Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Why protect BAE jobs when you can convert them to the green economy? | Andrew Simms

6:51 AM | Posted by Free Game Zone | | Edit Post

the arms industry does not lead to more productive economic activity. Engineering skills required in other places

If the International Monetary Fund says its austerity program has gone too far, do not be surprised if, next, the ghost of Stalin has called to complain of their cruel treatment of political opponents.

In times of crisis, austerity is almost the only medicine that the IMF has never prescribed. Its economic development is famous mono-vision. When the only tool you have is a hammer, they say, all problems look like nails. The IMF is distilled from a faith in the power of the market economy and deregulated the suspicion of a collective public action. So much so that the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, the IMF was a foe of democracy.

put in the current economic course in the UK, and his belief in the cult of color under neoliberal "expansionary fiscal contraction". Regardless of your political ideology, economics remain the same if you want reduce the deficit. You need to create jobs for people and businesses can earn and pay taxes.

And when the highly protected industries, even as the arms industry, which can get favors from the highest political level for contracts, grants and preferential treatment by the legal system begins to suffer, know that you have a problem.

After BAE announced the loss of 3,000 jobs in the middle of the season of conferences, and despite the nature of your business, there have been calls from across the political spectrum to protect jobs work.
  • Why can convert protected when? The arms industry is notoriously capital, not labor intensive. Despite its presumed importance to the UK economy, the sector of weapons represents only 0.7% of total employment in the UK. A study by the University of Massachusetts viewed the creation of jobs in various sectors for every dollar spent. Compared to weapons, shelter and work on energy efficiency creates jobs and 50%, the number of investments in public transport in 131% health 50% and 107% of education.
More than that, of course, spending on weapons is politely called "deadweight loss" by economists, partly due to the products, instead of laying the foundations for the provision of infrastructure to other productive economic activities, this is exactly the opposite.

However, technical skills are required, specifically in the areas that are critical to the construction of a modern low-carbon economy. It is time to resume training for green collar economy. And now offers an ideal opportunity, as even the IMF suggested the government to rethink its economic strategy in a more progressive. In a second phase of the so-called quantitative easing (QE) is one of the few options available to give life to the economy, and now seems imminent. But the official reason for the QE is to lower the cost of loans and interest rates and can not go much lower. He also suffers from the attractive quality that banks caused the crisis of the cream of millions of dollars in fees just by sitting there and the mediation of business which operates through bond QE.

There are already calls, even some voices in the financial press, this time, the money may simply be working directly in the economy by the government to create jobs. At this point, it is difficult to imagine a sixth form economics student made a worse job of allocating resources in the financial markets, let alone the state. If government spending added to the productive capacity of the United Kingdom should also be inflationary.
We are once again return to that world a little delusional in which large sums of money are spent to save the banking reform. The reluctance of governments to the cliff of financial systems, including anti-social character was so brilliantly exposed by the dealer Rastani Alessio in an interview with the BBC.

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