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Matt Ridley on UK’s centrally planned economy

14 comments to Matt Ridley on UK’s centrally planned economy

  • bobby b

    Setting up a centrally planned . . . anything . . . is much like programming your self-driving car to do well on perfectly straight roads.

    There are no perfectly straight roads. And so you quickly crash.

    And then the planners come out and set your wheel to go down the next perfectly straight stretch of road, which of course curves in 100 feet and you crash.

    Bit of a brittle approach.

  • staghounds

    You can’t even plan your own pantry’s economy.

    http://staghounds.blogspot.com/2005/08/proof-that-marxism-can-never-work.html

    The man in the video seems to be saying it was just planned wrong.

  • GregWA

    Do you really think that these critiques of their failed economic theories matter to the ChiComms? or the Western elite/progs?

    Power.

    That’s all that matters. And there is only one ultimate way to assert power: violence. We had (had!) a pact with government that through the vote we would temper the need for violence. But they have taken away our vote…a long time ago as it turns out but only in 2020 did we see just how fully.

    Prove me wrong, oh you sages of the Samizdata-verse! Seriously, please, prove me wrong: in what polity can we still trust the counting of the vote after a relatively un-fettered discussion of the issues in fora likely to reach a majority of the ill-educated voters?

  • The man in the video seems to be saying it was just planned wrong.

    That is Matt Ridley, he thinks it will always be planned wrong, which is indeed true.

  • Paul Marks

    The Labour Party, and the rest of the “Opposition”, claim that the United Kingdom economy is not “planned” (that this is the problem) – what Lord Ridley is pointing out (although, perhaps, he could say it more clearly) is that the government-planning-is-the-problem, not the solution.

    Specifically in the energy market, we may well end up with the highest energy prices in Europe and energy shortages at-the-same-time.

    This will be blamed on “capitalist greed” and “the chaos and law-of-the-jungle of the market place” when the real problems are TAXES and REGULATIONS.

    As for Big Business (the “Woke” Corporations) – an old saying has never been more true than it is today “do not trust Capitalists to support Capitalism”.

    The energy companies fall over themselves to scream their support for the government “Green” agenda – they just want subsidies and-so-on for themselves.

    Expecting Big Business to support the free market (to support a roll back of taxes, government spending and regulations) is normally an error – and today it is an extreme error.

    The only positive thing one can say is that Prime Minister Johnson now seems to have been convinced of the case for more (and cheaper – simpler) nuclear power.

    The public have been convinced that C02 is a deadly poison (it is not – but unless you want ordinary members of the public to scream “you are murdering my children!” in your face, do not try and convince people of that – essentially the public, especially the young and “educated”, have been taught that Carbon Dioxide is Carbon Monoxide) so C02 emissions must be reduced – the only real way that can be done without wreaking society (without mass death due to economic collapse) is by a massive expansion of simpler (cheaper) nuclear power.

    Of course large parts of the public have also been taught that nuclear power is evil – and that false perception is a terrible problem we now face.

    I suppose there is always the German “solution”, destroy the domestic power industry and rely on Mr Putin (his hydrocarbons – and his nuclear power, especially if something goes badly wrong in France), but I am not attracted by the idea of relying on Mr Putin for the energy needs of the United Kingdom.

  • Paul Marks

    As for the People’s Republic of China…..

    I have seen reports of the harmful effects of “anti C02” policies in China – but these reports smell like the (FALSE) “Chinese Covid lockdown” reports of 2020 – with people supposedly dropping down dead in the streets of Covid 19 (those films from China were obviously false, they were some of the worst acting I have seen in my life, but Western governments and “private” bodies declared them true and “locked down” in March 2020).

    I think Lord Ridley is correct – the Chinese are continuing to build coal powered stations and-so-on. With energy shortages in China being political (their dispute with Australia – which means they do not buy Australian coal in the volumes they used to) and nothing to do with Winnie the Pooh (the dictator of the People’s Republic of China) suddenly actually believing in the C02-is-deadly-poison theory.

    Of course the Chinese are also building many nuclear power stations – the Chinese are not stupid people.

  • Paul Marks

    In case anyone deliberately misunderstands my last comment – I am not saying that Covid 19 is not real (of course it is real – created by the gain-of-function research in China backed by Peter Daszak’s “Eco Health Alliance”, the very name of the organisation should have rung alarm bells, and Tony Fauci), I am saying that the films of people supposedly dropping dead in the streets of China were obviously fake – because they were obviously fake.

    By the way – if the international establishment really care about Covid 19 why have they been SMEARING effective Early Treatment of the disease for more than a year.

    Far from being out to “save lives” – the international establishment have found the high death toll very useful for their totalitarian agenda. Early Treatment (with a combination of long established medications) would have dramatically reduced the death toll – so Early Treatment “had to be” smeared.

    Read that last paragraph again – and think about it.

  • APL

    Paul Marks: “By the way – if the international establishment really care about Covid 19 why have they been SMEARING effective Early Treatment of the disease for more than a year.”

    It seems to be the case, that the effective ( not effective as when the term is used by Facebook, where it’s used to mean the exact opposite ) treatment ( but effective in the sense of 100% recovery ) of COVID was known in March 2020. Pretty much, Benadril and Azrithomycin.

    To medications, cheap as chips and common as muck.

    But no, that psychopathic maniac Bill Gates ( who seems to have bought off the UK regulatory agency MHRA with his foundation’s grants ) and equally psychotic side kick Fauci, with only a hammer between them, everything to them, looks like a nail.

    But as you say, Paul. The high death toll served their international terror narrative.

  • APL

    Oh and yea, Ridley is correct. The UK is the workers paradise.

    Taking on all the aspects of the former Communist East Europe, nothing works and none of the nomenclatura do any work.

    APL: “To medications”, Two medications …

    For some reason, the option to edit does not function on this browser.

  • Paul Marks

    Keeping up Vitamin D levels is important.

    As for Early Treatment – there is the hydroxychloroquine (what the media smear as “fish bowl cleaner” and the international “medical” authorities conduct obviously rigged “studies” designed to smear) azrithomycin and zinc route – and there is the ivermectin (what the media and other establishment smear as “horse medicine”) route. See such websites as “American’s Frontline Doctors” for such things as dosages and length of treatment and see a proper medical doctor with experience of treating the disease (NOT experience of following the dictates of government bureaucracies and Corporations).

    Both routes are inexpensive (APL is correct) and used in some countries – but not others. In the countries they are used – both routes have had great success.

    APL is also correct that some doctors (and medical academics) have argued for both routes since March 2020 – in short most people who died of Covid 19 could have been saved.

    As for the United Kingdom – the position is clear, Mr Dominic Cummings has publicly announced (repeatedly) that he was working AGAINST Prime Minister Johnson (his employer) from the start (indeed BEFORE Covid has even started – with “how do we get rid of Johnson” being a key priority for Mr Cummings) – Mr Cummings also refers to “Bill Gates” (William Gates – someone who was given vast amounts of money for the use of a computer operating system he did not create, basically because his family were very well connected with IBM and others) with something close to religious awe.

    “Bill Gates says….” for Mr Cummings, being what “the Bible says” meant to earlier generations.

    But I do not believe it is just Mr Gates and Mr Cummings – it seems to be a general international establishment thing. Use-Covid-as-an-excuse-for-lockdowns and the rest of the totalitarian agenda.

    Mr Gates does make a nice James Bond “baddie” – with his fake smile and his claim that he is not the largest private landowner in the United States because he is the “custodian for society” (private ownership of land being evil according to Mr Gates – unless the owner is a servant of the community, like himself).

    Klaus Schwab is also a good James Bond “baddie” – of a different sort, the accent, the insane lust for unlimited power (and all the rest of it).

    But it is not a few individuals – it is the general international “educated”.

    By the way – I mean classic James Bond, not the “Woke” stuff that has been pushed over the last few years.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Paul Marks wrote:

    an old saying has never been more true than it is today “do not trust Capitalists to support Capitalism”.

    That ‘old saying’ has a ring to it.
    But it would be more correct to say:

    Do not trust capitalists (owners of capital) to support the free market; because the latter does not necessarily benefit the owners of capital.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Let me add that Paul Marks is entirely correct in supporting nuclear power.

    Just as Angela Merkel was entirely wrong in opposing it. Good riddance!

  • APL

    My parting shot to this survey.

    Last question:

    Q. Is there anything we could do better?

    A. You could stop attempting to implement fascistic measures.

  • Paul Marks

    Snorri Godhi makes a good point – “capitalism” is a “boo term” invented by socialists, it may not mean the free market.

    As for the interests of the rich elite – their basic interest is to carry on the flow of Credit Money from the Central Banks and the commercial Credit Bubble banks to them (that the money mainly goes to them was shown by Richard Cantillon three centuries ago). This is at the expense of everyone else – it allows the elite to buy more and more real assets (such as property) with “money” they get at artificially low interest rates (money created from NOTHING – and to the great harm of the general population).

    If “capitalism” means the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and their Credit Bubble associates (Corporate and individual), then DOWN WITH CAPITALISM!