger can do several, maybe you'd enjoy doing one. Or at least a thornless raspberry from a pound shop.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">guerrilla do not know</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Guerrilla do not know things. <br />
<br />
Grafting. That's the difficult thing to bluff about. No guerrilla should type about grafting without proof of skill; this guerrilla say nothing. But if the system worked well and didn't annoy anyone with visible mistakes, then grafting a disease-resistant fruit onto a cherry tree or a crab apple or whatever takes the graft would make sense.<br />
<br />
After planting a cheap fruit tree, is it good to go back and have a pee near it? I suppose so, because it feels good. What distance so roots are encouraged to spread? Dunno. <br />
<br />
Is it good to dump a load of compost from a compost bin on or near the sapling? Probably. Blogs from hot climates say that it's good to bury a wet phone directory or load of junk mail next to the tree as a water reservoir. Councils bury most of a watering-pipe, available from outside hoover repair shops and electrical recycling banks.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">guerrilla embedding of someone else's youtube videos - introduction ends at 1 minute 40 seconds</span></h3>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nVJW3QR3OUQ?rel=0" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
There is a one-sheet guide to grafting at <a href="http://www.guerrillagrafters.org/">guerrillagrafters.org</a><br />
There are videos on grafting at <br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/SarahKCox/search?query=grafting">https://www.youtube.com/user/SarahKCox/search?query=grafting</a><br />
<hr />
The author sells <a href="http://veganline.com/">shoes at Veganline.com</a> and has planted several guerrilla fruit trees without much knowledge about whether any of them will survive. There might be one or two waiting to be planted. Note to self: <a href="http://www.ciderworkshop.com/">ciderworkshop.com</a> . Oh, here is a seed firm that doesn't sell trees but looks cheap and worth encouraging: <a href="http://www.realseeds.co.uk/">realseeds.co.uk</a><br />
<hr />
</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-32992651731656331482016-01-22T19:49:00.006+00:002018-10-21T10:23:01.086+01:00better economics teaching<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
Related: <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/bad-economics-courses-for-twenty-teens.html"><u>Bad Economics Teaching for the twenty-teens</u></a> from data on Unistats, 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economnics-teaching.html">Better Economics Teaching</a>: some off-the-cuff suggestions based on being a 1980s student <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html">The British Economic Crisis</a> - a similar book to Robert Peston written in the 80s - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">Star Courses</a>: the least satisfied, most bored and lowest paid UK graduates, written 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">Boring Economics Teaching is interesting</a>: how someone managed to teach economics from memories of an old textbook at the peak of the worst recession since the 1930s, and tried to cover-up for government causing the recession. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2012/10/leslie-fishman-writings.html">Journal Articles by Professor Les Fishman</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economics.html">unbelievable beliefs</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/02/1980s-recession.html">1980s recession explanations I wrot</a>e - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-search-for-one-click-install.html">UK unemployment 1980s from the Begg 1984 textbook</a></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Introduction - skip this or you won't read more</span></span></span></span> </h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My writing style is rather muddled, with digressions all-over the place, and the ones on better economics teaching end-up here. Even though I have barely taught anything - certainly not at a college - and I have not been a student for a long time, so it's a bit daft to offer advice and suggestions to those in the trade.</span> </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This follows a blog post called "<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">boring economics is interesting</a>" about studying economics at the worst of the 1980s recession, on a course that often didn't quite cover the 1980s recession, with large parts of obviously stupid rubbish. We studied the micro-economics rules of thumb out of a special stupid textbook called Laidler, which tried ot show that one could be derived from another, without other application or reference to fact. Why didn't lecturers change the course? Why didn't students like me walk-out? Those questions are still running in the late 20-teens. What was it like in 1985? It was odd because the college itself was a victim of whimsical funding changes, which I think are an economic problem. The Chief was a man who had been hauled before the McArthy or Todd Committees and probled about anti-american activities, like a teach-in-protest he did in his 20s at UCLA where staff and students just chatted about what they wanted to teach and learn. So he was a perky witness to the history of bad economics teaching. Where stupid teachers use a circular argument about subject names as an excuse: <i>"economics is rubbish therefore we teach rubbish as economics",</i> Fishman put the lie more simply <i>"We have to teach this stuff in order to call this an economics degree". </i><br />
</span></div>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">"It's nothing earth-shattering"</span></span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... said a tutor about one of the models on my 1980s economics course, <br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">What not to do</span></h4>
We'd just studied ASAD model to be followed by the ISLM model which suggests the ASAD model is wrong although teachers know and students guess that both are wrong. They are about tweaking the economy via interest rates and government deficits up or down; both have been done to death. They don't get to the point by saying why UK factories close, which in the mid 1980s, was an interesting subject to students with no job prospects and our redundant parents. <br />
<br />
In lectures, we also learned about Cow Theory, by which democratic welfare states should be run-down in favour of a globalized sweatshop economy and pay towards the process, for example through the British Council's Delphe programme which funds just this kind of teaching at UK taxpayers' expense. Oxfam commissioned a book called "Rigged Rules and Double Standards" to make just this kind of point. A group of people from the New Economics Foundation, I think, overlapped with a group called Futerra Communications and their fake trade association Ethical Fashion Forum, tend to make these kinds of points.<br />
<br />
<b>Professor Patrick Minford of Cardiff Business School</b> gets to the point in saying that most UK manufacturing would close with unilateral declaration of zero tariffs against goods from China, and he thinks this is a good thing (Sun article quoted by Evan Davis on Radio 4's <i>More or Less</i> program). This is how ignorant economists are allowed to be; they don't all understand that the tariff is to protect the higher costs of a welfare state because that's another subject called <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Search/SubjectCode/055/Social%20Policy">Social Policy</a>. There's more say about him, personally, that is polite; he demonstrates why economics is a failed subject.</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">What order to teach things in?</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The post crash economics society call for teaching to start with problems, and to choose theories that help solve those problems. Lots of economics students might have had a similar idea, while listening to a lecture about something they do not want to know and suspect that nobody else wants to know either. If theory is taught in order to solve a real problem, then a large proportion of it can be cut and the Post Crash Economics Society suggest things like Game Theory that came-in after I studied. I was lucky</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">What to call the subject? Social Policy & Management Science? Applied Economics?</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
I add this in 2018: a new idea.<br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Suppose the problem is subjects called "economics" and expectations of what to teach by applicants or all kinds, decision-makers at the college, and textbook-writers. For example because political and government economics, such as how to fund the NHS, seem to be taboo and of no </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">interest</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> to some students, while management science is a bit of an odd thing to apply-for at the age of 18 or 19 without any work experience - it's a bit of a fall-back geography kind of uncool subject a tthat age, however much it's interesting to people decades older.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Near me in London, someone tried splitting "Applied Economics" and "Business Economics", which are good titles. Then students got wary of spending £9,000 a year on course for people without great A-level results or history, and the "Applied Economics" course dropped for lack of students, which is a pity..<br />Another idea would be to have<br /> "Management" or "Business Mangement" or some title like that next door to<br />"Social Policy" or "Political Economics" which is a new one I have just coined.<br />The idea is that "economics" becomes a title for one or two short courses on the notice board and not the big letters on the college web site that lure people in. Maybe less people come-in, but I understand that Economics has about as much attraction as Geography just at the moment; it isn't something you'd mention on a dating site. Whatever I think, college managers have the same idea. As I typed blog posts about Economics degree feedback on Unistats, I realized that some colleges like Imperial have dropped it altogether, despite it being a schools subject name. A student from Cardiff was quoted as saying something like "if they don't want to teach economics, why don't they set-up a new department to teach it?". I don't know, but the Open University has such a slow server for their Economics degree that it's very unlikely that enough people will apply to make the course viable. They have much quicker server speeds on other subjects. So someone at Open University is deliberately trying to get them out of the Economics market. As I said, it's not just me that wants a new name.</span></blockquote>
</h4>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">What to study. What kinds of problems do politically-minded macro students want to solve?</span> <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Rules of thumb including bits where markets don't work so well as on the X-shaped diagram.<br />
Fair treatment of suppliers by big customers; fair treatment of employees by employers, fair treatment by big unions of employers (this last case could be extinct bar Aslef), fair treatment of union members by un-accountable unions (<a href="http://employees.org.uk/">this is a common problem with UK unions</a>). </li>
<li>critical understanding of economic claims in "The Value of Fashion" report of Heathrow Airport's report on the benefits of another runway or political claims about EU membership<br />
I didn't finish that list and grafted-on another one that I had already, which should have a different title<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">Helping better jobs happen, including better jobs for new graduates;<br />
This is also something that economics students would want to study</span><br />
<br />
...access to workshop space and fair planning rights to work at home; other ways of tweaking an economy to make sure that a list of good things happen like growth via innovation, employment... </li>
<li>trade directories that don't exist but that the government could inform from tax data, currently protected from freedom of information requests or government re-use by the revenue and customs act.</li>
<li>online markets cheaper than ebay's 10%. (This could be done by cajoling the current monopoly to present data standardised forms, including postcodes, so that small-ad gathering web sites could send customers to the more obscure small ad sites as well as to ebay.)</li>
<li>training for self employment and work skills, and </li>
<li>secured or well-judged credit (a tweak of the "British Investment Bank" desks at the Department for Business which lend a bit through P2P lenders to business)</li>
<li>customer appreciation of the benefits of UK-made products including their built-in taxes paid towards a welfare state</li>
<li>social insurance; fair tariffs against products from countries without social insurance costs (on a formula that would allow them to introduce social insurance and get cheaper tariffs).</li>
</ul>
One of the background, foundation courses that needs to be taught to anyone interested in macro-economics and politics is the structure of welfare states or social insurance systems round the world; which work best, and how they can cope if people move from the parish of their birth (as under the poor law system) or state of their birth more recently. This could be shared with a politics department in the same college, as the political items on the news are partly about how to cope with the problem, whether it is more percieved than real in causing unfair migration, and whether trade between non-welfare states and welfare states can be fair and free at the same time.<br />
<br />
Other problems could emerge from whatever students ask about, and could emerge from books by the likes of Robert Peston, Evan Davies, or Keele's own staff and ex staff. There's a temporary transcript of the <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html">1984 "British Economic Crisis" by Keele author Keith Smith here</a> - and probably on a wordpress.com site later. It reads like Robert Peston and describes the decades before. People are trying to write online textbooks to get-around the obstical of a brick-thick-tome that has to sell all-over the place. One book I haven't read is on <a href="https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/books/foundations-of-economics-a-beginners-companion/">https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/books/foundations-of-economics-a-beginners-companion/</a> </fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Back to teaching</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
These suggestions for teaching are nothing earth-shattering either. I'm not well-qualified to comment on what to teach as I'm not a student, teacher, or economist.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Keele in particular</span></h3>
... was about bottom for economics student satisfaction on unistats when I first wrote this in the mid 20-teens; <a href="https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?o=Student+Satisfaction&s=Economics">The Complete University Guide re-hash the data in a way that's easy to click</a>. <br />
<br />
Keele departments are exposed to bad feedback because they taught mainly joint-honours. Apparently 30% on a recent check, but 100% when I was there with a compulsory third subject in year one and foundation year for big chunk. So a subject like economics that gets bad reviews everywhere got worse reviews at Keele because students compare it to some other subject they chose for fun. If the trend at Keele is for more single subject economics students, and better feedback, it could be because the single subject people know nothing better and lack critical skills, so other improvements are worth a thought.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A way of checking this would be for someone good at maths to work-out which joint-honours subject combinations with economics give better feedback. My hunch is that traditionally-taught science courses, which teach theory first with plenty of algebra, go well with taditionally-taught economics which is the same. Leicester Uni has a BSc Economics course and a BA economics course. The BSc scored worse on 2015 Unistats quoted on my the <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">Star Courses</a> page.<br />
<br />
When Keele departments get bad feedback, they have another problem, which is generally high expectations of Keele. I think that might make the score worse than a student would give for the same course at at a college that they expect to be bad, to have low staff ratios, to teach something they don't want to know. If the course is half decent they are surprised. Meanwhile at Keele, people travel however-far to live on a campus for a couple of courses taking less than half their time, so students are bound to be a bit dissapointed with the courses. There are also low scores for Economics at the LSE, suggesting that the high expectations of specialist students tend to be dissapointed too. And Brunel, and Goldsmiths.<br />
<br />
Unistats also publish a graph. I don't know quite what it graphs, but down is bad. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQb_tzcMd5Xy_U-vbT21ltMttc3QrSMcQUu-BttL_HQIm5gW-Gv-jj6tHDvN9MxaNV_jZH7UIseoUsUtGve6_3hX3kn9JBzcV-B6D6mLqo6ieLjCXtS1O6Ansi5yPN05edk6bpTkCS4JJn/s1600/temp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQb_tzcMd5Xy_U-vbT21ltMttc3QrSMcQUu-BttL_HQIm5gW-Gv-jj6tHDvN9MxaNV_jZH7UIseoUsUtGve6_3hX3kn9JBzcV-B6D6mLqo6ieLjCXtS1O6Ansi5yPN05edk6bpTkCS4JJn/s400/temp.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
More noisy, detailed data is shown on Unistats:</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Search/SubjectList/052">https://unistats.ac.uk/Search/SubjectList/052</a> : Checking in early 2017, Keele Economics scores better than St Andrews (specially their MA course) and most of the Scottish colleges, with the LSE, Brunel and Goldsmiths scoring badly too, but the gist is still bad for Keele.<br />
<br />
College publicity often repeats Keele is number one for student satisfaction overall, and to hold-on to this boast the college needs to do something about economics. In 2008 they thought of closing the subject, but were talked out of it; it's hard to offer a lot of subject-mixing choices and not offer a popular subject. So something needs to be done even if the course is good; expectations need to be managed.<br />
<br />
A long post called <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">Boring Econimics is Interesting </a>shows that there was a good economics course at Keele till the 80s recession, when problem-solving workshops of six students to one teacher were cancelled and replaced by classes of 25 students noting conventional wisdom from someone standing at one end of the room. The idea of a problem-solving approach, in which theories are yanked-in to the course if they help solve a problem, is mentioned on the post-crash economics society's report about how to sort the subject out.<br />
<br />
It's possible to google the names of people working in this good department at the early 80s - they are mentioned in the preface of <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html">Kieth Smith's British Economic Crisis</a>. A bit of googling finds two of them now teaching at Imperial College and one at Birmingham Uni. These are the people to ask about how to restore a decent course at Keele. The Birmingham one even writes about economics teaching for a living.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://keithtribe.co.uk/teaching/">keithtribe.co.uk/teaching/</a><br />
<a href="https://independent.academia.edu/KeithTribe">https://independent.academia.edu/KeithTribe</a><br />
<a href="http://keithtribe.co.uk/">keithtribe.co.uk/</a><br />
<br />
The reason for asking ex-Keele teachers is that Keele teachers have the problem of condensing a course that's often taught over 90 weeks full-time into less than half of that. They face a broad intake of students, which is another problem for Economics courses where different students can have very different expectations I guess. <br />
<br />
Any teacher who has taught a popular joint-honours economics degree could have good ideas too. I think that any prospective economics student would be daft to do a single honours degree. There would be too much chance of getting frustrated, seeing only other frustrated students, and dropping out while the keen ones are the least imaginative. I think that courses where people end-up doing economics next to a whole range of things are most likely to bring common sense to the subject, but how, exactly, on a Monday morning with 12 or 24 bored 20-odds scowling at you? Maybe that's why a tutor from Keele got interested in teaching about the subject.<br />
<br />
I don't know if the page here relates to the white paper at all. This is more based on decades-old experience of being a student. I think it's better to make suggestions and show ignorance than to criticise without suggestions, so here goes.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Managing expectations; grouping people with the same expectations together</span> </h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I think a problem with economics courses is high and conflicting expectations.<br />
I remember that a problem on my course in all subjects (it was a subject-mixing college) was that the first bit repeated A level. <br />
<br />
This is known to teachers and students, but there is no strong incentive or easy solution for dealing with it. The long process of passing exams and getting course offers seems to be a rationing ritual which serves no other purpose: once you are at college, you start at the beginning of the subject again. I don't have a solution to this and so shall move-on to the next subject.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Where to teach</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I think holiday camps are a likely place, at least for courses about hospitality. Use them for teaching in winter and as holiday camps in summer. There's one holiday camp on the market to use all the year round <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2880461/Left-ruin-Haunting-images-abandoned-state-popular-Pontins-holiday-park-s-not-Blue-Coat-sight.html" rel="nofollow" title="Serelic Holiday Camp Photos">according to this</a>.<br />
<br />
The need to teach in a physical place suggests some interaction between people that would not happen on a distance learning course. Students comparing ideas. Lecturers adapting the course to students.<br />
<br />
From my experience of an under-funded 1980s course, this didn't happen on the course itself so the course could have been held anywhere, but being among students and near a library probably made it easier.<br />
<br />
Another factor is that a lot of 18 year-olds most likely want to stop living with their parents full-time. They want to meet other 18 year-olds. But if they go to Oxford Cambridge or London, with extreme housing costs, they will boomerang back to their parents' spare bedroom after the end of the course. I guess that housing costs are extreme, because they are high in these areas. The particular cost is the cost of accomodation that an ex student might want or get, compared to the wage available on a job that an ex-student might want or get. Something similar applies for people who want to work at universities.<br />
<br />
I have started a subject here without knowing where to finish it.and shall move-on to another point.</blockquote>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: red;">social insurance / social security / welfare state : passnotes</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
I think another problem with economics courses is their use of american syllabuses which leave-out social insurance, so I will explain social insurance for those who don't know about it.</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
<span style="color: red;">Why?</span><br />
Private payment plans exist for a lot of the things that the state provides - health care, school fees, pensions, and short-term loss of earnings - including the famous PPI scheme. <br />
Assuming these plans are as efficient as a state scheme, they have a problem: you can't afford them on a low-paid job. Put in another ways: people without these costs can under-cut you; employers can get cheaper people to do the same job.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">When?</span><br />
Parts of Germany had a compulsory insurance system for employed people from 1868. The UK and Ireland had compulsory membership of insurance schemes from the National Insurance Act of 1911 (the empire was not covered). India had a basic hospital insurance scheme for people in formal employment from 1948, just the minute Lord Mountbatten had resigned as govenor, and the UK nationalised its scheme that same year while adding a health service free a the point of use and a national assistance scheme to pay lower pensions or unemployment pay to the uninsured.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">How?</span><br />
Compulsory insurance does not have to be run by government, but public sector give cheap deal. Government is, generally, efficient at vast uniform simple activities, and saves the costs of advertising, admin, and assessment that make up a big chunk of private insurance costs. The brokers' fee for motor insurance used to be about 50% in the first year for example. There is also a lot of saving in hospital admission costs in the post 1948 NHS system: you just have to prove that you are sick to get admission, rather than remember your insurance details. The NHS is much cheaper than the US system of healthcare. I don't know figures for how cheap it is to another couple of universal benefits - pensions and family allowance - but I imagine it is practically free because a computer can do most of the work.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">What does "welfare" mean?</span><br />
Nothing. It is a slippery word. It slipped into the idea of a "welfare state" I think because the 1948 system paid staff to help the unemployed get interviews and nanny them about in a rather awkward way - quite different to the insurance-like gist of the thing. I think it's also a book-keeping heading for things like buying a tea urn at the works canteen. The idea of nationally-employed social workers didn't last long and they are now employed by councils for child protection. "Welfare" is also a word used by economists and politicians who want to say nothing while earning high salaries from our taxes. I dislike them. Other than association with the "Welfare State", the word has no purpose when talking about UK social insurance. People who use the word are bad people to teach economics in the UK, I think; universities who employ such people a bit iffy and a bit suspect and not the kind of place that students should choose to study if there is a choice. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">Is it any good?</span><br />
Yes: there are great side-effects. You do not have to pay for a parallel system to keep the old sick and young uninsured off the streets; the people born with learning difficulties or the people who have never earned enough to insure, nor to run another system again for people you think are feckless rather than unlucky, nor spend time agonising about the borderlines between sad bad & mad, or between drunk, dotty & desparado.<br />
<br />
If you consider health and education as insurance-like services, because they are used at parts of our life-cycles and not at others, then there are more good side effects. Mothers with access to secondary schools and health services tend to have fewer children and later in life. Parents who expect a basic pension and care in old age have less incentive to have a lot of children, which, in Bangladesh, it is common to do because you as a parent hope they will look after you in old-age. So a cycle of poverty and over-population tends not to happen when there is social insurance. Both China and Bangladeshi governments agree with this point of view. China has a "one child" policy and Bangladeshi government sends health advisors to go and persuade the poor to have smaller families, but neither yet has universal healthcare and pensions. I understand that the Bangladeshi system is like Victorian Britain: there are teaching hospitals with some state subsidy that keep bodies off the streets in the towns, and a referral system that tries to get fair access to them for people out of town. A good Victorian system to be proud of, but one that was improved-on decades and hundreds of years ago by better governments.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">Problem: cost of means testing or admin still exists for some benefits</span><br />
Costs mount-up again for means-tested benefits, for which you have to prove something like low income and affordable rent (for housing benefit) or unemployment and active seeking for work (for dole). <br />
<span style="color: red;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: red;">Problem: the state thinks the money is theres and runs the scheme like a charity</span><br />
Where the state nationalises the system as in the UK in 1948, it tends to regard the money as its own, paid straight out of the current account as a favour, and this idea creeps into the methods of administration and political decisions such as benefit sanctions or housing benefit cuts. When I was at college, Edwina Curry MP came to give a talk. She mentioned how hard she had worked to persuade the civil service to give up the notional "national insurnance fund" that still exisited at the time. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">Problem: the state doesn't plan ahead</span><br />
Private insurance and pension systems try to have an expert who guesses how long pensioners will live or how many accidents will happen. An absent-minded government can forget that and then leave MPs to say, with a straight face, that there is "a problem of an ageing population", as though they only discovered just recently that people get older. They can accept taxes or national insurance payments for years, and then decide they'd rather spend the money on The Olympics instead.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">Problem: structural imbalances</span><br />
Insurance can only be compulsory in one country. What if someone moves? What if someone works cheaply in Rana Plaza in order to sell cheap goods in Rochdale? Governments have not been good at solving this problem, mainly because they studied bad textbooks at college which don't mention social insurance. As a result we have a mixture of sweat-shop and non sweat-shop countries in the world, with most of the goods made in the sweatshops and poverty not always reducing in those countries. One brief attempt to build-in a "social clause" into tariffs, requiring something in return for low tariff access to trading blocks like the EU, was quickly shouted down by sweatshop governments. Attempts to defend trade and industry in states with social insurance, by building tariff barriers, are generally dismissed by economists as something that tabloid readers want and that government should not give-in to.<br />
<span style="color: red;"><br />
Oh I don't know lots of stuff</span><br />
I'm so ignorant I didn't know where experts on this subject write, but just now found an <a href="http://www.spicker.uk/">introduction to social policy by Paul Spicker</a> - a collection of open source textbooks and posts </fieldset>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">by the way - sites were people post stuff like this</span></h3>
<fieldset>
<a href="http://www.rethinkeconomics.org/" title="Rethinking Economics is an international network of students and citizens working together to transform economics education for the better.">Rethinkeconomics.org</a> tries to put ideas from sites like Manchester's Post Crash Economics Society on a non-geagraphic page and link to other similar. The good idea here of teaching from a problem to solve is pinched from Post Crash Economics. The <a href="http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/SBS-Economics-15.pdf" title="The revised Economics statement now explicitly acknowledges the importance of context in analysing economic phenomena and the importance of developing a critical approach. Other specific changes include contextual updates, increased emphasis on evidence, and new bullet points on historical and policy contexts.">Quango of Things has a cheat-sheets of what you are meant to discuss with an external reviewer if you want to run an economics degree</a>. I have condensed their benchmark standards into a short box at the end of this post, leaving-out their introductions. Another site that comes-up on occasionally is <a href="http://www.ecnmy.org/" title="Economy provides a new approach to economics, with news, opinion and resources that go behind the jargon and show where you fit in">www.ecnmy.org</a>. Three of them have Wordpress technology in common, allowing them to publish stuff that would once have been in a little-read and expensive journal. There's a lobby group with very fixed views about the need to subsidise firms like Monsoon, but it presents itself as an open forum. More about <a href="http://veganline.com/ethical-fashion-forum.htm" title="ethical fashion forum attracts people looking for internship jobs, sourcing, member organisations like Monsoon or People Tree, odd events called summits, and a view of ethical fashion that tends to emphasise environmental sustainability, like a product you can put in a compost bin">Ethical Fashion Forum here</a>.</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Expectation: information that is fit for purpose, accessible & trustworthy</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This could be the only subject where a quick email to the Quality Assurance Agency could get results, because facts might be clear-cut. The agency might agree that a syllabus or a course is so badly described that the description unfit for purpose, such as descriptions of the Barnsley Early Years course that's <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">about bottom on Unistats</a>. The agency might get the attention of people running the course in a way that a direct approach might not. The college managers might think a description of a "vibrant buzz" at a college and interview with a previous student is more important than a syllabus and notes of tutorial times, until they get questions from a government agency. London College of Fashion used to do a lot of that in prospectuses as well.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">There is also law.</span></h4>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_of_Goods_and_Services_Act_1982">The common law phrase of "merchantable quality" was included in the Sale of Goods Act, expanded to services & "reasonable expectations" by the 1982 Supply of Goods and Services Act</a>.It is now defined for services by the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/part/1/chapter/4/crossheading/what-statutory-rights-are-there-under-a-services-contract?view=plain">2015 Consumer Rights Act</a> .<br />
However often the law is re-written, it's still hard to define an education service so bad that students can get their money back, so they don't, but the act provides a few headings that could stop any institution being the first one to get sued:<br />
<a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/2015/ukpga_201515_en_1.html#section-49">#49</a> reasonable care & skill<br />
<a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/2015/ukpga_201515_en_1.html#section-50">#50</a> information to be binding<br />
<a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/2015/ukpga_201515_en_1.html#section-51">#51</a> reasonable price ... and no more<br />
<a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/2015/ukpga_201515_en_1.html#section-51">#51</a> in a reasonable time<br />
<br />
There is a danger of college managers thinking that this means a tightly-drawn syllabus. Teachers reading this ought to try to get a bit of flexibility written-in so that different groups who want different things can be taught differently; students join and study or participate. As groups they differ a lot in what they already know and what they'll do on the course. Even if the teacher is perfect in every way, the group of students might not be. They have to join each others' company in order to study.<br />
<br />
Talking of who gets on to the course, students on the more marginal courses will have wider ranges of reasons for applying, as there is less control by a college has on who faces them on the first day. This could make it a much better course, but there is a need for a skeleton structure, like a list of chaptors in textbook, and reasonable care and skill in using what students already know. The teaching on all courses - specially the well known full-time ones like the LSE - isn't likely to show reasonable care and skill in knowing what students already know.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.academia.edu/7264841/">academia.edu/7264841/</a> - <br />
The Economics Corriculum and the Anglo-Saxon Model - Kieth Tribe, 2014<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Students who have completed a two year A level in economics will have some initial advantage ...[that]... will not persist much beyond the first term. Hence students who have taken economics A level in school are deemed to have expressed an interest in economics, but not learned anything in two years that will help them beyond the first two weeks. [...]</i><br />
<br />
<i>Selective entry makes it possible to maintain [...] a routine, but attention can be drawn to the lack of connection between what pupils learn in school, and what their university teachers expect of them. The early specialisation typical of the A level curriculum, only three subjects being studied in the final year of school, is disregarded by university teachers, even though the subjects studied at A level have extended in imitation of a university curriculum, including business studies, psychology, sociology, dance, sports science, drama. Leading universities now routinely warn applicants that high grades in subjects such as these are not equivalent to high grades in the core subjects. But on the other hand, little effort is made to either build on what new students already know, or alternatively, seek to communicate to school teachers and school pupils to the school system what kind of competences are desirable for particular courses of study. Consequently, with the exception of requiring competence in mathematics, university economics teachers plan their work on the assumption that their new students know little of relevance.</i></blockquote>
<br />
It would be good it students could get a refund for behavior like this, but in practice I guess it takes extreme clear-cut cases like a college closing, before the remedies apply:<br />
<a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/2015/ukpga_201515_en_1.html#section-54">#54</a> refund and a general list<br />
<a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/2015/ukpga_201515_en_1.html#section-55">#55</a> repeat<br />
<a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/2015/ukpga_201515_en_1.html#section-56">#56</a> reduction in price<br />
<br />
Linked searches of <i>"Consumer Rights Act" university</i> are on <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?cr=countryUK%7CcountryGB&safe=off&biw=1280&bih=867&tbs=ctr%3AcountryUK%7CcountryGB&q=%22Consumer+Rights+Act%22+university&oq=%22Consumer+Rights+Act%22+university">Google</a> <a href="http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Consumer+Rights+Act%22+university">Bing</a> <a href="https://www.mojeek.co.uk/search?q=%22Consumer+Rights+Act%22+University">Mojeek</a> <br />
<br />
Some people on the net are more clear in explanation and informed about laws than me. <br />
There's a guide from Durham Uni that looks good and mentions other similar consumer laws. As taxpayers we've paid for a guide from the Competition and Markets Authority, which is on gov.uk<br />
<br />
The reason to quote law here is because I've copied an attempt at a consensus view from the Quality Assurance Agency, and it should be read alongside the law. A video of a previous student saying things like "you can do it", as at Blackburn in 2015, or a glossy prospectus about former students saying what a vibrant area the college is based-in, as at London College of Fashion's footwear department in the early teens, are asking for trouble.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><a href="http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-quality-code/quality-code-part-c">Higher education providers produce information for their intended audiences about the learning opportunities they offer that is fit for purpose, accessible and trustworthy</a>.</i> - Quality Assurance Agency Expectation C</blockquote>
If an external examiner wants to talk about this on a borderline case or just because all is going well and there's time to talk about systems, I suggest these ideas.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Surveys of what students want from a degree - maybe in retrospect or with a sense of what the college wants to teach added-in. Particularly important for economics with its conflicting expectations from different students. Also in over-subscribed colleges where more than enough applicants have very good A-level results; there ought to be some other way of finding which ones would enjoy the course or opt for it, given a good prospectus.<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Teaching staff able to describe their own course to applicants, and say what kinds of applicants have done well or enjoyed it. The role of central web PR or management staff ought to be to take-out vagaries and the over-statement, not to put them in, and their job descriptions job ads and responses to questions should reflect that.<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Shortlists of new staff chosen to match what students want to study. So if student applicants want tutorials with someone like Robert Peston and a chance to test theories on the computer, then you can rule-out most of the applicants. Someone who's main expertise is in another economy and talks about "welfare" in the american sense should not be shortlisted. Someone who does not do tutorials, like Fishman on another page, should not be shortlisted. Someone who was a mathematician and then diverted to teaching game theory as applied maths should not be shortlisted. <a href="http://theprofessorisin.com/2013/04/02/for-north-americans-the-peculiar-british-interview-process-a-guest-post/">For a page about the process see here</a>. <br />
<br />
I write without experience of teaching jobs or academia, but guess that something like this is done in colleges that do well. </li>
</ul>
Quality Assurance Agency expectations could be used as evidence if, in a rare and unusual situation, someone tried to sue for money back after disappointment. Generally people don't want to sue and the few who think about it find that reasonable expectations aren't clear in education: it's not like buying a faulty toaster. If they did find clear fault it would probably be at the most obviously failing college that did something like close before the end of the course, not a run-of-the-mill duff course that more-or-less gets to the end, but the principal of fairness ought to be the same either way when people think how to run courses. </div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Default settings. Quality Assurance Agency benchmarks: Red, amber & green</span></h3>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
1 <span style="color: red;">ignorance / </span><span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> & <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of economic concepts, principals & tools. <br />
2 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of distinctive economic theories, intepretations, modelling approaches & <span style="color: #38761d;">their competant use</span>. <br />
3 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span><span style="color: #b45f06;"> </span><span style="color: #b45f06;">/ awareness </span>& <span style="color: #38761d;">proficiency </span>in quantitative methods & computing techniques appropriate to their programme of study, <span style="color: #b45f06;">show an appreciation of the contexts in which these techniques and methods are relevant</span> & <span style="color: #38761d;">how to use them effectively across a range of problems</span>. <br />
4 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> & <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of sources and content of economic data & evidence, and <span style="color: #b45f06;">appreciate what </span>/ <span style="color: #38761d;">and of those</span> methods that might be appropriately applied to its analysis. <br />
5 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> & <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of how to apply economic reasoning to policy issues <span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">in a critical manner</span>. </span> <br />
6 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge awareness </span>& <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of historical, political, institutional international, social, and environmental contexts in which specific economic analysis is applied. <br />
7 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> in an appropriate number of specialised areas in economics as well as <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> or an <span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">appreciation of the research literature in these areas</span></span>. </span> <br />
8 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> <span style="color: #b45f06;">/ awareness</span> of & <span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #38761d;">familiarity</span> </span>with the possibility that many economic problems may admit of more than one approach. <br />
9 <span style="color: red;">familiarity and understanding</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">awareness of</span><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"> </span></span><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: black;">/</span> </span>ignorance</span> of the idea of compulsory insurance, often state-run, with its cheap-deal method of evening-out typical payments and benefits over a life cycle. This is the main work of most European governments, but has to be ignored in order to sell textbooks from Alabama to West Virginia. Completely misleading concepts like "transfer payments" or a slippery american word "welfare" must be used instead. Substitute red for green and vica versa if studying history or social policy. <span style="color: #b45f06;">Threshold level is amber</span>; <span style="color: #38761d;">typical level is green</span>. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/SBS-Economics-15.pdf"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Point 9 <span style="font-family: inherit;">is</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">not on the QAA site</span></span>.</a></span></span></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Talk about talk</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
A problem with organisations that separate the mangement role from the foreman or lead role is that the manager has to make-up another job to do, which is of course thought to be worth more in pay per hour than the usual job. So an organisation selling quango client services on a grant employs a manager who is not at all interested n clients, but very interested in getting grants or any darn thing to justify a well-paid job out of the staff room. I have put this in a rather cynical way.<br />
<br />
Anyway, cynical or not, there are different groups of people who study economics from the readers of newspapers to people who read money advice service web pages to A-level students to degree students.<br />
<br />
Without extra talk about talk, I think that first year degree students should get a chance to pass an A-level if they have not done so already, and do something more sensible if they have already got an economics A-level. Like pass a few tests, revise bits they got wrong, and have time for another short course with luck.<br />
<br />
There could be more that higher education teachers can contribute to the work of economics teachers at other levels, but as I write this I realise that it sounds like something the civil service is asked to do because of some mad minister that will never come to anything good, with the outcomes already known before anyone is consulted.</div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Courses at other colleges</span> </h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ checking the best places</h4>
Most teachers don't need to pinch ideas, but comparing notes as a way of keeping up to date with other syllabuses and book lists is a good thing. Colleges that run tutorials in areas where there have been financial crisis should be the ones to watch, if you want to pick up a good set of course notes. However put them together will have had to present them to seething students. Colleges that run "classes" or, worse, "recitations" are the ones to ignore or search for failed ideas. Google lists the places my ex-professor worked at UCLA and Colorado near the top of the bad list alongside Chicago, which says something about the Chicago school of economics. In the UK there is unistats data for colleges, based on the questions at the bottom of this page. Some of it is in a dense format that foundation economics students might work-out how to download and put into an open source spreadsheet. Some is search able straight from the web site menus including <i>"Staff are good at explaining things"</i>, <i>"Staff have made the subject interesting"</i>, <i>"Feedback on my work has helped me clarify things I did not understand"</i>, <i>"I have received sufficient advice and support with my studies"</i>. A few quick sorts of the data by those drop-down menu options should reveal which UK colleges run tutorials, and so are worth closer online search for good syllabuses and book lists. These might show how they get good scores. Someone could probably write a piece of software that says a book or a jargon phrase referenced on bad-scoring college web site should get negative points and a book or jargon phrase referenced on good-scoring college web sites should get positive points. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Getting new staff from the best places when comparing CVs</h4>
If new staff are asked for tutorial experience and asked about it at interviews, that can be a way of getting better staff because they will have learnt from the students.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ knowledge understanding<span style="color: purple;"></span> and awareness of historical, political, institutional international, social, and environmental <b>contexts</b> in which specific economic analysis is applied</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economics-teaching.html">I have another post about a Professor Les Fishman who was sacked from UCLA California for failing to swear a loyalty oath, then called before a Senate Committee when working at Boulder Colorado after some anti-Vietnam protests</a>. The Senate Committee were interested in communist conspiracies. The students were interested in a military industrial complex I found out more about him from someone who did American Studies in the department next door than from signing-up to his Economics degree course. The economics degree course I studied was taught in a farcical way, like this american one.</div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160210170800/http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/christian.dippel/Dippel_MGMT405_2013_Syllabus.pdf"> Syllabus.pdf</a></span></span></h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It's hard to see why anyone would sign-up to such a course except to avoid the draft to go and get killed in Vietnam, but that is something the courses and their supporting journals do not mention. Take <i>Econometrica</i> on Google Scholar, and search for <i>"military industrial complex"</i>. There is only one reference. <i>American Economic Review</i> has 15. There are over 100 Vietnam war songs listed on a page of Wikipedia. From that ratio I conclude that <i>Econometrica</i> and <i>American Economic Review</i> are not good places to go looking for wisdom, although further funding is required for a more statistically clear report because many of the anti war songs may not have included <i>"military industrial complex"</i> in the lyrics, but that should be weighted against the difficulty of rhyming and fitting into short emotive lines.</div>
<a href="http://hetecon.net/division.php?page=resources&side=research_assessment"> Someone here at the Association of Heterodox Economics understands more than I do</a> about journal rankings from the Association of Business Schools and the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120324101615/http://www.keele.ac.uk/cer/documents/KeeleEconJournalRanks442.pdf">Keele List</a>, which are a kind of top of the pops for journal articles in the eyes of people who award research funding. Someone who gets published in these journals would therefore be more of an asset to the department than a good teacher who does tutorials and learns from students, because the first one is more likely to attract research funding. Even someone like the teacher who published <i>"<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0140225021/ref=acr_search_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=five_star&showViewpoints=0">The British Economic Crisis</a>"</i> with Penguin while working at Keele, or Robert Peston with his books about banks. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The irony of this, given the history of the discipline, is clear. One can imagine Adam Smith’s head of department at Glasgow informing him that<i> An Inquiry into the Nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations</i> is all very well, but books don’t count. Keynes, likewise, may have been told that Cambridge were including his journal articles in the submission, but<i> The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money</i> would not be entered because it wasn’t bite-size enough."</blockquote>
You can tell I don't understand very much about this. Why should economic research be expensive? Why don't students help with it as part of their course? Isn't £9,000 a year from the Student Loans Company enough to educate a student without further grants? Lastly, if you happen to be a bigwig in the Department for Economics and Management Science at Keele University, why not tweak the list? It could include any books published with reasonable reviews or sales. There is also the option of investing a bit of cash in a trust fund, lent-out on P2P lending sites, that in a few decades could be used to fund research privately and save the trouble of asking for state funding. It could be a trust fund controlled by the Association of Heterodox Economics. The first £100 could come from the Fishman Bursary. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Cosmopolitan good? <br />
This overlaps with other paragraphs here about subject-mixing </h4>
Some of the overseas students at Keele from places like Malaysia were so polite that some of them who could afford cars bought UK-made cars in order to fit-in. Another one was keen to say that his parents were middle-class; they weren't oligarchs. The reason for putting a question mark after "good" is that a cut-down economics course, taught in ever-shorter modules and more varied course formats will stretch two things. It will stretch the social skills of students to get to know one or two other students, and it will stretch their ability to learn the peculiarities of any economy - let alone the one where the student will graduate. Economic history, I think, is as much a marmite subject as algebra and although I like it, I can't imagine a college getting a quorum together if a lot of the other students are from other economies. Even if enough students do sit in the same room, it's hard to callibrate the self censorship that makes anyone politely hold-back about polarising subjects, like whether the Co-Op is worth calling a co-op compared to John Lewis, whether trades unions really represent their members, whether benefits are good, ministries competant, and so-on. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i> She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College, that's where I caught her eye... - <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pulp/commonpeople.html">Pulp</a></i></blockquote>
Topics like social insurance are likely to be lopped-off the course, even though social insurance is the main thing that european govenments do. If the subject is taught, it's likely to be a badly-attended option because if I come from the UK and study in Greece, I won't want to learn about Greek social insurance systems am I? History of recessions is likely be lopped-off for the same reason. Why would I want to learn about the failures of Greek olive harvests and pecularities of an economy when not democratic in the 1950s, or about the tourist and shipping booms, if I come from the UK? The quality of representation by trades unions of their members is not a polite thing to mention; it's a bit controversial, so that will definately be lopped-off as will the economics of individual wage bargainers compared to the economics of unionised wage bargainers. To put it another way, these things would be good to be part of the rest of a students' education but can't be part of a degree studied as a module in one country and 2½ modules in another, not necessarilly learned just by talking to other students. The teaching itself is likely to become a bit like the mid-atlantic music that used to be played on Radio 1 in the Saville and Blackburn years and hated by students. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Other situations exist. The 1960s and 1970s students from Oregon who got points towards their degrees by going with American Heritage to live with an English family might have had much more constrained backgrounds. I don't know if they had to write an essay about the eccentric hosts and the stange silent Eejut-boy from boarding school who sat round family meals in the school holidays as I grew up. I know that one of them was a potential nun who asked "what country is it on the other side of the Thames?" and another - Big David who's dad was a motor trader said "back in the states they would have knocked that down ten years ago" about old buildings. I think that was a joke about himself - it was hard to tell. And another bunch had an accoustic guitar and sang "Puff The Magic Dragon" on the lawn to children, so they taught something too. I think those were situations that existed for students when cheap air travel was new, and how came from a place in the middle of a lot of similar places; they could travel in the US but not learn so much. Now that more people travel around in Europe, it's easier to get a tourist guide to another city, even without paying to live with a family and writing an essay about it; there is less need to travel as part of a degree course now and more need to learn about the system where you live.</blockquote>
I suspect a problem when Oxbridge graduates do short well-funded postgraduate courses in the USA and then drift back - something which at least three recent MPs have done and probably many more. George Osborne "attended" an economics post-graduate course in the states and then drifted back, probably more educated but none the wiser. He had the sense to admit that he just "attended", but others have had the same problem finding out whether the exam is worth taking or they are able to pass it; expectations are so different from course to course and place to place. Ian Duncan Smith pretended to have passed his Italian degree, and the Ethical Fashion Forum person I mentioned earlier did study something at St Martins College, just like the Pulp lyric. Same point from a staff angle <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Keele Management School is seeking [sic] to appoint an outstanding academic at Senior Lecturer level specialising in the area of Economics. The successful applicant will already have a national or international research profile, have contributed to curriculum development and teaching in the subject area and will demonstrate a proven ability to attract external research funding and of providing academic leadership and management. </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> The Management School has been identified as a strategically important area of development within the University and the successful candidate will have a significant opportunity to help shape this development. The individual appointed will play an active role in the School's research, teaching and enterprise activities and will contribute to the continuing development of the School profile at home and overseas. They will contribute leadership by undertaking research of national and international quality, contributing to the development and delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and will engage with the School's internationalisation and enterprise engagement agendas. </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> We encourage applications in all areas of economics but are particularly interested to hear from candidates with strengths in the areas of Macroeconomics and/or International Money and Finance. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;">This rules-out a candidate who wants to teach that the EU, as a trading bloc with a lot of social insurance schemes in member countries, needs tariffs to up the price of imports from countries without a social insurance scheme. An applicant for the economics teaching job would be thought difficult to combine with the college's aim of attracting international students, attract research funding from the powers that exist, and if you want to read the cringeingly embarassing blairite bit <i>"engage with the School's internationalisation and enterprise engagement agendas"</i>. Put another way: as a UK taxpayer you are paying for colleges like this one at Keele to preach a form of economics against your own interests. If you believe that social insurance or a welfare state or some-such is good for the people of the world - as I think most people in the UK do - then you pay tax to preachers who are not good for the people of the world.</span><br />
<blockquote>
"Economics as it is taught currently is disconnected from real-world events and policies. In many departments, much of the curricula in the last few decades have slowly lost all mention of contemporary events or facts. This means that students are not being equipped to engage in real-world debates. We believe economics graduates should be prepared to consider and react to the economic problems that the world faces, because societies are shaped by economic events and policies, which are in turn shaped by people’s understandings of economics." - <a href="http://www.rethinkeconomics.org/news/2014/04/manifesto-a-direction-for-the-reform-of-economics-education/">http://www.rethinkeconomics.org/news/2014/04/manifesto-a-direction-for-the-reform-of-economics-education/</a></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"> Expectation of value for money, and others not mentioned by the quango</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Good to offer courses which are more-or-less free to run, as long as they are more-or-less free to take.</h4>
An online foundation year in economics with cheap guidance to pass online tests would be a good alternative to A-level grades as a way of choosing people to allow to study face-to-face. I am not sure how to make a soft return work on this software today, and so shall add a separate point to the same paragraph. Young students on campuses can do freelance work. Not easily, but with the help of a specially set-up business they might do shifts on stalls or piles of book-keeping. The book-keeping system would be for a qualified, well-proved person to check the work and for students to do it. Initially, firms of accountants might find the book-keeping work but soon a college could offer the package under its own name. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Good to give parts of the course for free.</h4>
A college in a town could offer free lectures to anyone who turned-up. So a potential economics student could sample some or all of last year's lectures and maybe do a DIY stats course before trying to join the college, getting accepted and paying the fee via the Student Loan Co. <b><br />
<br />
♦ It would be good if more colleges published degree passes online.</b> Without any need to write-in with a signed letter to get a claim of a degree confirmed. That would reduce the share of jobs that go to fake graduates like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Duncan_Smith#Controversy_over_qualifications" target="_blank">Ian Duncan Smith</a>; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camila_Batmanghelidjh#Early_life">Camila Batmanghelidjh</a> who's degree was in drama, and the person who set-up <a href="http://veganline.com/fair-fashion.htm"><b>Ethical Fashion Forum</b>, the free-trade lobby group</a>. (The Ethical Fashion Forum person has a degree in development practise awarded largely for her work trying to set-up Ethical Fashion Forum and a thesis, but made-up her architecture degree, architecture career, and dress import company called <i>Juste</i>.) A public register would increase job prospects for honest people, and make degree courses better value for money financially. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ The Keele list: noting and contributing to cheap journals</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Cheap journals are a problem. Few if any are free, so there is a cost to students via the library to subscribe. This is backed-up by a document called the Keele List. It would be good if academic employers noted contributions to cheap journals when hiring for jobs. It would be good if staff were encouraged to re-write articles from the most expensive journals into some free wordpress-based thing, so save college libraries having to subscribe to the expensive journal. It would be good if organisations like the Royal Economic Society used their own web sites to publish articles instead of commercial publishers like Wiley or Elsevier. The technology already exists on their web site - <a href="http://www.res.org.uk/view/economicCurrentIssue.html">http://www.res.org.uk/view/economicCurrentIssue.html</a> - but they use it to divert readers to a subscription service at Wiley. It could be good if new papers were published in some peer-reviewed wordpress blogs. I don't recommend blogspot and publish here by mistake, but xyz.wordpress.com is free, while Wordpress on a free server costs only the price of a domain name. A stickler for publisher's rights might say that the price paid to journals helps publishers keep-up the quality of contributions. My mum was secretary to the person under the person under Robert Maxwell at Pergamon Press, now Elsevier, that published new 1950s things like Journal of Transport Research and so <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economics-teaching.html">Professor Fishman and J Stewart Wabe</a>'s rather good article on car clubs. My mother didn't think much of Maxwell as an employer, and refugee employees got far worse working conditions than UK-borne ones. Maxwell only got the complete ownershop by tricking and bullying his partner out of the role, and continued into newspaper ownership in the same way. Although my mother worked for Maxwell, I don't think she'd miss his successor's right to subscription fees from university libraries; I think she'd quite like them to break free.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Shorter courses in economics can include a history of the subject as free video</h4>
It would be easy to offer a video list as well as a book list and a lecture list to students, with little pressure to study in depth or pass anything. The purpose would be to teach the history of a subject as background. The history of statistics could help students get the hang of how their stats manual comes to be, other than the obvious purpose of helping solve useful stats problems. The history of economics could help students get the hang of how their economics comes to be, other than the obvious purpose of being worse than useless.</div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"> Expectations are hard to manage among economics students</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq ">
</blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ The quango suggests some student expectations</h4>
Expectation B could well be the same as benchmark standards specific to each subject, with the ones for economics is at the bottom of this page. The idea of an expectation for each subject has a down-side, which is that most courses follow it. I imagine that if a course wanted to offer something else it would be legal if well-described to applicants and anyone who asked, but am not too sure. My course was much shorter than most in the 80s, and spent most of its time on the theoretical parts of the first two or three points, or B-expectations, or benchmarks. 1) concepts, principals & tools 2) distinctive economic theories, interpretations, modelling approaches 3) how to use how to use quantitative methods effectively across a range of problems These were taught to the "threshold level", rather than to the point that they could used, and anything extra was squeezed-in to the course at a kind of minimal level to scrape-past external examinors' reviews. Now that more economics courses are short, there's more need to teach the application of theory at the same time as teaching the theory in order to avoid making the same mistake. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Economics students' own expectations are very tricky to manage</h4>
When I did an English half-degree, I didn't have expectations. I didn't so much care that it covered Victorian poetry that doesn't exist, or Milton who is just bad in every way, and other old fiction. I hadn't done English before and just thought it was funny to be allowed to play and get life experience and that was it. It worked by teaching from an original source, and then finding something to say about it rather than listing some theories in case one day in life they allow you to have something to day, as Economics was taught. When I did the other half of my joint degree in Economics, I was taught a lot of old fiction on my economics course and I notice. Economics suffers from expectations.. There's a comparison to hospital complaints that says the same thing. Apparently the maternity ward gets the most complaints because the expectant have something clear in their minds when they arrive. If you give them a three-legged dog or a cat or the slightest little thing they get tetchy and they complain or they sue or make a fuss. I suppose it's the same with serious courses for jobs or for understanding how the economy works, except that economics students might expect quite opposite things to each other. Some want to be seconded from a career in order to learn obvious stuff faster and prove they know it. A sub-group take the same course in vein hope of a career. A third group want life experience and to sort the world out. As a note in the student halls of residents said - <i>"Conference delegates and students are notoriously bad mixers".</i> <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ I don't know how to match a good syllabus to informed demand.</h4>
If economics students all wanted the same boring thing, they might give the same reviews as people on courses for pharmacy or surveying or accountancy. Students of subjects I'd expect to be boring seem to know what to expect as well; they suffer quietly. I think that a college manager, seeing bad reviews, should do one or two things. The first and most obvious is to expand popular courses and contract unpopular ones, slowly to avoid redundancy costs. This might be balanced against some greater good like wanting to teach useful subjects, but otherwise the market could decide. The second is also obvious but worth saying in case one person says it differently to another. It is to put time and thought into describing what badly-reviewed courses can do for the next generation of students and what they can't do. Students reviewers should be as careful when reviewing courses and probably harder on the bad ones. Maybe there ought to be separate streams of study for the students who want separate things as well. I saw a comment on The Student Room like <i>"why do you want to study macro-economics when it's so hard to prove anything?"</i>. As a student I was opposite; I couldn't see the point of studying how to run a stall in place of, maybe, running a stall. (If the course had included time spent running a stall in a market I might have been more interested: I think fashion courses ought to include that, and a chance to do freelance work as part of a practical course could have made it worthwhile.) One syllabus at SOAS quoted a <i>"course outcome"</i>, which was that students should be able to state the application of its statistics course to real situations. In other words, it's the students' job to think of a use for this stuff. Sir Humphrey would be proud, but there's a better way of doing it. Solve problems statistics as a way of teaching it, and good reviews will follow. If theories and maths don't come-up as ways of solving problems, they don't need to be on the course.</div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Trying to manage expectations among economics students</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Good to have some kind of feedback form for students to comment on job ads for new staff</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This could be organised without the college's permission, by a student society or a group like rethinking economics, on a wiki. I hope that students would comment on the advert above and ask: how is it relevant to what I want to study? Quite likely, students would not have much to say, but if feedback helped match staff skills to student hopes, that would be good.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Good to use external course reviewers who do not teach economics, but a more trusted and satisfying subject like English or History or Engineering</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Otherwise there's a risk of one disappointing economist signing-off another disappointing economist's course, as happened at <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economics-teaching.html">Keele from 1969-1987</a>. For example signing-off a course that doesn't offer tutorials, or a course where students cannot assume sincerity in the theories given because officially they are "models"; a course where it's admitted that teachers teach theories they know to be untrue, without due health warnings and explanation. Examples are <br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>the need to close UK factories with monetary policy in order to reduce inflation (it works by subsidising cheap imports), or </li>
<li>ignoring the benefits of social insurance and human rights when setting tariffs between Europe and Bangladesh or China. </li>
</ul>
Both topics are taught in a way that I think reflects lobbying of grandiose teachers by even grander lobbyists, probably in the USA where some senior economics teachers <a href="http://www.wsj.com/public/article/SB117426729190341036-uV848VEWNL_0FjfAvuWltVqY5K8_20070327.html">make more of their money by consultancy than by lecturing students</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/jun/30/uk-universities-better-education-dont-be-seduced-by-us">don't even bother with tutorials</a>. In a sentence, the consensus is set by the wrong people. In mundane reality, textbooks have to sell in West Virginia. The country with a lot of econonomics taboos is also the country with a lot of students on minor or introductory courses who particularly want the 500 page textbook, officially published for students worldwide but particularly published for those annoying rednecks in West Virginia who won't tolerate a textook with a chapter on social insurance. Unistats shows that economics is more disappointing than other technical or social science subjects. </div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Better economics teaching: teaching everything at once in a way yet to be invented</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Learning without doing is a problem at colleges.</h4>
If students were to learn about some theory or other from selling on eBay, or attempting low-budget arbitrage on financial markets, or analysing real firms that ask for <a href="http://www.p2pmoney.co.uk/compare/" target="_blank">P2P loans</a>, then there would be real life to go with the theory. A course could be advertised as based on whatever the open university uses, but with a good chance of using real data as well if staff are available. Since I wrote that I discovered that someone else has had the same idea. Q-step is the search term. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Starting with problems to solve is good</h4>
Students with different expectations separate themselves according to the problems they want to solve - whether "unemployment" or "selling golf tickets". Also, students learn two things at once; they learn the problem and the attempted solution. The Open University programs The Catch and London's Markets are rather long for someone who just wants to tick-off the microeconomics part of their course, but they do cover loads of random information about the fish industry which is worth watching for that alone. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Picking theories to solve a problem is good</h4>
Theories with little use are then left at the back of the theory box. Unexpected theories are invented or dredged-up from other parts of life. For example, if the problem is inflation, then better markets that help people find cheaper suppliers could be an answer. Now that global transport is so good, inflation isn't so much of a problem but the taxing of multinational companies becomes a problem instead. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Research is considered a Good Thing by outsiders. I don't see why college students don't do the research, rather than their teachers trying to do it in the lunch break.</h4>
Or do it together with students, at least. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ I re-named this box to "teaching everything at once in a way yet to be invented", because that's what it suggests, but perhaps people who know more about teaching can tell whether it makes sense.</h4>
</div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Hope: dealing with the algebra thing</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Hard sciences are hard because of the way they're taught.</h4>
</div>
They have the same problem as economics. They are loosing student numbers. They are taught, I guess from reviews, in the same way. There ought to be conversion courses for people who have only ever taught by lecturing about algebra to see what other departments do and give the techniques a try. Maybe the more obscure and smaller colleges should pay their staff for time spent studying second or third undergraduate degrees, just to learn how other subjects work. Maybe there is something relevant in the Nuffield Foundation's <a href="http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/support-programme-0">Q-step</a> program, after their rather wonderful Nuffield Physics A-level course proved to me years ago that you don't need very complex maths to understand things; you can discover a lot just by looking at the objects. <br />
<br />
I don't know if their A-level stats material is any better than anybody else's, but <a href="http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/fsmqs/level-3-data-analysis">here is the link just in case</a>. There is an opposite point of view which I don't understand but quote anyway. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/04/economics.alevels">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/04/economics.alevels</a> <br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
I don't understand why it takes complex maths to know why a teapot factory closes. If it did require complex maths, I doubt the data is available; national data is rather aggregated. It doesn't tell you who makes teapots and who makes coffee pots - just some grant heading like "manufacturing".</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Stop teaching pure mathematics</h4>
The course at Leicester Uni that has more statistics in it gets worse reviews than the one with more applications. This could be because people who like pure maths get to study it and then go-on to teach statistics, to people who don't like pure maths. If lots of colleges teach a useless subject, there will be a glut of graduates in that subject and they will find ways of teaching other subjects, just as latin graduates were one common as UK school teachers. If the supply of pure maths graduates was reduced, that could be a good thing. It could force non mathematicians to fill any necessary gaps. I am sure they would do a less nerdy job, because I think maths is more of a mental condition than a science. I am sure they would do a job more understandable for students; the origin of a technique in engineering or surveying or whatever applied field would be more obvious. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Start using paragraphs and prose</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
For some reason, economics teachers think that students would have trouble reading Keynes. I haven't yet tried it but the preface is OK. I do know that more and more people read stuff online and more and more people mix-up subjects, so the chances are that someone thought not to be able to read Keynes on their economics course is reading some obtuse book for another course at the same time in the same college.</div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Hope: information that is more than just fit for purpose</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Good to warn if a course copes with proper controversy and problem solving.</h4>
This is the BBC programme <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p03gk743/greece-with-simon-reeve-episode-1">Greece with Simon Reeve</a>: <i>"with youth unemployment over 50% it's no surprise that so many of the young are angry at everything they associate with the establishment who they think have messed-up Greece".</i> This is a problem for teachers. One year they're teaching students who do an Economics Joint Honours degree because they think it goes well with Golf Studies. Or want to know financial markets so well they can make a living on arbitrage. The next year there's a financial crisis and people want to know why factories are closing and taxes aren't being paid. On top of that there are fewer students. Swansea Uni has lost a lot of applicants recently. Those cross ones that turn-up are also more worried about living costs and finding work after graduating. When I studied there were maintenance grants that allowed more people to study, so more of the cross ones got a chance. At least Greek economists are aware of the situation and one tried being Prime Minister. My course in the same situation in 1980s Britain was taught by a man unaware of the problem. When asked why the latest factory had closed he just tried to think of a micro-economic answer and then said <i>"I don't know"</i>. There was pretend controversy like Punch and Judy. One of the textbooks said so in the title. It was called <i>"Macro-economics An introduction to Keynesian-Neoclassical controversies"</i>, but that's different to the controversy outside the window of 4 million people unemployed and a fifth of manufacturing already closed by one daft policy which a student reasonably expects to talk about. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Good to separate economics from management schools</h4>
When economics started, with its grand 1950s Macro theories, it was a replacement to the quaint little old subject of Business Administration which can't easily be scrubbed-up to look like a degree for undergraduates. People were sent on the course by their employers, along with touch-typing and shorthand, and that's still how management schools should be used; to put "business" in the title of a university department doesn't make sense. Graduate prospects prove the point. If you are not an employee, and want to study business, you would do better with a stall and a web site and some P2P lending investments, then to do a short course while you are trading. If you are not an employee or a stallholder, you end-up on the dole as a business graduate. I exaggerate a bit - I'm thinking of <a href="https://www.uel.ac.uk/Undergraduate/Courses/BA-Hons-Hospitality-Management">University of East London's hospitality degree</a> - but the same is partly true of a lot of people who graduate in management. They're a different bunch to the people who study economics alongside politics or something else, and could maybe find a trade at the end of it all with a bit of help. <br />
<br />
<b>♦ Good to offer an A level course for people who haven't done it before</b><br />
The syllabuses will be on web sites linked from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examination_boards_in_the_United_Kingdom">Wikipedia on A-levels</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_secondary_school_leaving_qualifications">similar</a> <br />
That way, students who haven't done the first year of the course before will get a certificate for it, and students who have done the first year before will know that this is a bad idea. They'll either not come on the course or they'll ask for a separate teaching stream that's just a quick revision. <br />
<br />
♦ <b>Good to offer a course for A-level economists without maths</b><br />
<i>"The aim is to introduce Economics in the analytical manner commonly adopted at University level. (Students should be aware that it is now accepted wisdom that those with A level Economics do less well in Economics degree results than those without A level Economics.)" - Keele Economics prospectus, 1996 describing the economics introductory course. </i>I don't believe that university teaching is more analytical; I think it just has more twiddly bits added to the standard theories, if I judge from student feedback online and my own Keele study, ten years earlier. If university teaching were more based on facts, then it would be more analytical, but I don't remember many clear facts used and the international nature of university economics teaching can make a lot of the teachers and texts more ignorant of the UK economy than a typical A-level class.<br />
<br />
Rather than more analytical, I remember the maths component being worse edited.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Here is an example from <i><u>Economics, British Edition</u>, Begg, 1984, p439:</i><br />
Retail price indexes are shown in a table as 237.7 for 1981; 218.9 in 1982.<br />
<i>"The annual inflation rate is simply the percentage increase in the RPI over the corresponding figure one year earlier. Thus in 1982 the 8.6 per cent inflation rate is calculated from </i><br />
<br />
<i>100% × (237.7 - 218.9) / 218.9 = 8.6%"</i><br />
<br />
Here is a less twiddley way of saying it: 237.7 / 218.9 is 1.085; 108.6% higher, showing an annual inflation rate of 8.6%.</blockquote>
<b>♦ Good to say the reasons a course is hard to teach. </b><br />
<br />
Where a college currently states "buzz" and "vibrant" as characteristics, in the softer part of their descriptions, they could include a video interview with the department boss saying what the course is good for and who has been disappointed in the past. For example I read that people with economics A level are particularly disappointed with economics degrees and do worse at them. That's weird. It would be a good thing to mention in a few paragraphs of prose or a video. Peer-review teachers from other colleges should ask for this too. For example they should ask Keele Economics teachers could say something about how their short courses compare with economics as part of PPE, and demonstrate that they are aware of how other teachers cope, and how a course suits some kinds of students better than others. I don't know if Keele offers more chopped-up courses than other colleges now, but it did when I was there in the 80s so I pick that example. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Maybe award points on top of the standard UCAS score for subject mixers</h4>
The idea of a specialist who has done three social sciences at A-level at an academic school, does a full-time degree in the one subject of economics, and then perhaps does a post-graduate qualification is good. There's nothing wrong with it. A note saying that subject-mixers are given slightly better offers on a college web site could help applicants, if it also helps teachers and students on the course. Meanwhile, shrinking colleges have to think which exam-flunking students to accept from the UCAS clearing system. If a course suits subject-mixers, who have more trouble getting good grades, then maybe a college offering that couse should consider lower scores from subject mixers. If I remember the system from school, the best grades went to people who did double maths and traditional physics for three A-levels, the next best went to people who did all essay-based or all science-based subjects, next came subject-mixers, and then came people who got rather cross with life or school as teenagers which is common. These people would do worse at A-level than at mock A-level exams a year earlier. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Maybe design bits of courses for subject mixers</h4>
If you have enough students studying English and Economics, it would be good for them to have an option to write an economic analysis of a Jane Austin novel or a literary criticism of Paul Samuelson's 1948 textbook. If possible. I don't know if somone in an economics department could do a lecture to Eng. Lit students on economic history at the time of Jane Austin or Dickens. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Good to mention nuffield science subjects as a good grounding and make sure that it is, because it it should be.</h4>
Students who have done <a href="http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/education">Nuffield science subject</a>s know that algebra and shorthand is a way of showing-off and complicating, that distracts from the pattern. They expect to be told the reasons for things rather than a formula with <i>"Fred's Law"</i> written after it. This can only be good for an economics department. I suggest that college staff should sometimes try to keep-up with what Nuffield Foundation teaching is like, and what ex Nuffield A-level students think of their current economics course. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Extra boxes on feedback forms: do you know of other science courses that have influenced your verdict, such as types of A-level or other friends and family doing other economics courses?</h4>
It's already noted on some academic prospectuses that people who have done A-level Economics do less well than those who approach the subject fresh, which is odd. There's an example of an economics professor's own child failing an economics degree on another page here, which might be a lead for research too. Maybe there is some way of getting contact details for lots of economics undergraduates who have family members teaching the same subject, and to find out what they think and whether they passed the exam.<br />
<br />
<b>♦ Craft courses</b><br />
Grammer schools and universities were designed, I guess, to lift students out of practicality into the worlds of latin and algebra. As more universities and grammar schools sprang-up, the polytechnics joined-in too because these courses have a higher social status, are cheap to teach, and attract lots of applicants for teaching jobs as well as student places.<br />
<br />
Some craft courses like phychology can be interesting in themselves, but easily adapt to the trade of being a psychologist. If there is a good supply of psychologist courses, or people enjoyed the course as general education, that's good.<br />
<br />
Some craft courses like law lead to jobs that are over-applied for, so that students have to start at the beginning again as barely-paid or unpaid articled clerks in solicitors' offices just to get the work experience that employers want to go alongside a degree. The same is true, I guess, of journalism or fashion design. These are courses that should really only be taught to people on a sandwich scheme - combined study and work experience. One of the problems is that students are not helped to become self-employed or join new firms. There can be a shortage of cheap lawyers and a shortage of jobs for law graduates at the same time; colleges need to bridge the gap somehow by setting-up law firms with expert supervision, or training students in self-employment.<br />
<br />
Some craft courses like fashion manufacturing, scaffolding, plastering, or maybe shorthand, lead to jobs that you can get if there isn't a recession. Even in a recession, there is a chance of self-employment if you find some niche market like scaffolding for windmills (I guess) or some such. So there is scope to offer craft courses as minor subjects alongside economics, just to get people started in work when they graduate.</div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"> Trade qualifications and help with self-employment bundled with a degree course</span> </h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ I don't know if there are any trade qualifications that could be combined-into an economics degree.</h4>
<a href="http://www.bookkeepers.org.uk/">Bookkeepers.org.uk</a> show an Ex-MP trying to earn money from book-keeping so maybe students could do it. (The professor at Keele had worked as a docker and company finance manager in between teaching jobs, although you wouldn't guess it from meeting him.) It isn't a requirement to do book-keeping but it is a confidence-booster. Ulster University managed to get the first third of an accountancy trade qualification combined into their economics degree, but then left a lot of graduates reporting £14,000 a year salaries after graduation because the ulster economy had no need of so many trainee accountants to do the second and third parts of the training on the job at an existing firm. I don't know if there are similar certificates available for doing <a href="http://r4stats.com/articles/popularity/">commonly advertised jobs in software that economists might use</a>. For example, some freelancers' web sites have online certificates in using certain pieces of software. I left college during a recession and see that lots of people get some kind of job after graduation nowadays, but recessions come round again and McJobs are hard to escape. There are also courses like Hospitality and Tourism Studies at the University of East London that have strangely few employed graduates. My hunch is that students should learn a free or open source piece of software for any freelance work they do, and an in-demand one for getting advertised jobs, if that's different. And an NVQ in frying chips if that suits the course. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ In a college that does a lot of short courses as well as the main subject(s)</h4>
A course on autism from the Psychology and History departments would be good, for the benefit of science and social science students who should have it as a compulsory course. I don't know anything much about autism but feel clever for having written this here. The idea is that a lot of scientists like Turing and Newton have been a bit odd, and with the help of the college system of their times have done well, but maybe their oddness has effected the textbooks and teaching traditions over the years. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
♦ Better economics funding already exists if students give fair reviews</h4>
The student loan system and the national student survey are annoying. A grant for students to live on would be nice. Repeated reviewing is not nice. But there is some sense to idea of money following the student. I remember the system of most money following the organisation, and have worked in systems like that. Power follows the money down the funding chain, with the provider and customer fighting for bottom place on the chain. Machiavellian grandees discuss the funding body's latest policies in hushed tones. The current system allows most money to follow the student, so that popular courses - not just popular colleges - can expand, if they do it gradually without becoming unpopular. The courses like Glasgow Uni Economics that sit first year students in front of robotic computer programs for a year will get less applicants. Interesting courses like the one at Kingston will get more. As there are far more graduates than jobs requiring graduates, people will think: "If I'm not enjoying this and not getting a better career, why do it?". If students are absolutely fair in advising each next generation of students what to expect, then the worst courses will close and that will be a good thing. If courses are absolutely fair and detailed in saying what they offer, then fewer students will go on the wrong course and give bad reviews. Someone might even find a way of setting-up good degree courses from scratch for less money. All you need is ivy, somewhere to sit, and access to degree-awarding powers. I benefit from the grand distance of a blogger. I am sure things are not nearly as grand and clear as this in practise.<br />
<br />
A newspaper article about job prospects said that a degree from a Russell Group University would get you a job interview; a degree from University of Surrey will not, and to pretend so is to lie to course applicants, even (by implication) they have to go on a worse course to get the kudos. I think the example was law degrees and the kind of solicitors' firms that have stratospheric salaries for partners at the top with next to no pay for new recruits at the bottom. I have no idea what a Russell Group University is and don't want to know.<br />
<br />
Another example "Everyone came across as very smart and terribly eloquent – with a shared frame of reference that I just didn’t get. When I told my minister that I’d gone to Keele University, she responded sniffily, “That’s not on the list, is it?” I still don’t know what list she meant." - <a href="https://civilservice.blog.gov.uk/2016/08/09/are-there-any-senior-civil-servants-with-a-working-class-background/">quote from a civil servant</a><br />
<br />
The solution to this snobbery is for snobs to stop being snobs, but until that happens there is a next-best solution, which is for more people to become self-employed and set their own rules of snobbery if they ever become employers. This ought to be easy among professionals setting-up law firms. Slightly harder among manufacturers, but nonconformists did a good job helping the industrial revolution get going when they weren't allowed to go to Oxford and Cambridge; maybe non-snobs can do the same now.</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">The need not to teach things twice to the same students after A-level<br />
The possibility of cheap courses</span></h3>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
There are plenty of colleges with vice chancellors earning ten average wages, plus air fairs to liaise with other similar vice chancellors around the world. It would be nice if teachers and students could get together in some way that ♦ Got degrees for some of the students - maybe from a distance learning college ♦ Taught good things with small tutorials ♦ Met somewhere nice and comfy, near cheap places to stay, or near where applicants already live. Maybe in rooms above council libraries. Ivy would be nice. Big chairs. Good coffee. Wifi. A view out of the window. ♦ Had a workload compatible with living on a very low wage or working alongside ♦ Often lead to life experience outside of study for students who wanted it ♦ Might combine with some available job for people who wanted to work their passage ♦ Was recognised by the Student Loans Company, the UCAS clearning system, and Unistats. For example the worst-rated college on Unistats at Burnley is a place that coaches for degrees at Huddersfield University; it doesn't award degrees but it is part of the system that attracts students. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.keele.ac.uk/media/keeleuniversity/academicservices/library/specialcollections/libraryexhibition/022%20Short%20Loan%201986.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-left: auto; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.keele.ac.uk/media/keeleuniversity/academicservices/library/specialcollections/libraryexhibition/022%20Short%20Loan%201986.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nuffield Library, Keele University 1986. A standard looking desk for students to borrow dozens of copies of the same book for a short period, allowing a foundation year course to a large number of students to run without massive book-buying costs to them" border="0" height="240" src="https://www.keele.ac.uk/media/keeleuniversity/academicservices/library/specialcollections/libraryexhibition/022%20Short%20Loan%201986.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="right"><td class="tr-caption">Keele library kept dozens of copies of books in the short-term loan section, so that dozens of students on the same course could borrow at once. The section began with a grant from the Nuffield Foundation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
♦ Had a fund for buying second-hand text books and donating them to local libraries so that enough are available for everyone to borrow whatever's needed each week. This idea is in response to <a href="http://collegemisery.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/why-i-love-this-place.html">http://collegemisery.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/why-i-love-this-place.html</a> which suggests perception of high book costs by students, who don't have an income and don't choose the book list directly. <a href="http://saylor.org/">Saylor.org</a> is a good example for finding copywrite-free sources that are easy to find online, but they have trouble and state that most of their <a href="https://legacy.saylor.org/">https://legacy.saylor.org/</a> courses are cancelled for lack of copywrite-free sources. Second-hand printed copies are another way-around. (The college where I studied had a £20,000 grant from the Nuffield Foundation to run-short term library loans to people mainly on a foundation year. The system was staffed and stocked to lend-out 20 or 50 copies of the same book in the same week if planned in advance with teaching staff. Keele Foundation Year was an unusual scheme in the UK in the mid 1960s when the grant was given, so similar applications may not get the same response now, but I think it was money well-spent. The current web site even has a photo of the short term loan desk from 1986, when libraries looked pretty much as they did thirty years before or after). I don't think that any of these things requires a vice chancellor on ten average wages. The course would need to find a degree awarding body to co-operate and write a syllabus, or use an existing one. There is only one distance learning economics course listed on Unistats, which is the £5,000 Open University one, but there are plenty of part time ones which somebody keen could research further. Somehow, in my head, part-time and distance learning are connected. Anyway, sufficient demand could persuade these colleges to tweak their offer, and some UK colleges offer distance learning to people outside the UK so they might be persuadable. I have another post about unistats on the <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">Star Courses</a> page which shows whether any of these are notorious. <br />
<ol class="resultsList">
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007760PT-UBSECNMC_C/ReturnTo/Search">BSc (Hons) Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10007760PT-UBSECNMC_C/ReturnTo/" id="add10007760PT-UBSECNMC_C" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at Birkbeck, University of London "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at Birkbeck, University of London</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10007760/ReturnTo/Search">Birkbeck, University of London</a> <b>1 location:</b> Birkbeck College - Bloomsbury Campus </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007854PT-L100/ReturnTo/Search">BSc (Hons) Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10007854PT-L100/ReturnTo/" id="add10007854PT-L100" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at Cardiff Metropolitan University "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at Cardiff Metropolitan University</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time, Optional foundation year</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10007854/ReturnTo/Search">Cardiff Metropolitan University</a> <b>1 location:</b> Llandaff Campus </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007144PT-SD0408/ReturnTo/Search">BSc (Hons) Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10007144PT-SD0408/ReturnTo/" id="add10007144PT-SD0408" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at The University of East London "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at The University of East London</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time, Optional year abroad</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10007144/ReturnTo/Search">The University of East London</a> <b>1 location:</b> Stratford Campus </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007146PT-K0034/ReturnTo/Search">BSc (Hons) Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10007146PT-K0034/ReturnTo/" id="add10007146PT-K0034" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at University Of Greenwich "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at University Of Greenwich</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time, Optional sandwich year, Optional year abroad</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10007146/ReturnTo/Search">University Of Greenwich</a> <b>1 location:</b> Greenwich Campus </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007147PT-BSBEC-ECONOMICS/ReturnTo/Search">BA (Hons) Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10007147PT-BSBEC-ECONOMICS/ReturnTo/" id="add10007147PT-BSBEC-ECONOMICS" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at University Of Hertfordshire "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at University Of Hertfordshire</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time, Optional sandwich year, Optional year abroad</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10007147/ReturnTo/Search">University Of Hertfordshire</a> <b>1 location:</b> University Of Hertfordshire </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10003678PT-HBS2009HFECO/ReturnTo/Search">BSc (Hons) Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10003678PT-HBS2009HFECO/ReturnTo/" id="add10003678PT-HBS2009HFECO" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at Kingston University "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at Kingston University</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time, Optional year abroad</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10003678/ReturnTo/Search">Kingston University</a> <b>1 location:</b> Kingston University </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10004048PT-UDECNMIC/ReturnTo/Search">BSc (Hons) Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10004048PT-UDECNMIC/ReturnTo/" id="add10004048PT-UDECNMIC" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at London Metropolitan University "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at London Metropolitan University</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time, Optional sandwich year</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10004048/ReturnTo/Search">London Metropolitan University</a> <b>1 location:</b> Moorgate Site </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10004078PT-4421A/ReturnTo/Search">BSc (Hons) Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10004078PT-4421A/ReturnTo/" id="add10004078PT-4421A" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at London South Bank University "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Economics at London South Bank University</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time, Optional year abroad</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10004078/ReturnTo/Search">London South Bank University</a> <b>1 location:</b> Southwark Campus </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10000291PT-K00342/ReturnTo/Search">BSc (Hons) Business Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10000291PT-K00342/ReturnTo/" id="add10000291PT-K00342" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Business Economics at Anglia Ruskin University "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Business Economics at Anglia Ruskin University</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10000291/ReturnTo/Search">Anglia Ruskin University</a> <b>1 location:</b> Cambridge Campus </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007760PT-UBSFIECO_C/ReturnTo/Search">BSc (Hons) Financial Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10007760PT-UBSFIECO_C/ReturnTo/" id="add10007760PT-UBSFIECO_C" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Financial Economics at Birkbeck, University of London "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Financial Economics at Birkbeck, University of London</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10007760/ReturnTo/Search">Birkbeck, University of London</a> <b>1 location:</b> Birkbeck College - Bloomsbury Campus </div>
</li>
<li> <h2>
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007854PT-L101/ReturnTo/Search">BA (Hons) Business Economics</a></h2>
<a class="addShortlist" href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Shortlist/Add/10007854PT-L101/ReturnTo/" id="add10007854PT-L101" title="Compare stats with other courses by shortlisting Business Economics at Cardiff Metropolitan University "> Compare<span class="invisible"> stats with other courses by shortlisting Business Economics at Cardiff Metropolitan University</span> </a> <div class="institution-characteristics">
Part time, Optional foundation year</div>
<div class="insititutionName">
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Institutions/Details/10007854/ReturnTo/Search">Cardiff Metropolitan University</a> <b>1 location:</b> Llandaff Campus </div>
</li>
</ol>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Current National Student Survey questions,</span> including optional follow-up questions and extra questions for NHS students</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/Assets/Docs/Publications/nss-questionnaire.pdf">https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/Assets/Docs/Publications/nss-questionnaire.pdf</a></div>
<fieldset>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Main Questionnaire</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<input type="checkbox" />Definitely agree <input type="checkbox" />Mostly agree <input type="checkbox" />Neither agree nor disagree <input type="checkbox" />Mostly disagree <input type="checkbox" />Definitely disagree <input type="checkbox" />Not applicable <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
The teaching on my course</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
1. Staff are good at explaining things. 2. Staff have made the subject interesting. 3. Staff are enthusiastic about what they are teaching. 4. The course is intellectually stimulating.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Assessment and feedback</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
5. The criteria used in marking have been clear in advance. 6. Assessment arrangements and marking have been fair. 7. Feedback on my work has been prompt. 8. I have received detailed comments on my work. 9. Feedback on my work has helped me clarify things I did not understand.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Academic support</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
10. I have received sufficient advice and support with my studies. 11. I have been able to contact staff when I needed to. 12. Good advice was available when I needed to make study choices.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Organisation and management</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
13. The timetable works efficiently as far as my activities are concerned. 14. Any changes in the course or teaching have been communicated effectively. 15. The course is well organised and is running smoothly. <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Learning resources</h4>
16. The library resources and services are good enough for my needs. 17. I have been able to access general IT resources when I needed 18. I have been able to access specialised equipment, facilities, or rooms when I needed to.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Personal development</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
19. The course has helped me to present myself with confidence. 20. My communication skills have improved. 21. As a result of the course, I feel confident in tackling unfamiliar problems. 22. Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the course. Looking back on the experience, are there any particularly positive or negative aspects you would like to highlight? (Please use the boxes below.)</div>
<fieldset>
</fieldset>
<fieldset>
</fieldset>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
National Student Survey Bank of Questions (Optional)</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<input type="checkbox" />Definitely agree <input type="checkbox" />Mostly agree <input type="checkbox" />Neither agree nor disagree <input type="checkbox" />Mostly disagree <input type="checkbox" />Definitely disagree <input type="checkbox" />Not applicable</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B1. Careers</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As a result of my course, I believe that I have improved my career prospects Good advice is available for making career choices Good advice is available on further study opportunities N/A</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B2. Course Content and Structure</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
All of the compulsory modules are relevant to my course There is an appropriate range of options to choose from on my course The modules of my course form a coherent integrated whole</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B3. Work Placements</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Did your course involve any work placements? Yes (ask all questions in this section) No (skip this section) I received sufficient support and advice from my institution about the organisation of my placements My placements were valuable in helping my learning My placements have helped me to develop my skills in relation to my course My placements have helped me to develop my general life skills The taught part of my course was good preparation for my placements</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B4. Social Opportunities</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have had plenty of opportunities to interact socially with other students I am satisfied with the range of clubs and societies on offer I am satisfied with the range of entertainment and social events on offer</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B5. Course Delivery</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Learning materials made available on my course have enhanced my learning The range and balance of approaches to teaching has helped me to learn The delivery of my course has been stimulating My learning has benefited from modules that are informed by current research Practical activities on my course have helped me to learn</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B6. Feedback from Students</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have had adequate opportunities to provide feedback on all elements of my course My feedback on the course is listened to and valued It is clear to me how students comments on the course have been acted upon</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B7. The Physical Environment</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Security has been satisfactory when attending classes My institution provides an appropriate environment in which to learn</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B8. Welfare Resources and Facilities</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There is sufficient provision of welfare and student services to meet my needs. When needed, the information and advice offered by welfare and student services has been helpful</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B9. Workload</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The workload on my course is manageable This course does not apply unnecessary pressure on me as a student</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The volume of work on my course means I can always complete it to my satisfaction I am generally given enough time to understand the things I have to learn</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B10. Assessment</h4>
Teaching staff test what I have understood rather than what I have memorised Assessment methods employed in my course require an in-depth understanding of the course content <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B11. Learning Community</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I feel part of a group of students committed to learning I have been able to explore academic interests with other students I have learnt to explore ideas confidently within my course, I feel my suggestions and ideas are valued I feel part of an academic community in my college or university</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B12. Intellectual Motivation</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have found the course motivating. The course has stimulated my interest in the field of study The course has stimulated my enthusiasm for further learning</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
National Student Survey Questions for NHS-Funded Students only</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<input type="checkbox" />Definitely agree <input type="checkbox" />Mostly agree <input type="checkbox" />Neither agree nor disagree <input type="checkbox" />Mostly disagree <input type="checkbox" />Definitely disagree <input type="checkbox" />Not applicable</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
N3 Practise placements</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I received sufficient preparatory information prior to my placement(s) I was allocated placement(s) suitable for my course. I received appropriate supervision on placement(s) I was given opportunities to meet my required practise learning outcomes / competences. My contribution during placement(s) as part of the clinical team was value. My practise supervisor(s) understood how my placement(s)related to the broader requirements of my course. N/A</div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Other posts about economics teaching</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
Related: <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/bad-economics-courses-for-twenty-teens.html"><u>Bad Economics Teaching for the twenty-teens</u></a> from data on Unistats, 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economnics-teaching.html">Better Economics Teaching</a>: some off-the-cuff suggestions based on being a 1980s student <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html">The British Economic Crisis</a> - a similar book to Robert Peston written in the 80s - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">Star Courses</a>: the least satisfied, most bored and lowest paid UK graduates, written 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">Boring Economics Teaching is interesting</a>: how someone managed to teach economics from memories of an old textbook at the peak of the worst recession since the 1930s, and tried to cover-up for government causing the recession. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2012/10/leslie-fishman-writings.html">Journal Articles by Professor Les Fishman</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economics.html">unbelievable beliefs</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/02/1980s-recession.html">1980s recession explanations I wrot</a>e - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-search-for-one-click-install.html">UK unemployment 1980s from the Begg 1984 textbook</a></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
Related:<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/httpswwwgovukgovernmentconsultationspro.html">ukgovernmentconsultations - migration advisory committee call for evidence on the effect of international students</a><br />
International students' effect on providers in expensive areas who provide the worst courses<br />
<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2018/01/international-student-course.html">International Student Course Satisfaction</a><br />
Table of feedback scores for the economics degrees for the universities that take most international students. Most of the courses are at the bottom of the league table for student feedback</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<a href="http://veganline.com/" title="vegan shoes boots belts and jackets">The author sells vegan shoes online at Veganline.com</a></div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-79717902616678212082016-01-04T19:23:00.003+00:002018-10-21T10:23:04.884+01:00no such thing as a free phone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Introduction: <br />
I don't know how to get a landline number for free to a mobile, but I do know the formula for getting a cheap mobile or smartphone and pay as you go sim card in the UK.<br />
Scroll down for the clearer bits. </span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<br />
Almost free phones exist if you get the best value pay-as-you-go sim card and put it in some inherited or cheaply-bought mobile phone, saving the <br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>price a bamboozlement contract and </li>
<li>work of understanding the contract: if it's complicated, it's not worth understanding.</li>
</ul>
Incoming calls from a number that looks like a landline are another good thing to have if you're in business. I hope someone can tell me about how to get them.<br />
<br />
As I do my tax return I discover that one of the items is a monthly £15-£20 to Virgin Media for a landline, which I am scared to give-up in case my <a href="http://veganline.com/" title="Veganline.com for vegan shoes online since 1998 and mainly made in the UK">shoe shop</a> customers think a mobile number is dodgy or expensive to call. If I could find a way to add a respectable-looking landline number to a free way of receiving calls on a mobile, that would be worth up to £240 a year. Even if I had all the money I could ever need, £240 saved last year could have earned another £24 this year on a P2P money site paying about 10% and double every seven and a bit years, allowing me to pay the taxpayer for my care home costs if I get old, or maybe leave a trust fund for that purpose that pays 5% towards care for the old and 5% re-investment.<br />
<br />
So, if anyone knows the answer, please post a link to how to get a free landline-looking number for a phone without this £15 monthly bill. Or a link to where the subject is discussed.</fieldset>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: red;">Incoming calls and landline numbers for mobiles</span> - Voip or mobile for incoming calls? - cheapest sim-only calls -cheapest second hand mobile phones, preferably unlocked - Cheapest SIM-only phone calls - Cheapish smartphones secondhand</span></blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Voip or mobile for incoming calls?</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
I don't know quite how easy VOIP is to install, but it is potentially free. Maybe someone will tell me what's good value. I should do some homework from this list:<br />
<a href="https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/free-international-phone-calls">https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/free-international-phone-calls</a><br />
<br />
The specific need is for a service that links to a cheap or free landline-style number, and works over wifi on a smartphone.<br />
<br />
This is work in progress.<br />
<br />
http://free03numbers.com has customers with a free UK a landline-like number beginning 03303 and then six non-memorable digits. It is not taking new customers this April 2017 after "instability" in November.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.03numbersforfree.co.uk/">http://www.03numbersforfree.co.uk</a> connect to a voip address for free on their advanced option, or a UK landline beginning 01, but not a mobile.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.localphone.com/incoming_numbers/united_kingdom/london_2031">https://www.localphone.com/incoming_numbers/united_kingdom/london_2031</a> offer a landline style number for 90p a month including tax. The number can be connected to a mobile but charges localphone's rates for incoming calls. It can be connected free to their own voip software; I'm not sure whether this includes their app for smartphones.<br />
<br />
The next stage is to understand their suggestions of what to connect this number to; what to type into the boxes if you open a free account on their web site. There is a 1.5p charge each minute for connecting it to a mobile (otherwise you have to give-out a mobile number which might put customers off) but none for VOIP. Free03numbers.com have a video saying what to type if you know the answer, but not to say whether asterisk or skype or whatever is best to choose. They have a list of sites to try.<br />
<br />
Voip also offers cheap outbound calls, but frankly that isn't a problem; email does the job and mobile works for emergencies.<br />
<br />
The simplest solution is to learn nothing about voip and have two mobiles, with one turned-on for work. Callers just have to get used to calling a mobile number. This could be the way to go, as all of them order online nowadays; none rings and says "can I have a catalogue please". One or two a day ring saying "This is Microsoft asking for your passwords"; I don't know if that's worse or better on a mobile number.</fieldset>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Incoming calls and landline numbers for mobiles - <span style="color: red;">Voip or mobile for incoming calls?</span> - cheapest sim-only calls -cheapest second hand mobile phones, preferably unlocked - Cheapest SIM-only phone calls - Cheapish smartphones secondhand </span></blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Cheapest SIM-only phone calls: </span><a href="https://payg.pythonanywhere.com/">https://payg.pythonanywhere.com/</a></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<fieldset>
This information is important, because once you have got a good Pay-as-you-go sim, you can choose any second hand mobile phone that works on the same network or is unlocked. You may already have one in a drawer somewhere. The trouble is that sites promoting free sims don't make any money directly. Who is going to keep them updated? An enthusiast for the public good? Who is going to host the information? A free web host? Fortunately the two have come together on Pete Foreman's site about cheap pay as you go sim cards at <a href="https://payg.pythonanywhere.com/">https://payg.pythonanywhere.com</a> which is a much more important link than it looks and lists a few other similar.</fieldset>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Incoming calls and landline numbers for mobiles - Voip or mobile for incoming calls? - <span style="color: red;">cheapest sim-only calls</span> -cheapest second hand mobile phones, preferably unlocked - Cheapest SIM-only phone calls - Cheapish smartphones secondhand </span></div>
</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Cheapest second hand mobile phones, preferably unlocked</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<fieldset>
If you have free wifi for some reason, then a phone that works over wifi when possible is a good thing.<br />
<br />
If you don't have a favourite mobile phone in a drawer, unlocked to any network or ready to use a PAYG sim from that network, then ebay is pretty good at finding local or lowest price+postage offers for a offers that you can sort in a dozen ways from here:<br />
<a href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Mobile-Smart-Phones-/9355/i.html">Ebay.co.uk/sch/Mobile-Smart-Phones-/9355/i.html</a><br />
<br />
There are some other sites too. <a href="http://second-handphones.com/">http://second-handphones.com</a> has a good search system for phones over £30 or close, and plenty of stock from phone recycling companies. The search system is useful. If you have a certain sim card and do not want the hassle of unlocking a mobile phone to work on it, you can buy a cheaper phone from a seller on the same network who does not want the hassle of unlocking either.<br />
<br />
Cashgenerator.co.uk and cashconverters.co.uk, the two big pawnbroker franchises, have web sites for selling pawned mobiles, starting at £10 for most of the basic ones locked to a network. They are not good value for borrowing money but better for buying phones.<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.cashgenerator.co.uk/mobile-home-phones">http://www.cashgenerator.co.uk/mobile-home-phones</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.cashconverters.co.uk/shop/mobile-phones/6397">https://www.cashconverters.co.uk/shop/mobile-phones/6397 </a><br />
<br />
Aliexpress phones take weeks to arrive from some seller in China, sometimes with a fraud attached so best bought with a credit card fod disputes. They include some very cheap credit card sized phones, and some smartphones under £40 with cheap glass that breaks if you hint at sitting on it. You can get second hand phones with better glass at the same price, so generally that's the better-value deal and a greener one.<br />
<a href="http://www.cashconverters.co.uk/" rel="nofollow"></a> </fieldset>
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Incoming calls and landline numbers for mobiles - Voip or mobile for incoming calls? - cheapest sim-only calls -<span style="color: red;">cheapest second hand mobile phones, preferably unlocked </span>- Cheapest SIM-only phone calls - Cheapish smartphones secondhand </span></blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Cheapish smartphones secondhand from the same places</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<fieldset>
I am no great expert on this, but can only say what I know about the cheapest smartphones second hand. For example I don't know why fairly small apps like <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/simple-book-keeping-and-account.html">Waveapps for scanning receipts as mentioned on my book-keeping post</a> don't find enough room to download to my old Samsing Galaxy smartphone that says it has plenty of space. There is probably a knack. There are a lot of things I don't know. Anyway, here is something I do know.<span style="color: red;"> </span><br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Blackberry smartphones</span></h4>
don't work well with other systems and cards or for misers in general. There are endless discussion threads with the answer "no" to whatever question is asked. So they are cheapest second-hand. <span style="color: red;"><br />
</span> <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Nokia smartphones</span></h4>
This is the second cheapest smartphone second hand because it uses an obscure operating system called Windows which can't download your favourite apps. If you don't want to download an app, then maybe a nokia smartphone second hand is the one for you<span style="color: red;"><br />
</span> <br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">HTC Desire smartphones</span></h4>
This was some kind of cheapskate smartphone which often didn't have the technical ability to download many apps. Later versions may do - I don't know - but the brand has become what it was meant to be: the brand for a teenager's first smartphone. For that reason it is often cheap<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://veganline.com/" title="The best place to buy comfort slippers in odd widths for problem feet with cushion soles and velcro tops"><span style="color: red;">Slippers and UK-made nonleather shoes: </span></a><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" title="slippers and UK-made nonleather shoes">Veganline.com</a></span></h4>
This heading might look a bit odd but I use this phone for a UK-made vegan shoe shop called Veganline and want to make my related pages look relevant.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Random and unknown smartphones</span></h4>
The one closest on an ebay local search might be a couple of pounds cheaper if you can collect and save postage. Oh and there are cheap ones on Aliexpress, but they break if you sit on them and are best bought with a credit card for some sort of come-back if the seller is a scammer. </fieldset>
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Incoming calls and landline numbers for mobiles - Voip or mobile for incoming calls? - cheapest sim-only calls -cheapest second hand mobile phones, preferably unlocked - Cheapest SIM-only phone calls - <span style="color: red;">Cheapish smartphones secondhand </span></span></blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Free bonus afterthought</span></h3>
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<fieldset>
<a href="https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-overseas-calls">moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-overseas-calls</a> lists loads of other situations including <a href="http://www.18185.co.uk/">18185.co.uk</a> that offers 5p outbound calls via an 08 number, plus a low cost per minute.</fieldset>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<hr />
The author's phone is used in attempts to sell <br />
<a href="http://veganline.com/" title="ethical footwear">shoes made in UK working conditions on Veganline.com - the ultimate ethical footwear</a></div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-32667805342264700772015-12-30T18:25:00.034+00:002018-10-21T10:23:08.671+01:00Bad economics courses for twenty-teens<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
Related: <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/bad-economics-courses-for-twenty-teens.html"><u>Bad Economics Teaching for the twenty-teens</u></a> from data on Unistats, 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-economnics-teaching.html">Better Economics Teaching</a>: some off-the-cuff suggestions based on being a 1980s student <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economic-crisis.html">The British Economic Crisis</a> - a similar book to Robert Peston written in the 80s - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">Star Courses</a>: the least satisfied, most bored and lowest paid UK graduates, written 2015 <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">Boring Economics Teaching is interesting</a>:
how someone managed to teach economics from memories of an old
textbook at the peak of the worst recession since the 1930s, and tried
to cover-up for government causing the recession. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2012/10/leslie-fishman-writings.html">Journal Articles by Professor Les Fishman</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/p/economics.html">unbelievable beliefs</a> - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/02/1980s-recession.html">1980s recession explanations I wrot</a>e - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-search-for-one-click-install.html">UK unemployment 1980s from the Begg 1984 textbook</a></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<i><span style="color: red;">Bad economics courses</span> - The most boring places to study economics in the UK - The most over-charged economics students in the UK - Pattern-spotting: Keele & Glasgow University bad economics - Student survey questions - Quality assurance agency benchmarks for economics - scroll further down for post-crash economics</i></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
Pending classification: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-college-tuition-costs-so-much.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0">https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-college-tuition-costs-so-much.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0</a> - the problem of doing a course at a place that was good value 50 or 100 years ago </blockquote>
<hr />
<h1 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Bad economics courses:<br />https://unistats.ac.uk/Search/SubjectList/052</span></h1>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
There is more about bad courses in general on the <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html"><i>star courses</i></a> page.<br />
A page about a 1980s economics degree course is headed <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html"><i>boring economics teaching is interesting</i></a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Guardian reports polite protest by students at a Glasgow University course that is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/04/economics-students-overhaul-subject-teaching" target="_blank">divorced from the real world</a>, as does <a href="https://youtu.be/CsvGNt4eKsc" target="_blank" title=" Teaching Economics After The Crash BBC Radio 4 Jan 2015 Peter Borenius, produced by Eve Streeter http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04svjbj ">BBC Radio 4</a>. If the material taught isn't bad enough, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/09/university-economics-teaching-lobotomy-non-mainstream" target="_blank">the way it's taught is <i>"£9,000 lobotomy"</i></a> . What they don't say is that it is a scam. Glasgow University charges £9,000 to first year students from England and Wales to learn skills by themselves on a computer, pass web tests in these same skills and hand-in an essay that gets 100% for being handed-in on time. If they'd offered that year's course for £100 or £500, it would have been a great idea but to offer it for £9,000 is a scam even if the other two years are worth nearly 1½ times as much for the same price. Some students drop out after year one, and deserve a fair price.<br />
<br />
For some reason, journalists choose plumbers as examples of scam-merchants rather than universities or trades unions or social work agencies or chancellors of the exchequer. Secondary schools are so wierd that they get the odd mention, but not much. It is much easier to prove bad service from a plumber and much harder to prove bad service from an economics department charging £9,000, so they are not quoted on <i>Rogue Traders</i> where they belong in all their variety - the duff bluffer who was a nice enough man but refused to do his job on my course at Keele in the 1980s; the nasty maniac who has now ceased to teach at Swansea in the 20-teens, or the manager who says it's fine to offer DIY computer teaching in Glasgow for year one, which it is but not at £9,000 plus an expectation that people will move to Glasgow, enroll as students, keep their diaries clear of other distractions, and not throw anything.<br />
<br />
Cynics would say that college teachers are more like the journalists than are plumbers, and are reported more kindly for that reason; you can mention a lovable rogue on Rogue Traders if they are plumbing, but there is some taboo about mentioning it if they are <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">professor of economics at Keele University</a> and waste years of a students' life, rather than a few agonised phone calls about a plumbing job and some over-the-top bills on a credit card. <a href="http://employees.org.uk/">It's the same with Rogue Trader trades unions, but that's another subject</a>. Almost. You join a college or a union rather than subscribe. You have to develop enough trust with the college teacher to be told that you are wrong and why, even if you still think the teacher is wrong. Trip Adviser reviews get in the way of this, and too much feedback by students about teachers could be what causes safe dull feedback from teachers to students as reported on those same unistats results at nearly all colleges.<br />
<br />
Glasgow University Economics Department is a good clear example of a rogue trader, but down the tracks in Manchester, students are nowadays encouraged to form a student society. The society came-up with a precocious report on how badly the subject of economics is taught at Manchester, with examples of things taught which are not true, a course which doesn't develop critical thinking to make a living or get a job, and a trend away from the heterodox that gets worse each year rather than better. One of their themes, copied below, is that most of these things are known by economics teachers but the problem is somehow not solved by whoever writes the syllabus for next years' course or hires the next generation of teachers. Examples are from Manchester but the pattern applies to all college economics courses. I started a long blog post about my own 1980s course at Keele, just typing stuff that leads where it goes, and discovered that the course had been one of the best just a few years before I went on it and even in parts as I was still on it. Someone at Keele decided to run regimented textbook classes and spend the money on central services instead, and that is a general trend.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/" title="hightest ranking unis for economics, sorted better than on the league tables from the Times or other newspapers">Government and Unistats</a> have done better at helping students find the least bad course. A newspaper that doesn't publish league tables <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/the-universities-which-are-easier-to-get-into-and-have-higher-levels-of-student-satisfaction-10263148.html">explains why</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/nov/18/academics-back-student-protests-neoclassical-economics-teaching">The Treasury</a> has also hosted a conference of economists trying to write a better syllabus and set-up a course. Unistats lists student feedback by course, rather than pretending to write a league table by course and fudging the data back again. Kingston may have an Orwellian management and a terrible way of teaching maths or business, but their Economics department looks really good. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html" title="boring degrees wth no job prospects: the worse degree courses in the UK"><br />
<br />
Star Courses</a> <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html" title="Economics degree league table">is another post about the worst-scoring courses reported on unistats in 2015, the most bored or least satisfied students, and the lowest paid graduates in the UK</a>, which used to be written here. The theme is that the main league tables conceal good courses at little-known colleges and bad courses, like the one I did from the famous <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html" title="Hot topics like the credit crunch and the economics of the Iraq War will be coming under the microscope at a conference being held at Keele University next week. Distinguished economists from the UK and the U.S. will be speaking at the event on Wednesday at Keele's management centre. It has been organised in memory of Leslie Fishman, who was an economics professor at the university between 1969 and 1987. The conference will be followed by a reception, where a new Leslie and Eleanor Fishman bursary will be launched. It will be awarded annually to the best first year student from the Potteries.">Professor Les Fishman</a>, at better known colleges. I don't know what is taught at the Oxford PPE course that some politicians have been on, but I know that history repeats economic disasters, from joining the gold standard in the 1930s to hiking-up the exchange rate in the 1980s in a similar way; from subsidising Concorde to promoting Chinese factories in the UK at UK taxpayers' expense. I think that economists have not informed the rest of us - journalists, voters, MPs, and technocrats.</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
<i><span style="color: red;">Bad economics courses</span> - The most boring places to study economics in the UK - The most over-charged economics students in the UK - Pattern-spotting: Keele & Glasgow University bad economics - Student survey questions - Quality assurance agency benchmarks for economics - scroll further down for post-crash economics</i></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">The most boring places to study economics in the UK : league tables are wrong</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Keele is my old college, not the most boring UK economics degree</h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/nottingham-economics-chinese" title="Nottingham University - 2016 entry UCAS code:L1T1 Qualification:BA Hons Type and duration:3 year UG Qualification name:Economics with Chinese Studies"><b>Nottingham's Economics with Chinese studies</b></a> students were <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007154FT-L1T1/ReturnTo/Search">36%</a> interested, clarified or advised, much worse than other Nottingham economics students. That could be something to do with the world view of people who take the course, and not the course itself.</li>
<li><a href="https://le.ac.uk/courses/economics-ba?uol_r=121c8ad4"><b>Leicester</b></a> has 20 full time BSc Economics students who were 42% interested, and 28% clarified but the college scores better for other economics courses. The course does better than an electrical engineering degree nearby that scores only 21%.</li>
<li><a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007794FT-L150-2308"><b>Glasgow</b> scores 46</a>% for an MA; there's no sign of a degree course.course <a href="https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/09/university-economics-teaching-lobotomy-non-mainstream">reported in The Guardian for being bad</a>, ns.<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007137FT-UGBABUSAECN/ReturnTo/Search"><br />
</a></li>
<li><a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007783FT-L100/ReturnTo/Search"><b>Aberdeen</b></a>'s small MA course scores much worse than other Aberdeen courses,</li>
<li><a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007814FT-UFBCECNA/ReturnTo/Search"><b>Cardiff</b>'s single subject BSC course</a> scores much worse then other Cardiff courses. That's odd because the applied economics part of the department hires Professor Patrick Minford who hasn't heard of an over-valued pound of the unfair market in goods caused by one side not having a welfare state. He also seems to think that foreigners will never learn to compete in providing services:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Over time, if we left the EU, it seems likely that we would mostly eliminate manufacturing, leaving mainly industries such as design, marketing and hi-tech. But this shouldn’t scare us.</i><br />
Britain is good at putting on a suit and selling to other nations. <br />
Around half of young adults now go to university, ending up in professions such as finance or law, while the making of things such as car parts or carpentry has hugely shrunk — but there will always be jobs for people without sophisticated skills." <br />
- Patrick Minford in The Sun. Italics his. If you pay to go to Cardiff University you might hear more from him</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007796FT-BSECSEC/ReturnTo/Search"><b>Leicester</b>'s financial economics students</a> award 50% for making the subject interesting, 16% for getting detailed feedback which only 28% clarified.</li>
<li><a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007767FT-UECOFY/ReturnTo/Search"><b>Keele scores 51</b>%</a> for its full-time or shared joint-honours economics courses.</li>
<li>Glasgow surveys seem to produce the same scores or none for the college's economics degree teaching. I don't know why. Keele's <i>"data displayed is for all students of economics"</i>, because of low numbers.</li>
</ul>
<b>Notes and queries on the low scores</b><br />
You have to guess why <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/find-out-more/key-information-set#noKIS" target="_blank">some colleges don't submit enough numbers per course</a>, including the chance that students boycotted the survey or that staff found ways of sub-classifying and re-naming courses to include small numbers of students per classification, just to make the returns less likely to be published. You also have to guess how the unistats web site chooses to put these ungraded colleges in order that isn't always alphabetical and why the usual suspect colleges are often at the bottom. If these student numbers were added together, they could quite likely be more boring than Keele. The data reads like football scores: London Metropolitan has three <i>"no data available"</i> courses, University of Hertfordshire 10, Kent 4, Kingston 5, Richmond 3, Greenwich 5, East London 2, Glasgow 19, IFS 1, GSM 2, Cardiff Met 3. Oddly enough, if you search online for <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=worst+economics+course"><i>worst economics course</i></a>, an ad comes-up saying <i>"<a href="https//www.whatuni.com/university-course-reviews/gsm-london/8578/">degrees in economics at GSM London</a>"</i>. The link is to what people have said about Greenwhich School of Management's coaching for this Portsmouth degree exam. Also, you have to guess why the Unistats site can only sort by <i>"staff made the subject interesting"</i> and not <i>"the course is intellectually stimulating"</i>.<br />
<br />
Other colleges would score higher than Keele and Glasgow, I think, if their scores were reported in the same uniform way. Leicester has 500 new economics students a year of with 300 on courses that score 68% while their highest is 92%. Scores for <a href="https://www2.le.ac.uk/research/challenges/society/economic" target="_blank">economics teaching look as good as their web page</a> and are good when the score is given separately from a shared joint-honours subject. Cardiff economics courses usually score 57% where a course combination has enough data to publish. Scores of <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007137FT-UGBABUSAECN/ReturnTo/Search" title=" The content of my degree, whilst challenging, is really good fun. - Sarah Feeney, student">47% at Chester for Business Studies and Economics</a> fit the pattern of their other business studies courses; economics doesn't look like the issue.<br />
<br />
Apart from pure boredom, the wider sense of injustice called overall (dis)-satisfaction with the course is measured for sorting too. <b>Leicester</b>, <b>St Andrews</b>, <b>Cardiff</b>, <b>Glasgow</b> and <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007850FT-UUUD1-L101%7EUHES-AKB03/ReturnTo/Search"><b>Bath</b></a> have courses with economics less satisfactory than than Keele's 71% score. Bath's web page for their bad course says <i>"number one for student satisfaction - National Student Survey"</i>, so maybe their list is upside down and folded-over at the end. Bath's Economics BSc course only has ten colleges worse-rated than their 58%. Bath's Economics BA course scores a shade more at 63% which is a common pattern. What's the difference? Can careful research show what makes an economics course even worse than another one, when everything else is equal? Where would an economist find this information? <br />
<br />
Leicester Uni, with 32% satisfied BSc graduates, has the answer on its web page. Staff are surely aware of the problem.<br />
<h4>
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;">For the BSc Economics course: (<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007796FT-BSECSEC/ReturnTo/Search">32% satisfied</a>)</span></i></h4>
<ul>
<li><i>You will need to have achieved an A-level in Maths - at least grade B.</i></li>
<li><i>You will gain experience in the use of advanced mathematical and statistical techniques in economic analysis and its applications. </i></li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>For the BA Economics course: (<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007796FT-BAECSEC/ReturnTo/Search">67% satisfied</a>)</i></div>
<ul>
<li><i>You will need to have achieved a GCSE in Maths - at least a grade B.</i></li>
<li><i>You will focus on the development of your skills as an economist through their application to a wide range of real world issues.</i></li>
</ul>
Mario Pezzino of Manchester University mentions the problem in a quote below - the one with a green heading. She says that staff are unsure how to avoid the bad feedback that's attracted by technical parts of the course without dumbing-down, and suggests using guest speakers as part of the answer. She doesn't say why the hard sciences don't disappoint as much as economics. Whether it's possible to use the same maths teachers who teach for engineering to teach for economics, and find out how their reception differs. Maybe engineering students expect more hard maths, or maybe engineering teachers relate the maths closer to real life examples to avoid it becoming self-referential. The idea of using guest speakers suggests that real examples can allow a technical subject to be taught without bad feedback.<br />
<br />
Another strange experiment happens at Kingston University. A group of teachers teach in one style in a course called economics, and get high feedback stores by Kingston standards. Another group teach something like Maths for Business and get some of the lowest feedback scores in the UK. For detail see <i>"the most bored students in the UK can sit next to the most interested students</i>" here:<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/11/star-courses.html</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Keele didn't teach me how to use a spreadsheet when I was there and I'm still a bit tentative, and will leave the averaging of numbers at a guess, rather than quantifying it. All of us mammals can sniff-out interesting data; maths just gives us more leads, more control over our mistakes, and possibly more help explaining facts to others. For those who can use Libre / Open Office Calc or <a href="http://www.sofastatistics.com/home.php">Sofastats</a> or such, there is more data on <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/data/">http://www.hefce.ac.uk/data/</a> which downloads as excel format but can be opened and saved in other formats by Calc. Where the unistats web site can search by a few criteria, like <i>"staff made the subject interesting"</i>, a spreadsheet guru could search by more like <i>"subject is intellectually stimulating"</i> - in other words worth studying at all. A guru could also see more detail of the wonky data which isn't clear enough to publish on the unistats web site except as "not enough data".<br />
<br />
In defence of Keele economics teachers, they teach in less than half a students' time while other colleges teach a subject half-time or full-time. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/boring-economics-teaching-is-interesting.html">The ones I had, decades ago, concentrated on face-to-face time rather than anything else; they offered many more hours of this that than other departments, sometimes from the end of a room because that's what their boss told them to do</a>. Keele teachers are under pressure to take students who have not studied a subject before, as part of the commitment to running short courses, a foundation year, and letting students experiment. That makes it harder to avoid repetition for the others. And Keele teachers can't choose the most precocious, on-track students as can teachers who teach PPE at Oxford or even University College London; it's more like the Open University on a campus. Most of us are subject-mixers and some exam-flunkers from the foundation year. We're more interesting to teach because we don't open essays with a quote from John Stewart Mill and end with immaculate formatting of footnotes including one with a Latin title, as the Post Crash Economics Society do in their report, but our short-course studies are less good at allowing staff research and detailed interesting teaching so the jobs are terrible for a career. So this may be the second most boring place for studying economics but it has other excitements for students like getting-in in the first place and discovering other subjects; it might even have other excitements for staff. These don't show in the standard feedback scores.<br />
<br />
The surprise is that other economics courses like Glasgow or the more technical BSc Economics course at Leicester are worse-rated.<br />
<br />
Another surprise is that a college should attempt a difficult thing without knowing how it should be done; I'd expect Keele to come-up a lot in web searches about how economics can be taught. Open University does a lot from telly and has given-up most pure economics courses; University College London and Oxford Uni are keen on a new <a href="http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/q-step">Nuffield Foundation</a> courses called Q-step which attempt to measure real things while teaching statistics. I noticed nothing on the Keele web site to say how they cope with the constraints of their job.<br />
<br />
This is pretty typical of organisations with input-funding, rather than funding for users to buy a service; the organisation tells a funder that it has a wonderful skill like running a housing association for violent ex offenders, gets the grant, recruits some staff out of The Guardian or temping agencies, and says <i>"do it"</i>. Or <i>"Oh, did we forget to warn you?"</i>. There was a real example of a housing association for violent ex offenders which recruited staff by down-playing the difficulties of the job to those who applied. Luckily I didn't apply, but it's a pity to avoid an interesting problem that could attract interested staff, and play games instead. There are lots of people who work in tricky hostels who want to give-up shift work. There are ex-boxers and wrestlers who want another career like housing with a touch of social work for tenants who are interested and a lot of coping strategies for tenants who are just tenants. There are architectural things that can be done like fitting strong doors. I hope Keele Uni does better than a wonky housing association and works with staff who teach a condensed course.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/-%20Star%20courses:%20the%20least%20satisfied,%20most%20bored%20&%20lowest-paid%20UK%20graduates">Star courses: the least satisfied, most bored and lowest paid UK graduates has moved to another page.</a></fieldset>
</blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<fieldset>
<i>Bad economics courses - <span style="color: red;">The most boring places to study economics in the UK</span> - The most over-charged economics students in the UK - Pattern-spotting: Keele & Glasgow University bad economics - Student survey questions - Quality assurance agency benchmarks for economics - scroll further down for post-crash economics</i></fieldset>
</div>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">The most over-charged economics students in the UK</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
People who will do high-paid jobs often study economics along the way, maybe as a degree before some other qualification, and maybe before some finance-related job in London. That's from<br />
<a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/publications/long-destinations-2012-13">Longitudinal Destination of Leavers of Higher Education</a> , according to the link which is a summery by a statistician at Tej Mehanwi at the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Average economics graduate earnings at the age of 40 according to another source (not to hand) so probably from a career in employment.<br />
<br />
One thing is not proven. It is not proven that the study of economics makes these students more useful, happy, or highly-paid. It is something that some people do along the way to being highly-paid. If there is some clear link, you will have to find it in the course prospectuses themselves and the list of things that are taught for the money.<br />
<br />
I started this page by suggesting a cost to everyone of bad government economic policies, particularly in the early 80s. I implied that bad economics teaching was part of the problem and the cost to everyone.<br />
<br />
There is also the cost to every student of studying - a few years of life and a maintenance grant at the time that paid about the same as the dole - something like £3,000 a year and even some right to housing benefit that was cut while I was on the course. It was a system like the one a lot of European countries still have.<br />
<br />
Thc cost of running an institution like a college was mainly paid in block grants in the 80s, with about a £3,000 annual fee per student paid by their local councils. There was a block grant paid per student by central government, but it had been reduced on a whim as a 1980s funding cut which wiped-out a third of the funding per student at Keele and a thirtieth at Oxford, starting from similar amounts. The government obviously thought that Ed Balls and Boris Johnson would do more with their education than I would, which I don't think turned-out to be true.<br />
<br />
The system now has next to no block grants, no maintenance grant for students to live on, and a much publicised student loan scheme for paying up to £9,000 a year per student and charging it back to the same ex-student if they ever earn more than an average wage, which barely enough ever do to make the scheme work.<br />
<br />
A Department for Education study found that most business, economics or arts subjects cost something just over £6,000 a year per student to run and manage with central services, and are charged at £9,000 with the rest cross-subsidising expensive courses like dentistry, for which there isn't a proper funding system. So most students pay too much for their road-to-nowhere course that makes the college money, and then have trouble finding an NHS Dentist. The study must have included registry and management, library, student union and buildings costs in the £6,000 figure because <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150224005942/http://epigram.org.uk/news/2014/11/its-official-arts-students-pay-for-science-degrees">the money that reaches teaching departments is even lower</a>, at £<span class="cwcot" id="cwos">3,347.20 per student per year on a Bristol English Literature course. If the same students joined a free book club, and then hired staff to do extra teaching for a new distance-learning degree, they could save some money.</span><br />
<b>Self-study might provide a better course than study at a college.<br />
A cut-down course based on a text book that's wrong can be worse than useless.</b><br />
Much of the study can be done for free if you have outgrown the urge to be a student and study with other students and teachers. I remember that the practise of passing-on sets of notes to avoid the need to go to lectures was frowned-on, specially in Biology, but now teachers do it too on <a href="https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/" target="_blank" title="economics teaching reseurces after the crash">Economicsnetwork.ac.uk</a> All you need to plough-through the books is a habit of reading one chapter a night or one chapter a morning, and of taking notes.<br />
<br />
Economics network suggest far more reading of books, other than the textbooks, than I ever did for Keele Economics, where they were only used on the one specialised part of our degree. Students at Manchester complain that they're never given <a href="http://cas2.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultypages/kregel/courses/econ645/winter2011/generaltheory.pdf">Keynes to read in the original text to see what it looks like and talk about it</a>.<br />
<br />
At Keele we had one or two big text books with crosses on them. Other than that we just lounged in our dungarees and chewed straw; nature gives a young person plenty of entertainment without book-learning, and we had the big good book with the crosses on it if we needed to know anything.<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u><br />
Economics</u> by David Begg and Guianluigi Vernasca:<br />
free pdf download instructor manuals to help supplement your course</div>
<ul>
<li>ISBN-10: 0077154517</li>
<li>ISBN-13: 978-0077154516</li>
</ul>
The same was true in other cut-down Keele courses because there were so many of them that to base a course on one book was a good thing. It's like having a predictable course, with known needs for detailed study for essays and exams - it helps everyone. A chunk of my English Literature degree course, based on a collection of original writing called <i>"Romantic poetry and prose"</i>, and that was fine. We missed-out on having to read books about books, which was a good thing because we had the original text in our hands. Oh by the way they taught us that Augustans - the people who weren't romantics - believed in the letterbox idea of how students learn. They learn because knowledge is posted-in. I can't find a link by googling "Augustan letterbox", but it's there somewhere.<br />
<br />
A big part of my Economics degree, based on Begg's "Economics", full of second-hand conventional wisdom about original sources which students were not able to check and look implausible. <i>"<a href="http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2013/06/economics-textbooks/">The trouble with the textbooks in economics is that they contain things we economists know to be wrong</a>." - Diane Coyle, professor of economics, University of Manchester.</i> She recommends antidotes including a free pdf -<br />
<a href="http://digamo.free.fr/keen2011.pdf">Debunking Economics - Revised and Expanded Edition</a>, by Steve Keen. So a cut-down one-book course is worse than useless, although I see that Oxford PPE students study from a similar text book to the one I used, now re-written by Begg and Vernasca. Re-reading it, I realise that it was not bad, but trying to do an impossible thing for awkward buyers at american teaching departments who didn't want anything awkward mentioned like national insurance or evolution.<br />
<br />
<b>Free online economics courses</b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDkYu4j8YL42Gm_SJ8B7fv8VPe1EoZL-PGpM-7Qt2AV-dauOKrN3mcx1hI44kxbmGJYLAkzn3LpRVJD-qRNECcc5jkDeZDRkUAyw5NsUfeNed-X6CZh0A5lKt2VMRzIi7ymPtT0su6h55U/s1600/temp.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDkYu4j8YL42Gm_SJ8B7fv8VPe1EoZL-PGpM-7Qt2AV-dauOKrN3mcx1hI44kxbmGJYLAkzn3LpRVJD-qRNECcc5jkDeZDRkUAyw5NsUfeNed-X6CZh0A5lKt2VMRzIi7ymPtT0su6h55U/s320/temp.jpg" width="320" /></a>The usual examples of free online education (without feedback or a chance to meet other students) are places like Stamford, in a country with a weird concept called "welfare" instead of national insurance and a bigger home market compared to their international trade, so I doubt these courses are good for people in smaller slightly saner countries like the UK. There's also a weird hierarchy of academia in the USA that encourages nutters. There was one professor of psychology who was asked a question at a conference and replied <i>"when you've become a professor, you can make points like that"</i>. (I think the quote is in the preface to one of the Karl Rodgers counselling books but am not sure).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDkYu4j8YL42Gm_SJ8B7fv8VPe1EoZL-PGpM-7Qt2AV-dauOKrN3mcx1hI44kxbmGJYLAkzn3LpRVJD-qRNECcc5jkDeZDRkUAyw5NsUfeNed-X6CZh0A5lKt2VMRzIi7ymPtT0su6h55U/s1600/temp.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br />
</a></div>
<br />
<a href="https://www.core-econ.org/">Core-econ.org</a> is <i>"<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2015/08/13/good-universities-and-bad-economics/2/">much vaunted</a>, but pays lip-service only to alternative approaches to economics, and has been criticised by students from leading Universities as still too narrow"</i>, according to a link in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2015/08/13/good-universities-and-bad-economics/2/">this article</a> by Mr Keen, who wrote the free pdf book above.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.saylor.org/">Saylor.org</a> pride themselves in providing open source &100% free course materials for a few simple tests you can pay for without great qualification to be earned. For example they link to a free online stats textbook for their regression course. There is some kind of qualification on registries of credits used by some US colleges for short external courses.<br />
<br />
<b>£36.00</b> buys an online course in statistics, taught with clarity but I guess no real examples of data at the <a href="https://www.class-central.com/course/coursera-basic-statistics-4312">University of Amsterdam</a>, so it would make sense for colleges with face-to-face courses to concentrate on the interesting bits and use a robotic system to do the robotic bits, rather than hiring someone to stand in front of a lecture theatre and write shorthand for algebra on the wall.<br />
<br />
<b>£36.99</b> buys a free pdf or e-book download of Economics by Begg and Vernascsa available to teachers as part of a bundle with lecture notes of conventional wisdom. Rival textbook Lipsey and Chrystal <a href="https://global.oup.com/uk/orc/busecon/economics/lipsey12e/01student/questions/">puts some self-tests online for free</a>. Teachers lecture notes were available to go with Begg when I was at college, to judge from the teacher interrupting his own lecture to say <i>"we have to teach this stuff to call this an economics course"</i>. Now, the publisher offers much more that you could learn without the need for a teacher. Looking at the Kindle preview on Amazon, you can see a description.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"simple assignment management, allowing you to get on with more teaching", "auto graded assignments, quizzes and tests", "detailed visual reporting, where students and section results can be viewed and analysed", "sophisticated online testing capability", "a filtering and reporting function that allows you to easily assign and report on materials that are correlated to learning outcome, topics, level of difficulty, and more. Reports can be accessed for individual students or the whole class, as well as offering the ability to drill into individual assignments, questions, or categories". "instructor manuals to help supplement your course". "Assign all the end-of-chapter or test bank material as a ready-made assignment with a simple click of a button", "test students' mathematical understanding with auto-graded calculation questions", "assign multi-part questions that cover key topics in economics, and then branch to different questions, activities, and analysis". The version for people without a teacher is called Connect Self Study and costs £10 or £36.99 with a free e-book they call Begg: Economics, 11e for short.</blockquote>
<b><a href="http://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3Aac.uk+%2Bbegg+AND+vernasca" title="www.bing.com/search?q=site%3Aac.uk+%2Bbegg+AND+vernasca">acknowledgement and customer list</a></b><br />
A teacher at Keele University (51% interesting) is on the list of people thanked for useful suggestions, as from Bradford (79%), Cork, Umea, Bath (56%), Birmingham (82-84%), Jyvaskylar, Kent (86% interesting), Liverpool Uni (66-67%), Manchester (58-67%), Manchester Metro (86%), Norwegian Science & Tec, Oxford Brookes, Sheffield (63%), Surrey (79%), and West Scotland. Oxford Brookes and West of Scotland don't teach economics as an identifiable subject. Glasgow university - 42% interesting - do not use the Begg and Vernasca textbook. I haven't found out which one they use.<b> </b>When I first wrote that I thought that the Begg textbook might be the problem, but no I am part-way through re-reading it I see that it's a huge nicely-written book. The problems are that US prejudices are not challenged, and that the book is used without real examples from lecturers to match the reams of X-shaped diagrams from patient authors.<br />
Discounts and scholarships are hard to judge<br />
<br />
The Leslie and Eleanor Fishman Bursary is used to donate something like £500 or £1,000 to the best performing local student after their first year of Keele Economics teaching. In a college that over-charges by so many thousands of pounds, this doesn't go far. I expect it cost the estate of Leslie and Eleanor Fishman, and their daughter Nina Fishman, about ten or twenty times the award, so £5,000 to £20,000 which is very nice of them and a monument to how people can maintain to the world that they are doing a good job and be believed when they won't even hold a tutorial. The donation would be a few months' salary to a professor and department manager.<br />
<br />
There are other colleges like Derby and Staffordshire that sometimes charge a bit less than the full £9,000, but they're also the ones that take some distance-learning students who write "other" on their unistats returns for work after graduation, so it's harder to know if these courses are any good.</fieldset>
<br />
<fieldset>
<i>Bad economics courses - The most boring places to study economics in the UK - <span style="color: red;">The most over-charged economics students in the UK</span> - Pattern-spotting: Keele & Glasgow University bad economics - Student survey questions - Quality assurance agency benchmarks for economics - scroll further down for post-crash economics</i></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihElpxj5ht4L3YcLXp6Q0YK6jwADelav9pmkIuHmoo5ClOxDaOF_bk537dFZNoJ65vp8nLY7yvvOHHDU29ylkidPY4mO1BfkxlbZg4nMF8AjhS8abST6fCv00aEf-IKdmWUlPyQF6e0zKc/s1600/temp.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br />
</a></b></blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Pattern-spotting - Keele & Glasgow University bad economics</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<b>Comparing economics with all courses at Keele</b></h3>
Searching all courses at a college, <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007767FT-UECOFY/ReturnTo/Search"><b>Keele Economics</b></a> students are the least satisfied at Keele, just behind Music Technology, and the most bored at Keele, behind students of business studies, finance, or social workers who can at least get you a job when they leave. I haven't checked whether Glasgow surveys have the same pattern and guess they do.<br />
<br />
These were searches in 2016, but the best up to date guide apart from Unistats istelf is CUG which might sometimes be easier to use for the first few searches. It can filter-out results for a particular department at a college and a few types of feedback for that department. <a href="https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?o=Student+Satisfaction&s=Economics">https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?o=Student+Satisfaction&s=Economics</a> for example is a league table of economics departments by combined score for student satisfaction. It is still a rougher guide than Unistats. Kingston Uni has two groups of economics-like courses for example, with terrible scores for the mathmatical ones for actuaries and good ones for the more political macro-economic ones. On this table, checked in 2017, Keele is second bottom above a puzzling entry for Gloucester where there doesn't seem to be an economics degree, and of course the Kingston maths-for-actuaries course ought to be below Keele too.<br />
<br />
I can see a problem of managing expectation in students with expectations.<br />
<br />
When I did an <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007767FT-UECOAENG/ReturnTo/Search">english literature half-degree</a> I did it for fun without previous A-level or serious expectation. That was a good thing about Keele: you could switch after the foundation year. If I studied business studies, finance, or social work I would have some vague expectations which are hard for a department to manage in prospective students. I guess that economics students are particularly grumpy because their expectations differ between each other. Personally, I would rather learn micro-economics on the job and keep it as an optional extra on the course. Other people think the same of macro-economics. Meanwhile, it is still hard to tell from web pages what a subject like "quantitative methods" really means, and any college could get higher survey results just by explaining to future students what to expect.<br />
<br />
The defence from economics staff while I was a student is that it's a technical subject with a minimum syllabus, squashed into less than half students' time because Keele runs a lot of short courses for the degree as well as two main ones. <i>"we have to teach this stuff in order to call this an economics degree, with less than half your time"</i>, is the best I can remember the quote from the head of department in one of his lectures. So two and bit years were taken with the syllabus that's a first year introduction on a full time degree.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
comparison with photography courses</h4>
Expanding: if a photography class had to fit-in a minimum syllabus for photography, leaving no time to take photographs, that would be boring but it would not be the teachers' fault; the teacher might score well for being good at explaining things but the boss score badly for making the subject interesting in the way it's taught. If the boss can think of no better way to do it next year, they might blame the college for offering the impossible course and the students for choosing it.<br />
<br />
About the time I was at college it became a lot easier to teach stats with real data, just as digital photography makes it easier to teach photography while taking a lot of bad photos. So, thirty years on, I would expect the argument to have changed. I still read of multiple-choice tests at Glasgow where students expect something else, so I assume the same happens at Keele.<br />
<br />
What follows applies to similar problems at economics departments in other colleges, either singled-out from unistats or singled-out by the post crash economics society.<br />
<br />
I don't quite buy the defence - it doesn't say what the minimum syllabus is for; what it qualifies you for. If you have to follow the Quality Assurance Agency's benchmark standards anyway, why is teaching from workbook examples any quicker than teaching from real examples? I see the Post Crash Economics Society answering the same point in their report. If it's still cut-and-pasted to this page you'll find with control+F under <i>"There is a toolkit that you need to learn"</i>.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
notes for prospective students and teachers doing peer-review of a course</h4>
For anyone who wants a cheat-sheet, stating what this toolkit is, the Quality Assurance <a href="http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/q-step">nuffcsnetwoieldfoundation.org/q-step</a> and other initiatives get started and say what software and lectures and exercises and data seem to work. So it's a bit of a summery for summary's sake when the real answer lies in how to teach stats software, data examples, and useful theoretical summaries all in a flash at the same time, but it's useful to people who do peer reviews of work outside their own college. This is what it says. Linking and bolding are mine. This is an introduction; "benchmarks" are put at the end of this post. Formatting is mine.)<br />
<blockquote>
<i>4.1</i><br />
<i>Graduates of a single honours degree in economics usually learn about the following.<br />
<br />
<b>Economic concepts, principles and tools</b>, the understanding of which might be verbal, graphical or mathematical. These concepts, tools and principles play a key role in reasoning. They address the micro-economic issues of decision and choice, the production and exchange of goods, the pricing and use of inputs, the inter-dependency of markets, the relationships between principals and agents, and economic welfare. They also include the macro-economic issues of employment, national income, the balance of payments, the distribution of income, economic growth, financial and business cycles, and the role of money and finance in the economy.<br />
<br />
<b>Economic policy at both the micro-economic and macro-economic levels.</b> In all these, students show an understanding of analytical methods and model-based argument and should appreciate the existence of different methodological approaches.</i><br />
<br />
<i><b>Relevant quantitative methods and computing techniques.</b> These include appropriate mathematical and statistical methods, including econometrics. Students have exposure to the use of such techniques on <b>actual economic, financial or social data</b>, using suitable <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_statistical_packages">statistical or econometric software</a>.</i><br />
<br />
<b><i>The nature, sources and uses of both quantitative and qualitative economic data</i></b> <i>and <b>an ability to select and apply appropriate methods that economists might use to analyse such data</b>.</i><br />
<br />
<i><b>The applications of economics</b>. Students discover how to apply relevant economic principles and reasoning to a variety of applied topics. They are also aware of how economics can be applied to design, guide and interpret commercial, economic, social and environmental policy. As part of this, they have the ability to discuss and analyse government policy and to assess the performance of the UK and other economies, past and present.</i><br />
<br />
<i>4.2</i><br />
<i>It is recognised that, in both single honours degrees and in many degrees that involve a substantial amount of economics, content is adapted to suit the nature and objectives of the degree programme. In degrees that are not single honours economics, not all the elements in paragraph 4.1 may be covered. It is also recognised that the</i><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><i>forms of analysis chosen may differ and may be <b>tailored</b> to best serve the</i></li>
<li><i>skills that students bring with them into their degree programme.</i></li>
</ul>
<i>It is neither the function nor the objective of this Subject Benchmark Statement to prescribe what these forms of analysis might be; this is a matter for institutional choice and decision.</i></blockquote>
So: subject-mixers and exam-flunkers on one of the UK's shortest economics degree courses can't expect everything. "Taylored" is a cliche, used to conceal the need to say "blinkered"; if a group of students has failed one exam and you want them to pass the next one, you have to make all parts of the process clear and avoid distraction. Also concealed is the chance to use their skills from other mixed subjects. It ought to be a good idea - Open University use real life examples from TV documentaries to try to draw in students' everyday experience - but I don't remember it happening in practise at college. Maybe students ought to be allowed to compare and contrast different economics text books. A lot of us would have been good at that.<br />
<br />
I do accept another idea which isn't stated - or - really, I ramble a bit in this paragraph but it is worth keeping. When Economics departments look bad to their college bosses, they get merged with another similar failing subject that gets more applicants, called something like <i>"learn how to do business or manage while doing neither, taught by people who do neither"</i>. The subject and subjects like it effect a lot of us for a lot of our working lives as employees or whatever-else, but it's hard to know what course you want when aged about 18. That could be why graduates from these courses, on average, have a low employment rate second worst after subjects like fine art. So the merger is not a merger of one tricky course with another much clearer one; it is a merger of two bunches of staff with a tricky teaching problem, presumably done in order to reduce the number of high-paid staff. That could be good if it reduces the number of over-promoted people who have never worked in an office but end-up being the one who chooses how to organise the office - a common problem in social service jobs. That same process could be bad if it allows people to think that they have a separate management job; that such a job exists, separate from being a teacher and justified by lots of earnest committee meetings and being a member of a team of other such. <br />
<br />
Keele and Glasgow economics courses score worst for boredom, even while teaching economics after the crash, so I wondered if they had anything else in common. These are some of the student survey scores for Keele Economics with the Glasgow University full time economics scores in brackets, taken from <a href="https://www.thestudentsurvey.com/content/NSS2015_Questionnaire.pdf">forms like this one</a> with questions I have copied-out the questions that Ipsos Mori ask at the bottom of this post.<br />
<br />
Diverse expectations are a problem for teachers. I think that's self-evident.<br />
Strong expectations are a problem to teachers, because the course is never as expected.<br />
Strong diverse expectations are a headache, and I suggest that people who sign-up for economics courses have strong diverse expectations. My hunch is that the microeconomics of marginal cost are obvious to anyone who is economically-minded. When developed without a clear example by academics, the more complex theories are probably wrong, and that's what the Post Crash Economics Society report says. Since I was at college something called Game Theory has been added to the syllabus. I think the same, and they say the same: it's probably wrong. Microeconomics seems, to me, to be something to learn from examples or on the job. Macroeconomics seems like something to study for life experience and unlikely ever to be part of a job. Although Alan Johnson MP did say his first job was to "<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5bf1b78d-bb7a-34e5-950d-897e2ff194b0">read an economics primer</a>" when appointed shadow chancellor, and then resigned from front bench politics, and Bank of England staff are keen to promote better economics teaching just in case any one of us does happen to answer a job at by mistake and then find that it's for governor of the Bank of England.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="color: purple;">Your problem is with macroeconomics; most of us aren’t even macro-economists</span></i></h3>
<i>As our name implies, we believe the 2008 financial crisis represents a major failure of macroeconomics. However, this doesn’t mean our criticisms are limited to macroeconomics.<br />
<br />
For one, it can be argued that many of macroeconomics’ problems stem from its ‘microfoundations’, which rely on problematic micro-economic concepts such as utility, capital, market clearing and so forth (Keen, 2011).<br />
<br />
Second, there is the problem that microeconomics and macroeconomics are intrinsically linked, and not just in the direction of the former to the latter: for example, since people demonstrate higher risk aversion in recessions than in booms, can we talk about their utility functions without discussing the macroeconomic environment in which they are operating?<br />
<br />
Third, regardless of the crash, there has been vigorous debate about microeconomics as well as macroeconomics for some time and it is important that students understand the areas of contest and have the tools to be able to evaluate competing micro-economic theories.</i></blockquote>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
STUDENT SURVEYS AT<br />
<a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/subjects/satisfaction/10007767FT-UECOFY/ReturnTo/Search" target="_blank">KEELE ECONOMICS COURSES</a> (OR <a href="https://unistats.ac.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007794FT-L150-2308" target="_blank">UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW</a>)<br />
77% Staff are good at explaining things (or doing their job) (82% at Glasgow)<br />
<span style="color: red;">51%</span> Staff have made the subject interesting (<span style="color: red;">46</span>% Glasgow)<br />
54% Staff are enthusiastic about what they are teaching (57 Glasgow)<br />
61% The course is intellectually stimulating (64 Glasgow)<br />
<br />
ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK<br />
67% The criteria used in marking have been clear in advance (46)<br />
72% Assessment arrangements and marking have been fair (68)<br />
48% Feedback on my work has been prompt (50)<br />
45% I have received detailed comments on my work (<span style="color: red;">37</span>)<br />
36% Feedback on my work has helped me clarify things I did not understand (<span style="color: red;">32</span>)<br />
<br />
ACADEMIC SUPPORT<br />
65% I have received sufficient advice and support with my studies (61)<br />
67% I have been able to contact staff when I needed to (89)<br />
58% Good advice was available when I needed to make study choices (64)<br />
<br />
ORGANISATION AND MANAGEMENT<br />
62% The timetable works efficiently as far as my activities are concerned (86)<br />
54% Any changes in the course or teaching have been communicated effectively (86)<br />
58% The course is well organised and is running smoothly (61)<br />
<br />
LEARNING RESOURCES<br />
78% The library resources and services are good enough for my needs (96)<br />
91% I have been able to access general IT resources when I needed to (89)<br />
80% I have been able to access specialised equipment, facilities, or rooms when I needed to (96)<br />
<br />
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT<br />
75% The course has helped me to present myself with confidence (75)<br />
65% My communication skills have improved (79)<br />
65% As a result of the course, I feel confident in tackling unfamiliar problems (89)</fieldset>
<br />
<fieldset>
Bath, Glasgow and Keele courses provide little feedback that helps students understand the course, according to Unistats, along with other small groups of students at other colleges. Looking at the figures, economics courses often score 20-40% while arts subjects can score double. That's a pity, because an annoying thing about economic statements, including mine here, is an ignorance of the opposite point of view.<br />
<br />
I tried searching for detail on the SOAS course, which comes bottom of one of the league tables. Someone has written an online review. It looks intense, rather mass-produced, and reached by commute. The main thing I discovered was that staff put their notes online - the notes of what to tell inspectors in terms of learning outcomes. How can they possibly justify a course called "quantitative methods" that isn't linked to data? If it were, I think the student would have mentioned if it was oriental or African data, but the course seems to be taught un-linked to any specific. Staff have thought of an answer to tell inspectors: this is a learning outcome in itself. By the end of your stats course you should be able to justify its application to vague lists of economic types of problems, or you fail the exam. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Appleby">Sir Humphrey</a> would be proud, but students should give this course zero in the satisfaction survey and say why if they get a chance.<br />
<br />
Economics university league tables like The Guardian, The Times, and The Complete University Guide have to share some blame. They conceal bad courses, which is the opposite of what an applicant would want them for. If you want to get into a posh college by doing an awful course, you should do it knowingly, and not find out on day one in the lecture theatre. The same is true of finding good courses in the more obscure or orwellian colleges.<br />
<br />
For example <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/e/pyi82.html">Dr Devrim Sakir Yilmaz</a> - Lecturer at Kingston - got a reference for <i>"fantastic teaching"</i> by the Post-Crash Economics Society when he worked at Manchester. <i>"Devrim's current research is on stock-flow consistent dynamic models, and endogenous monetary policy. He teaches intermediate macroeconomics, money banking and financial markets, and contemporary issues in economics"</i> - writes his current employer, Kingston University, so <a href="https://www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/faculty-of-arts-and-social-sciences/schools/law-social-and-behavioural-sciences/departments/department-economics/">somewhere in Kingston there might be a very good economics course</a>. Even before he arrived, courses there were 83% interesting except for the maths and business related ones, while the boss at the department has written books on economics that real people buy.<br />
<br />
One league table - the complete university guide - says <i>"The average satisfaction score for all questions except the three about learning resources was calculated and then adjusted for the subject mix at the university. Due to the distribution of the data, and to avoid this measure having an undue influence on the overall ranking, the z-score is divided by three"</i>. Whatever that means, the effect is to put the usual suspect colleges at the bottom of most subject tables, even if they run a good course, while bad courses stay concealed at other universities further up the </fieldset>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<hr align="left> other posts:<br /> <a href=" />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Afterthoughts that don't fit anywhere else - scroll further down for post-crash economics</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
</h4>
<fieldset>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Development Economics for developing countries - misfit paragraph</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">I've learnt a bit about this since college, where there wasn't time to teach it, and found that it's often taught just as badly. <br />
<br />
The bunch I came across used material from Brooks Uni. A textbook called "<a href="http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2004/april/tradoc_111249.pdf" target="_blank">Rigged Rules and Double Standards</a>" divides the world into "north" and "south", which is pretty-much a division between countries with a welfare state in the north and countries with no welfare state, mass poverty, overpopulation, and dangerous T shirt factories in the south.<br />
<br />
The book is published by a development agency, written by one of its staff, and used as a textbook on courses sponsored by the agency. One of the authors, Penny Fowler, studied economics with another subject at Bristol University<br />
<br />
<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FI3YMbnlpoQC&sitesec=reviews" target="_blank">The book reflects the opinions of governments where the agency does business</a>, which are generally against providing a welfare state and in favour of asking for lower tariffs and more subsidy. A quote that's apparently from another development economist turns-out to be from the trade minister of Vietnam. The person who wrote the book to order - <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kevinwatkins" title="author of Rigged Rules and Double Standards">Kevin Watkins</a> - sometimes has work published by The Guardian as though a reliable source. </span></span></div>
</div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Development Economics for a developed country: UK fashion and design - misfit paragraph</h4>
Meanwhile London College of Fashion hosts <a href="https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/creative_connexions_brief_and_bu_2#comment-7512" title="scumbags">offices that don't do any teaching at all, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council, which means you, me, and missing services for our grannies. One such existed to encourage out-sourcing of UK designers' manufacturing to China. It was called Creative Connexions</a>, with an office near photography languages and the students union, and another office in China. Somewhere in government departments, groups of people thought this was a good idea, probably using ideas they'd picked-up on economics courses. The same office helped with a project called Delphe, funded by the Department for International Development and manged by The British Council, to write fake examples of a thing called Ethical Fashion for UK fashion students. One of them - <i>Juste</i> - simply didn't exist. Most are accompanied by a paragraph headed "<a href="http://veganline.com/ethical-fashion-forum.htm" title="What is Ethical Fashion?">What is Ethical Fashion</a>", so I have written a page on the subject</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
</h4>
<fieldset>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Why do students mark one subject as "made interesting" more than another?<br />
Here is a guess.</h4>
I don't know why students mark some subjects as made interesting and others not. Pharmacy scores better than Economics. I suppose this is a measure of how boring a student expects a subject to be, and whether they are surprised that teachers can make it seem more or less boring as the course unfolds. There's a similar question for "subject ... intellectually stimulating" which might show lower marks for pharmacy, but it's a lot harder to search on unistats; you probably need a stats program and tables of data.<br />
<br />
I went to college after a savage crisis in manufacturing, which indirectly had killed my father's business, reduced a generation's prospects, and still effects my life today just as it effected the hostel residents I worked alongside as a hostel worker, and all the shoe factories that would be open today and supplying my shoe shop but unfortunately are closed and converted into flats.<br />
<br />
My professor, and the kind of colleagues he hired, could not even be bothered to give a thoughtful answer to a question about the subject. The same applies now to students who go to Glasgow University after the banking crisis centred on RBS, and presumably find that their professors cannot even be bothered to give thoughtful answers to questions about the subject. In fact I know so because of the low scores they gave for staff feedback that addresses the issues. A view shared by 20 Aberdeen University students about one of their courses. So I suppose Economics is an unusually disappointing subject and that this disappointment is unusually strong after economic disasters. I did wonder whether a high-pitched accent is what makes the lectures boring, but people adapt, and universities in northern Ireland do not have the same bad feedback, so I think it is the proximity of economic disasters and <a href="http://gormano.blogspot.com/2015/09/goodish-34.html">Dave Gorman</a> impersonators that causes complaints (there have been 3 visitors from the Dave Gorman blog month 1 of this post being published, so I make no baddass comment about <a href="http://www.davegorman.com/">davegorman.com</a>).</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">National Student Survey questions - probably from 2015</span><br />
including optional follow-up questions and extra questions for NHS students</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/Assets/Docs/Publications/nss-questionnaire.pdf">https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/Assets/Docs/Publications/nss-questionnaire.pdf</a></div>
<fieldset>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Main Questionnaire</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<input type="checkbox" />Definitely agree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Mostly agree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Neither agree nor disagree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Mostly disagree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Definitely disagree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Not applicable<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
The teaching on my course</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
1. Staff are good at explaining things.<br />
2. Staff have made the subject interesting.<br />
3. Staff are enthusiastic about what they are teaching.<br />
4. The course is intellectually stimulating.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Assessment and feedback</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
5. The criteria used in marking have been clear in advance.<br />
6. Assessment arrangements and marking have been fair.<br />
7. Feedback on my work has been prompt.<br />
8. I have received detailed comments on my work.<br />
9. Feedback on my work has helped me clarify things I did not understand.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Academic support</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
10. I have received sufficient advice and support with my studies.<br />
11. I have been able to contact staff when I needed to.<br />
12. Good advice was available when I needed to make study choices.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Organisation and management</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
13. The timetable works efficiently as far as my activities are concerned.<br />
14. Any changes in the course or teaching have been communicated effectively.<br />
15. The course is well organised and is running smoothly.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Learning resources</h4>
16. The library resources and services are good enough for my needs.<br />
17. I have been able to access general IT resources when I needed<br />
18. I have been able to access specialised equipment, facilities, or rooms when I needed to.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Personal development</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
19. The course has helped me to present myself with confidence.<br />
20. My communication skills have improved.<br />
21. As a result of the course, I feel confident in tackling unfamiliar problems.<br />
22. Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the course.<br />
<br />
Looking back on the experience, are there any particularly positive or negative aspects you would like to highlight? (Please use the boxes below.)</div>
<fieldset>
<br />
<br />
<br /></fieldset>
<br />
<fieldset>
<br />
<br />
<br /></fieldset>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
National Student Survey Bank of Questions (Optional)</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<input type="checkbox" />Definitely agree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Mostly agree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Neither agree nor disagree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Mostly disagree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Definitely disagree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Not applicable</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B1. Careers</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As a result of my course, I believe that I have improved my career prospects<br />
Good advice is available for making career choices<br />
Good advice is available on further study opportunities<br />
N/A</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B2. Course Content and Structure</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
All of the compulsory modules are relevant to my course<br />
There is an appropriate range of options to choose from on my course<br />
The modules of my course form a coherent integrated whole</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B3. Work Placements</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Did your course involve any work placements?<br />
Yes (ask all questions in this section)<br />
No (skip this section)<br />
I received sufficient support and advice from my institution about the organisation of my placements<br />
My placements were valuable in helping my learning<br />
My placements have helped me to develop my skills in relation to my course<br />
My placements have helped me to develop my general life skills<br />
The taught part of my course was good preparation for my placements</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B4. Social Opportunities</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have had plenty of opportunities to interact socially with other students<br />
I am satisfied with the range of clubs and societies on offer<br />
I am satisfied with the range of entertainment and social events on offer</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B5. Course Delivery</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Learning materials made available on my course have enhanced my learning<br />
The range and balance of approaches to teaching has helped me to learn<br />
The delivery of my course has been stimulating<br />
My learning has benefited from modules that are informed by current research<br />
Practical activities on my course have helped me to learn</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B6. Feedback from Students</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have had adequate opportunities to provide feedback on all elements of my course<br />
My feedback on the course is listened to and valued<br />
It is clear to me how students comments on the course have been acted upon</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B7. The Physical Environment</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Security has been satisfactory when attending classes<br />
My institution provides an appropriate environment in which to learn</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B8. Welfare Resources and Facilities</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There is sufficient provision of welfare and student services to meet my needs. <br />
When needed, the information and advice offered by welfare and student services has been helpful</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B9. Workload</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The workload on my course is manageable<br />
This course does not apply unnecessary pressure on me as a student</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The volume of work on my course means I can always complete it to my satisfaction <br />
I am generally given enough time to understand the things I have to learn</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B10. Assessment</h4>
Teaching staff test what I have understood rather than what I have memorised<br />
Assessment methods employed in my course require an in-depth understanding of the course content<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B11. Learning Community</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I feel part of a group of students committed to learning<br />
I have been able to explore academic interests with other students<br />
I have learnt to explore ideas confidently within my course,<br />
I feel my suggestions and ideas are valued<br />
I feel part of an academic community in my college or university</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
B12. Intellectual Motivation</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have found the course motivating<br />
The course has stimulated my interest in the field of study<br />
The course has stimulated my enthusiasm for further learning</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
National Student Survey Questions for NHS-Funded Students only</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<input type="checkbox" />Definitely agree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Mostly agree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Neither agree nor disagree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Mostly disagree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Definitely disagree<br />
<input type="checkbox" />Not applicable</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
N3 Practise placements</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I received sufficient preparatory information prior to my placement(s)<br />
I was allocated placement(s) suitable for my course I received appropriate supervision on placement(s)<br />
I was given opportunities to meet my required practise learning outcomes / competences<br />
My contribution during placement(s) as part of the clinical team was valued <br />
My practise supervisor(s) understood how my placement(s)related to the broader requirements of my course<br />
N/A</div>
</fieldset>
</blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
Bad economics courses - The most boring places to study economics in the UK - The most over-charged economics students in the UK - Pattern-spotting: Keele & Glasgow University bad economics - <span style="color: red;">Student survey questions</span> - Quality assurance agency benchmarks for economics - scroll further down for post-crash economics</fieldset>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3>
<span style="color: red;">Quality Assurance Agency Benchmark Standards for Economics Degrees</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBhJNL-M-b15H632728P_Ms5EEydcGu1FBraO7gFthrtKA_z16ujywAjSZ18BL48lfYt4jh8D3V1LC-emsSttEnzL6yNVjMUGodIBuVmOLEQjfzxVkC42sO0-Xwt5UHQi4XCJsaLspBxUE/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBhJNL-M-b15H632728P_Ms5EEydcGu1FBraO7gFthrtKA_z16ujywAjSZ18BL48lfYt4jh8D3V1LC-emsSttEnzL6yNVjMUGodIBuVmOLEQjfzxVkC42sO0-Xwt5UHQi4XCJsaLspBxUE/s1600/temp.jpg" /></a></div>
1 <span style="color: red;">ignorance / </span><span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> & <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of economic concepts, principals & tools. <br />
<br />
2 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of distinctive economic theories, intepretations, modelling approaches & <span style="color: #38761d;">their competant use</span>. <br />
<br />
3 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span><span style="color: #b45f06;"> </span><span style="color: #b45f06;">/ awareness </span>& <span style="color: #38761d;">proficiency </span>in quantitative methods & computing techniques appropriate to their programme of study, <span style="color: #b45f06;">show an appreciation of the contexts in which these techniques and methods are relevant</span> & <span style="color: #38761d;">how to use them effectively across a range of problems</span>. <br />
<br />
4 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> & <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of sources and content of economic data & evidence, and <span style="color: #b45f06;">appreciate what </span>/ <span style="color: #38761d;">and of those</span> methods that might be appropriately applied to its analysis. <br />
<br />
5 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> & <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of how to apply economic reasoning to policy issues <span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">in a critical manner</span>. </span><br />
<br />
6 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge awareness </span>& <span style="color: #38761d;">understanding</span> of historical, political, institutional international, social, and environmental contexts in which specific economic analysis is applied.<br />
<br />
7 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">knowledge</span> in an appropriate number of specialised areas in economics as well as <span style="color: red;">cluelessness</span> or an <span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">appreciation of the research literature in these areas</span></span>. </span><br />
<br />
8 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> <span style="color: #b45f06;">/ awareness</span> of & <span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #38761d;">familiarity</span> </span>with the possibility that many economic problems may admit of more than one approach.<br />
<br />
9 <span style="color: red;">ignorance</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">awareness of how to choose a course from unistats</span> rather than just choosing a college and hoping the course will be OK; <span style="color: #38761d;">familiarity</span> with the faults of economics courses and how to fuss constructively if the next Fishman talks out of his bottom. This is not on the quango list of points; it just arrived here.<br />
<br />
10 <span style="color: red;">familiarity and understanding</span> / <span style="color: #b45f06;">awareness of</span><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"> </span></span><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: black;">/</span> </span>ignorance</span> of the idea of compulsory insurance, often state-run, with its cheap-deal method of evening-out typical payments and benefits over a life cycle. This is the main work of most European governments, but has to be ignored in order to sell textbooks from Alabama to West Virginia. Completely misleading concepts like "transfer payments" or a slippery american word "welfare" must be used instead. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;">Threshold level is amber</span>; <span style="color: #38761d;">typical level is green</span>. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/SBS-Economics-15.pdf"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Points 9-10 are <span style="font-family: inherit;">not on the QAA site</span></span>.</a></span></span></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<hr />
<blockquote>
<fieldset>
<i>Bad economics courses - The most boring places to study economics in the UK - The most over-charged economics students in the UK - Pattern-spotting: Keele & Glasgow University bad economics - Student survey questions - <span style="color: red;">Quality assurance agency benchmarks for economics</span> - scroll further down for post-crash economics</i></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<s><br />
Oh, the post crash economics society web site crashed today, so</s> I've pinched their report and added it here even though I haven't read it. <strike>With luck it will soon be back online where</strike> it mainly lives at <a href="http://www.post-crasheconomics.com/">post-crasheconomics.com</a> <s>The last blog post was on the 8th of October 2015 so I doubt it's down forever. You can also download from<br />
<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20151010135239/http://www.post-crasheconomics.com/">http://web.archive.org/web/20151010135239/http://www.post-crasheconomics.com/</a></s></blockquote>
<blockquote>
If you are interested in college document about teaching standards called <i>"Manchester Matrix"</i>, it reads better as a table on the original .pdf than the way it has cut-and-pasted here and written Appendix above it, so you know you don't have to scroll-down and check for things underneath. The stuff with purple headings is theirs.</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #38761d;">Footnote 1</span></h3>
<hr />
<span style="background-color: #38761d;"><br />
</span> <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: #38761d;"> <span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="background-color: white;">Business Economics modules in Social Sciences programmes </span></span></span> </h3>
Business Economics taught in Social Sciences programmes tends to be a difficult product to position. The majority of students—but also, rather surprisingly, colleagues—often focus only on the "Business", and tend to forget the "Economics". Those students attracted by the "Business" side happen to be disappointed or even sometimes disgruntled that the module is in general based on economics principles, including quantitative techniques necessary to understand utility/profit maximisation, cost/benefit analysis, and basic game theoretic approaches to competition. Course conveners and textbook authors are aware of this and, either subconsciously or strategically (in fear of obtaining penalising feedback from students), tend to leave aside more advanced and challenging economics in favour of unenthusiastic analysis of case studies.<br />
The result is that often Business Economics modules are diluted microeconomics units supported by various business case studies, taught by applied micro economists who may not have any real world business experience and who fear to antagonise students by asking them to deal with more technical economic questions. Case studies can be very useful in principle and, correctly utilised, can significantly support learning. However a case study taught by an economist who has not had any first-hand business experience cannot be fully credible, inspiring and engaging to students. They would be good examples for students' revision, nothing more. This situation is neither good for students (who may grow less engaged with the module) nor for course conveners (uneasy, uncomfortable, too worried to displease students). <br />
<br />
<i>- Mario Pezzino's introductory paragraphs to "<a href="https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/showcase/pezzino_guestlectures">The use of professional guest lectures in Business Economics modules</a>", published on <a href="https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/">The Economics Network</a> site in November 2015. Mario Pezzino works at Manchester University.</i></blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Appendix 2 made sense when the post crash economics society's own web site went offline. It looks rude to post it here, now that their site is back on the web, but nobody cares what is this far-down a long web page and I will leave it for a while. </span></h3>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Economics, Education and Unlearning:</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Economics Education at the University of Manchester</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Post-Crash Economics Society<br />
With a Foreword by Andrew Haldane (Bank of England)<br />
1<br />
Published by the Post-Crash Economics Society at the University of Manchester- April 2014.<br />
Email: post.crasheconomics@gmail.com<br />
Address: The Post-Crash Economics Society, University of Manchester Students’ Union, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR.<br />
Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Andy Haldane for kindly agreeing to write a foreword for our report. We would also like to thank Victoria Chick, Ha Joon Chang and all the other economists who have supported our society and Patricia Elder for her help in editing this document. Finally, we would like to thank <a href="http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/faculty/staff/cv.php?staffnum=1048" title="This teacher now works at Kingston University">Devrim Sakir Yilmaz</a> [now at Kingston Uni] for his fantastic teaching and his brave commitment to economics.<br />
Contents of the report may be quoted or reproduced for non-commercial purposes provided that the source of information is acknowledged.<br />
2<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Contents Page</span></h3>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
FORWARD BY ANDREW HALDANE:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">THE REVOLUTION IN ECONOMICS</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
p3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
p7<br />
<span style="color: purple;">INTRODUCTION</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
12 SECTION 1:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">WHAT’S WRONG WITH ECONOMICS EDUCATION AT MANCHESTER?</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
14 SECTION 2:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">ANALYSIS OF CORE MICRO AND MACRO MODULES</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
19 SECTION 3:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">THE FORMATION OF THE STATUS QUO AND ITS REPRODUCTION</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
23 SECTION 4:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">RESPONDING TO ARGUMENTS AGAINST CHANGE</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
25 SECTION 5:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">THE COMPELLING CASE FOR REFORM</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
32 SECTION 6:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">REAL CONSTRAINTS TO CHANGE AT MANCHESTER</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
42 SECTION 7:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">PRINCIPLES OF A POST-CRASH ECONOMICS EDUCATION AND SOME PRACTICAL REFORMS</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
45 CONCLUSION:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">WHY IS THE CRISIS SO IMPORTANT?</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
51 APPENDIX 1:<br />
<span style="color: purple;">RESPONSE TO<br />
THE INSTITUTE FOR NEW ECONOMIC THINKING’S CORE PROGRAMME</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
53 <span style="color: purple;">BIBLIOGRAPHY </span></h4>
<br />
<br />
<hr />
3<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">The Revolution in Economics</span></h3>
By Andrew Haldane, Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England<br />
<br />
Adam Smith is generally thought to be the father of economics. The reason for that is his book The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. This book reached a number of startling, almost miraculous, conclusions. Among these was that the pursuit of self-interest, at the level of an individual household or firm, resulted in aggregate outcomes which could be optimal for society as a whole. In other words, the Invisible Hand was benign and benevolent. Competition was good. Greed was good.<br />
<br />
On Smith’s shoulders, the fundamental theorems of welfare economics were built. These formed the theoretical bedrock of 20th century economics. Out of these foundations were constructed optimising models of the economy with aesthetically beautiful properties – dynamic, stochastic general equilibrium models. These typically embedded an equilibrium which was unique, stationary and efficient. And they typically embodied expectations which were ordered and rational. The dynamics of the resulting socio-economic models were classically Newtonian, resembling the damped harmonic motion of Newton’s pendulum.<br />
<br />
Not surprisingly, the mathematical techniques used to derive and solve these models were also a straight lift and shift from theoretical physics. And, to complete the physics-envy, economists’ methodological approach was explicitly deductive. That enabled macro-economics, as a fledgling (and perhaps rather self-conscious) discipline, to be built on optimising foundations. These gave the impression of rigour and solidity. Micro-founded models were not only simple and beautiful, but also more suitable for policy analysis care of the Lucas critique.<br />
<br />
In the light of the financial crisis, those foundations no longer look so secure. Unbridled competition, in the financial sector and elsewhere, was shown not to have served wider society well. Greed, taken to excess, was found to have been bad. The Invisible Hand could, if pushed too far, prove malign and malevolent, contributing to the biggest loss of global<br />
<hr />
4<br />
incomes and output since the 1930s. The pursuit of self-interest, by individual firms and by individuals within these firms, has left society poorer.<br />
<br />
The crisis has also laid bare the latent inadequacies of economic models with unique stationary equilibria and rational expectations. These models have failed to make sense of the sorts of extreme macro-economic events, such as crises, recessions and depressions, which matter most to society. The expectations of agents, when push came to shove, proved to be anything but rational, instead driven by the fear of the herd or the unknown. The economy in crisis behaved more like slime descending a warehouse wall than Newton’s pendulum, its motion more organic than harmonic.<br />
<br />
In this light, it is time to rethink some of the basic building blocks of economics. And in this rethink we could do worse than return to Adam Smith. For just prior to the Wealth of Nations, Smith had produced a rather different book. It was called The Theory of Moral Sentiments and was published in 1759. In it, Smith emphasises cooperation, as distinct from competition, as a way of satisfying society’s needs. It places centre-stage concepts such as reciprocity and fairness, values rather than value.<br />
<br />
Experimental research makes clear the importance of these concepts when studying decision-making in socio-economic systems. Fairness and reciprocity, rather than self-interest, emerge from the simplest imaginable games of human interaction. The “Ultimatum Game” is one in which a money offering – say, £100 - is shared between two parties, with one party taking the lead in the offer and the second choosing to accept or reject that offer. The twist comes in the fact that, if the offer is rejected, both parties receive nothing.<br />
<br />
So what offer should the first party make? The self-interested rational expectations solution – if you like, Smith 1776 vintage – is to offer the lowest amount possible, such as £1. Why? Because it would be irrational for the second party to reject that offer because doing so makes them worse off. Yet reject it they do, consistently so, in experimental trials.<br />
<br />
The reason is that the offer violates the second party’s sense of fairness – in other words, Smith 1759 vintage. And for that reason, the offer made by the first party is very rarely the lowest-possible, self-interested one. Typically, it is closer to a sharing of the spoils.<br />
<hr />
5<br />
Reciprocity and fairness are centre-stage. The same has been found in numerous other socio-interactive games. These confirm we are a co-operative species every bit as much as a competitive one. This is hardly a surprising conclusion for sociologists and anthropologists. But for economists it turns the world on its head.<br />
The good news is that there are signs economics may be going back to the future. If the Wealth of Nations was the book for the 20th century, the Theory of Moral Sentiments may be the book for the 21st. Smith is being rediscovered in his true colours – as political scientist, sociologist and moral philosopher. This is evidenced in the upsurge in interest in integrating the insights from other disciplines into economics: history, psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, sociology and neuroscience, to name but six.<br />
This, and the intrigue and pain of the crisis, has added to the lustre of economics as a discipline. This is reflected in the record number of applications to universities. This renewed interest, at grass roots level, offers the discipline a real opportunity; it is the silver lining to the dark cloud created by the financial crisis. But it is an opportunity that can only be seized if the grass roots are adequately fed and watered. And that is where the economics curriculum comes into the picture.<br />
<br />
Four years ago, George Soros set up the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) to stimulate a refresh and reset of the economics discipline and, within that, economics teaching. Two years ago, Gregory Mankiw’s undergraduate economics class at Harvard walked-out at the narrowness of the curriculum. Here in the UK, Wendy Carlin from UCL is leading a project to reform the <a href="https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/programmes/curriculum" target="_blank">economics curriculum among a number of UK universities, with sponsorship from INET</a>. These are all encouraging steps in the right direction.<br />
<br />
But change, to be durable, needs also to come from the next generation. That is why this report, from the Post-Crash Economics Society at the University of Manchester, is so very welcome. It suggests a groundswell, not just of interest but of concern, among the student population about the current shape of the economics curriculum among UK universities. Although the most prominent example of student activism on this front, it is by no means the only, with more than half a dozen universities also part of what appears to be an increasingly vocal movement.<br />
<hr />
6<br />
The agenda set out in this Report is exciting and compelling. While not exhaustive, it begins to break open some of the economics discipline’s self-imposed shackles. Some of this is discovery of the new – for example, in the area of evolutionary, neuro and behavioural economics. But a large part is rediscovery of the old – or, in some cases, dusting down of the neglected – for example, in the area of institutional economics, economic history and money and banking.<br />
<br />
The proposed methodology is pluralist. It is also cross-disciplinary. It combines deductive and inductive methods. For economists, data-mining – the ultimate in inductive methods – remains a dirty word. For many other professions these days, it is a potential goldmine. This methodological blind-spot is one economists need quickly to eradicate.<br />
<br />
Employers of economists, like the Bank of England, stand to benefit from such an evolution in the economics curriculum. Answering effectively public policy questions of the future requires an understanding of the past. It also requires eclecticism in the choice of methodology, a knowledge of political economy, an appreciation of institutions, an understanding of money and banking. A revamped economics curriculum could serve these needs, and hence those of public policy, well.<br />
<br />
The power of economics is that it affects real lives in real ways; it matters. And it is because it matters and because it affects us all that the profession, still fledgling, needs to be in a perpetual state of renewal. The crisis is bringing about that renewal. Reports such as this, if acted on wisely, would help make that renewal permanent and on-going. I hope it is acted on and wisely.<br />
<hr />
7<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Executive Summary</span></h3>
This report represents the most comprehensive statement to date of the University of Manchester Post-Crash Economics Society’s (PCES) critique of economics education in the UK. It is based on research carried out at the University of Manchester by members of the Manchester PCES committee. However, the findings of this report are highly relevant to economics education on a national and international level because of the relative homogeneity of undergraduate economics education. Widespread student discontent is illustrated by the presence of similar societies at Cambridge, London School of Economics, Sheffield, Glasgow, Essex, University College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies.<br />
<br />
The purpose of this report is to provide a detailed, evidence-based argument outlining the shortcomings of economics education at the University of Manchester. Our economics education has raised one paradigm, often referred to as neoclassical economics, to the sole object of study. Alternative perspectives have been marginalised. This stifles innovation, damages creativity and suppresses constructive criticisms that are so vital for economic understanding. Furthermore, the study of ethics, politics and history are almost completely absent from the syllabus. We propose that economics cannot be understood with all these aspects excluded; the discipline must be redefined.<br />
<br />
Significant reform of the syllabus is necessary. At Manchester economics education as it currently stands fails to meet the University’s own standards for an undergraduate degree. On a national level the increasing narrowness of economics education has led to the technicalisation of economic debate. Economic policies are increasingly seen to represent scientific truth as opposed to the prescriptions of one paradigm. Lack of diversity within the discipline stifles innovation and leads to hubris.<br />
<br />
This report is not only a critique of the status quo. Our society’s ethos is based on constructively engaging with our Economics Department. In the latter sections we outline a set of principles that, if adopted, would provide an economics education better able to meet the needs of students, the discipline and society. We also set out short and medium term<br />
<hr />
8<br />
reforms that we believe the University of Manchester ought to consider. In short, we argue for pluralism of perspectives and the inclusion of ethics, history and politics. We advocate an approach that begins with economic phenomena and then gives students a toolkit to evaluate how well different perspectives can explain it. The discipline should be conceptualised as an ecosystem, as the importance of diversity and the cross-fertilisation of paradigms are key to success.<br />
<br />
We acknowledge that we are only students and some may attempt to dismiss our arguments as youthfully naïve or misinformed. Our argument is idealistic in the sense that it is challenging economics as a discipline, asking it to do much more to equip the next generation with the skills to address the challenges our world faces. However, we hope that our idealism is tempered by our approach to campaigning in which we aspire to combine high standards of academic rigor and professionalism. We have carried out extensive research to substantiate the arguments we make and have engaged constructively with our department to provide alternatives as well as criticisms. Our arguments are rooted in established principles of academic debate, method and development.<br />
<br />
We are aware of the limitations of our knowledge and we aim to be humble in recognising that we don’t have all of the answers. For this reason it is significant that we have been supported by a number of prominent economists, journalists and policy makers including Andrew Haldane, Ha-Joon Chang, Victoria Chick, Stephen Davies and Lord Robert Skidelsky. They add experience and authority to our campaign.<br />
But why is the content of the economics curriculum a national issue? Why should anyone care who economics departments hire? Because ‘economics affects real lives in real ways’ as Andrew Haldane states in his foreword to this report. Economists have enormous power and responsibility. They are at once public servants and private actors who must navigate a host of conflicting interests. The quality of their advice and guidance is essential to our society’s future prosperity and sustainability as evidenced so clearly by the Financial Crisis. Questions of how future economists are trained and who gets to use the title economist are, we believe, some of the defining issues of our times. The ability to define economic<br />
<hr />
9<br />
reality and our society’s economic priorities is at stake. The state of economics affects everyone.<br />
We have written this report in the hope that it provokes debate about the state of economics education in the UK. Reform must come from individual universities and from national bodies such as the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Britain has a proud and distinguished history of economic thought. Without significant reforms the future will be darker.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Key findings:</span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Economics education at Manchester has elevated one economic paradigm, often called neoclassical economics, to the sole object of study. Other schools of thought such as institutional, evolutionary, Austrian, post-Keynesian, Marxist, feminist and ecological economics are almost completely absent.</li>
<li>The consequence of the above is to preclude the development of meaningful critical thinking and evaluation. In the absence of fundamental disagreement over methodology, assumptions, objectives and definitions, the practise of being critical is reduced to technical and predictive disagreements. A discipline with a broader knowledge of alternative perspectives will be more internally self-critical and aware of the limits of its knowledge. Universities cannot justify this monopoly of one economic paradigm.</li>
<li>The ethics of being an economist and the ethical consequences of economic policies are almost completely absent from the syllabus.</li>
<li>History of economic thought is an optional third year module which students are put off taking due to it requiring essay writing skills that have not been extensively developed elsewhere in the degree. Very little economic history is taught. Students finish an economics degree without any knowledge of momentous economic events from the Great Depression to the break-up of the Bretton Woods Monetary System.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
10<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>When taken together, these points mean that economics students are taught the economic theory of one perspective as if it represented universally established truth or law.</li>
<li>This state of affairs violates the University’s own guidelines for undergraduate education at Manchester. The Manchester Matrix sets out the knowledge and skills the University expects graduates to have. To take just one example, it states that university education should ‘prepare graduates for citizenship and leadership in diverse, global environments’. In a discipline such as economics this seems particularly relevant, and yet social, political and philosophical issues are divorced from the discipline and are removed to optional modules in other departments. Pure economics students are encouraged not to take these modules as they are seen as less valuable.</li>
<li>Syllabuses are almost homogeneous at many English universities. Widespread support for our society in Manchester and the emergence of similar societies at ten universities around the country shows that many are frustrated with the current situation.</li>
<li>Fifteen years ago the Economics Department at Manchester was pluralist and alternative perspectives and economic history had a far greater place on the syllabus. Since then academics that research in alternative perspectives have been marginalised within the department and aren’t replaced on a like for like basis when they retire or leave.</li>
<li>A significant cause of this great narrowing is how research funding (REF) in economics is allocated. The journals that are highly ranked espouse a neoclassical perspective and as a result universities like Manchester, whose central aim is to climb the research rankings, will only hire academics that adhere to this school of thought. The prioritisation of research over all else means that many university economics departments have become closed shops to economists who do not follow this prescribed agenda, regardless of the positive impact they could have on teaching and understanding.</li>
<li>A range of graduate employers of economists support calls for a more pluralist and critical education. The Government Economics Service, the largest employer of</li>
</ul>
<hr />
11<br />
<ul>
<li>graduate economists, advises applicants against a ‘dogged adherence to… a set of axiomatic rules for theoretic consistency’. Instead it looks for candidates that are ‘intellectually pluralistic’. Multiple employers including as the Bank of England and the big-four accountancy firms are similarly calling for better-equipped economic graduates.</li>
<li>These points combine to make a compelling case for significant reform.<br />
In conclusion, the University must ensure that the academic environment within the Economics Department is open and representative of the diversity of economics. This is the only way we can produce economists of the calibre needed to face approaching economic challenges. The cost of maintaining the status quo is too high.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
12<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Introduction</span></h3>
<i>"I don't care who writes a nation's laws, or crafts its treatises, if I can write its economics textbooks."<br />
Paul Samuelson</i><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">
<br />
The Post-Crash Economics Society was set up by the students of the University of Manchester in December 2012 to campaign for changes to the syllabus and teaching of economics at the University of Manchester. A year on we have provoked and contributed to international debate around questions such as what makes a good economist and what makes a good economics education. We have written a petition in which we outline our concerns with economics education and what changes we want to see. Our aim as a society is not just to criticise the status quo but also to engage constructively with the Economics Department and the University of Manchester to identify realistic and practical reforms. </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">
This report has six purposes:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>To outline our arguments for extensive reform of economics education at the University of Manchester in greater depth and to provide supporting evidence to substantiate our claims.</li>
<li>To identify some of the factors which have played a role in the formation and reproduction of the current state of affairs.</li>
<li>To respond to a number of common counter-arguments against reforming economics education at the University of Manchester.</li>
<li>To identify the constraints that the University of Manchester faces and suggest how these constraints could be worked around.</li>
<li>To provide a set of principles that we believe are a necessary part of an economics education.</li>
<li>To outline a set of realistic and practical recommendations for reform based upon these principles.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<hr />
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
13<br />
In this report, we focus on economics education at the University of Manchester. It is where we study and where we have the most direct influence in pushing for change. However, it is important that we emphasise that the problems we identify are certainly not limited to Manchester and are in fact international in scale. An Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) report illustrates the relative homogeneity of economics education at the 12 leading universities in Britain and suggests that the findings of this report are relevant to universities around the country (Wigstrom, 2011). A large number of economics students around the country clearly feel similarly. We have met students at Cambridge, the London School of Economics, University College London, Exeter, Essex, Glasgow, Sheffield and the School of African and Oriental Studies all of whom are running similar societies and campaigns. We hope that this report will help them to develop their campaigns and argue effectively for change. Any real solution to the national shortcomings of economics education will have to combine both local reforms at individual universities and national reforms by higher education funding bodies and the government.<br />
<br />
In the last few months the state of economics education and the Post-Crash Economics Society has been the subject of national and international media coverage and discussion. Throughout the coverage and discussion there has been a fairly broad consensus that economics education must be reformed. There is less consensus on the extent and breadth of reform that would be desirable and on deciding what the right mechanisms for implementing these reforms might be. In Britain, the CORE programme run by INET and led by Wendy Carlin is providing an influential road map for economics reform. Wendy, in a recent Financial Times op-ed, argues that “economics explains our world – but economics degrees don’t” (2013). This diagnosis places the blame for the state of economics education on the universities but not on the wider discipline as a whole. To the contrary, we argue that economics education is inextricably linked to the discipline and that its problems often mirror problems with the wider discipline (see appendix A for our full response to CORE). We cannot improve economics education in undergraduate courses alone. We must also address related problems in research funding and the wider profession.<br />
<hr />
14<br />
To provide evidence for our arguments we have carried out an analysis of the economics modules on offer at Manchester. We have attempted to be academically rigorous and to support all of our arguments with evidence. We have tried to clearly identify where we have sourced our evidence and explain the methods we have used to collect it. Of course as a student society we are limited by time, resources and expertise and so we haven’t been able to complete as extensive an analysis as we would have wished. Having said that we do believe that our argument as it is presented in this report is a compelling and accurate one and must be taken seriously by our Economics Department, the University of Manchester and by other universities around the country.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Section 1: What’s wrong with economics education at Manchester?</span></h3>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">(1) It fails to cover other schools of thought or ways of doing economics in any systematic way.</span></h4>
The object of study of ‘economics’ is confused with a single methodological framework used to interpret the economy. Commonly known as neoclassical economics, this school is characterised by an approach where individual agents seek to optimise their preferences under exogenous imposed constraints. However, competing definitions of economics could easily be offered:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Social reproduction – how does a firm, family, society reproduce itself? (the classical definition);</li>
<li>The study of production, distribution and exchange (neoclassical economics typically focuses only on the latter);</li>
<li>The study of markets and the enterprise system; and</li>
<li>The interactions between exchange, culture and gender.</li>
</ul>
We are often told that we are really not looking for ‘economics’ and hence should be studying other things. However, this would only be acceptable if we were to assume, and to accept, that ‘economics’ as it is currently studied is correctly defined. We are instead arguing that it cannot be defined in this narrow manner alone and that doing so is unjustified and leads to dogma. A wealth of knowledge and research exists in all<br />
<hr />
15<br />
of these areas shown above and more, much of which many economists have either marginalised or are unaware of. Of those mainstream economists who do concede that alternative theories provide useful insights, many simply argue that they can be annexed into a neoclassical framework. The question of why this is necessary and justified needs to be explored.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">(2) It fails to look in any depth at the assumptions or methodology of the economic theories and models we are taught.</span></h4>
Students are not taught when a particular theory may be applicable and when it may not be: in Musgrave’s terminology, the domain of theories is not clearly defined (Musgrave, 1981). Economics bears some analogy to engineering, where various principles are used to establish theories that work well enough for practical purposes. Yet unlike engineering, the relevance and applicability of particular theories in particular situations are not as clear in economics. Engineers know which types of gas are sufficiently well approximated by the ‘perfect gas’ model, but how are economists supposed to know in which types of industries firms will conform to, for example, the Cournot or Bertrand models, if either? We believe that economics students must be able to analyse the assumptions and methodology of a theory. These tools will enable students to judge not only the validity (logical coherence) but also the soundness (empirical relevance) of economic theory for themselves.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">(3) It places little emphasis on the application of economic theory to understand economic phenomena and little value on substantive knowledge of the national and international economy and its history.</span></h4>
Typically courses are taught deductively, beginning with the assumptions or axioms, and logically deducing theory ‘rigorously’ from micro foundations. At best, the implications of the theory are shown to be loosely consistent with a few stylised facts toward the end of the course, but this is not good enough, for several reasons.<br />
<br />
First, stylised facts are not the same as extensive empirical investigation and very rarely does there seem to be rigorous testing of falsifiable predictions as required by positivist epistemology.<br />
<hr />
16<br />
Second, many of these stylised facts are trivial: for example, inter-temporal macroeconomics is consistent with the idea that governments will run deficits followed by surpluses, a simple observation which is explained in an unnecessarily mathematical and at times, somewhat convoluted manner.<br />
Third, stylised facts can be consistent with many theories. For example, the fact that the money supply is correlated with economic growth is consistent with both endogenous and exogenous money theories, as shown by e.g. Kaldor (1982) or Tobin (1970). We argue instead that economics should be taught inductively wherever possible. On this approach evidence is presented – statistical data, historical analysis, case studies, experiments etc. – and then the theories which plausibly accord with the evidence should be taught as interpretations of that evidence.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">(4) There is little economic history and one optional third year history of economic thought module.</span></h4>
The history of economic thought module is not running this year because the lecturer is unwell. We appreciate this is unavoidable, but unfortunately there is no one else in the Department willing or able to teach the course. If economic theory is a representation of social reality, there is an inescapable historical specificity to any theory. At the extreme, a theory of how hunter-gatherers organise themselves would clearly differ from a theory of capitalism. However, even within capitalist theories, welfare state capitalism might function differently to laissez-faire capitalism, or a predominantly service-based economy might function differently to a manufacturing-based economy. The relevance of the fact that Keynes’ General Theory was published in the midst of the Great Depression is hard to dispute. Understanding where theories came from, and why, will help students to make better judgements about interpreting and applying theory to analysis of economic phenomena as discussed in (2) above.<br />
<hr />
17<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">(5) There is little to no emphasis on the ethics, philosophy and politics of economics.</span></h4>
Economists often proceed with their analysis as if it is a purely quantitative, value-free and scientific enterprise. However, we do not believe this is possible, as questions about the economy inevitably involve value judgements. For instance, which metric should we evaluate the economy by and how should we measure it? What is presumed to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Can we ethically justify recommending policies, and if so why? Currently value judgements are implicit within the theories we are taught: for example, efficiency and growth are generally presumed to be a good thing. We learn the axioms of utility and we learn how to build a theory from them but we spend little to no time discussing whether utility is an adequate concept of value and welfare. It seems even more absurd that we can have a field entitled ‘welfare economics’ and insist that questions about values are obvious or subsidiary.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">(6) It fails to adequately train students to have many of the skills that are vital to succeed in the working world.</span></h4>
Tutorials consist of copying problem sets off the board rather than discussing economic ideas and 18 out of 48 modules have 50% or more marks given by multiple-choice. Only 11 out of 48 modules even include the words "critical", "evaluate" or "compare" in learning objectives. The consequence is an economics education that trains students to digest economic theory and regurgitate it in exams, but never question the assumptions that underpin it. This means that the development of skills such as written communication, explaining economic concepts to non-specialist audiences and problem solving are grossly underdeveloped. Another key skill that is missing from our economics education is judgement. ‘Judgement consists in choice: in recognising why one explanation of the phenomena is superior to another’; why one line of reasoning leads to misleading results and another to illuminating results; ‘and why in the light of evidence this, and not that, explanation should be preferred’ (Freeman, 2007, pg. 11).<br />
<hr />
18<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">(7) It doesn’t place emphasis on developing the tools to be able to critically evaluate economic theory and the lack of pluralism prevents critical comparison.</span></h4>
The student is not taught the tools that are needed to be able to judge which abstractions are defensible and which are not and which reasoning is preferable. Students are penalised for considering variety and rewarded for reproducing existing thought by rote, since overwhelming priority is given to demonstrating the ability to apply a prescribed, allegedly homogeneous theory. Science consists in testing theories against evidence to determine which is best but the state of affairs outlined in (1) and (2) above prevents this (Freeman, pg. 10).<br />
The result is that ‘economics’ as it is currently taught unjustifiably emphasises its scientific status. We have already seen a common objection to our society is that only mainstream economists do ‘real’ economics. Some economists go even further and argue that economics is inherently better than the other social sciences (Lazear, 1999).<br />
<br />
Not all economists are prone to such bravado, but we do believe that in general they do not do enough to teach students about its limitations. This is linked to and reinforces the broad outcome of teaching economic theory as truth, which comes to the surface when economic ideas are communicated to non-economic audiences with the implicit assumption that the economist is necessarily right. Such thinking is demonstrated in popular books like Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist, The Accidental Theorist and The Economic Naturalist. If economics education entailed a greater appreciation of the ethical, historical and political foundations of the discipline, an appreciation of alternative approaches and a more evidence (less axiom) based approach, we believe this would go some way toward alleviating these problems.<br />
<hr />
19<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Section 2: Analysis of core micro and macro modules</span></h3>
The University of Manchester provides 12 undergraduate micro and macro modules which make up a quarter of modules available. These modules are the backbone of an undergraduate economics degree at The University of Manchester. All economics students do first and second year modules and the vast majority do third year modules. An analysis of these modules provides evidence of the problems with economics education we identified in Section 1. We use the notation (Section 1 (x)) to highlight when our analysis corroborates the arguments in the previous section, where x represents the specific point. This analysis was compiled using the module course outlines, past papers and in some cases our own experiences of the modules.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
First year:</h4>
ECON10041 Principles of Micro and ECON10042 Principles of Macro (For those without A level economics),<br />
ECON10081 UK Micro and ECON100082 UK Macro (For those with A level economics).<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>100% of marks awarded by multiple choice exam for both Principles modules in first year.</li>
<li>UK Micro and Macro have 90% awarded by multiple choice exams and the other 10% is an essay. However, this essay is only 1,000 words long and students get 100% for handing it in on time. This means that many students don’t widely research the topic or fully engage with the material.</li>
</ul>
Micro and Macro Principles are a delivery of neoclassical theory and students are expected to learn the theory by rote. There is no mention of what school of thought is being taught or that there are any other schools of thought. It is presented as facts about the world which leads to the possibility of students believing that these ideas represent indisputable truths (Section 1 (1)). Keynes is mentioned briefly in Macro Principles but the ideas presented are actually those of John Hicks and his version of Keynesian thought, rather than of Keynes himself. There is no time given to looking at the underlying assumptions in either<br />
<hr />
20<br />
of these two modules, very little real world application and no historical context as to where these ideas came from (Section 1 (2), (3) and (4)). Apart from the odd mention of economic growth in China and hyperinflation there is no proper analysis of how the theory taught is applied to these examples. The most concerning thing is the complete lack of critical engagement and opportunity for the students to discuss what they are learning. Tutorials comprise of working through problem sets and there is no opportunity to discuss the material in any real depth with the teaching assistants and lecturers (Section 1(6) and (7)).<br />
<br />
In UK Micro and Macro the multiple-choice structure of both exams rewards the ability to regurgitate textbook information, and fails to encourage students to think analytically about economic problems. Students become disillusioned with the wider challenges of economics and are immersed in learning a set of diagrams and equations. Furthermore, according to the mark scheme in UK Micro, marks are awarded for mentioning all the pricing theories which are taught but if a student provides an in-depth discussion of the economic implications of one or two pricing theories this goes unrewarded. In-depth analysis of theories shows a much greater economic understanding but is disregarded in place of the ability to repeat given information. This is a missed opportunity for students to learn skills of critical reflection (Section 1(6) and<br />
(7). This system of memorising information to pass an exam leaves students with fragmented ‘bits’ of theory rather than a solid base to build economic knowledge on.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Second year:</h4>
Micro IIA and Micro IIB. Macro 2A and Macro 2B</blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Micro IIA and IIB both have multiple choice final exams, worth 67% and 70% of the module respectively. Both have a midterm exam: for IIA it is a collection of short essay questions (33%), while for IIB it is a mathematical exercise (30%).</li>
<li>Macro IIA only has a final exam, which is 50% multiple choice and 50% a mathematical exercise. Macro IIB is 30% a multiple choice midterm exam and 70% a final exam which consist of mathematical/diagrammatic/logical derivation of key theories.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<hr />
21<br />
There are similarities between Micro IIA and Macro IIB: both consist solely of deriving neoclassical theories with optimising agents, using words, algebra or diagrams (Section 1(1) and (3)). Similarly, Micro IIB and Macro IIA both consist of using neoclassical theory to solve mathematical problems and possibly being asked to comment on the “economic intuition” behind the results you get. Again this fits the problem as set out in Section 1(1) and (3), but it also fits (2), as no attempt is made to discern whether the theory learnt is relevant or not. All modules lack the elements raised in Section 1(4) and 1(6), and thus students are left with only abstract theories and little knowledge of where they came from, when it is appropriate to apply them or how to explain their implications to a general audience. There is a small effort to do the latter in a Macro IIA tutorial, but it isn’t a significant part of the course.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Third year:</h4>
Micro III (20 credits), Macro IIIA, Macro IIIB and Advanced Macro. BA and BEconSci students are not currently given the option to write a dissertation.</blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>ECON30600 Micro III: Semester 1 has one formative essay during term time and the final exam is 2 essay questions (100%). Semester 2 is a midterm essay (33%) and a final exam (67%). The course uses the concept of rationally optimising individuals to understand a variety of types of markets: insurance, information asymmetry, public goods and more. The explanations are generally diagrammatic and/or mathematical.</li>
<li>ECON30611 Macro IIIA: 90% final exam, 10% midterm essay. Both of these consist largely in deriving a mathematical model and commenting on its policy implications.</li>
<li>ECON30612 Macro IIIB: 90% final exam, 10% midterm essay.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Micro III and Macro IIIA highlight a number of issues set out in Section 1. There is only one type of model taught (even if it has numerous iterations) (Section 1(1), while students are simply required to regurgitate the taught models (Section 1(7)), and the models are taught deductively (Section 1(3)). Section 1(5) is particularly relevant for Macro IIIA, as it discusses the ‘correct’ policies for central banks to pursue. The lecturer repeatedly implies that elected politicians cannot be trusted as they are opportunistic and so central banks may need to be independent. What of the ethical implications of separating policy from<br />
<hr />
22<br />
democracy? Or of the political debate surrounding the motives of politicians (e.g. Lewin 1991)? If economists claim that such debates are outside the domain of economics, then economics should refrain from commenting on policy at all.<br />
<br />
It is true that Microeconomics III discusses some of the problems with expected utility theory, but this begs a few further questions: why, if the theory is so obviously wrong (which seems to be implied), should it be taught at all? Why is it at least not presented alongside some alternatives? Why not, as we argue in (Section 1(3)), lead with actual studies of how people make choices in the face of risk and go from there?<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Summary</span></h3>
We believe that an analysis of the core Micro and Macro substantiates all of the flaws we identify with economics education at Manchester in Section 1. The subject matter, teaching approaches and style of examination we have highlighted in this analysis are broadly reflective of all the economics modules at Manchester. There are exceptions and differences between modules of course and we hope to follow up this report with further analysis of economics modules. Despite these differences, the broad norm is for examinations to require regurgitation of theory as reflected by the prevalence of multiple choice exams, highlighted in our core Micro and Macro analysis. All in all 18 out of 48 modules have 50% or more of the mark graded by multiple choice examination and 9 have 90% or more.<br />
<br />
We do know that in the first year ‘Studying Economics’ module (only open to BEconSci students) students have to do a presentation on an influential historical economist. However, each group only covers one economist which is not enough to give students a coherent picture of the historical context of economic theory. The modules ‘History of Economic Thought’ and ‘Property and Justice: From Grotius to Rawls’ do significantly differ from the core Micro and Macro modules but they are third year optional modules. This means that, as these two new topics are introduced at the last stages of the degree very few economics students are prepared to take them. The subject matter and teaching approach is unfamiliar and so presents a great risk when students are trying to ensure as high mark as possible in their final year. The development stream of modules does cover some alternative theories and is more applied to the real world. One learning objective in<br />
<hr />
23<br />
Development Economics 3, “evaluate critically the rise of FDI and TNCs and their role in the development of emerging market economies” is conspicuous as one of the few exceptions to the general norm. A central objective of economics education reform at Manchester must be the core Macro and Micro syllabus, as it is currently deeply flawed and yet also the backbone of all economics degrees.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Section 3: The formation of the status quo and its reproduction</span></h3>
<i>“He who knows only his own side of the case doesn’t know much about it. His reasons may be good, and no-one may have been able to refute them; but if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, and doesn’t even know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.”<br />
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty</i><br />
<br />
As little as 15 years ago the Economics Department at Manchester had a considerably wider range of professors who self-identified with different economic paradigms and had very different research agendas. This led to a far more eclectic undergraduate syllabus with modules such as comparative economic theory, comparative economic systems and alternative perspectives on developing economies being available for students to study. The Economics Department has radically changed in composition in the last 15 years and it is these changes that are the root cause of many of the problems we outlined in Section 1.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">The Power to Define what is and isn’t Economics</span></h3>
The Research Excellence Framework (REF) and academic journals have the power to define what is and isn’t economics and within that, what is good economics and bad economics. REF determines how much research funding each university gets and is a label of research prowess. Every four years a panel of leading academic economists grade departments on the basis of individual publications whose academic quality is inferred from the status and ranking of economics journals. The problem is that there are no recognisably heterodox<br />
<hr />
24<br />
economists on this panel and that the grading is done behind closed doors with only departmental ratings published. The outcome of the REF rating process is to elevate the neoclassical framework to the standard by which all economics research is judged.<br />
<br />
Departments and individual lecturers are forced to respond to the definitions of economics set by these bodies. Universities push economics departments to improve their research rankings, which in turn increases research funding and the University’s prestige. All academics will be familiar with the pressure to produce publishable work as the primary indicator of their academic quality and a significant determinant of their career progression. This means that academic economists must work with neoclassical assumptions and methodology if they wish to secure academic tenure and advance within the leading economics departments.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">The Great Narrowing</span></h3>
The Department at Manchester is becoming more homogeneous over time. As non-mainstream Manchester professors have retired from expanding departments they have been replaced by young recruits. These recruits represent a narrow range of mainstream economists who had been published, or were more likely to be published, in the mainstream American Journals (Big 5: AER, Chicago etc). This homogeneity puts the Department in the position of not having the capability to teach other schools of thought or history of economic thought. As mentioned above, this year the professor who taught history of economic thought was unwell and Manchester had to cancel the course. In one of the biggest economics departments in the country it is shocking that only one professor is willing and able to teach history of economic thought. This narrowing process reinforces itself; now many young lecturers and teaching assistants aren’t able to facilitate critical discussions including alternative economic perspectives in tutorials because their economics education has lacked those elements.<br />
<br />
This monoculture also makes it easier for professors to believe that their way is the only way to do economics or at least that it is the only valid way which in turn justifies its status as the only kind of economics taught at our university. Many of our lecturers sincerely believe that the economic paradigm their methods represent is the only legitimate way of<br />
<hr />
25<br />
doing economics. The academic costs of these beliefs are high. There is a culture of active hostility towards professors who don’t follow the dominant desirable research agenda. One recently retired professor from Manchester reported to us how he was told by another member of staff that he would be left to “wither on the branch”. Another professor described the process he had been through elsewhere in another university economics department as an “ethnic cleansing”. The recruits which replace them are young and orthodox products of a PhD system dominated by orthodoxy economics. This has created a diaspora as non-mainstream economists at Manchester have been stripped of their titles as economists and pushed out to peripheral positions in development studies and such-like while various kinds of heterodox political economy have taken root in the business school, politics, geography and history departments.<br />
<br />
This process is supported by the technicalisation of mainstream economics. In the mainstream of economics, quantitative methods and algebraic formalisation have supreme status whilst qualitative approaches are deemed inferior. This makes it easier to identify and isolate those economists whose research programmes do not follow the prescribed technical approach and to argue that political economists in the business school or geography are not doing economics. A move to separate normative and positive economics has been pushed to its logical conclusion with normative economics disappearing and the discipline claiming it is ‘value-free’ and ‘neutral’. It is also the process that has allowed economics to cut itself off from communication with other social sciences such as political science or sociology while claiming superiority over them.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Section 4: Responding to arguments against change</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">We already teach Marx and Keynes, both of whom provide different ways of doing economics</span></h3>
Our critics have attempted to caricature our society as demanding “more Keynes and Marx”. However, our argument is far broader: we are calling for an evidence based, pluralistic economics education. We can use the treatment of Marx and Keynes in<br />
<hr />
26<br />
the syllabus to demonstrate that the way that thinkers are taught is just as important as their presence.<br />
Marx is the subject of a presentation done in first year by BEconSci students though each student is assigned a different economist so only one group will actually study Marx. He is also present on the history of thought course. The key point is that any reference to Marx is compartmentalised from the economic theory proper and his contribution is judged to be historical and now superseded (he is given some time in developmental economics modules though these are the exception).<br />
<br />
We argue that it would be far more valuable to use Marx’s theories of crisis, exploitation, class struggle and the reserve army of unemployed as a lens through which to understand business cycles, income distribution and the labour market. For example, pedagogically useful comparisons can be made between Marx’s argument that Capitalism needs a certain level of unemployment to operate and the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) which suggests something similar but takes a very different normative perspective.<br />
<br />
Teaching of Keynes in mainstream economics is not really Keynes. It’s John Hicks, who developed IS/LM independently in debates with Dennis Robertson and other economists during the 1920s, well before the general theory was published (Tily, 2010). The ‘Old-Keynesian’ Phillips Curve also had nothing to do with Keynes, who emphasised the role of expectations in his work. Students at Manchester are not exposed to Keynes’ theories first hand and are definitely not exposed to modern post-Keynesianism, which has developed and built on Keynes’ framework substantially.<br />
<br />
Some would argue that poring over old texts is not the proper way to do a social science, and we agree to an extent. We only wish that particular thinkers’ theories be taught insofar as they are relevant, and we think that these theories should be presented in their historical context where possible. Given that the field of<br />
<hr />
27<br />
economics clearly hasn’t found all the answers someone like Keynes can clearly contribute to that search. It may be wise to teach thinkers from original texts if one wants to access their ideas rather than relying on watered-down impressions.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">There is no such thing as neoclassical economics; there is simply the science of economics and everything else is either bad economics or a different discipline </span></h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This criticism stems from the conflation of the neoclassical economic paradigm, as it exists at this point in time, with economics as a discipline. Heterodox economics may be bad neoclassical economics – by definition, it employs different assumptions, methodology, and definitions. However, it is not necessarily bad economics. Even if neoclassical economics is better, it must still be challenged in economics education by other theories. Academic progress often comes from upturning existing accepted wisdom and norms. If neoclassical economics is conflated with economic truth then this leaves little room for falsification and debate.</div>
<br />
Economics cannot be a science in the normal sense of the word, as it deals with people. This means that (a) repeated experiments are not possible; (b) the object under study will interact with the observer; (c) conscious actions – whether of policymakers or economic agents themselves - are involved, and these actions will affect the action of others, making moral questions inescapable.<br />
<br />
The fact that mainstream economists wish to define their approach as the approach does not make it so. In fact, neoclassical economics can be easily identified not as a ‘scientific’ enterprise (which, on its own terms, would entail far more focus on falsification) but as a particular methodological approach. Numerous attempts have been made to do this (Arnsperger & Varoufakis, 2006; Lawson, 2013). The basic framework boils down to individual agents making choices under conditions of scarcity, interacting through markets to produce an equilibrium outcome. There is a degree of disagreement over this definition, and it is doubtful that any concise set of properties could hope to define every single theory taught, endorsed or researched<br />
<hr />
28<br />
by mainstream economists, but the overwhelming majority of theories do seem to fit this definition.<br />
There are however, alternative approaches. Indeed, we have been running a lecture series on heterodox economics, having already covered institutional, ecological, Austrian, feminist and post-Keynesian economics. These perspectives represent alternatives to neoclassical economics rather than deviations from or exceptions to it. They proceed from a different level of analysis than individual agents and/or emphasise different phenomena than preferences as crucial for understanding economic processes.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Economists are very critical and we teach students to be critical</span></h3>
There are indeed debates in mainstream economics which involve criticism, but these are limited, largely relate to policy and never disrupt the ‘neoclassical’ or marginalist framework outlined above. The philosopher of science, Imre Lakatos, discusses how scientific communities attempt to reproduce themselves: by allowing dispute at the periphery of the paradigm while attempting to protect the core of the paradigm from challenge (Keen, 2011, pp.406-7). A University of Manchester lecturer demonstrates this in his ‘open letter’ to our society, first stating that “there is a lot of disagreement among economists about pretty much everything”, then going on to acknowledge that “economists do generally agree on some things.”<br />
At the moment these “things” which include methodology, assumptions and the objectives of economics are implicit and unquestioned in economics degrees and the wider discipline. We argue that the economics students should be taught about the core of the neoclassical paradigm in a critical environment and that they should also be taught a number of alternative approaches.<br />
<hr />
29<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">There is a toolkit that you need to learn and there isn’t space to do other things.</span></h3>
We understand that when you study a subject at degree level, you should be required to explore it in depth. However, we believe that instead of every student simply gaining a thorough and in-depth understanding of abstract macro and micro theory, they should all be given a good, empirically oriented grounding in various economic theories, and then have the option to pursue, in depth, the area of economics they choose. The vast majority of undergraduates are not going to go onto higher studies and so tailoring the degree towards the most abstract theory is illogical. Instead, the rigorous formal development of micro and macro theory can be confined to optional modules for those who wish to pursue higher education further.<br />
<br />
On top of this, economics degrees actually contain a surprising amount of unnecessary material. There is repetition across the modules: there is a lot of crossover between microeconomics and business economics – for example, game theory models of oligopoly are covered in similar ways in business economics IIA, mathematical economics I and business economics II. UK Microeconomics as a whole is very similar to business economics IIB, something pointed out by one of our tutors. Micro IIA, IIB and III cover a lot of the same ground with respect to utility theory.<br />
<br />
Further, in the words of academic economist Michael Joffe, economists teach <i>“theories now known to be untrue”</i> (Joffe, 2011). These include: the U-shaped cost curve (and marginalist pricing in general), expected utility theory, Real Business Cycle explanations of recessions. In our experience, lecturers often note in passing - or if questioned - that these theories are not particularly illuminating, yet they remain on the curriculum.<br />
<hr />
30<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">You get to criticise economic theory at a post-graduate level. It is too complicated to cover at undergraduate level</span></h3>
This is completely unacceptable. Many economics student never go on to post-graduate level and can leave university believing that the economic theory represents uncontested truth. If economic theory is too complicated for undergraduates this has disturbing consequences for the public who must accept economic policy because it is too complicated to criticise. However, we deny that this has to be the case.<br />
Our economics education is restricted by its use of the neoclassical framework as the only starting point. Neoclassical models are built from a highly abstract, reductionist perspective and the maths gets very complicated very quickly once major assumptions are dropped. Alternative approaches include modelling aggregate variables and flows between sectors, or class (bargaining power) models of income distribution, or basic cost-plus rules for pricing. These approaches can be used to address perceived inadequacies without making things overly complicated.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Economics is more popular than ever and the salary and employment prospects of our graduates are consistently high. This shows that we are teaching the right content in the right way</span></h3>
Looking through the UCAS applications for economics degrees, a couple of things stand out. First, there is a sharp jump from 2006 to 2007, possibly because books like Freakonomics and The Undercover Economist became popular. Second, the number is roughly stationary until 2009, where there is another sharp jump, possibly attributable to the crisis. Both of these facts suggest there is a strong interest in economics as a field, but this says nothing about the popularity of the substantive content of economics degrees. In fact, we believe that for a substantial number of students there is a large gap between their expectations of economics and the reality of their degrees. This is evidenced by the popularity of our society and the growth of similar student societies across the country. We believe there is a silent<br />
<hr />
31<br />
majority whose expectations aren’t met but who are just told ‘this is what economics is’. These students just have to get on with doing it because they have no obvious alternative. For students making university choices there is highly imperfect information on content as most prospective students won’t understand technical course guides and the top universities all provide a nearly identical product in the shape of their economics degrees. There is little real choice or information upon which to make a choice and a lack of competition as a result. To compound matters students cannot just return their products if they don’t like it as the costs of this decision are huge in terms of fees and housing costs foregone. As a result high applications to do economics cannot be used to demonstrate that students are happy with economics courses.<br />
Likewise, relatively high employment and salary rates cannot be used to demonstrate that employers are happy with economics students and that economics degrees adequately prepare students for work. A report commissioned by the Bank of England demonstrated that a majority of employers were concerned about economics graduates ability to communicate economic ideas to a non-specialist audience among other things (Pomorina, 2012). Economics must train students to develop this skill along with others such as critical judgement and problem solving because without these, economics is just a significantly worse engineering, maths or physics degree. In difficult economic times for all graduates and rising fees for students, it isn’t good enough to claim that enough is being done to prepare graduates or the working world when our analysis, along with that of the Bank of England’s, shows that there are significant areas for improvement.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">We try to talk about applying theory to economic phenomena but students just aren’t interested. They just ask whether it is on the exam or not.</span></h3>
This highlights why any change needs to be fundamental and structural, not just tacked on to the end of courses or as a couple of optional third year modules. If students have the majority of their degree evaluated by multiple choice questions<br />
<hr />
32<br />
and quantitative exams, where there is a good possibility of getting a high first, they will shy away from writing essays or reports, where it is more difficult to get a higher mark and where the skills they need to achieve these marks are conspicuously underdeveloped. If a good proportion of the course is necessarily essays, reports and presentations, and if a dissertation is mandatory, everybody is in the same boat and it saves a race to the bottom.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Your problem is with macroeconomics; most of us aren’t even macro-economists</span></h3>
As our name implies, we believe the 2008 financial crisis represents a major failure of macroeconomics. However, this doesn’t mean our criticisms are limited to macroeconomics. For one, it can be argued that many of macroeconomics’ problems stem from its ‘microfoundations’, which rely on problematic micro-economic concepts such as utility, capital, market clearing and so forth (Keen, 2011). Second, there is the problem that microeconomics and macroeconomics are intrinsically linked, and not just in the direction of the former to the latter: for example, since people demonstrate higher risk aversion in recessions than in booms, can we talk about their utility functions without discussing the macroeconomic environment in which they are operating? Third, regardless of the crash, there has been vigorous debate about microeconomics as well as macroeconomics for some time and it is important that students understand the areas of contestation and have the tools to be able to evaluate competing micro-economic theories.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Section 5: The compelling case for reform</span></h3>
So far we have set out that there is an urgent and vital need to address problems with economics education at Manchester. In this section, we will attempt to demonstrate that this responsibility falls on the University of Manchester as a whole and not just the Economics Department. We strongly believe that this is an issue which the University must<br />
<hr />
33<br />
address seriously and robustly. The current state of affairs represents a stain on its reputation and will cause the University long-term reputational and academic damage if it isn’t remedied.<br />
Crucially, the University’s current plan for improvement in the future does not address these problems. It has prioritised research in its 2020 strategy in the belief that improvements in research improve undergraduate degree standards and teaching quality. The University’s strategic aim to achieve an ‘outstanding learning and student experience’, is often framed in terms of making research more central to teaching i.e. to ‘promote research-informed teaching by embedding research in teaching’ (University of Manchester, 2011, pp12-13). However, in the case of economics we have argued that the University’s research driven focus has been hugely detrimental to teaching standards and to the quality of economics education as a whole. Therefore, Manchester must develop and implement an alternative strategy to improve the quality of economics education. Conversely, if Manchester can improve economics education it can become one of the most desirable places to study undergraduate economics in Britain. The University has an obligation to change but this responsibility also presents a massive opportunity. Curriculum reform at Manchester can make a real difference to the future of economics and contribute to knowledge which can aid human progress.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Teaching Standards</span></h3>
The University of Manchester has set out what it believes the purposes of an undergraduate education are in the Manchester Matrix. This document sets out standards for what students should be taught and what skills and qualities they should have when they graduate. We argue that economics at Manchester falls a long way short of many of these standards and that the University has a pressing responsibility to take action to ensure that it does meet these standards as quickly as possible.<br />
<hr />
34<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">The Purposes of a Manchester Education Graduate Attributes Assessment Criteria How economics education falls short</span></h3>
</blockquote>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>To develop critical thinking and higher order conceptual reasoning and analytical skills<br />
Manchester graduates will have been encouraged to develop their intellectual curiosity, will have learned how to learn, will have a clear grasp of the fundamental differences between fact and opinion, truth and falsity, validity and invalidity, and will have acquired the basic intellectual tools of logical analysis and critical enquiry.<br />
Logical reasoning<br />
Analysis<br />
Synthesis<br />
Evaluation<br />
Students are penalised for considering variety and rewarded for reproducing existing thought by rote, since overwhelming weight in teaching and examination is given to demonstrating the ability to reproduce a prescribed, allegedly homogeneous theory. This approach devalues “intellectual curiosity” and “critical thinking”, it fails to give students the tools to distinguish between good and bad theory.</li>
<li>To promote mastery of a discipline<br />
Manchester graduates will have mastered the epistemological, methodological and essential knowledge base of at least one discipline or taught in the University, acquiring a basic understanding of the processes of enquiry and research through which existing paradigms are evaluated and new knowledge created in that discipline or disciplines<br />
Knowledge<br />
Epistemology<br />
Methodology<br />
Comprehension<br />
Application<br />
The neoclassical analytical and conceptual framework is elevated to the object of study of economics and other branches of economics are defined out of the discipline. This necessarily prevents mastery of economics as a whole. Likewise, the presentation of the neoclassical paradigm without alternatives precludes sound evaluation of its strength and weaknesses. The methodological and epistemological “processes of inquiry” are undervalued and as a result students don’t have the tools to evaluate the neoclassical paradigm or create “new knowledge”. The absence of focus on developing skills such as judgement prevents students knowing when economic theory can be applied to economic phenomena.</li>
<li>To broaden intellectual and cultural interests<br />
Manchester graduates will be encouraged to value knowledge for its own sake, and to appreciate virtuosity and creativity, whether in art, music, science, literature or any other medium through which human discourse and human culture are advanced and enriched.<br />
Intellectual curiosity<br />
Cultural awareness<br />
Understanding of the historical development and cultural context of particular traditions, disciplines or bodies of knowledge<br />
The lack of real world application and economic history combine to make economic theory seem abstract, universal and rootless. As a result students have very little knowledge of the “historical development” of economics. Similarly the disconnection of economics from a broader analysis of society through institutional and sociological lenses prevents any real knowledge of “cultural context”. Promoting “intellectual curiosity” isn’t a central part of the syllabus, teaching methods or examinations.</li>
</ol>
<hr />
35<br />
<div style="margin-left: 2em; text-align: left;">
4. To prepare graduates for professional and vocational work</div>
<ul>
<li>Manchester graduates in professional disciplines will have the knowledge and advanced technical skills demanded in an increasingly sophisticated and rapidly changing professional workplace, and will have been provided with opportunities to develop accompanying skills of initiative, teamwork and professional communication.</li>
<li>Professional knowledge</li>
<li>Professional Skills</li>
<li>Professional Qualities</li>
<li>Communication and Team work</li>
<li>The overwhelming dominance of multiple choice and short answer questions means that students are not taught to develop strong written or oral communication skills. The lack of option to do a dissertation highlights a failure to give students the opportunity to develop research skills and independent thinking. The high level of abstraction means that many graduates have not had any experience analysing economic phenomena directly or communicating economic ideas to a non-specialist audience.</li>
<li>5. To challenge and equip students to confront personal values and make ethical judgements</li>
<li>Manchester graduates will have been provided with opportunities to develop personal qualities of independence of mind and to take responsibility for the values, norms, assumptions and beliefs that guide their behaviour as individuals and citizens.</li>
<li>Ethical awareness</li>
<li>Grasp of ethical principles</li>
<li>Awareness of relevant professional ethics</li>
<li>There is a distinct lack of focus on both the ethics of being an economist and the ethical consequences of economic theory. Furthermore, the values and norms economic theory is based upon are implicit because it attempts to present itself as scientific and value free. As a result students are taught not to question “values, norms, assumptions and beliefs” which fails to equip them “to confront personal values and make ethical judgements”.</li>
<li>6. To prepare graduates for citizenship and leadership</li>
<li>in diverse, global environments</li>
<li>Manchester graduates will have been encouraged and enabled to confront their own civic values and responsibilities as local, regional and global citizens.</li>
<li>Awareness of social, political and environmental issues</li>
<li>Sense of social responsibility</li>
<li>Leadership skills</li>
<li>We argue that previous purposes of a Manchester Education 1-5 are necessary preconditions of being prepared for “citizenship and leadership” and that as a result of economics education fails to deliver on this aim. “Social” and “political” issues are divorced from economics proper and are removed to optional modules in other disciplines which pure economics students are encouraged not to take as they are seen as less valuable. There is a lack of opportunity to analyse philosophically concepts such as value, growth and efficiency and as a result students do not have tools to critically interrogate the “environmental” consequences concepts like growth may have.</li>
<li style="list-style: none;"><br />
<hr />
36<br />
7. To develop advanced skills of written and verbal communication<br />
Manchester graduates will be equipped with advanced skills of written and verbal communication.<br />
Ability to communicate verbally and in writing lucidly, accurately, relevantly, succinctly and engagingly<br />
The overwhelming focus on multiple choice and short answer forms of examination and the lack of option to do a dissertation highlights a lack of value placed on developing economics students with ”advanced skills of written and verbal communication”. Furthermore the disconnection between economic theory and real world analysis and application prevents students developing a strong ability to communicate economic ideas.<br />
8. To promote equality and diversity.<br />
Manchester graduates will have been educated in an environment that embraces and values cultural diversity, and that is fundamentally committed to equality of opportunity regardless of gender, race, disability, religious or other beliefs, sexual orientation or age.<br />
<br />
A key consideration informing the design, development, delivery and assessment of all Manchester curricula<br />
The narrowness and closed nature of the Economics Department and syllabus precludes the establishment of “an environment that embraces and values cultural diversity”. Opportunity is not equal when it comes to deciding which academics to hire and which graduates to offer PhDs to, but is instead based on conformity to the neoclassical paradigm we have described.<br />
Figure 11<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Academic Integrity</span></h3>
The University of Manchester has a responsibility to ensure that the academic environment within the Economics Department is open and representative of the diversity of economics. It is not academically justifiable to have a department monopolised by academics largely representing one economic paradigm. This disciplinary homogeneity has many negative side effects. As mentioned the environment becomes hostile to those academics whose research agendas do not fit the dominant paradigm. Sometimes this is explicit but at other times it is more implicit and structural in the form of non-mainstream PhD students not being offered jobs or retiring professors not being replaced on a like-for-like basis. In this way homogeneity reinforces itself by driving out elements which do not fit.<br />
<br />
As we have explained these processes are driven by the REF and the status ranking of American neoclassical journals. It also encourages complacency and arrogance among<br />
<br />
1 Adapted version of the Manchester Matrix available at: <a href="http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=9804">http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=9804</a><br />
<hr />
37<br />
economists who are surrounded by those who work within a similar economic paradigm and employ similar assumptions and methodology. As we have shown in this situation academics can disagree and debate peripheral issues but all agree on the hard core of their discipline and are subsequently lulled into believing that the hard core is indisputably the only scientific way to do economics. We argue that the University must take positive steps to broaden the representation of economic paradigms within the Department because this is a precondition for many of the higher order, critical teaching aims the University sets itself. Until there is more diversity in the Department it won’t be able to expose students to deep critical discussion and comparison of alternative and competing economic theory (Matrix purpose 1). Furthermore, economics education will certainly not be able to promote the full mastery of a discipline (Matrix purpose 2).<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Social Responsibility</span></h3>
Economics is a public good. Our societies rely on economists to help manage our economies in the way we rely on engineers to build bridges and plumbers to fix boilers. Thousands of economics students each year graduate and fill positions in think tanks, policy circles, businesses, media organisations and vital economic institutions like the Bank of England, the Government Economic Service and HM Treasury.<br />
<br />
A situation in which the vast majority of professional economists, economic commentators, politicians and academics have studied only one dominant economic paradigm is unacceptable as we struggle to manage economic crisis and achieve sustainable prosperity. As a result our society has no organised ability to critically question the foundations, assumptions and practises of the economic status quo. We find ourselves in a situation in which government, business, media, monetary institutions and academia are united in propagating a particular economic worldview which is all too often assumed to be natural or universal.<br />
This monoculture in public and academic economics is particularly damaging because economics is a technical area which requires experts to mediate and disseminate economic analysis to the wider public. Thus, these ‘experts’ have huge influence over the public<br />
<hr />
38<br />
narrative around the economy. National perceptions about the health of the economy are of central importance to society and political discourse.<br />
<br />
Five years after the onset of Financial Crash in 2008, which signified a systemic crisis for mainstream economics, the public and academic debate has been marked by a distinct lack of economic alternatives or even alternative economic explanations. This crisis had an enormous effect on the lives of everyone in Britain and the world and it just illustrates the centrality of the economy to public life and national wealth. Other economic paradigms have a lot to offer neoclassical economics particularly in regard to understanding times of crisis (Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis being the most obvious example). The University of Manchester has a social responsibility to ensure that future generations of economists can provide a better service to society. A discipline with a broader knowledge of alternative and competing economic theories will be more internally self-critical and more aware of the limits of its knowledge. It will thus be better able to manage the economy on behalf of the public. Economists must in an important way be servants of the public interest (Matrix purpose 6). This also returns to our earlier argument about the need for economics education to cover the ethics of being an economist and the ethical consequences of economic theory.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Major employers want graduates with skills and competencies economics education doesn’t currently provide</span></h3>
The Government Economic Service’s Deputy Director, Andy Ross, recently elaborated on the qualities he looks for. He backs up our call for greater critical thinking within economics, because it “produces better economists”. He advises applicants to the GES to stay away from “dogged adherence to… a set of axiomatic rules for theoretic consistency”. Yet the neoclassical paradigm within which university economics is taught does just that.<br />
<br />
Ross also looks for candidates that are “intellectually pluralistic”. He argues that economics is “improved” when exposed to other disciplines, such as “politics and international relations”.<br />
<br />
2 Available at <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/civil-service-government-economic-service">https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/civil-service-government-economic-service</a><br />
<hr />
39<br />
The call for skills beyond those developed on a current economics degree is echoed by the ‘big four’ accountancy firms. Deloitte look for the ability to be “clear, expressive and concise”. Yet the minimal writing demands in an economics degree today means that graduates have little experience of this.<br />
<br />
The ability to solve practical problems is another competency required repeatedly by the firms. KPMG look for “strong problem-solvers” who are “happy to adapt”. An economics degree certainly demands problem solving, but problems of a highly abstract, theoretical nature: not what these firms look for. This focus on practicality is reinforced by their calls for knowledge of current economic issues with PWC looking for those with an “understanding of current business issues”. However, the lack of real-world focus on an economics degree mean this will be a rare quality amongst economics graduates.<br />
<br />
Finally, Ernst and Young look for those that recognise “the value of different…points of view” and that by “respecting these differences we enrich our perspectives”. The way mainstream economics is taught today could be said to do quite the opposite. From these remarks it’s clear that reforming economics education would benefit employers. There’s a sad irony in the fact that economics degrees fail to serve or support the economy. Beyond business, economics graduates’ job prospects would be bolstered further, as would the University of Manchester’s standing as its alumni fill positions in respected institutions such as the GES and the UK’s most respected accountancy firms.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Student Demand/Student offer</span></h3>
We set up a petition to highlight the level of student support for our Bubbles, Panics and Crashes module being put on next year and 245 economics students at Manchester signed it in under 3 weeks. This builds on the first petition we created when we set up in 2013 which outlines what is wrong with economics education and what we want to see changed.<br />
<br />
It received 492 signatures of which 144 have identified themselves as BA or BeconSci students at Manchester and another 82 signatories study economics as part of a joint honours. The signatures on our petition show that there is significant demand for economics<br />
<hr />
40<br />
education reform along the principles we outline and that the University of Manchester has the responsibility to take this demand very seriously.<br />
<br />
Another factor that illustrates the demand for economics education reform is the large attendance at our society’s events. At our first event we estimate 160 people attended and at our first lecture in our lecture series this term entitled ‘What you won’t learn in an economics degree’ over 350 people attended. Our subsequent ‘What you won’t learn’ lectures have attracted 60-90 students and our ‘Bubbles, Panics and Crashes’ module held every other week attracts about 60 students. Considering that these academic economics lectures are voluntary and not for credit, often running until 7pm or 8pm on a week night, it is quite extraordinary to have received such a high turn-out for such a high volume of events and it convincingly demonstrates a real desire among students for a broader more critical economics syllabus.<br />
<br />
As we have mentioned previously applications for places to study economics have increased steadily since 2006. It is undoubtedly the case that a significant factor in influencing this growth has been the prominence of economic events in the news since the financial crisis in 2008. There is a real desire among students to learn about the British and international economies and understand more about how they operate in the real world and much of this focuses around the global recession. It is shocking that the only economics module to cover different theories of economic crisis alongside an analysis of real world data is the optional ‘Bubbles, Panics and Crashes’ module that we run and it is little surprise that it has proved so popular. Many students are embarrassed because they cannot use their economics education to explain the causes and consequences of the Financial Crisis to their friends and family. There is a real student demand for these concerns to be addressed.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Change can be positive for the University</span></h3>
The last powerful argument for reforming economics education is that it can be a hugely positive process for the Economics Department and the University of Manchester if it is embraced and publicised.<br />
<hr />
41<br />
We have argued that while there is a growing demand for economics undergraduate education, the quality of supply is failing to meet student expectations. This is reflected in the emergence of the Post-Crash Economics Society at Manchester and similar societies at Cambridge, LSE, UCL and Essex and the many students who have got in touch with us keen to set up their own societies.<br />
<br />
The University of Manchester was home to the Industrial Revolution and the Marginalist Revolution in economics. It is a city of innovation and open thinking. Substantial reform of economics education at Manchester would receive international news coverage and could be used to illustrate that aspect of the University and city brand. Likewise the recent University advertising campaign that centred round individuals making a difference is a template for how economics education reform can be positive. A key message to communicate would be that The University of Manchester is a world leader in improving economics education after the Financial Crisis and through its core academic values is preparing tomorrow’s economists to be able to confront the challenges of the future.<br />
<br />
The Economics Department would also improve as a result of reform as argued in the section on academic responsibility above. The economists in the Department would have a more interesting, pluralist environment to work in because they would be working alongside economists who employed fundamentally different assumptions and methodologies. Likewise it is probable that the cross-fertilisation of these ideas would produce better academic work from both mainstream and non-mainstream economists alike.<br />
<br />
Finally reforms would improve the student experience and skills of economics undergraduates at Manchester. These arguments don’t need repeating here. We sincerely believe that the arguments we are making in favour of reform can be used to benefit the whole University and cement its reputation as a world leader.<br />
<hr />
42<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Section 6: Real constraints to change at Manchester</span></h3>
We understand that lone universities and lecturers face significant institutional, economic and cultural constraints. How can you change the syllabus if that means undergraduates won’t have a chance of studying further at Oxbridge? How can you make the degree less quantitative if that means students will have less chance of getting a job in the City of London? How can you make any changes if regulations or funding considerations prevent you from doing so? While we can see there are real and significant constraints to change they are not insurmountable. The University has a pressing responsibility to support the Economics Department in taking steps to remove or sidestep these constraints to reform.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Research Excellence Framework</span></h3>
There is a widespread assumption that better research ratings equals better quality of the<br />
undergraduate degree offered because students will be taught by academics who are at the cutting edge of their field. In the case of economics at Manchester the pursuit of higher research ratings for prestige and funding has exacerbated the problems of economics education. The University must develop an alternative economics strategy which allows the Economics Department to continue to pursue good REF scores while hiring some top quality non-mainstream academics. One method is to set out a number of non-mainstream posts within the Economics Department that must be filled by academics who are able to fulfil a broader range of teaching roles including non-mainstream economic theory and history of economic thought. These academics could then be entered into the REF panels for different disciplines so that they were still valuable to the University’s overall ranking. However, as we have illustrated above, individuals within the Department sometimes see their approach to economics as the only legitimate one and consequently would not hire a non-mainstream economist given the choice. Because of this we feel it is important that the creation of criteria for hiring new staff is not left solely to the Department. This is vital if Manchester is to ensure that academics who don’t follow the dominant research paradigm are not to be discriminated against.<br />
<hr />
43<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Lack of Resources</span></h3>
We are told that part of the problem is resources and that the fees from economics students are used to subsidise other courses at the University. However, we haven’t been given access to the financial records of the Economics Department and School of Social Sciences and so we cannot judge to what extent a lack of resources is a constraint on curriculum choices and teaching style. We are told that funding pressures are partly responsible for large classes, multiple choice exams and the lack of option to do a dissertation. If this is the case then the University has an obligation to ensure that the Economic Department has enough resources to address the concerns we are raising. It is not acceptable to continue using the economics courses at Manchester as a cash cow to fund other courses and building projects until substantial improvements to economics education have been made, particularly when economics students are now paying £9,000 a year.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Making sure that graduates have the opportunity to do masters at the top universities</span></h3>
We believe that the more abstract theoretical and mathematical modules should still be available, but would be optional courses for those truly interested in pursuing economic theory. Perhaps then, it would even be possible to make them harder and hence prepare future academics for difficult post-graduate courses. As an undergraduate going on to work in the City or in the GES is it really necessary to know the axiomatic foundations of consumer and producer theory to understand demand-supply? The University certainly doesn’t do this for econometrics, skipping over the theory for undergraduate purposes, and it seems to work well. Instead students should be given an empirically oriented grounding in various economic theories, and then have the option to pursue, in depth, the area of economics they choose.<br />
<br />
Tailoring the degree towards the most abstract theory does not make sense as the vast majority of undergraduates are not going to go on to become academic economists. Instead, the rigorous basics of micro and macro theory can be confined to optional modules for those who wish to pursue higher education further; in fact, this would possibly serve as<br />
<hr />
44<br />
an opportunity to make them more rigorous and hence better prepare students who intend to pursue a graduate education at top institutions like Oxbridge.<br />
<br />
However, this cannot be an excuse to cut off an elite group who will go on to become academic economists from the rest who have a broader but, as some of our lecturers argue, a less rigorous and inferior economics education. We believe that the University’s flagship economics course needs more of a focus on the politics and ethics of economic theory as much as, if not more than, everyone else because its students will be the guardians of economic progress in the future. It is irresponsible to teach this group one approach to economics as if it is was the only one. Whatever path economics students take it is essential that they are exposed to critical and pluralistic economics because of the benefits this has to both their own education and to the future of the discipline.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Lack of broad expertise in the Department</span></h3>
As we have highlighted there is now a monoculture in the Economics Department at Manchester meaning that the Department will find it difficult to reform in the way we are asking. It also means that our economics education becomes steadily narrower over time. This year the Business Economics 2 module changed lecturer and the content which covered alternative theories of the firm and competition was relegated to the optional reading by the new lecturer. What broadness of approach, real world application and critical slant there is in economics education at Manchester is related to individual lecturers rather the Department policy. When these individual lecturers leave or are on sick leave, as in the case of History of Economic Thought and Business Economics 2, the content is often revised to fit more closely with the rest of the modules or the module is just scrapped. This is why we have highlighted the importance of ensuring that non-mainstream professors are hired by the Department who have teaching capabilities that no one else in the Department has.<br />
<hr />
45<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Section 7: Principles of a Post-Crash economics education and some practical reforms</span></h3>
<i>“The master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts.... He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher -- in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular, in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man's nature or his institutions must be entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood, as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near to earth as a politician.” J.M. Keynes</i><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Principles of reform</span></h3>
At the moment there is a monopoly on what is and isn’t economics and within that, what is good and bad economics. This isn’t justifiable and is damaging for the many reasons we have outlined. The burden of proof is now on our professors to justify the neoclassical monopoly on economics education or to accept that it should once again be opened to competition and debate. Contestation and fundamental disagreement should not be organised out of the discipline as it is a vital part of academic practise and progress. It is also a vital part of undergraduate education.<br />
<br />
While we believe that economics should be more open it also shouldn’t be that anything goes. This raises the question of what standards should be used to distinguish good economics from bad and thus to decide what economic theory is taught. This is of course a tension that is a part of any discipline.<br />
<br />
Students must always be exposed to more than one economic paradigm. This is because in economics, as in other social sciences, theory plays a performative part in influencing reality. If the vast majority of economics students believe that neoclassical economics is all that there is to economics then in a sense that becomes true and possible alternatives are closed off. Any dominant school of thought in economics needs to be constantly scrutinised<br />
<hr />
46<br />
to ensure that it retains its predictive and explanatory power and the only way to do this effectively is by holding it up against other schools of thought which dispute the fundamentals it is built upon. Milton Friedman argued that “there is no such thing as different schools of economics; there is only good economics and bad economics” This is a clever tactic for organising out schools of thought that do not fit with your definitions of reality, assumptions, methods and objectives and the result is a bad academy. Learning about many schools of thought side by side and in conversation with each other is the only way economics students can reach what is currently below the surface. A critical comparative approach gives students the opportunity to think about how well theories can explain and predict external economic phenomena, what values they are based on, whether they can justify their assumptions and how they differ in core definitions of things like the purpose of economics, markets, states and agents.<br />
<br />
We would like to see an economics education which begins with the study of economic problems. In this approach the economic phenomena are outlined and the student is given a toolkit and must evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of how different theories explain different phenomena.<br />
<br />
A core objective should be to introduce disciplined eclecticism which is the principle that different models and theories can be applied or are most useful in different situations. A substantial level of pluralism in economics education, defined as a consideration of a variety of theories before forming judgements, is a necessary condition for disciplined eclecticism. On this view economic theory is not universally applicable and much depends much on institutional, historical and social contexts.<br />
<br />
There are a number of ways that the University of Manchester can embed pluralism as a key principle of economics education as outlined by the Economics Network (Mearman 2007, pp.7-27). One option is to introduce alternative economic paradigms into current modules or to add modules which focus on an alternative schools of thought such as post-Keynesianism. Another option is to develop competing perspectives modules which cover various economic phenomena (such as inflation and unemployment) and explores how<br />
<hr />
47<br />
different paradigms seek to explain them. These approaches all have varying merits and deficiencies including how easy they are to implement. Economics reform at Manchester will involve experimenting with possible solutions and working closely with student input.<br />
<br />
Another crucial part of this toolkit is knowledge of institutional power structures and politics. Economic analysis must take into account power and politics or it risks, as Ronald Coase famously argued; only being fit to model “individuals exchanging nuts for berries on the edge of the forest”.<br />
<br />
Both the ethics of being an economist and a consideration of the ethical consequences of economic theory are vital part of the Post-Crash economist’s toolkit. Economists work closely with the powerful, but yet must also be public servants and this creates potential conflicts of interest. Economists have huge influence in society and in shaping political discourse and with that influence come significant ethical questions. For example what happens when the market-clearing wage is below subsistence level? Does anybody have a responsibility to prevent this happening and if so who? These ethical questions are a fundamental and intrinsic part of economic theory and should be woven into the fabric of core modules not marginalised in non-economic optional modules.<br />
<br />
The philosophy of economics ought to be a central part of core economics modules. Key economic concepts such as value, efficiency, growth and the economic man must be discussed beyond just cursory definitions. It is also vital that students are taught about key theories in the philosophy of social sciences such as those of Popper, Kuhn and Friedman. Which assumptions are justified in a scientific theory and how rigorous must the ability to falsify a theory be? What are the virtues and flaws of different methodologies and how can we choose a suitable approach to fit our needs?<br />
<br />
History of economic thought and economic history are essential for students to be able to evaluate the quality of economic theory. To understand the historical development of a particular model or economic paradigm provides an invaluable insight into the problems it was designed to solve and how context influenced its formation. This is a vital<br />
<hr />
48<br />
counterweight to the hubristic belief that economic theory can represent universal truth and the refusal to recognise the limits to our knowledge. Economic history is vital for all economics students because history offers many important lessons for the discipline. For example, an analysis of historic crashes from the Tulip mania to The Great Depressions gives the modern economist the context in which to understand our present economic systems.<br />
<br />
All of the elements above are required for students to be able to be critical and aware of the limitations of the discipline. Critical theory requires that the practitioner examines and lays bare the presuppositions of a theory and to do this it must evaluate the choice of assumptions, methodology and wider contexts both historical and present. If the modernist enlightenment impulse is to try to know everything, or to know with certainty, economics must be a bit more humble and recognise the complexity and uncertainty in economic systems and human behaviour.<br />
<br />
Economics degrees are currently designed for the tiny fraction of students who go on to become academic economists not the vast majority who go on to professional work. Thus undergraduate degrees attempt to provide the toolkit students need to be an academic economist working within a neoclassical paradigm. We think economics education should be far more grounded in the practical reality of our economy and economic life. Can an economics graduate read and engage with Financial Times articles? Can they read the national accounts? Do they know what data the ONS releases on the economy? Can they interpret and analyse that data? Can they use their economics knowledge to analyse economic events in the news? These are the questions we should be asking.<br />
<br />
There is a self-filtering mechanism that leads students towards picking optional modules that complement and reflect pedagogic norms set in the core micro and macro modules. After the first year Macro and Micro modules which are quantitative and multiple choice, students then choose modules in later years which reflect that content matter and style of examination. Thus ‘History of Economic Thought’ and ‘Property and Justice’ are chosen by very few students. This is compounded by the fact that you can only get 70-80% in essays and you can get up to 100% in quantitative exams. This could give the impression that<br />
<hr />
49<br />
quantitative and multiple choice modules are intrinsically more popular and encourage their growth. For this reason substantial changes need to be implemented from the start of the degree so that critical and communication skills can be developed from the outset. It is important that changes are not confined to optional modules in later years but are woven into the core modules throughout the degree. By making them optional the burden is placed too highly on individuals to take the hard or unfamiliar route thereby exposing them to unfair competition with other students who can pick up easier marks in familiar quantitative multiple choice modules.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Short-Term Reforms</span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Utilise the capabilities of academics that research alternative economic perspectives in the Manchester Business School, International Political Economy, Geography and History to put on non-mainstream modules. There are templates with the existing University College program and LSE 100. This is only a short-term solution as changes really need to happen within the Economics Department. If they do not take place inside the Department, other ways of doing economics will continue to be defined as something other than economics.</li>
<li>Utilise the Department’s limited capability to teach non-mainstream economics. The optional, not-for-credit module we’ve been running with a staff member in economics should be put on for credits next year. ‘Bubbles, Panics & Crashes’, teaches first about the history of financial crises and then about competing interpretations of these. The module encompasses general historical trends, key mechanics of the financial sector and policy debates as well as theory.</li>
<li>Train teaching assistants to be able to facilitate discussions in tutorials. Problem sheets should have to be done before and linked to assessment to make sure they are completed. This means that students will develop an understanding of the field through an on-going process, rather than saving it all up to rattle off a few multiple choice questions in the summer.</li>
<li>Add three lectures onto the macro and micro modules to study critical interpretations and alternative theories. Many economics lectures end fairly early in the semester so there is definitely space to do this. In the medium term these</li>
</ul>
<hr />
50<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
changes should be woven into the fabric of all core micro and macro modules and not just tacked on at the end.</blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Lecturers should outline key assumptions, introduce empirical data sets and attempt to explore the methodological framework being used when teaching economic theory. This means that students will be more aware of the foundations that theories are based on and gives them the opportunity to reflect on how well each theory explains economic data.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Medium Term Reforms</span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>We have labelled these reforms medium term because we realise that they will not happen overnight. However, we wish to see real evidence that the Economics Department are taking the steps to implement these reforms in the short-term.</li>
<li>Redesign modules to phase out multiple choice exams wherever possible. Make essay writing and presentations more prominent in order to develop written and verbal communication skills. Provide substantive assessment of students’ ability to engage with and criticise theory and to develop arguments for positions in which there is no one correct answer.</li>
<li>Economic theory should be linked to bigger picture political social and ethical questions e.g. should governments intervene in the market? What if any are the limits to markets?</li>
<li>A module similar to Studying Economics but for all economics students. Introduce landscape of different paradigms and contested nature of economics.</li>
<li>Data first approach - analyse which theories explain empirical data best at different specific points.</li>
<li>Map out the full economic landscape to all undergraduates. Introduce competing paradigms and major debates. Make critical tools available to judge which theories are better or worse.</li>
<li>All economics students should do a dissertation. It could be a short dissertation which are 20 credits and 9,000 words. Dissertations should give students the chance<br />
to critically consider how alternative economic perspectives approach a certain question and develop their own independent argument based on that engagement.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
51<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Open ‘closed shop’ Economics Department by hiring non-mainstream economists. This will involve the University recognising that its research development strategy as represented in the Manchester 2020 document is detrimental for economics education. It must develop an alternative economic strategy in which a push for higher research rankings is combined with a commitment to hiring non-mainstream economists in the economics department.</li>
<li>Redesign core micro and macro modules. Introduce other economic paradigms including institutional, complexity, evolutionary, post-Keynesian, feminist, ecological and Austrian economics into the core modules. Comparatively examine definitions, objectives, assumptions, methodology and implications of economic perspectives. How well do they explain and predict economic phenomena. History of economic thought and economic history should be woven into core modules as a pedagogical tool for teaching theories and models.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Conclusion: Why is the Crisis so important?</span></h3>
“<i>When we don’t have controversy, it is sorely missed and difficult to create artificially; so how absurd it is—how worse than absurd—to deprive oneself of it when it occurs spontaneously!”<br />
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty</i><br />
<br />
The Financial Crisis illustrated to us that no economic paradigm has enough of the answers to be given the power to define what is and isn’t economics. Instead students must be taught a broader range of theories and the toolkit to be able to critically evaluate, compare and in the final analysis judge which theories provide better answers to the economic phenomena that constitute our economies.<br />
<hr />
52<br />
Our argument for reform is reasonable. We are not attempting to claim that neoclassical economics is wrong or that it ought to be wiped from the syllabus at Manchester, our argument does not depend on this. We only claim that there has developed a state of affairs in which a certain method of doing economics has become ascendant and gained a monopoly along with the power to define what is good and bad economics. This power is tied to political and institutional processes in which economics departments have become increasingly homogeneous over time. All this has had a knock on effect on economics education and as a result we are increasingly being taught one way of doing economics as if it represented universal economic truth. This process must be reversed for the sake of students, the discipline and society. In the history of economics, at every juncture when new insights have been gained into the workings of markets, institutions and processes like innovation or cyclicality, this has occurred because existing conventional wisdom has been overturned. Failure to place variety, plurality, diversity, contestation, criticism, discussion, debate, argument and, not least, the confrontation of theory with evidence at the centre of economics education is short-sighted and dangerous when the discipline of economics owes its existence and continuance to these very faculties. (Freeman 2007, pp. 8-9).<br />
<br />
It is ironic that since we have started the Post-Crash Economics Society we have spent a lot of our time debating with people the relative merits of a neoclassical approach versus the flaws of various heterodox approaches. Our discussions with our professors that have brought a culture of debate and contestation back into economics and both our education and the academic environment within the Department have improved as a result. This is what is lacking from our economics education and is really what we are asking for.<br />
We hope that the Economics Department and the University senior management will accept the reasonableness of our arguments and take seriously our propositions for reform. We ask that the University of Manchester provide a formal response to this report to outline areas which they agree with us and where they disagree with us. We also ask that they provide us a timetable for any economics education reforms they plan to make as a result of this report. This latter point is vital so that economics education reform is not swallowed by institutional inertia and so that economics students can hold their University to account.<br />
<hr />
53<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Appendix 1:<br />
Response to the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s CORE programme</span></h3>
We would like to start by congratulating the INET CORE project. The current state of economics education is not good enough and the CORE project has recognised these shortcomings and is acting to improve upon them. This response to CORE in part looks to highlight the positive inroads it is making. However, overall we want to stress why the project in its current form falls drastically short of our desires. There is one major reason why we cannot endorse CORE; it has once again dismissed alternative perspectives of economics. It does not appear to count them as relevant or useful and has not included them in its curriculum reform plans. It is therefore incompatible with our vision for a reformed economics curriculum.<br />
<br />
To begin, we will examine the positive aspects of the CORE project. Judging by the materials we have seen, the CORE curriculum is a vast improvement on current mainstream textbooks in many ways. One of the most prominent improvements is the significant increase in real world data and empirical evidence. The new curriculum looks at the world and provides economic interpretations of what it can see. We are greatly in favour of this approach and feel it is the only way in which people studying the discipline relate to what they are being taught. Another positive side effect of this, and one that the CORE curriculum embraces fully, is the inclusion of economic history throughout its modules. It looks at the effects of economic decisions and offers explanations as to why these effects came about. It should be mentioned that there are dangers with this which must be considered: for example, what data should we rely on for analysing the economy and which periods of history do students need to know about? What can be covered in one degree is of course limited and so where attention is focused is crucial to consider. We feel we are unable to comment on the way in which CORE deals with these problems until the completed curriculum is rolled out at the beginning of the next academic year.<br />
<br />
The inclusion of history is a demonstration of another positive change delivered by the CORE curriculum; the inclusion of relevant but arguably separate disciplines. A comprehensive teaching of economics is impossible without the inclusion of history, politics, ethics, sociology and other social sciences. Human behaviour is multifaceted and the social<br />
<hr />
54<br />
sciences are inextricably intertwined. The CORE curriculum recognises this and looks at the implications of economic decisions through a variety of lenses. This is very promising, though it must again be stressed that only once we see the full syllabus will we be able to fully ascertain whether this is done to an adequate extent.<br />
CORE also uses modern interactive technology which may well be beneficial. It makes the material easier to access and engage with, which is an asset that will make it popular with students for both superficial and substantive reasons. This list of benefits is not exhaustive and we believe that any student studying the CORE textbook will conclude their education considerably better than education led by pre-CORE textbooks. We therefore agree that it is an improvement on what we have today. However, we would like to emphasise that we still fundamentally disagree with some important aspects of CORE and do not believe that it will produce the type of economists that society needs. Let us explain the reasons why.<br />
<br />
Firstly, we are not convinced that the way to improve economics education most effectively is to concentrate on ‘textbooks’. Though good textbooks are a massive help to dedicated and resourceful teachers, they will do nothing to help less dedicated teachers. CORE will help lecturers that are willing to seek out and explore its benefits but it will not help those who aren’t. This therefore leads us to propose more investment in teacher training and changes in hiring policy in relevant areas, shifting focus from research prowess to teaching ability. Universities must find a better balance between improving their research positions and providing the quality of teaching that will ensure economists are fit for purpose.<br />
<br />
Secondly, and most importantly, critical skills are vital skills to nurture in any burgeoning economist. Economists must be able to utilise a large amount of knowledge and draw on theories that interpret or explain different events and patterns. They must be able to judge the applicability of a theory in some contexts, and its limitations in others, as well as being able to learn from their mistakes. We do not believe that this level of critical engagement is possible if one remains completely within one paradigm. Pluralism is absolutely necessary, not only to give us a breadth of ideas to draw upon, but also to help us to understand dominant ideas in much more depth. Understanding the values and methodologies that form a competing theory sheds light on the values and methodologies of the dominant theory. This need not be a battleground, it can be an environment in which contrasting<br />
<hr />
55<br />
ideas coexist, coming to each other’s aid wherever appropriate. Without pluralism of economic perspectives our mastery of the discipline is impossible, as is our ability to acknowledge that the economic theories we use are fallible. Our capacity to critique and develop the progression of our field of study is greatly reduced.<br />
The monopoly of neoclassical economics and the absence of any competing theories is the biggest failing of the CORE project. This is why we do not believe it will produce the humble, tolerant, creative and adaptable economists needed to face future economic problems. We think it is worth noting here that INET’s first attempt at devising curriculum reform, led by Robert Skidelsky, was open to other approaches. Whilst the material was not as developed as the current project, it suggested a genuine desire to embrace pluralism and the form of education which we favour. The “highly abstract approach emphasising optimising behaviour, stable preferences and equilibrium” was seen as limited and an open approach to answering economic questions was stressed throughout3. A rediscovery of these principles at INET and the CORE project would be welcome.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, CORE in its current form seems to be a good tool to assist passionate teachers in teaching mainstream economics and is an improvement on current syllabuses. Yet despite its virtues, it must not be mistaken for the radical restructuring of economics education we need.<br />
<br />
3 <a href="https://www.ineteconomics.org/sites/inet.civicactions.net/files/Problems_and_Principles.pdf">https://www.ineteconomics.org/sites/inet.civicactions.net/files/Problems_and_Principles.pdf</a><br />
<hr />
56<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple;">Bibliography</span></h3>
Arnsperger, Christian and Varoufakis, Yanis (2006), “What Is Neoclassical Economics?”, Post-Autistic Economics Review, Issue no. 38, 1st July.<br />
Bezemer, Dirk (2009), “No One Saw This Coming: Understanding Financial Crisis Through Accounting Models”, Research Report 09002, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).<br />
Carlin, Wendy (2013) “Economics explains our world – but economics degrees don’t”, Financial Times, 17th November. Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/74cd0b94-4de6-11e3-8fa5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2mLDnXqBi (Accessed on 02/12/13).<br />
Coyle, Diane et al. (2013), “Teaching Economics After the Crisis: Report from the Steering Group”, Royal Economics Society Newsletter, May 2013. Available at: http://www.res.org.uk/view/article7Apr13Features.html (Accessed 02/12/13). Duesenberry, J. S (1949), Income, Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behaviour, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Freeman, Alan (2007), “Catechism versus pluralism: the heterodox response to the national undergraduate curriculum proposed by the UK Quality Assurance Authority”, The University of Greenwich. Available at: http://mpra.ub.unimuenchen.de/6832/1/MPRA_paper_6832.pdf (Accessed on 14/04/14). Joffe, Michael (2013), “Teaching Evidence-Based Economics”, Royal Economics Society Newsletter. Available at: http://www.res.org.uk/view/art6Oct13Features.html (Accessed 02/12/13). Kaldor, Nicholas (1982), The Scourge of Monetarism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keen, Steven (2011), Debunking Economics, 2nd edition, London: Zed Books Ltd. Lawson, Tony (2013), “What is this ‘school’ called neoclassical economics?”, Cambridge Journal of Economics.<br />
<hr />
57<br />
Lazear, Edward (1999), “Economic Imperialism”, Nation Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge Massachusetts. Lee Frederic, Pham Xuan, and Gu, Gyun (2013). “The UK Research Assessment Exercise and the narrowing of UK economics, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 37, 693–717. Lewin, Leif and Lavery, Donald (1991) Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mearman Andrew. (2007) “Teaching heterodox economics concepts”, The Economics Network, Accessible at https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/handbook/heterodox/ (Accessed on 02/12/13). Mearman, Andrew, and Papa, Aspasia, and Don J., Webber (2013) “Why do students study economics?” Economics Working Paper Series 1303, University of West England. Musgrave, Alan (1981), “’Unreal Assumptions’ in Economic Theory: the F-twist Untwisted”, Kyklos, Vol. 34, No. 3, 377-387.<br />
Pomorina, Inna (2012) “Economics Graduates’ Skills and Employability Survey”, Economics Network and the Higher Education Academy. Tily, Geoff (2010), Keynes Betrayed: The General Theory, the Rate of Interest and ‘Keynesian’ Economics, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.<br />
Tobin, James (1970) “Money and Income: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc?”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 84, No. 2, 301-317. What a stupid thing to call an essay.<br />
University of Manchester. Manchester 2020 Strategic Plan (November, 2011). Available: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/vision/ (Accessed on 02/12/13)<br />
Wigstrom, Christian (2011) “A Survey of Undergraduate Economics Programmes in the UK”, Institute of New Economic Thinking Curriculum Committee. Available:<br />
http://ineteconomics.org/research-programs/curriculum-committee (Accessed 02/12/13)<br />
Wilson David and Dixon William (2009) “Performing Economics: A Critique of ‘Teaching and Learning’”, International Review of Economics Education, Vol. 8, No. 2, 91-105.<br />
<hr />
58<br />
Blank Page<br />
<hr />
59 </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500">Blog on a single page</a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">the author</span> sells <a href="http://veganline.com/" title="Vegan belts made to order, and Bouncing Boots made in the UK">vegan shoes online at Veganline.com</a> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">, a UK online vegan shoe sho<span style="font-family: inherit;">p</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<hr />
</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6918438150183530009.post-63105349266632687122015-12-11T12:42:00.003+00:002018-10-21T10:23:11.661+01:00Simple book keeping and account aggegators<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<head> <link href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/simple-book-keeping-and-account.html" rel="canonical"></link> </head> <br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<fieldset>
Related:<br />
Choosing a UK business bank account<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/07/setting-up-shop-with-uk-business-bank.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/07/setting-up-shop-with-uk-business-bank.html</a> <br />
Free, Fast and Pretty: shopping cart software for ecommerce<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/06/shopping-cart-software-for-ecommerce.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/06/shopping-cart-software-for-ecommerce.html</a><br />
Simple Bookkeeping and Account Agregators <span style="color: red;"><this page</span><br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/simple-book-keeping-and-account.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/12/simple-book-keeping-and-account.html</a><br />
Free Online Bookkeeping Software for Simple Accounts<br />
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/08/free-online-book-keeping-software-for.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/08/free-online-book-keeping-software-for.html</a></fieldset>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
These are just some notes-in-progress about account aggregaters considered for income tax but not VAT, and for the self employed. <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/07/setting-up-shop-with-uk-business-bank.html">It's relevant if you're choosing a bank account as well, because you'll quite likely want an account that works with one of these if you're self employed and using it for business. There's another post about choosing a bank account</a></blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"> Making tax digital - why a lot of people are changing tax software this year</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/115895">https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/115895</a> says under "full response" that automatic quarterly tax updates will be expected by software links, and that this is part of a grand design here <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-tax-digital">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-tax-digital</a><br />
<br />
Yorkshire building society's version of eWise closed with very little notice, and Quickfile's service for over 1,000 lines of data a month began to charge. <br />
<br />
Even if services don't close, it can make sense to have some card accounts on one online accounting system and one on another. Details of cards used for one purpose - like postage - can rest on one online service, used only if there is a tax inspection. The rest can rest more simply on another used for year-to-year tax returns.<br />
<br />
When services close, there's a problem of what to do with saved data in one format when your new software wants them in another. The .qif format is something I never want to use again, but the rest are capable, I guess, of conversion. <a href="http://www.csvconverter.biz/">http://www.csvconverter.biz/</a> does some of it online. I had to use the older version to cope with odd columns in files, while keeping a total, and I had to use one of the apps on <a href="https://labs.crunch.co.uk/">https://labs.crunch.co.uk/</a> to convert Santander text files to something more common.<br />
<br />
While writing this, I discovered the world of payroll software. See the section on downloadable software below and Adminsoftware.biz</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Since writing this blog post I've found the getapps site, which assumes all online accounting software is paid-for or "fremium" but lets a few free services join the list. It's possible to sort by areas of the world served, the kinds of businesses that review the app or that it's intended for, and that's it. It can't search for all the programs with bank integration. Some free-ish programs I hadn't heard of are <a href="http://slickpie.com/">Slickpie.com</a> and Gemmaccounts.com. Another site lists Zipbooks.com, with its own time-tracking software built-in. <a href="https://www.odoo.com/">Odoo.com</a> is over my head because it offers so many apps, as is <a href="https://www.inexfinance.com/">Inexfinance.com</a> that's something to do with import export. There are probably others, but I started by looking at ways of downloading UK bank data easily and free, usually via Yodlee, so I will stick to that.</blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<br />
Account downloading software overlaps with free online book keeping and accounting software, with programs like Waveapps here at the overlap, followed by more account downloading software.<br />
<br />
There is more about accounting software near the bottom of this page, but for neatness I've started a fresh blog post about it - <a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/08/free-online-book-keeping-software-for.html">https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/08/free-online-book-keeping-software-for.html</a> . It's a shorter blog post listing the free online accounting software that cropped-up in a search for a UK freelance business.<br />
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Waveapps</span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<a href="https://www.waveapps.com/">https://www.waveapps.com</a> is one I'm trying to use now. <br />
<br />
It is more than an app for downloading bank statements; it can write invoices, keep track of bills, run accounts for both of those, reconcile the bank statement lines with different categories, and more. It has a nifty system for accepting bills by email too.<br />
<br />
<br />
Good points:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>It can log-on to UK banks</b>., and can eventually classify this data into its own categories, such as "computer services" for money that comes via Paypal. </li>
<li><b>Invoices</b> can be sent from the program to integrate with it. They can work with its 1.9% stripe card processing account. When I told waveapps that I had a limited company, the upselling link changed from "save money" to "business deals", and the stripe rate fell slightly.</li>
<li><b>It can split lines of data between categories</b>. This takes a while to find but it's there (put another way, the interface is deceptively simple). If you have a card that you usually only use for paying bribes, which are a business expense, but one day you use it for buying drugs, which are private, then you can label that line as split between two headings.</li>
<li><b>It has heard of VAT</b> and has boxes for itemising input taxes or output taxes on each record of money in and money out. I think it can calculate backwards from the total how-much of a payment is VAT.</li>
<li><strike>Payroll in the US or Canada with US or Canadian taxes applied </strike></li>
</ul>
Bad points:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Payroll</b> only works in the US or Canada according to the menus. </li>
<li><b>It can't be taught how to recognise lines of data from the bank statement and categorise</b>, as can Yodlee and even some of the banks themselves like Starling Bank.<br />
Waveapps has some system, but this system can't change; paypal income will always be "computers and internet", rather than "sales". I wasn't sure but this more <a href="http://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/wave-accounting-review/">detailed review by Katherine Miller</a> reaches the same conclusion after checking discussion threads and forums.</li>
<li><b>Slow rendering of old data</b>. <u>The program discourages checking of balances in order to reduce the need</u>. Balances are only shown if you display one single account like a bank account in date order. Then if you see that that balance is wrong, and want to go back by screens of 50 or 100 lines over several screens'-worth of data to find the mistake, you have to wait five minutes at each search. Entering dates to narrow down the search in another way is just as slow. As a result, you need to check your data before sending this to an accountant; nobody at an accountants' office can charge you a low fee while waiting five minutes for each screen to load just to check a mistake.</li>
<li><b>No keyword or number search</b>. You can order a period of data by date or amount or I think by name, and you can sort some of the columns, but I have not found a Control+F function or anything more subtle; it's designed to discourage strains on its database </li>
<li> <a href="http://fitsmallbusiness.com/wave-apps-review/">Jeremy Marsan's review from the USA compares waveapps to similar products that cost so-much-a-month. It also has a comments section for the disgruntled. These features and integrations are cut-and pasted from his review.</a></li>
<li><h3 id="features">
<span style="color: #3aa5fb;"><b>Features</b></span></h3>
<table class="tablepress tablepress-id-175" id="tablepress-175" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><thead>
<tr class="row-1 odd"><th class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.2;">
<b>Features it has </b></div>
</th><th class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.2;">
<b>Features it Does Not have</b></div>
</th></tr>
</thead><tbody>
<tr class="row-2 even"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
5 Types of Accounts</div>
</td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Categorization/Automation Rules</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-3 odd"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Auto-import Bank Statements</div>
</td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
**Payroll</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-4 even"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Invoicing</div>
</td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Time Tracking</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-5 odd"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
*Payment Processing</div>
</td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Inventory Management</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-6 even"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Multi-Currency</div>
</td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
*Payment Processing available via Stripe integration</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
**<a href="http://fitsmallbusiness.com/best-payroll-software-reviews/">Payroll software</a> available as an optional add-on</div>
<h3 id="integrations">
<span style="color: #3aa5fb;"><b>Integrations</b></span></h3>
<table class="tablepress tablepress-id-176" id="tablepress-176"><thead>
<tr class="row-1 odd"><th class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.2;">
<b>Integrations it has</b></div>
</th><th class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.2;">
<b>Integrations it does not have</b></div>
</th></tr>
</thead><tbody>
<tr class="row-2 even"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Payment Processing (Stripe, Paypal)</div>
</td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Cloud Storage (Google Drive, DropBox)</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-3 odd"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Etsy</div>
</td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Project Management (Basecamp, Asana)</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-4 even"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Shoeboxed (receipt scanning)</div>
</td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Time Tracking (Toggl, Harvest)</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-5 odd"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
CRM (Zoho, Salesforce)</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-6 even"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
eCommerce (Shopify, Big Commerce)</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-7 odd"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Tax Prep Software</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-8 even"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Digital Signature</div>
</td></tr>
<tr class="row-9 odd"><td class="column-1" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="column-2" style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.2;">
Zapier</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/accounting-software/an-accountants-guide-to-cloud-bookkeeping-tools">Glenn Martin reviews the most used so-much-a-month products from a UK accountant's perspective, leaving out waveapps altogether but including some price breakdowns for the others</a>.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Wonderbill new 2017</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
This has just come-out mid-2017 and isn't reviewed here.<br />
https://www.wonderbill.com/ - "enjoy all of your bills in one place". It logs-on to the bill providers' web sites and not banks, apparently. "We make money by recommending better and cheaper deals." - "a One-Stop-Shop when it comes to managing your bills and saving money."</div>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Yodlee</span> </h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><h4>
<span style="color: red;"><b>moneydashboard version of yodlee</b></span></h4>
<span style="color: black;"><a href="https://www.moneydashboard.com/"> Moneydashboard</a> is set-up to monitor your personal spending, and is worth comparing with Buxfer further down the page.<br />
Moneydashboard automatically logs-on to your bank accounts and backs-up a few years' data for free.<br />
It gives you the odd spending graph and anticipated regular payment on a screen if you want.<br />
It can remember budgets and tell you if you are over-budget or under-budget.<br />
It learns to categorise transactions if you want.<br />
With practice, you can download data for one bank account or all of them into a .csv file.<br />
<br />
Users can download the resulting categorised transaction lines as a .csv spreadsheet or read them alongside self-set budget headings or expected regular payments on the dashboard site.<br />
This is the list of supported banks from December 2015: AA | Adam & Company | Amazon | American Express | Asda | Bank of Ireland | Bank of Scotland | Barclaycard | Barclays | Beta | Birmingham Midshires | Cahoot | Capital One | Cater Allen | Citibank | Clydesdale | Derbyshire Building Society | FairFX | First Direct | First Trust | Halifax | House of Fraser | HSBC | ICICI | Intelligent Finance | Investec | John Lewis | Lloyds | Marbles | Marks & Spencer | MBNA | Metro Bank | Mint | Nationwide | NatWest Bank | Nedbank | Newcastle Building Society | Next | Norwich & Peterborough | NS&I | Opus | Post Office | Principality | Royal Bank of Scotland | Saffron Building Society | Saga Group | Sainsburys | Santander | Scottish Widows | Smile | St James Place | Tesco Bank | The Co-operative Bank | The One Account | TSB | Ulster Bank | Vanquis Bank | Virgin Money | Yorkshire Bank | Yorkshire Building Society |</span><br />
Categories are better than Yodlee for a self employed person. For a start, they come under headings.<br />
<br />
I've put the list at the bottom of this page as Appendix 2.<br />
<br />
The second part - money out - included a list of fixed headings when I first wrote this page, but now allows you to choose your own tags and apply them to all similar transactions automatically. There is a list of what each new release tries to do here:<br />
https://my.moneydashboard.com/info/releasenotes<br />
<br />
Moneydashboard produces some graphs of how you're spending compared to last month and anticipates repeated payments. It has heard of payees like Royal Mail and Ebay, and allows you to search for a few more that it knows by typing free text, if its chunky drop-down menus don't suggest one.<br />
<br />
When I looked at this first, it was good for what it was designed to do - tracking where your spending goes - but not good for adapting to other purposes. There was no way to have the same category for money in and money out for example. The list of release notes shows regular improvements to it's worth signing-up just to see what happens next.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><h4>
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="color: red;"><b><strike>kublax version of yodlee has closed</strike></b></span> </b></span></h4>
</li>
<li><h4>
<span style="color: red;"><b>Lovemoney version of yodlee</b></span> </h4>
You have to sign-up to Lovemoney to see the option; there isn't a direct link to the account aggregator site. It only allows about five categories of spending under "business expenses", and most of the others like "dentist" and "eating out" are similar to the Yodlee ones and tend to confuse if not used for those purposes. Someone on the Moneydashboard help page commnents says that you can set your own categories on Lovemeny.<br />
</li>
<li><h4>
<span style="color: red;"><b>Ontrees version of yodlee </b></span></h4>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">You have to sign up to Moneysupermarket. This one is slightly prettier with fewer options, for use on smartphones - for example I don't see how you can split a transaction between categories. They tell me by email that a lot of people have requested the ability to re-name categories, and they might do that, but the target audience of smartphone users can't do anything fiddly. </span><b><br />
</b></span></li>
<li><h4>
<span style="color: red;"><strike><b>Sage version of yodlee</b></strike><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></h4>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">There was a free version of Sage One online accounts software with a "feed" for one bank account and one user, with no extra credit card account, as priced for the US market and probably others according to this <a href="http://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/sage-one-review/">review by <span style="color: black;">K</span>atherine Miller</a>. Nothing shows under "free" if you search their UK web site. Sage is a big UK accounts software firm, so I expect they just used Yodlee's bank feed and that the rest is more like Sage. Maybe their offers are different if you search from the USA.</span></span></li>
<li><h4>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><strike><b><span style="color: red;">Godaddy Online Bookkeeping Basic Version</span></b></strike></span></span></h4>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"> I only know that there is a <a href="http://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/outright-review/">review of a free ultra-basic version</a> ; bookkeeping.godaddy.com now seems to cost $6.99 monthly or $3 more through their old <a href="http://outright.com/">outright.com</a> url. Maybe the offers are different if you search from the USA.</span></span></li>
<li><h4>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Yodlee version of Yodlee</span></span></b></span></span></h4>
<a href="https://yodleemoneycenter.com/apps/mfaregistration.retailpv.do"> Yodlee domestic version</a> looks american at first, but covered the UK when I tested it as a web program. It has been closed to new applicants because of technical difficulties during May 2016<br />
The smartphone version on another url may have taken-over from this...<br />
Login on https://yodleemoneycenter.com/apps/mfaregistration.retailpv.doFixed categories are in Appendix 1 below. <i><br />
(distraction: <a href="https://yodleemoneycenter.com/">https://yodleemoneycenter.com </a>has a business version, but you can't use it for UK banks. "Currently Yodlee Small Business application is not applicable for residents outside US region due to contractual obligation", they tell me.)</i><br />
<b>It can log-on to UK banks</b>. It doesn't give a full list but it's probably the same as Moneydashboard below. Smile bank was recognised for example.<br />
<b>Categories look mainly domestic, but can be sub-categorised as much as you want</b>. As an experiment I added subcategories 1-13 to one of them, all accepted without complaint, so you could pick a neutral category like "expenses" and add what you wanted as a subcategory.<br />
<b>Categorisation can be taught, which is more useful than waveapps.</b> There is a screen where you tell it that a payment including "to drug" is to one category drug dealer and "to bribe" is another, but it can only categorise into its own fixed list of heading - not the subcategories you add. The list is below.<b> Other features exist on a "finapp" link</b>, including some for business accounting. I haven't tested them yet </li>
</ul>
Not Sure what connection<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><h4>
<strike><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.buxfer.com/">Buxfer.com</a></span></strike></h4>
[I don't update this post much, but happened to get an email from Buxfer to say they cease free "synciing" of bank data this November 2017. Syncing is about three pounds a month or more if you want to pay for it, but not free. Try MoneyDashboard. So that's why Buxfer is crossed-out]<br />
<br />
uses something like Yodlee to do a little more than Money dashboard. According to one post online <i>"</i><span class="rendered_qtext"><i>Based on their implementation I'm guessing they are using the code Wesabe open sourced when they folded. Pretending to be a valid OFX client and requesting the data from a FI's OFX server pretending to be Quicken or Microsoft Money."</i>. The program also uploads .csv files but hasn't any way of downloading files to your hard disc at first glance. <br />
<br />
A glance at other features shows nothing for tax or accounting beyond the category tags and some pre-set graphs, but a few extras for personal accounts like emails after unusual changes, a calander, and a reminder service. There's a system for sharing information with contacts, in a kind of virtual shared project, which I don't understand and one or two extra paid-for services for predicting spending.<br />
<br />
The free version is good at logging-on automatically and categorising transactions.<br />
<br />
Tagging of bank statement lines is flexible; it doesn't tell you what category to tag a transaction, such as "Paypal: Computer Services"; it lets you tag a transaction and shows you any saved rules for you to edit.<br />
<br />
Editing of descriptions is possible too, and can be automated in a the same flexible way. You can teach it to change a line like "FASTER PAYMENT RECEIPT FROM PAYPAL REF HJLKJHKLJH £30" to "Paypal" if you tell it to change every line with that keyword. It keeps a note of the original so that you can un-do your change later.<br />
<br />
Tagging and description-editing are both better on Buxfer than on Moneydashboard, a similar service.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">eWise</span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.ewise.com.au/accunity/aa/home.asp">www. ewise.com.au/accunity/aa/home.asp</a> eWise is the one I've used before. A shortcut is <a href="http://accountunity.co.uk/">http://accountunity.co.uk</a> . The site is run a a demonstration in the hope that other companies will pay to use the technology. The demonstration site only works, I think, in Internet Exployer - not Edge or Firefox or Chrome - but Internet Explorer is still available free.<br />
<br />
It has a beta test version which will categorise transactions, show them on a time line, and work on several browsers including smartphones. Unfortunately it will do the categorisation for you, assuming that you have a private bank account. Maybe if enough beta-testers tell them, they will allow tweaking of categories.<br />
<br />
Other companies have paid to use eWise, and tidied it up a bit.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="color: red;"><b><strike>citybank version of eWise has closed </strike></b></span></li>
<span style="color: red;"><b> </b></span>
<li><span style="color: red;"><b><strike>egg bank version of eWise has closed</strike></b></span></li>
<span style="color: red;"><b> </b></span>
<li><span style="color: red;"><b><strike>yorkshire building society version of eWise has closed</strike></b></span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;"><b><a href="http://www1.firstdirect.com/1/2/banking/ways-to-bank/internet-banking-plus">first direct - page lists all available accounts</a> before registering for "internet banking plus"</b></span><br />
<br />
Skip this if your want book-keeping aids. eWise lets you read statements, and that's it: a password storage system and a way of showing your online statement in read-only form. The original version includes some accounts from other countries outside the UK and some non-bank accounts like ebay and oyster.<br />
<br />
The data is not kept anywhere; it is just displayed as your bank displays it, so you are limited to the ninety days or so that most banks let you browse-back over the statements. On the other hand you are more likely to download them monthly if you can remember how to log-on, so this is good to use for downloading data for desktop accounts programs such as Grisbi below. Formats like 1201.xls for January 2012 are good, to avoid duplicates. A catch when learning to use the software is that it opens -up a window on the dashboard part of the screen for your bank, as an unexpected little icon. The pure version only works in <a href="http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/internet-explorer/download-ie">internet explorer</a>, although some banks like Yorkshire Building Society managed to tidy-up this fault.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<strike><span style="color: red;"><b>B</b>ankcontrol.co.uk</span></strike></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.bankcontrol.co.uk/">Bankcontrol.co.uk</a> doesn't let new customers open an account from a windows desktop; it could be an android-only application of I could have missed something. The web site hasn't been updated for a few years, so maybe they're looking for business offers. They claim to<br />
- download years' worth or the maximum possible amount of bank data over wifi (wobbly phone connections aren't recommended) and to be able to <br />
- translate the bank's labels on your transactions according to your own rules.</span></span><br />
- download NatWest, RBS, Lloyds TSB, HSBC, Santander (Abbey), Halifax, Smile (no credit cards yet), John Lewis Partnership (Waitrose) credit cards </blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Beanbalance.com</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuTpbt1fyDujuVyml5gp-6a80kwwxvCDm0kvhyphenhyphengtscIpFpvLvEo-4cqYqt14zp6R0I1FsBoBltU8bgw7DeY5_lRI6bVreOQW_bi1AYK1T9QrbobnKPQR3RRezGF1TV03pxqoNwIII_FLk/s1600/temp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="619" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuTpbt1fyDujuVyml5gp-6a80kwwxvCDm0kvhyphenhyphengtscIpFpvLvEo-4cqYqt14zp6R0I1FsBoBltU8bgw7DeY5_lRI6bVreOQW_bi1AYK1T9QrbobnKPQR3RRezGF1TV03pxqoNwIII_FLk/s640/temp.jpg" width="640" /></a></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<a href="http://www.beanbalance.com/">BeanBalance.com</a> is a new program that doesn't mention any ability to download data straight from the bank, which doesn't have to be associated with online systems but would be nice. The disadvantage of a cloud-based system remains: they can turn the server off. Two advantages remain. You can use it wherever you are. So can colleagues, like an accountant. <br />
<ul class="lcv2-ul">
<li>Download and import your bank statements</li>
<li>BeanBalance currently supports Microsoft Money files, OFX files, Quickbooks or QBO files, Sage Line 50 files and QIF files</li>
<li>Additional file format support will be implemented soon</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://www.beanbalance.com/Home/Index#features">The software has a good page of information about what it does</a>, but as you can see from the table, the fancy stuff is paid-for. It and Brightbook are unusual in offering free payroll software with upload of data to HMRC for a handfull of staff - three in this case - which is the main reason for including it on this list. Scroll down the page for downloadable free accounts software that does UK payroll.</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Brightbook: moved to the blog post about book-keeping</span></h3>
<ul></ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Other online services - with downloadable software below</span></h3>
<ul>
<li>Money.strands.com is no longer an automatic account aggregator and although free had a nag saying "one day left of your free subscription" for a long time, and did work to classify uploaded bank statements. Now it has been redesigned as an apple smartphone app, free to download.</li>
<li>https://planner.royallondon.com/Login/ looks like something to try to sell you a pension</li>
</ul>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"> Receipts to records </span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq ">
</blockquote>
<a href="http://lifehacker.com/five-best-mobile-document-scanning-apps-1691417781">http://lifehacker.com/five-best-mobile-document-scanning-apps-1691417781</a><br />
<br />
Lifehacker lists some of the smartphone apps that will email a photo of a receipt, with a few attempts at tidying-up the picture for text recognition. Some charge. Shoeboxed charges for more than 5 receipts per month per account. Others are free or have a small one-off charge.<br />
<br />
Wavapps have a free service that will recognise your email address and put the picture of a receipt in a form with guessesd fields filled-in for the organisation and amount<br />
<br />
As someone who sits at a desk with a PC, I've never felt the need to scan every invoice or paid receipt; I just put them in a folder when they're paid. So I haven't tested any of these apps, but as more and more receipts and invoices are available online or come by email, one day it could be worth photographing the last few paper ones just to add them to the same system.<br />
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"> Downloadable software: Acemoney Grisbi or Adminsoft </span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Desktop software has a more stable market now. <br />
<br />
Quicken and Microsoft Money have admitted that they don't want to provide their paid-for downloadable personal finance software with its private formats like .qif or Quickens <i>"sunset policy",</i> designed to try to make you buy a new bit of software every ten years. <br />
<br />
Book keeping software like <a href="http://www.mechcad.net/products/acemoney/personal-finance-software-quicken-alternative.shtml">Acemoney</a>, <a href="http://www.grisbi.org/">Grisbi.org</a>, and <a href="http://www.adminsoftware.biz/">Adminsoftware.biz</a> can't be withdrawn back-off your hard disk by the authors; it can't be closed on a whim like the online services, it can't be stopped by a broken internet connection, and for better or worse it can't be used by anyone anywhere. Unless you put it on a pen drive, but even that only lets you use it in one place at a time till you loose it.<br />
<br />
The only catch is that, so far, is that they can't automatically download data from your bank statement. Acemoney claim to be able to do it in the USA, but not yet in the UK. You have to remember to do it yourself every month or three and remember what the more mysterious items were after that time when you come to categorise them on your software. You can use eWise to log-in to most bank accounts quickly for downloading.<br />
<br />
I know of these three examples because I used Acemoney for a bit and found it easy and good-looking. It's free for two accounts that link together; paid-for for more. Grisbi is one of the open source options at the simpler end of the market. Adminsoft cropped-up in a search just now for UK payroll software.<br />
<br />
Book-keeping aids are a funny bunch because their users have different needs and their authors tend to be accountants, keen to add an element of double-entry which is exactly what customers like me do not want. That's a problem for the sort of software that you download onto your hard disc. Or, put another way, users want a system that compares entries against a bank statement rather than having two sets of entries in the software. Add to that a problem that open source writers tend to go for interesting subjects, like solving world poverty or doing something artistic, leaving jobs like payroll or book keeping to a few rare efforts. One is a South African accounts program from Pink Software that used to sell on giveaway CDs on the fronts of computer magazines. Another - <a href="http://www.gnucash.org/">Gnucash</a> - is used a lot as well. The trouble is that users' expectations are so different, and my expectation was not the same as the expectation expected by writers of TurboCash or GnuCash. <a href="http://www.grisbi.org/">Grisbi</a> looks from screen shots to be right for the job, which is sorting lines from a bank statement into income tax categories.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.mechcad.net/">Acemoney</a> is a pretty and easy freemium program, I found, for users of one or two accounts. The version for three or more accounts isn't free, but even two can be two many as they have to agree with each other in a kind of mental puzzle that the world does not need - there have to be out payments in one account that match in payments in another - so I try to stick to one account. The current version can even download data from some US banks, but hasn't cracked-open the UK ones yet. It's a highly international program with versions in over a dozen languages.<br />
<br />
While giving-up Quickfile.co.uk, I've found a list of other online programs that no longer exist, an obscure one called Brightbooks that only accepts uploaded data in certain column formats, and a thing called https://www.waveapps.com/ which more or less works. It truncates older lines of data down to thirty-something characters, so older imported files tend to have a lot of lines which read "Faster payment to paypal reference p" or some thing not very useful like that. There are also services like Xero which count your money and tell you that there is less of it than before because they charge for counting it.</blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"> Payroll for more than ten people</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For those who pay staff, there are more hitches that can lead back to desktop software.<br />
Every hundred years the UK government sets-up a compulsory pension system, nationalises it, forgets that it was ever a pension system, and starts again. We are now on mark two, called "<a href="https://www.gov.uk/workplace-pensions">Workplace Pension</a>", while the remnants of mark one, called "<a href="https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance">National Insurance</a>" are still in place alongside the income tax <a href="https://www.gov.uk/topic/business-tax/paye">pay as you earn</a> contributions that employers have to manage. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/payroll-software/free-software">Gov.uk/payroll-software/free-software</a> is a starting point to this subject that I know very little about - it looks as though you have to employ staff in groups up to nine, or maybe use HMRC's own software alongside something else, or maybe resort to desktop software from <a href="http://www.adminsoftware.biz/">Adminsoftware.biz</a>, who say this about their free downloadable accounts software:</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>.... developed specifically for the United Kingdom. It can submit information to HMRC using Real Time Information, and we believe at this time, it's the only free <a href="https://www.gov.uk/running-payroll">payroll</a> that will allow in excess of 10 employees. The maximum is 250 employees. However, Adminsoft Accounts is primarily an accounts system, and so the payroll is basic. While very usable, and fully compliant with payroll legislation, it does not have some of the 'bells and whistles' that some of the paid for (and rather expensive...) alternative products may have. For example, things like the amount of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/employers-sick-pay">Statutory Sick Pay</a>, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/employers-maternity-pay-leave">Statutory Maternity Pay</a>, student loans, etc. have to be worked out by hand, where as a more sophisticated payroll would work out the amounts automatically. But I don't want to talk you out of using it! In reality, when running a small payroll, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/calculate-statutory-sick-pay">working out the odd Statutory Sick Pay payment</a> or what ever is not really an issue.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Waveapps software will only do anything to do with payroll if you pretend that you are in the USA or Canada, and I haven't discovered what difference this makes - certainly the deductions and reporting will be different.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pandlecloud/">https://www.facebook.com/pandlecloud/ </a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pandlecloud/">Pandle.co.uk</a> is a free basic uk service. <a href="http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/accounting-software/pandle-takes-on-cloud-accounting-giants">This interview was in early 2016</a>. </blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
This blog comes from <br />
<a href="http://veganline.com/">Veganline.com, the online shoe shop for vegan shoes boots belts & T shirts mainly made in the UK</a> <br />
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Appendix 1: Yodlee categories</span></h3>
<table cellspacing="0" class="datatable std_table" id="Type_d3" summary="This table lists the categories under expense. You can nickname a category and create subcategories under it."><tbody>
<tr class="odd"><td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_100_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_100" name="categoryId_show_100" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Advertising </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_100" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_100" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_100">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Advertising</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_25_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_25" name="categoryId_show_25" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>ATM/Cash Withdrawals </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_25" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_25" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_25">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for ATM/Cash Withdrawals</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_2_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_2" name="categoryId_show_2" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Automotive Expenses </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_2" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_2" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_2">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Automotive Expenses</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_102_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_102" name="categoryId_show_102" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Business Miscellaneous </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_102" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_102" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_102">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Business Miscellaneous</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_15_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_15" name="categoryId_show_15" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Cable/Satellite Services </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_15" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_15" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_15">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Cable/Satellite Services</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_3_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_3" name="categoryId_show_3" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Charitable Giving </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_3" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_3" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_3">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Charitable Giving</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_33_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_33" name="categoryId_show_33" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Checks </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_33" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_33" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_33">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Checks</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_4_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_4" name="categoryId_show_4" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Child/Dependent Expenses </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_4" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_4" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_4">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Child/Dependent Expenses</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_5_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_5" name="categoryId_show_5" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td><a href="http://veganline.com/" title="UK-made T shirts and shoes">Clothing/Shoes</a> </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_5" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_5" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_5">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Clothing/<a href="http://veganline.com/" title="online shoe shop">Shoes</a></span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_108_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_108" name="categoryId_show_108" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Dues and Subscriptions </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_108" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_108" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_108">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Dues and Subscriptions</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_6_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_6" name="categoryId_show_6" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Education </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_6" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_6" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_6">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Education</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_43_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_43" name="categoryId_show_43" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Electronics </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_43" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_43" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_43">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Electronics</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_7_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_7" name="categoryId_show_7" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Entertainment </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_7" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_7" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_7">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Entertainment</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_8_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_8" name="categoryId_show_8" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Gasoline/Fuel </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_8" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_8" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_8">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Gasoline/Fuel</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_44_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_44" name="categoryId_show_44" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>General Merchandise </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_44" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_44" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_44">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for General Merchandise</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_9_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_9" name="categoryId_show_9" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Gifts </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_9" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_9" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_9">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Gifts</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_10_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_10" name="categoryId_show_10" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Groceries </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_10" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_10" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_10">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Groceries</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_11_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_11" name="categoryId_show_11" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Healthcare/Medical </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_11" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_11" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_11">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Healthcare/Medical</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_34_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_34" name="categoryId_show_34" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Hobbies </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_34" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_34" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_34">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Hobbies</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_13_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_13" name="categoryId_show_13" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Home Improvement </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_13" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_13" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_13">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Home Improvement</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_12_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_12" name="categoryId_show_12" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Home Maintenance </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_12" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_12" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_12">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Home Maintenance</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_14_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_14" name="categoryId_show_14" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Insurance </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_14" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_14" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_14">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Insurance</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_17_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_17" name="categoryId_show_17" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Loans </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_17" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_17" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_17">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Loans</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_18_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_18" name="categoryId_show_18" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Mortgages </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_18" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_18" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_18">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Mortgages</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_110_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_110" name="categoryId_show_110" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Office Maintenance </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_110" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_110" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_110">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Office Maintenance</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_45_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_45" name="categoryId_show_45" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Office Supplies </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_45" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_45" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_45">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Office Supplies</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_16_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_16" name="categoryId_show_16" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Online Services </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_16" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_16" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_16">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Online Services</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_35_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_35" name="categoryId_show_35" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Other Bills </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_35" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_35" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_35">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Other Bills</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_19_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_19" name="categoryId_show_19" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Other Expenses </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_19" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_19" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_19">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Other Expenses</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_20_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_20" name="categoryId_show_20" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Personal Care </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_20" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_20" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_20">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Personal Care</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_42_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_42" name="categoryId_show_42" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Pets/Pet Care </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_42" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_42" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_42">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Pets/Pet Care</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_104_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_104" name="categoryId_show_104" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Postage and Shipping </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_104" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_104" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_104">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Postage and Shipping</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_106_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_106" name="categoryId_show_106" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Printing </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_106" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_106" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_106">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Printing</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_21_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_21" name="categoryId_show_21" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Rent </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_21" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_21" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_21">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Rent</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_22_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_22" name="categoryId_show_22" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Restaurants/Dining </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_22" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_22" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_22">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Restaurants/Dining</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_24_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_24" name="categoryId_show_24" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Service Charges/Fees </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_24" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_24" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_24">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Service Charges/Fees</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_37_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_37" name="categoryId_show_37" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Taxes </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_37" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_37" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_37">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Taxes</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_38_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_38" name="categoryId_show_38" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Telephone Services </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_38" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_38" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_38">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Telephone Services</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_23_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_23" name="categoryId_show_23" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Travel </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_23" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_23" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_23">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Travel</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_39_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_39" name="categoryId_show_39" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Utilities </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_39" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_39" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_39">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Utilities</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_112_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_112" name="categoryId_show_112" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Wages Paid </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_112" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_112" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_112">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Wages Paid</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="floatleft iconViewHideUnit">
<span id="d2_hide"> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="d2_hide_focus" title="Hide additional information for Income"> <img alt="Hide additional information for Income" src="https://beta.yodlee.com/apps//images/collapse.gif" /></a> </span> </div>
<h3 class="categoryADAHeaderName">
Income</h3>
<fieldset class="zeroPM">
<legend>Settings for Income Categories</legend> <br />
<table cellspacing="0" class="datatable std_table" id="Type_d2" summary="This table lists the categories under income. You can nickname a category and create subcategories under it."><thead>
<tr class="Type_d2"> <th class="columnhead ccell" scope="col" width="10%">Show</th> <th class="columnhead lcell" scope="col" width="30%">Category Name</th> <th class="columnhead lcell" scope="col" width="30%">New Name</th> <th class="columnhead lcell" scope="col" width="30%">SubCategories</th> </tr>
</thead> <tbody>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_92_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_92" name="categoryId_show_92" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Consulting </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_92" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_92" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_92">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Consulting</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_27_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_27" name="categoryId_show_27" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Deposits </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_27" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_27" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_27">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Deposits</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_114_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_114" name="categoryId_show_114" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Expense Reimbursement </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_114" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_114" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_114">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Expense Reimbursement</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_96_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_96" name="categoryId_show_96" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Interest </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_96" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_96" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_96">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Interest</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_30_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_30" name="categoryId_show_30" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Investment Income </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_30" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_30" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_30">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Investment Income</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_32_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_32" name="categoryId_show_32" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Other Income </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_32" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_32" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_32">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Other Income</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_29_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_29" name="categoryId_show_29" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Paychecks/Salary </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_29" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_29" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_29">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Paychecks/Salary</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_31_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_31" name="categoryId_show_31" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Retirement Income </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_31" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_31" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_31">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Retirement Income</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_94_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_94" name="categoryId_show_94" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Sales </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_94" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_94" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_94">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Sales</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_98_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_98" name="categoryId_show_98" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Services </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_98" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_98" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_98">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Services</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
</tbody></table>
</fieldset>
<div class="floatleft iconViewHideUnit">
<span id="d4_hide"> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="d4_hide_focus" title="Hide additional information for Transfer"> <img alt="Hide additional information for Transfer" src="https://beta.yodlee.com/apps//images/collapse.gif" /></a> </span> </div>
<h3 class="categoryADAHeaderName">
Transfer</h3>
<fieldset class="zeroPM">
<legend>Settings for Transfer Categories</legend> <br />
<table cellspacing="0" class="datatable std_table" id="Type_d4" summary="This table lists the categories under transfer. You can nickname a category and create subcategories under it."><thead>
<tr class="Type_d4"> <th class="columnhead ccell" scope="col" width="10%">Show</th> <th class="columnhead lcell" scope="col" width="30%">Category Name</th> <th class="columnhead lcell" scope="col" width="30%">New Name</th> <th class="columnhead lcell" scope="col" width="30%">SubCategories</th> </tr>
</thead> <tbody>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_26_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_26" name="categoryId_show_26" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Credit Card Payments </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_26" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_26" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_26">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Credit Card Payments</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_40_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_40" name="categoryId_show_40" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Savings </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_40" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_40" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_40">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Savings</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="even"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_36_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_36" name="categoryId_show_36" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Securities Trades </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_36" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_36" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_36">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Securities Trades</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
<tr class="odd"> <td class="ccell"><div class="yCheckbox yChecked " id="categoryId_show_28_div">
<input checked="checked" class="yHidden" id="categoryId_show_28" name="categoryId_show_28" type="checkbox" /> </div>
</td> <td>Transfers </td> <td><div class="yTextInput yTextInputFillParent">
<div class="yTextInputInner">
<div class="yTextInputBody">
<input id="categoryId_28" maxlength="40" name="categoryId_28" type="text" value="" /> </div>
</div>
</div>
</td> <td class="cellSubCatMng"><div class="yclear txnGridCellBg txnAddSubCatLink" id="txnAddSubCat_28">
Add Subcategory <span class="invis"> for Transfers</span> </div>
</td> </tr>
</tbody></table>
</fieldset>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">Appendix 2: Moneydashboard fixed categories</span></h3>
From 2017 or 18 they allow users to invent new categories and subcategories which can be more work-related such as "bar takings" or "wholesalers". I don't see a way of removing the more domestic headings, but the combination of headings you choose and an ability to recognise transactions makes this a good bit of software for income tax. It doesn't make any tax suggestions, and it won't write an invoice, but the main bit.<br /><br />There are help pages which can be read without logging-on<br />
<a href="http://help.moneydashboard.com/entries/22326296-List-of-Available-Tags">http://help.moneydashboard.com/entries/22326296-List-of-Available-Tags</a><br />
<b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><u>Transactions: IN - scroll down for Transactions OUT for tax return headings</u></span></b><br />
<table style="width: 395px;"><tbody>
<tr><td width="184"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b>GROUP NAME</b></span></td> <td width="212"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b>TAG NAME </b></span></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Benefits</b></td> <td width="212">Family benefits</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Incapacity Benefits</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Job Seekers Benefits</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Other benefits<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Credit funds received</b></td> <td width="212">Credit Card Cash Advance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Mortgage release</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Payday loan funds</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Secured loan funds</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Student Loan funds</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Unsecured loan funds<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Employment</b></td> <td width="212">Bonus</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Employment – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Expenses</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Overtime</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Salary (main)</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Salary (secondary)<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Investment</b></td> <td width="212">Bond Income</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Dividend</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Interest income</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Investment income – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Winnings<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Miscellaneous</b></td> <td width="212">Bursary</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Child Support</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Divorce Settlement</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Gift</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Inheritance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Miscellaneous income – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Rewards/cash back</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Tax Rebate<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Pension</b></td> <td width="212">Lump Sum</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Pension – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">State Pension</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Work Pension<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Property</b></td> <td width="212">Property – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Rental income (room)</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Rental income (whole property)<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Refund</b></td> <td width="212">Refunded purchase</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br />
<b>Sale</b></td> <td width="212">Clothes</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Electrical Equipment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Property</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Sale – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Vehicle<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Transfer from other account</b></td> <td width="212">Credit card payment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Current account</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Gambling account</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Investment – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">ISA</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Paypal account</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Pension</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Share dealing account<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Transfer from savings</b></td> <td width="212">Car savings</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Electrical item savings</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Holiday savings</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Other goal savings</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Property savings</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Rainy day savings</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Savings (general)</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Wedding savings</td> </tr>
</tbody> </table>
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><u><b>Transactions: OUT</b></u></span><br />
<table style="width: 395px;"><tbody>
<tr> <td width="184"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b>GROUP NAME</b></span></td> <td width="212"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b>TAG NAME</b></span></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Administration</b></td> <td width="212">Administration – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Advertising</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Business Accommodation</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Legal</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Office supplies</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Postage/Shipping</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Printing</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Software</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Staff costs</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Stationery</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Web hosting<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Children</b></td> <td width="212">Childcare Fees</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Children – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Childrens’ Club fees</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Clothes – children</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Nursery fees</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Toys<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Clothing</b></td> <td width="212">Accessories</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Clothes</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Clothes – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Clothing hire</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Designer clothes</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Dry cleaning and laundry</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Jewellery</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212"><a href="http://veganline.com/">Shoes</a></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Work wear<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Credit Repayment</b></td> <td width="212">Credit card repayment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Hire purchase repayment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Mortgage payment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Payday loan repayment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Secured loan repayment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Store card repayment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Student loan repayment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Unsecured loan repayment<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Education</b></td> <td width="212">Books & Course materials</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Course & Tuition fees</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Education – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">School fees</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Stationery & consumables<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Financial</b></td> <td width="212">Bank charges</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Child support</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Divorce settlement</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Financial – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Fines</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Interest charges</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Penalty charges</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Tax payment<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Gifts, Charity & Religion</b></td> <td width="212">Birthday present</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Charity – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Christmas present</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Donation to organisation</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Flowers</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Gifts – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Religious celebration</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Religious donation</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"></td> <td width="212">Sponsorship<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Going Out</b></td> <td width="212">Caravan/Camping</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Cinema</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Concert & Theatre</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Dining & Drinking</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Going out – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Holiday</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Hotel/B&B</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Museum/exhibition</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Social club</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Sports event</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Zoo/theme park<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Hobbies & Sports</b></td> <td width="212">Art supplies</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Club membership</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Cycling</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Gym Equipment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Gym Membership</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Hobbies – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Hobby Club Membership</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Hobby supplies</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Musical Equipment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Personal Training</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Photography</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Sports Club Membership</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Sports Equipment<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Home and Garden</b></td> <td width="212">Antiques</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Art</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Communal charges</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">DIY</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Furniture</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Garden</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Home and garden – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Home electronics</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Kitchen / Household Appliances</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Lighting</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Soft furnishings</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Tradesmen fees<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Household</b></td> <td width="212">Broadband</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Coal/Oil/LPG/Other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Council tax</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Device rental</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Domestic supplies</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Electricity</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Gas</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Gas and electricity</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Groceries</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Household – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Media bundle</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Mobile</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Phone (land line)</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Rent</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Supermarket</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">TV/Movies Package</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">TV Licence</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Water<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Insurance</b></td> <td width="212">Dental insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Health insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Home appliance insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Home insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Income insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Insurance – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Life insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Mobile phone insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Motorbike insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Payment protection insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Pet insurance</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Vehicle insurance<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Lifestyle</b></td> <td width="212">Alcohol</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Books/ Magazines /Newspapers</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Cash</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Gambling</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Games and gaming</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Lifestyle – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Mobile app</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Music</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Personal Electronics<br />
Snacks and Refreshments</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Take-away</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Tobacco<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Personal care</b></td> <td width="212">Beauty products</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Beauty treatments</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Dental treatment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Eye care</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Hairdressing</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Medical treatment</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Medication</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Personal care – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Physiotherapy</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Spa</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Toiletries<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Pets</b></td> <td width="212">Pet food</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Pet housing/care</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Pet toys</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Pet training</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Pets – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Vet<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Transfer to other account</b></td> <td width="212">Current account</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Gambling account</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Investment – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">ISA</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Other account</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Paypal account</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Pension</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Share dealing account<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Transfer to savings</b></td> <td width="212">Saving (general)</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Saving for a rainy day</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Saving for a car</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Saving for electrical item</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Saving for holiday</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Saving for other goal</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Saving for property</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Saving for wedding<br />
<br /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><b>Transport</b></td> <td width="212">Breakdown cover</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Driving lessons</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Flights</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Fuel</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">MOT</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Parking</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Public Transport</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Road charges</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Road/traffic fines</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Service / Parts / Repairs</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Taxi</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Transport – other</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Vehicle hire</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Vehicle purchase</td> </tr>
<tr> <td width="184"><br /></td> <td width="212">Vehicle Tax<br />
<br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<hr align="LEFT" />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500">Blog on a single page</a> from <a href="http://veganline.com/" title="vegan footwear boots belts and shoes from Veganline.com">Veganline.com the online vegan shoe shop</a><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Veganline.com for vegan shoes boots and beltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14691394716207902112noreply@blogger.com118