The Other Hand

Inflation surprises, again, by its rapid fall. But central bankers have been telling us that the 'last mile' will take years. The markets have been laughing at those central bankers. And it is said that our monetary masters value their 'credibility'. Self-awareness training wouldn't go amiss. Or maybe they should just hire a decent PR agency.

A week of obituaries. The death of the greatest investor and one of the richest - that most people will never have heard of.

Henry Kissinger: greatest statesman ever or war criminal?

It's being said that if the Democrats replaced Biden, they would win by a landslide. It's also being said that if the Republican's replace Trump, they will win by a landslide. Nikki Haley is an outside bet for the GOP nomination - even Trump could be persuaded if she promises him a full pardon.

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The right is rising, even in Ireland. Each country has its own drivers but immigration is a unifying grievance.

How big a problem is this in Ireland?

Should we all abandon social media? Follow the example of the mayor of Paris?

What are the economics of immigration? When people say "we should spend our money on our own citizens" are they right? Or just not able to do arithmetic?

The grass isn't always greener elsewhere.

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What will be the business and economic consequences of the Dublin riots?

There is often trouble when large pools of uneducated, unemployed young men are organised by old men - mad mullahs, army councils, Trump-style demagogues. The list of suspects is a long one. Whether that trouble fizzles out or leads to revolution depends on many things. Mostly how the rest of us react to far right (or left) neo-fascism.

Data continue to point to a very robust Irish labour market. Export (especially chemical & pharma) weakness has yet to lead to significant net job losses. Similarly, high profile layoffs in the tech sector are not showing up in the job stats. We are still short of workers. But not, apparently, rioters on scooters. Are they on benefits?

The UK’s Autumn Statement was a blast from the past. Transparent fiddling of the numbers, utterly unrealistic forecasts of fiscal austerity post-election and an unaffordable, unsustainable tax cut. Whoever wins the next election will have to reverse that tax cut and then some. Somebody needs a plan to get the UK economy going again.

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Argentina is a study in not how to do it. For a very long time. And here they go again. Weep for Argentina.

Given the serial objections by Sinn Fein to house building in their back yard, NIMBY's should probably vote for them. But where are the houses going to be built? At what cost? Shinner published targets for house buliding on their watch are close to being met by the current government. If house building and rental property supply greatly improve, but prices and rents don't fall, is teh housing crisis solved?

Is the Board of OpenAI intelligent? Has the singularity been reached?

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Solving the Irish housing crisis is, in principle, easy: just build 50,000 units a year until the word 'crisis' disappears from the headlines and public consciousness. Is that a practical, realistic proposition - for any government of any persuasion? Why not just do it?

Lots of trade data, particularly for exports, suggest that economies are slowing down. Irish exports are really hurting from the slowdown in general and the weakness in Pharmaceutical trade in particular. Far fewer people are getting Covid boosters.

The weakness (relatively speaking!) in corporation tax receipts is in danger of becoming a trend. We will know a lot more in a couple of weeks when the all-important November exchequer returns are published.

The European and Uk economies are moribund. They are at stall speed - it won't take much to knock them into recession. Markets are actively thinking about rate cuts happening much sooner than central bankers are saying is likely. One or two prominent commentators are beginning to flirt with the idea that central banks, particularly the ECB, are on the verge of a big mistake - keeping rates too high for too long

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The only way to understand the latest outbreak of fighting in the ongoing Conservative Party's 30 year war is to look back at history. This has all been going on for a long time.

To paraphrase (only a bit) John Major, this is now the Battle of the Bastards. It really is Game of Thrones stuff. But the country - the UK - is being laid to waste.

The fight to succeed Sunak is well and truly on. It could well be that Donald trump's future will determine who wins. Farage may be in the jungle, but he could emerge as the winner. It is that febrile.

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Rishi Sunak surprises everybody - he is even capable of a surprise!

Cameron is back in, Braverman is back out.

Sunak wants to be the candidate for change?

Look at Cameron's track record and weep. But could his return be a really smart move by Sunak? Or will it merely invite the right-wing nut-jobs to try and defenestrate him?

Just when there was a chance for UK politics to become boringly predictable!

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In this episode Jim asks Chris if he is ghost writing articles for the FT.

An actual FT journalist, one of their best, wrote an article about the things that Chris has been banging on about since The Other Hand started. Life in the Uk is getting steadily worse. Tim Harford cites three personal anecdotes and lots of data to make the point that public sector services have collapsed in the UK.

Chris agrees and extends the point to a lot of private sector services. One reason why both private and public sectors are falling over is a lot of vey good people, normally hard working and conscientious, have worked out that the game is rigged. Anyone who believes that 'if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well' is a mug. When average bankers get £10m for... what?. When signing on bonuses for hedge fund managers have reached £100m! 'The system is rigged' is not an unreasonable conclusion. When you don't even get respect for doing a good job, let alone fair pay, what's the point?

And lots of chat about really interesting economic data released around the world this week. Economies are wilting under the pressure of higher interest rates. Irish manufacturing, especially from the 'modern' sector is very weak.

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