Big bungs and job-boosting elections Top of the Charts 6 November 2020 Afternoon all, It’s been a big week for decision taking. The US (probably) isn’t giving Trump four more years (🤞), but the UK has given the Job Retention Scheme four more months. UK politics nerds are horrified by it taking three days plus to count some ballots (while being secretly thrilled at the excuse to keep watching … Continued READ MORE
Green taxes and time-wasting filing Top of the Charts 'Hidden gems' round-up: October 2020 6 November 2020 The latest from Resolution Foundation Chief Executive Torsten Bell’s weekly Observer column, Hidden gems from the world of research and academia. Read more of the latest economics and policy research in our weekly reading email, Top of the Charts. Protect the poor from being penalised by carbon taxes In those glorious pre-pandemic days we only had … Continued READ MORE
Lacking economic diversity and losing creativity Top of the Charts 30 October 2020 Afternoon all, TOTCs this week comes from a misty South-West, which is a mixed blessing (low virus cases, high wind/rain). But even with low cases, the impact of the pandemic is everywhere – particularly in the face-to-face services in tourist reliant areas who, along with city centres, are in the front line of this crisis. … Continued READ MORE
A very sectoral crisis and rewriting fiscal standards Top of the Charts 23 October 2020 Afternoon all, The ramping up of restrictions is getting very real today – Wales is in hard lockdown and post-row Greater Manchester has entered tier 3. South Yorkshire has got less than eight hours left before it follows suit. All of which shows why the Chancellor was right to basically totally reinvent his Job Support … Continued READ MORE
Covid-19 Worse for some The economic pain is being felt differently by different people. And for many of them, rock bottom is still to come 23 October 2020 by Torsten Bell The pan in pandemic is a dangerous prefix. While the virus now straddles the globe, those three letters can give the impression of an equality of impact that is very far from the truth. On the health side this is blindingly obvious, with death rates from the virus climbing sharply with age and, as in … Continued READ MORE
History tells us to brace for 1990s-style tax rises rather than spending cuts 21 October 2020 by Torsten Bell A common human flaw is to believe the future will look like our immediate past. If something unusual has happened we conclude it’s likely to happen again. The person unlucky enough to be struck by lightning spends more time than the rest of us worrying about storms. That a lucky gambler thinks they’ll get lucky … Continued READ MORE
Analysing plagues, paying for pandemics and searching for aliens Top of the Charts 16 October 2020 Afternoon all, This is the week the music consensus died. It’s hardly surprising, with political fracturing between parties and places reflecting the tensions all of us feel confronting the reality that this pandemic is here to stay. But it’s a disaster if public faith in collective decision taking is undermined in the midst of a … Continued READ MORE
Talking tax, gender divides and predicting crises Top of the Charts 9 October 2020 Afternoon all, Today is impressively managing to combine the (inevitable) end of the V-shaped recovery, with the overdue catching-up of policy with local lockdown reality. At 7am we learnt that GDP grew by 2.1 per cent in August, down from 6.4 per cent in July and 9.1 per cent in June. Almost all that growth … Continued READ MORE
Epidemics of unhappiness and getting lost at sea Top of the Charts 'Hidden gems' round-up: September 2020 2 October 2020 The latest from Resolution Foundation Chief Executive Torsten Bell’s weekly Observer column, Hidden gems from the world of research and academia. Read more of the latest economics and policy research in our weekly reading email, Top of the Charts. How coronavirus piled misery on India’s workers Cities are the centres of this crisis, but not all … Continued READ MORE
Vaccine predictions and sleep restrictions Top of the Charts 2 October 2020 Afternoon all, I see the 2020 gods have decided we haven’t had enough uncertainty and chaos. At least Donald Trump seems to understand that you quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19 – not something all our own politicians have got the hang of it appears. For the increasing number of you entering quarantine (or just … Continued READ MORE
(Economic) Winter is Coming special Top of the Charts 25 September 2020 Afternoon all, Winter is coming and so is the Chancellor’s Winter Economy Plan, announced yesterday. Since the plan is a) brand new and b) fiendishly complex, we thought we’d devote a TOTCs special to it. It’s complicated, so there are inevitably good and less good elements. But the big picture is this – it is … Continued READ MORE
Rich partners, poor parents and Trump-loving neighbours Top of the Charts 18 September 2020 Afternoon all, So we’re going from opening up to closing back down again. Local lockdowns, rules of six and (apparently) circuit breaks. All I’m saying is that the last remaining V-shapers out there must be smoking something very strong indeed. In fact, if rising cases and rising unemployment have one silver lining it’s to end … Continued READ MORE
Losing the home team advantage and parental support vs the welfare state Top of the Charts 'Hidden gems' round-up: August 2020 11 September 2020 The latest from Resolution Foundation Chief Executive Torsten Bell’s weekly Observer column, Hidden gems from the world of research and academia. Read more of the latest economics and policy research in our weekly reading email, Top of the Charts. Britain might look to Germany to heal the north-south divide Before the government was forced into locking … Continued READ MORE
Explaining economics through rivers, mountains and concrete Top of the Charts 11 September 2020 Afternoon all, Lawbreaking aside, the big news this week is that the rule of six is on, and Christmas is off. The kids are going to riot when someone tells them what’s going on, but the upside is a notably lower turkey-related divorce rate this year. That today’s GDP stats also followed the rule of … Continued READ MORE
Mutant algorithims, dodgy hair salons and bad debts Top of the Charts 4 September 2020 Afternoon all, Schools’ back. Well actually, ours isn’t – which I am totally, 100 per cent, relaxed about… But everyone other one seems to be, which is good news. I’ve always been in the “we should probably educate the kids” camp. It’s a rather basic civic duty. Like voting, which apparently Donald Trump is now … Continued READ MORE
Contagious theories – and proof that poverty is not failure Top of the Charts 'Hidden gems' round-up: July 2020 3 August 2020 The latest from Resolution Foundation Chief Executive Torsten Bell’s weekly Observer column, Hidden gems from the world of research and academia. Read more of the latest economics and policy research in our weekly reading email, Top of the Charts. Proof that poverty is not failure but a trap Poverty matters and it lasts. It reduces wellbeing today … Continued READ MORE
Good bosses, bad economists and the curse of the Premier League Top of the Charts 31 July 2020 Afternoon all, Local lockdowns are all the rage – this time for the North West. We’d better get used to it. In a stroke of genius planning/solidarity we’re heading for a campsite in the North West tomorrow. On the plus side it’ll provide something more interesting to worry about than the (inevitable) rain. In some … Continued READ MORE
Finding vaccines, winning elections and catching fish Top of the Charts 24 July 2020 Afternoon all, Masks at the ready team. Arms out for the flu jabs, but hands down for the junk food. A year on from entering Downing Street, Boris Johnson has not only become a daddy (again) but he’s ended up fully embracing the nanny daddy state. The latter at least is a surprise given the PM’s personal liberalism, but … Continued READ MORE
Refugees, rallies – and a reassuring chart Top of the Charts 17 July 2020 Afternoon all, I’m afraid TOTCs is in rather gloomy mood today. I appreciate this isn’t what anyone wants to hear, but I really fear we’re only in the foothills of the economic bit of this crisis in so far as households are concerned. Even if the initial recovery phase is V-shaped for GDP, household incomes … Continued READ MORE
Hitting the right target, at the right time, and with the right arrows Top of the Charts 10 July 2020 Afternoon all, Dishy Rishy has been sloshing the dosh. Again. This week it’s £30bn, a big deal in pre-pandemic land but only a 20 per cent increase on the £160bn already announced since March. All together that’s lots of cash. But no, it doesn’t prove Jeremy Corbyn was always right about borrowing more, or that … Continued READ MORE
Making a mess in economics Top of the Charts 3 July 2020 Morning all, Boris Johnson used to want to be Churchill. Now it’s FDR. I see there’s been a lot of snide remarks about the fact that re-announcing £5bn infrastructure spend isn’t quite the same thing as Roosevelt’s doubling of federal government expenditure during the 1930s. Personally, I think we should all be grateful for what … Continued READ MORE
Levelling up China and levelling down VAT Top of the Charts 26 June 2020 Afternoon all, Welcome to this heatwave edition of TOTCs. It nearly didn’t happen at all – I stop functioning once the mercury hits 25°C. Forget COVID-19, the sunburn-and-sweat risk should have been enough to put people off sardine-ing it up on Bournemouth beach yesterday. But I’m liberal enough to see that for each sun-phobic vampire … Continued READ MORE
The public benefits of strikers and tweeters Top of the Charts 19 June 2020 Afternoon all, Coronavirus? There’s NOT an app for that we learnt today. And unfortunately, there’s no quick fix for the unemployment spreading across Britain either. 600,000 fewer people on payrolls in just two months was the headline from this week’s depressing job news, while we’ve now seen the numbers on Universal Credit rise from 3 to 5.3 million since … Continued READ MORE
Slumps, supply chains and solutions Top of the Charts 12 June 2020 Afternoon all, Happy “the economy’s shrunk 9 times faster than it ever has before” day. I’m sure we’re all grateful to the ONS for getting Friday off to such a perky start with the GDP stats out this morning. The nation’s official statos even made an animated chart to ram home the point that we’re not just taking TV shows … Continued READ MORE
Observing, understanding and improving society – for everyone Top of the Charts 5 June 2020 Afternoon all, One of the surprising outcomes of two months of lockdown is how tiring its physical and emotional impact has been. And along with the responses of anger and activism, it’s hard not to feel drained too in the face of truly awful scenes from the United States – scenes that leave many waking … Continued READ MORE