Truth  Peter Oborne's book, "The Assault on Truth" makes a concise reasoning why misrepresentation and lying by politicians is of significance. His logic is written out on the back dustcover of the book,
On the other hand, Oborne appears to have thought, before the Johnson era, things were better. The paragraph before the quotation above states,
Justice This notion, if it is true, needs to explain why with advanced technologies, masses of statistical data, academia overloaded with economists and advanced operations research techniques mainly developed in the 1940s, that over the last 70 years, at least, this "public discourse" has resulted in a worsening of the wellbeing of increasing proportions of the population. Child poverty and food banks are booming alongside the stock markets. There is something wrong with the delivery of social justice. Since recorded memory macroeconomic policies have always tended to generate losers, winners and some who somehow remain in a neutral policy impact state. The explanations for such disparity of outcomes is usually "market forces" and ability to "compete". However, there is a notable alignment between those Oborne associates with the Johnson projection to, and maintenance of, power and those who, on a perpetual basis over centuries have benefited from "government" economic policies. There is, unfortunately a confusion between the existence of political parties and "democracy". Peace One of the bizarre misrepresentations of history has been the habit of some politicians who are members of British political party praising the contributions of the Levellers to the very first written constitutional documents in England and, indeed, the initial drafts of the Bill of Rights. What is usually omitted is that the Leveller's were appalled at the death and destruction of the civil war and the confrontations which led to it. The Levellers worked assiduously to draw up a constitution that would guarantee peaceful coexistence. Therefore they attempted to prevent the formation of political parties, by only permitting MPs to remain as MPs for one year and they could not be elected to the following parliament. Civil servants in the main positions were required to follow a similar pattern. This was to avoid the formation of permanent power groups and, above all, corruption. The Bank of England was established in 1694, there was monetary policy and tax was something imposed to pay for wars or pet projects of the elite. Except for the Levellers whom Cromwell feared, there was no such thing as a, From this time to the beginning of the 20th Century, it took around 300 years to achieve universal suffrage. However any decisions on economic policies and taxation were never fully part of public discourse they have always been imposed. Anyway the first-past-the-post electoral system means with quite small majorities, parties can gain absolute majorities in parliament enabling the government to abandon any promises in mandates to do just about anything it wants. The political party system provides the ability of Prime Ministers to eject members in defiance of the wishes of the constituents who elected them. These last two abuses have been observed of late under the current government. Lies As can be appreciated a quest for truth, justice and peace does not rest upon public choice or the more rational concepts of constitutional economics, but rather upon imposed decision making by government. The theoretical foundation of monetary policy go back almost 600 years and it has hardly changed. The logic and justification of monetary policy decisions are based on the Quantity Theory of Money. This holds that inflation, as a negative impact on the purchasing power of incomes and cost of living through rises in prices, is caused by excessive demand or excessive amounts of money in the economy. This provides the basis for the "justifications" for changes in interest rates and money injections under monetary policies. However, in 1976, the economist Hector McNeill explained that most inflation arises from price-setting by businesses facing rises in input costs and not from injections of money into the economy or demand. Under competitive conditions with several companies supplying a specific line of goods or services, rising demand, if there is adequate production, has no impact on prices as long as competitive conditions prevail. More money flowing around the economy, similarly, has no impact on prices. Some 45 years later, McNeill published a more detailed explanation in 2021 as to why the QTM is in fact nonsense. He used the copious evidence generated by quantitative easing QE. QE funds, while assumed to help supply side investment and production and growth has had the reverse effect. Most funds have flowed into the asset markets of land, real estate, precious metals, some commodities, financial instruments, cryptocurrencies and shares as well as into offshore investment. In the asset markets there has been massive speculative inflation resulting in significant rises in prices while on the supply side production and services employee wages have stagnated and there has been no appreciable inflation. On the other hand, as McNeill had observed in 1976, any inflation has been driven by cost-push inflation. This has been caused by inflation leaking from the asset markets of land and real estate causing rises in the prices and rents of agricultural land, building plots, houses, office space, retail units, industrial units, warehouses and port facilities. Intent It is notable that since this publication no one appears to refer to the QTM and justifications for QE have become very fuzzy. No one wants to admit, in economist circles serving government, that the QTM is completely flawed and an unreliable basis for having justified monetary policy for the last few centuries. It should be added that a stoney silence on this matter is to be observed in academic circles also. The question that arises is,
Freedom Oborne observed in his book that Johnson's culture of deceit is stealing our democratic rights. This is a denial of freedoms of expression to mould governance according to the will of the people. In May 1649, the Levellers John Lilburne, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince and Richard Overton, were imprisoned in the Tower of London by Oliver Cromwell. While there, they penned out a document entitled, "An Agreement of the Free People of England". This was a proposal for a written constitution for England. 40 years later parts were used in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the American Bill of Rights in the American Constitution of March 1789, some 140 years later. Their initial paragraphs declared that the nation should be free and happy and that all differences should be reconciled so that all can stand with a clear conscience whilst preventing the prevalence of interests and private advantages. They wrote that actions should not be driven by malice against anyone nor as a result of disagreement over opinions but should be geared towards peace and prosperity for all. They proposed that the free people of England establish a government without arbitrary power and whose action would be bound and limited by law, as would all subordinate authority, with the purpose of removing all grievances The maintenance of these freedoms depend upon a participatory contribution and oversight of policy decisions and their implementation.  Relatively recently, the operation of monetary policy was further distanced from the influence of the electorate when Gordon Brown made the Bank independent in 1997. The oversight is by some directors and occasionally the Treasury Select Committee of Parliament, but decision of targets remain within the Bank. The Bank of England states that its aims to secure price stability by setting an inflation target for living expenses of 2% while monetary policy tolerates rises in the prices of assets well in excess of this figure and these prices are not counted in the measurement of inflation. On the other hand asset inflation represents a rise in the wealth of the minority of constituents who deal in these markets. They remain free to trade and drive speculative prices upwards and to their own benefit. Their real wealth increases as a function of the discounted value, applying the inflation rate in the goods, services and capital goods markets where wage earners and supply side companies are the consumers. As has been explained the inflation in the supply side affecting wage earner cost of living, arises from leakage from asset market price rises affecting production input costs as well as wage earners house rents and prices. Therefore the impact of money volumes has a very strong differential impact on asset market prices and the prices of goods and services. Asset price rise rapidly and goods and services prices move more slowly. As more funds flow into assets and offshore investment, supply side production is faced with rising costs and fixed nominal wages resulting in falling real demand. As a result prospects for growth are reduced and banks raise interest rates because of perceived risk. While the options of asset holder increase bolstering their freedom of choice and wealth, the options on the supply side become progressively constrained because of declining range of freedoms of choice for companies and wage earners.Oborne identified a serious constitutional issue in how Johnson has abused his position, as have many of his senior associates. A spate of getting rid of senior civil servants, handling Covid-19 responses through a de facto privatization of services through exaggeratedly-priced contracts to companies whose owners provide campaign contributions to the Conservative party for services which would be better handled internally within the NHS or through local authorities. Johnson has also questioned High Court decisions. However, all of this behaviour is supported by a powerful minority faction whose wealth depends upon the greater lie and abuse of power. This functions under the guise of monetary policy whose logic was fashioned by ruling elites before democracy, so-called, existed and remains the oft repeated lie, used to justify the imposition of a continued economic prejudice on the majority. |
