Saturday 8 June 2013

That's one way of putting it...

From Management Today (via Stuart King at HPC):

The biggest criticism, though, was voiced again on Tuesday by Albert Edwards, head of the global strategy team at French banking giant Société Générale, who pointed out that by offering 95% mortgages, the government is driving young people further into debt – or ‘indentured servitude’, as he put it.

Edwards doesn’t seem to be a man who minces his words. In a research note he said Help to Buy is ‘truly a moronic policy that stands head and shoulders above most of the stupid economic policies I have seen implemented during my 30 years in this business.

‘It ranks above some of Alan Greenspan’s very worst blunders,’ he added. Crikey.

The irony is that given the number of reservations, Help to Buy probably counts as one of the government’s most 'successful' economic policies to date. It’s just a shame that it’s one of its most bonkers, too…

4 comments:

DBC Reed said...

This geezer has stolen one of my best numbers "Indentured Servitude". After slavery became a little, how shall, we say illegal, these clever entrepreneurs, whose sole intent was to take people away from their rural poverty and give them another chance in life on the other side of the world ,and to transport them there in basic transport, replaced slaves with indentured labourers who worked for nothing but got a little bit of land at the end of it. So the comparison is apt: people slave away and get a little bit of land at the end of it in both systems.(The existence of Indians [indentured] and Africans [ex-slaves] living next to each other in W Indies etc stems from this time and the animosity because the ex-slaves were hoping to be paid for the work that the Indians took on indentured terms.

Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, yup, even supposed right-winger Niaill Ferguson doesn't deny this, it was a huge great pyramid scam.

Bayard said...

I learnt that "indentured servitude" was where someone, usually your parents, or , if you were a criminal or a Scotsman on the losing side of one of the Jacobite rebellions, the state, sold your labour for a fixed term of time for an up front lump sum. The labour of most of the "indentured servants" of the second type was usually bought by West Indian plantation owners, which is why you find so many people with Scottish surnames in the West Indies. It was only when the supply of criminals and Scots started to dry up that the plantation owners took to importing slaves from Africa. Obviously, it is more cost effective for the state to sell the labour of a criminal for the term of their penal servitude than it is to pay to house and feed them for the same period.

DBC Reed said...

@Bayard
Right ,there appears to have been many forms of indentured servitude
and the practice was long established before they started using Indians in the West Indies. However the West Indian system which took over directly after slavery was abolished ( the Indians took over the same accommodation or "lines" that the Africans vacated apparently) was most directly analogous to mortgage slavery. Wikipedia on Indentured Servants "After the servant's term was complete , he became independent and was paid 'freedom dues'. These payments could take the form of land which would give the servant the opportunity to become an independent farmer".