'Truss Doesn't Understand What I Wrote about Economics' | Rick Perlstein

When the Times interviewed Liz Truss at the end of last year, she told us she "read anything" by the American historian Rick Perlstein He chronicles the rise of the new US right between 1960 and 1980, in the Nixon and Reagan eras. Perlstein is confused by her endorsement.

I have stated many times already that Liz Truss and her neoliberal, so-called trickle-down economic fantasy is going to be a disaster for this country. I stand by my words. Neoliberal economics, aka Reaganomics, aka Thatcherism is the last thing we need in the present economic circumstances. Furthermore, had such economic theory been truly effective, this country would have growth in the stratosphere by now! Thatcher came to power in 1979. She was ousted in 1990 in an ignominious coup reminiscent of a banana republic.

I was one of Thatcher’s biggest fans back in the day. But economic circumstances were totally different in those years. The UK had also been in the grip of socialism for many years prior to Thatcher’s ‘Revolution’; so, nothing in the coutry worked. Arguably, Thatcherism was the very medicine the country needed at that time.

However, no prime minister since Thatcher, be he/she a Conservative PM or a Labour PM, has ever had the courage to truly abandon Thatcherism. Now, Liz Truss is going to double down on Thatcher’s neoliberal ideas; and arguably in an even more extreme way!

Thatcherite policies are NOT what this country needs at this time. The economic problems which this country is facing and which this country needs to solve now are totally different from those that Thatcher faced. Doubling down on Thatcherism at this time is madness. Moreover, the only thing that can be said about Arthur Laffer’s ‘laffer curve’ is that it is ‘laffable’! Such an absurdidy! – © Mark Alexander

Trickle-down Truss Is Carrying On the dirty Work of Thatcher, Blair and Osborne

THE GUARDIAN: Britain has endured 40 years of decline thanks to this faulty economic theory. Will Keir Starmer finally kill it off?

If Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget survives the storm it triggered, a banker on a million-pound annual salary stands to receive £50,000 of income tax relief – on top of the extra bonuses the bank can throw in, now that the Liz Truss government has removed the cap on them. Meanwhile, a Deliveroo rider gets a pep talk on the emancipatory value of aspiring to be wealthy, presumably as an incentive to pedal harder. This is the gist of the government’s growth strategy or, according to former Brexit minister David Frost, its antidote to stagnation and defeatism.

While it’s tempting to draw the obvious analogy between zombie ideas such as the trickle-down growth effect, and the classic Hollywood horror film Night of the Living Dead, a more appropriate response to the seriousness of the situation is to follow the banker’s extra cash. The government claims the banker will invest it, thus promoting growth. If it were not a blatant lie, it might have passed as a touching example of unfounded faith. But unlike Adam Smith’s bakers, butchers and brewers, who would invest any spare cash into better and more bread, ale and meat, the banker will buy into some fund that will, in turn, purchase shares, derivatives and bonds.

These recipients of the banker’s extra money have a long track record of not investing in actual productive capacity. Why would they, when the masses out there can’t afford to buy new, high-value products? … » | Yanis Varoufakis * | Saturday, October 1, 2022

* Yanis Varoufakis is the leader of MeRA25 in Greece’s parliament, a former finance minister of Greece, and author of Another Now