Now of course we all expect The Guardian to get economics wrong. As with everything else – The Guardian, wrong about everything. Always. But those who would opine on economic affairs and the state of the world, we need to hold them to a higher standard.
Which brings us to this from Richard Murphy. He wants to tell us that developing country debt is the most appalling problem and therefore everyone should do as he says.…
See More
It’s not like they’ve not done this before of course but it is still irritating:
IMF boss says raise taxes on the rich to tackle inequality
Kristalina Georgieva calls for rethink of economic policies to better help those left behind
Well, no, she doesn’t.
… See MoreRaising income tax on the wealthy will help close the growing gap between rich and poor and can be done without harming growth, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.
The Guardian is telling us all about the Peterloo Massacre. Fair enough, it was the founding outrage of the newspaper that became The Guardian. However, it is something of a small pity that it doesn’t actually understand the issues at play here.
Take this for example:
Half an hour before the Lighthouse opens, a queue has begun to form. The early birds are members of the Lighthouse Pantry, a food club for local people on low incomes, and competition is rife for the most prized items: a sirloin steak, a whole chicken, smoked salmon.
The Guardian has had the arts graduates sucking their pencils and adding up the statistics about rape in the UK. Predictably they manage to get it all entirely wrong.
Just 1.5% of all rape cases lead to charge or summons, data reveals
Nonsense.
Only one in 65 rape cases reported to police result in suspects being summonsed or charged, a Guardian analysis of the latest crime figures has revealed.
Innumerate malarkey.
The drop is particularly dramatic at a time when victims are reporting more attacks.
According to the Grauniad those rotters at HMRC have done something totally ungreen:
HMRC pushes steep VAT increase for new solar-battery systems
Treasury proposes rise from 5% to 20%, while the tax on coal will stay at lower rate
Don’t they know there is a climate emergency on? The ‘Independent’ does:
Climate crisis: Huge VAT rise on solar panels makes installation ‘entirely uneconomic’, say experts
‘We could not have a clearer sign the government has failed to even begin to grasp the urgency’, says Green Party co-leader
Sian Berry, co-leader of the Green Party told The Independent: “A climate emergency has been officially declared, yet we could not have had a clearer sign that the government has failed to even begin to grasp the urgency.…
See MoreRichard Partington is the economics correspondent for The Guardian. True, he’s a step up from that bird who ended up at Mashable, but still.
Richard Partington is the Guardian’s economics correspondent.
No one who groks economics is going to write something as silly as this:
But some people have benefited more from growth than others, despite global gross domestic product (GDP) growing by more than 5,000% since the 1960s.
Which tells us something about well Our Dickie groks economics.…
See MoreThe Guardian tells us all that many members of the House of Lords have other jobs. Which seems fair enough really, as they’re not in fact paid to be members of the House of Lords. Expenses only is the system there. They then go on to point out that some of them, or for some of them the job is, are advisers to foreign governments. And, you know, chunter chunter, having our legislators paid by foreign governments is…chunter chunter.…
See MoreIt’s the Daily Mash that gave us “The Guardian, wrong about everything. Always” and there is, as we know, great truth in that. This is more than just the usual Gell Mann Amnesia thing, where we read any newspaper article upon something we know about and note that they don’t. Yet by the time we move on to some subject we’re not expert in we assume the newspaper does know about it.
The Guardian manages more than this.…
See MoreThat’s probably the way we should read Dawn Foster today. How very dare the Reine Regnante of the socially caring left continue to block the rise to national prominence of younger, fitter, columnists?
Retirement should be a right. But it’s in danger of becoming a privilege for the rich
Dawn Foster
Of course, there’s a certain amount of dressing up the insistence but:
….more than twice as many people over 70 are working now than a decade ago.
That the vast majority of us don’t grasp the intricacies of economics is fine, just fine. The vast majority of us don’t grasp theoretical physics either, most of us not having caught up with the fact that it’s not all just quantum these days. And Britain has been famous for a millennium on how the vast bulk of the nation is rather behind the curve on cuisine.
However, when it comes to writing about the subject it does help if those doing so have a clue.…
See More