NeilW wrote:I am old enough, but I understand what happened in the 1970s, rather than the monetarist myth. Primarily that politicians had not understood what had changed when Bretton Woods ended, nor how to deal with it. Now we do know how to deal with it, and are ready.
Place your bets. There are plenty of people looking forward to taking the money of true monetarist believers.
Oh my bets will be well in place. It's what I do.
It was easier, in the period between 1945 and 1979, for a left-wing government to believe that it could tame the markets and micromanage the economy. But even then it was something of a myth. Despite a whole raft of interventionist policies the UK government found itself chasing its tail much of the time, and often in a full-blown crisis.
It tried to control prices and incomes, but inflation ravaged that intent.
It tried to run 60% of the economy, to the point where any business with the name "British" in it was deemed a fossil.
It tried to prop up sterling even while it dropped from $4 to $2. Exchange controls didn't help.
It tried to redistribute wealth, with tax rates up to 98%, but the wealthy and successful decamped ("the brain drain").
It tried to balance the books but ended up begging the IMF for loans.
And all that was before truly global markets and the ability to move hundreds of billions in the blink of an eye. And it seems that even Corbyn realises that despite the fact that he opposed every reform that Thatcher, Blair and Cameron passed. He knows his beloved 1970's are not a reality now. No more union reps in Number Ten with tea and sandwiches, deluded into thinking they could control everything. He knows the Thatcher revolution can only be rolled back at the margins.
The big question now is whether Corbyn has the maturity and wisdom to temper his excesses. We will see, but either way I won't be affected. I will have taken steps before then. I haven't spent the last 30 years building wealth so that some socialist can confiscate it and spray it around.