• “Brilliant! Can’t wait to read the next one.”
  • [Mahtab Clark, Tax adviser and practitioner]
  • "As always you have chimed with my longstanding desperation at the stupidity of Central Banks’ support for their irresponsible major banks."
  • [Steven Spencer, Commodities Trader]
  • "Very many thanks. I really do appreciate reading your penetrating analyses."which make so comprehensible these economic issues that affect us all”
  • [Clement Roberts, retired senior civil servant]
  • "Excellent, dear Emile, as always. Thank you."
  • [Richard Elias, Director, Hyperion Insurance Group]
  • “Excellent, Emile!
  • The central bankers are like cooks who keep turning up the heat on the pressure cooker while screwing down more clamps on the lid. The inevitable explosion will be terrible.”
  • [Patrick Barron, Economics and Banking Professor, USA]

Comments on "Economic Perspectives" 27:

"It is such a clearly worded and important topical contribution to the argument that it needs wide circulation as soon as possible."  Steven Spencer, Spencer Associates, Commodities Consultancy

"Bravo - economic common sense expressed in first class prose - thank you!"  Jonathon Clark, Financial Adviser

"Emile, Thank you. Excellent  piece. I will steal some of your arguments and loved the Burke quote!"  Michael Forsyth, House of Lords

"Well done, send it to all MPs and Peers!!"

Robin Long, Ex-Senior Partner, City Accountancy Firm

"Love that line “kicking the can down the road” doesn’t work in a cul-de-sac!" You should write some scripts for TV programmes"  Richard Watkinson, Business TV Producer

"I wish you were on our Brexit negotiating team!!!!"  Donald Bailey, OBE

 

Wonderful, Emile. I really like the stories. I think that is how people get "hooked" on reading a rather scholarly article such as yours.

This paragraph of yours about demand could be the focus of a follow-up essay:

The fallacy underlying the whole charade begins with the belief that creating jobs creates demand - and that demand will, on its own, generate economic growth. However, that doesn’t happen, and it’s not how economic growth occurs anyway. Remember: (i) it is in the nature of the human condition that there can never be a shortage of demand; but (ii) if it is not preceded by commercially evaluated production, demand is completely useless and can never be satisfied.

Keynesian economics--the headlong pursuit of increasing aggregate demand--is a failed attempt to refute Say's Law. Production must precede consumption. This is irrefutable; i.e., one cannot consume what has not been produced. One's production becomes the currency by which one consumes, via an indirect medium of exchange (money). Dr. Frank Shostak is fond of reminding his readers that all REAL exchanges are exchanges of something for something. Keynesian exchanges, especially via money printing, are exchanges of something for nothing and are nothing more than rationales for capital consumption.So few understand the importance of Say's Law. It could use your special touch that reaches so many.

   Patrick Barron, Professor of Economics, Universities of Iowa and Wisconsin

"Emile does write up some interesting essays, this one is particularly to the point, and should be distributed for debate, in universities.

Good reading et à bientôt."

Roland.

[Roland Huet-Gundill, Languedoc Luncheon Club, on Economic Perspectives - 25]

"Strong stuff! Long may you continue to expose these charades."

[Richard Elias, Director of major insurance group]
" Excellent, as usual. What a bunch of boneheads we have running the country!"  

Thank you for that, Émile!

However, you seem to forget that if we leave the warm and ample bosom of the EU we are all doomed. It will be the end of the world as we know it. All industries and all financial companies will leave. All graduates in circusology, gender studies and even basketball physiotherapy will take their talents elsewhere. So flee, sell all your assets and apply for some other - any other - citizenship before it's too late.

Alternatively, just sit back and hope (there is nothing more you or I can do...) that Brexit is not sabotaged by the Guardian Readers.

Nigel McGown

Emile,

Wonderful essay. I hope you send it to your MP, the Times, Guardian, Telegraph, BBC, ITV, etc.

The principle that subsidies and tariffs harm only the country’s own citizens is applicable to money printing, too. Debasing one’s own currency, usually to spur exports, is a transfer of wealth to foreigners and a temporary transfer of wealth to one’s own exporters at the expense of one’s countrymen.

I love the last line. May we never have a bilateral trade agreement!

[Patrick Barron, Professor of Banking Economics, University of Iowa, USA]
"Excellent, Emile. Scathingly accurate. The banks' increased capital levels will be written off in the next financial bust."[Pat Barron, Professor of Austrian Economics, University of Iowa]

"Enjoy reading it? I did, I did!!" [Steven Spencer, Spencer Associates, Commodities Consultant]

"Quite. And why should the banks worry about risky lending? They now know that when things go pear-shaped they will always be bailed out by Government - with our money!  It amounted to £20,000 for every man woman and child in the UK last time round!"  [ Ian Francis, Commissioning Editor, Earth & Environmental Sciences]

"Emile, as usual, you are 'right on the button'. The automotive world, in which I have a specific interest, is definitely the next 'sub prime' bust that will arrive. When was the last time that you saw a car advertisement showing the actual list price of the vehicle? £30,000 or £40,000 or even £50,000, or more, looks like a lot of money to the average buyer - but £299 per month does not. The whole industry is heading for a cliff edge before very long." [James Luckes, Chairman, Languedoc Gentlemen's Economics Forum]

" Insightful and, I fear, you are spot on in your analysis"  [Sid Bright, Chartered Accountant]
 

Emile,

Actually, the memory of 10 years ago is being completely suppressed in the U.S. as any controls of the banks (read Dodd Frank) and other lenders are being eliminated in the rush to expand lending and otherwise giving them carte blanch to make deals.

Nice piece.

[Donald R Dann, Leading Conservationist - 15-8-17]

 
 

Dear Emile

What a fantastic CV!! I will only repeat what I have often said to you – what a pity no one here listens to you.

Thank you for sending it to me

15 - 8 - 17 - Don Bailey OBE

 
 

"Dear Emile

The answer is “no”. I didn’t enjoy reading it as it spells gloom and disaster. When will the EU stop quantitative easing? Every time I pass a car dealership and see the millions of pounds stuck on the forecourts I ask myself “who is ever going to buy this lot!!"

15 - 8 - 17

 
 

"Marvellous, dear Emile. Thank you ever so much for this wonderful brief chronology!"

Richard Elias, Hyperion Insurance Group

 
 

"This is brilliant! I don't know much about the intricacies of economics but it all makes a lot of sense!" [Joanna Lapage-Brown, 15-8-17]

 
"Worth reading? It should be broadcast hourly on BBC!" [Steven Spencer]
Truly excellent Emile. Thanks for sending. Best Alasdair [Alasdair MacLeod]
"This is wonderful. Your witty, cutting writing skills make a great read!" [Joanna Lapage-Brown]
Comment on French Regulatory Farce - Economic Perspectives 17: "At some state parks along the Delaware shore it is illegal to fly a kite. It's also illegal to have an enclosed beach shelter. The tyranny never ends; it only expands everywhere." [PROFESSOR PAT BARRON]
What an excellent article, Emile. Succinct and combative as ever. [Richard Elias]
Very insightful, as always. [Prem Sikka, Emeritus Professor of Accounting, University of Essex, UK]