Thursday 15 August 2013

The sound bite of the day...

...didn't, for once, come from some thuggish spin doctor scooped up from the tabloid gutter, or flushed out of some septic right-wing think tank, but from Ann Pettifor, who in 2003 correctly predicted the bursting of the credit bubble, so might actually know what she's talking about.

On Radio Four's Today Programme she came up with pretty a good description of the the UK economy, which has just bobbed* up from recession and feeble convalescence, bouyed up by a taxpayer-funded housing bubble (house prices tearing ahead of earnings - sound familiar?) and a bit of debt-funded shopping.

Welcome to the 'Alice in Wongaland economy.' Nom, nom, nom.
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" 


*I nearly wrote 'boobed' there which, on reflection might have been the correct term.

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