Category: Economics

Published on by Dave

Technical Debt

When I first heard the phrase “Technical Debt”, I nearly fell of my chair, but recently, a couple of articles have passed me by and I thought I’d have look and think about if it helps address the intractable problem of maintaining legacy technology, but particularly applications code. The problem is that to make changes, one often has to amend code that’s already in use. This increases the cost of the project. The increase in cost to new projects is part of the “Technical Debt”, however, it’s basically a metaphor. Is the problem one that financial management tools, can be used to improve the understanding of? Does this apply better to code that one has development rights to, rather than packages or infrastructure? Here as every are my notes and links. Continue reading “Technical Debt” →

Published on by Dave

Flying Cars and the future techno economy

I have been influenced by David Graeber’s article/essay, “Of Flying Cars and the declining rate of profit”, which I need to read again. I posted, in 2017, a storify thing, after reading it which contains a bunch of notes from it and other references related to the political economy issues that he raises. The post descended into note form, and I may go back and have another read and finish them. As ever for more, see below/overleaf … Continue reading “Flying Cars and the future techno economy” →

Published on by Dave

Labour Market, 1945-55

Various things have led me to consider the post-war “return to normality”. It started with the ideological establishment of the cold war, and the portrayal of the Soviet Union as new enemy against the experience of much of the demobilising military. I consider the recommencement of strikes, the re-establishment of deference, like Lee, the establishment  of Churchill’s reputation as a war hero and the relocation of women back in the home rather than the factory. Here are some notes. … Continue reading “Labour Market, 1945-55” →

Published on by Dave

New Labour’s Regional Policy

Part of the argument about the election results has become whether Corbyn’s Labour should have pitched itself more profoundly against 40 years of Thatcherism. I have my own critiques of the New Labour governments, but I hadn’t seen a failed Regional Policy as one of them. Here are my notes. … Continue reading “New Labour’s Regional Policy” →

Published on by Dave

Growth and Income

I was having another look at the macro-economics of the country. I was looking at growth (δY) and income distribution ( 1 -L(Y) ). I have built some growth charts but have run out time for the moment on income distribution, partly because the stats aren’t saying what I’d hoped. Perhaps ONS don’t measure this to the level of granularity that we need; they use 20% and 10% tranches. I might come back to this, otherwise here are my notes.  Continue reading “Growth and Income” →

Published on by Dave

International Trade and MMT

I have now re-read Chapter 8 of Reclaiming the State and this is what I think they say on International Trade, I plan to simplify it further. I have tried not to insert the anti-arguments, but I am not sure that I agree that “Sudden Stops” can only happen to poor countries. Also if the MMT people are right, then while the fiscal surplus/deficit is not a constraint on macro-economic policy, I am still to be convinced that the balance of trade isn’t! Also MMTers argue that the World Bank/International Monetary Fund/WTO will need to be refactored with new goals based on facilitating trade & development and ensuring that Trade can be financed. If collective/political action is required to ensure that international trade works, why not the EU as the first port of call. Anyway, here’s my notes. … Continue reading “International Trade and MMT” →