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tv   The Alex Salmond Show  RT  September 12, 2019 6:30pm-7:01pm EDT

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the united kingdom is though heading for its 3rd general election in the last 4 years ringback and boris johnson runs the risk of being the shortest term prime minister in british history however in addition to understanding the political twists and turns of westminster begs it should also be seen as a reaction to underlying economic conditions in today's show we asked 2 of the country's leading political economists on the extent to which the economic side dictating the politics of the brics it alex speaks 1st to former member of parliament george kevin who advocates a new economic agenda to place the economics of a steady which has prevailed since the great recession of more than a decade ago. just kind of looking at the trends a little international economy at the present moment how concerned are you that we're heading into a fury as far as a recession is concerned well alex a connoisseur are meant to be pessimists but if you look at the hard numbers of the
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moment it's stiff you know to see a perfect storm gathering to clear over the u.k. economy business manufacturing down in 7 years we've got a we've actually got the the 2nd quarter g.d.p. is actually stalled it's down we're well into the 3rd quarter i suspect we may already be in recession in the u.k. normally your economy if it does have a dip it's one particular bit of the economy there gets impacted but actually all the major drivers of the u.k. economy are in serious trouble which suggests something international is happening construction more the biggest engine of the economy. lost orders in since the banking crisis of 2008 consumer spending that's the big we depend on consumer spending retail sales down over the year and not just fall in high street shops the shift towards internet spending that stalled house prices have stalled and we
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are in we're in we're we're in trouble. but we used to talk about a jobless recovery when the recovery had started their color but the jobs market wasn't moving now we seem to be in a job fool recession where the economy looks like it's coming on the brink of recession but the jobs market still stays strong actually we're kind of at the top of the hill and going down the other side the latest figures from when s. which is the the agency here in the u.k. the does or or the independent stats unemployment as the last quarter started to rise a lot but unemployment start to go up and but if you delve down into the figures you see that food time employment has started to drop is the part time employment is the marginal apply with a good economy that it's muscles in the figures and making them look good and i think the something boiling up which is a bit more problematic it certainly is partly breaks that uncertainty it's also very much the international economy trumps trade wars haven't helped the attempt by
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the chinese regime to slow its economy is feeling through that means the germans counts the other cars the german economy has gone into recession so britain you know britain britain can remain aloof particularly if we have our breaks now you mentioned that the trade war between america and china of the 2 greatest economies in the world is clearly cause some constellation and probably having a direct economic effect couldn't present trump for those in his favor say well he is the man but only with the fed to try and keep interest rates down and he's the one who recognizes that the dangers of too tight molly as well heading into recession so some arguments on president drums favor well i think obviously if we do head into recession cutting interest rates will be helpful but the trouble is we be doing that for a decade the mountain most economists think the margin for helping the global economy by cutting interest rates is pretty narrow what we need is
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a boost to investment now in the stay. that's what trump has done because trump slash taxes and created an artificial boomlet and that's kind of a run or a steam no even in america cutting interest rates is not do that much for the economy in the u.k. a similar thing if if you would ask me what's the big problem in the u.k. it's lack of business investment not just because firms are worried about brakes that productivity which is the real driver of economic growth and wealth productivity has fallen for asked for quarters we're actually getting less good at doing things in the u.k. and this is exactly the point when boris johnson wants to take us into the big wide world we need to fix our domestic economy and that means real investment in real plant machinery though thinking about bricks that and the impact on these factors most analysis would suggest. that even a softer it would have
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a substantial economic empire there's also the fact that the people believe the economy is heading into recession. you wouldn't want an electoral test for later facts of that recession are starting to be come home to roost and to rise in job numbers would not be an argument if you believe that for getting to the polls no before recession is upon us well i think i mean if that isn't a calculation in the white house the number 10 of there being big down after and i certainly think because trump news is a president like next year that's why he's pushing the american segro central bank the fed to lower interest rates and trump is desperate to keep his artificial bootlick going in the states because when you look to 2021 is very lightly you get you really will run out of steam and that will rethink the whole world economy down here in the u.k. yes boris needs to get an election over before we hit
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a really rough patch so i mean if if if it turns out as i'm predicting we go into a technical recession in the u.k. at the end of september. find himself a service confines of finding a general election at a time when the economy is not doing well at all over the larger. bumpier would argue the painfully slow recovery from the great financial crash of 2008 has actually itself been a major driver of the the changes in the politics of the liberal democracy trump in america breaks in the united kingdom that the populist right in many of the european democracies how seriously do you rate that as the the causal factor of the sort of politics we see play that oh i think it has a major impact and it's a long term process actually goes back before 2008 and the global banking crisis it
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started in america the reason why wages went up and the share of wages in in national income went up through the 50. his sixty's seventy's was and it never to see this because actually because of all those strong trade unions the people complained about it but they could force which increases higher than inflation now once are after the reagan era once the big trade unions were broken and once the the dust fuel structure changed the way from big factories big mass production big work forces who could exert an influence to small firms electronics etc said to want you to do that then it became pretty impossible for working people to exert pressure on wages now unless something somewhere from the progressive left somebody takes and it intervenes to raise incomes then people begin to panic and they begin to look for extreme solutions and then the weight when comes along the right wing stars will start to blame immigrants when it's no immigrants at all is that is
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something within the fundamental motor of the wage economy works and so you get you get the populace party's rising across europe i mean i live happily in a place fortunate a place called squalor where were were those right wing forces of not emerged because we've had sensible social democratic government which has tried to maintain living standards and use the power of the state to try and offset the pressure to push wages down but unless we alter the fundamental way the economy works and the way wages are distributed national income then that problem is not going to go away and we can see the bases being created for the right so just cover the left of center political columnist you are a former member of parliament what would be your prescription for the left of center to combat these trails what would be your manifesto for a different rate of on the economy well we need it it's not just late saw breaks
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and that that's and they're written but what we need to do is to fundamentally change the economy again scotland is experimenting. i am very proud of this because i'm involved in some of the discussions scotland is creating a state investment bank and rather than rely on the ups and downs of of the free market finance we are going to use that state investment bank to invest against the cycle this investment bank should be set up next year so if there is a downturn then it through the bank will be to pump investment cash into the economy it down here in england under the labor party and give them their due are talking about creating another state investment bank they're saying western banks are not abnormal germany has had one since since the since the 1950 s. and that's one of the reasons the german economy is so strong you don't rely on my prescription to rely on the on the on the ups and downs of of the free market invest long term to do that you need a state investment bank just carbon from adler thank you very much indeed. thank
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you for. all that of the death of the little girl. well you know that they were kind of adopted because we were called pirates for so long. i mean they're in this small ball and sniffs it hard pull it shifts and it's
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. not something. the little self did big cold fish already 90 percent of the dot and bone that connor. concept 15 scoops 17 tons to and they do it several times a day with a big fleet oh you get an idea of why. we have to understand we can all stay still and just. be witness for the deal because our. i'm doing this because i want the future world to the future generations to have and enjoy the ocean we have. to become eternal we have to become. kharkiv robots barkley's mutants you know
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we have to become creatures like in. iran and north you know all the superhero movies. then i don't see them i don't think i want i don't want to be alone with them. welcome back mike to the debate on brecht it is concerned the dislocation to the economy threatened by an ordeal exit from the european union today alex interviews professor richard murphy who points to other unintended consequences of a high brix it professor richard murphy welcome to the alex salmond sure thank you for having me so. obvious is a huge deal in the u.k. has been for the us 3 years but right in the world how big this breaks it seem and
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terms of its economic effects well i have done quite a lot of travel with my job and right across europe many capitals and actually it is a big deal you can't go in a taxi in europe without the taxi driver realising that you're from the u.k. and talking bracks it is a big deal now does that mean it matters yes but not economically to most countries in the way it does to us what it does do is create massive uncertainty in the world economy and in the world politics europe suddenly doesn't know what it is anymore but from a european by which i've been european commission major states in europe the uncertainty of sacrificing the integrity of the single market must have appeared glitter to them otherwise they were the offered less is more to enable her to get a deal over the line in the house of commons but the single market matters to the european union it's one of its red lines backstops whatever you wish to call it
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they are not going to negotiate away the fact that the entire intention of the european community is it was the european union is it now is was about creating a common market as those of us of our age will remember calling it once upon a time it is about breaking down the barriers to trade now those are about common standards of production. common taxation removing the. borders and they're not going to get rid of that because that is the essence of the european union the european ideal is greater than keeping the u.k. in they will therefore take the hit i don't think there's any doubt about that and that's why they are not going to compromise at any point with the single market and say look you can be in but a half heartedly that's just not an option for them and thinking about the general world economic environment could be a bit of washed by recent years through. the economics of blips or hard
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loss of the world economic environment is looking pretty rough like right now the u.s. and china are at war trade war but frankly that's pretty close to war they are absolutely at loggerheads and that is having a serious impact upon both countries germany is heading for a recession and even if the usa settles with china at some point it will turn next on germany because it hates germany almost as much as china because germany runs a persistent serving as president of the existing worst president of the united states so that uncertainty is absolutely clear is ancestral home and yet he's absolutely opposed to germany we have got these ideological wars going on over economics which are spilling over into world politics and in all of that we have breck's it now some of the logics are not dissimilar they're protectionist they're about identity america 1st sounds awfully like we must be taking back control in
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very many ways so there are commonalities between the u.k. and the u.s. a in this sense and i don't call that a special relationship in any form either but there are commonalities and they are creating this massive uncertainty we're also overdue in plain straightforward simple terms for a global recession on average they happen every 7 years but we have the most massive one in 200-8910 we're now in 2019. and we've been bumping along the bottom would not be doing any better than that since 2010 or 11 so frankly the pure mathematics of logic say at some point we're going to have a downturn we have been able to hold things steady we will have a recession anyway but we're going to have it and it's going to be more powerful because we have got trade wars going on all over the world and we're contributing to that rubrics it and most of the focus on potential effects of
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a bricks that or soft force and things like interruption to massive jams of laws uncertainty affecting business investment the financial sector relocation issues like that your studies in the cogency and type situation however don't provide some other issues which may well be significant in terms of the financial effects of brics that there's a lot of detail and i'm not going to discuss the technicalities but which we need to take into account with for example going to see some changes in some very basic taxes which most people ignore most of the time because they pay them but they don't even notice it the 80 for example the 80 is a european tax it is designed to operate at a european level and so long as we in the european union goods flow through over and through our airports and everywhere else without interruption by the 80 in effect there is no v. 80 paid at the ports if we're outside beauty has to be coordinated across the
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european market in the that and it took a long time to achieve that for the 1st 20 years that we were in the european union we did not have that coordination i'm old enough to remember when we had to do it had to do a lot of form filling to make the 80 work across borders and from the ninety's on boards that disappeared and the benefit to business was enormous at 2 levels one less administration but 2 less cash flow risk because you used to have to pay to bring your goods into the u.k. you had. paid of that the moment there right now remember we are a heavy importing nation now that suddenly will be locking up large amounts of business cash in pain the fact when the goods arrive to reclaim from customs and excise later on cash flow is actually the biggest potential implication of brecht's it and i can see no one including the government in its yellow have the documents has talked about who is going to pay the cost of lorries sitting for 2 and a half days waiting to get through dover companies run on the tiniest of margins
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using least vehicles they rent those vehicles they don't someone's got to pay that rent when they're sitting for 2 and a half days waiting to get through dover when previously they took 10 minutes the point is that's going to impose substantial cost if it's the truck company that's paying they can't afford it if it's the customer that's paying the price is going up but it means that not just there aren't trucks in operation trucks are being paid to do nothing now that could drive literally every hoarded company who goes across the channel out of business in weeks because they won't be able to afford sort of thinking about a document like go hammer disavowed by the government of course all the heart but the documents suggest dissolving government but nonetheless the focus on these technical issues of. the past floor or was it more ford focused on at the front line stuff where you know i'm home a lot. yet i have always focused very much on short term logistics
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how can we get food through ports how can we get medicines in water the disruptions what is actually going to cause the stress to ministers because it's the 1st thing to hit the headlines the 80 won't be the 1st thing that hits headlines nor will into slightly longer term the fact that we will lose control of the 80 on imports and exports where there has been brought to the postal system in the past it took us years to close down abuse through the channel islands which cost a fortune we will lose control of the. distant selling operations through things like amazon and e bay where we've only just managed to eliminate the $88.00 fraud which has cost billions to the u.k. these are the long term implications of losing the coordination with europe the cost to us of increased tax abuse is going to be phenomenal was that in yellow hammer no is it going to be a real cost which is going to harm public services in the u.k. yes do we have any answers to those questions no do we have the people hate him revenue and customs you know have to deal with this know why because we've been
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cutting the number of staff and revenue and customs and they're going through a chaotic chaotic reorganization already so they have the software to deal with this issue no do they actually therefore have the capacity in any way to handle the scale of disruption they're likely to face know it well we can have a tax system in meltdown as a consequence yes it was not in yellow hammer no our government's there for taking the risk i don't think so and that's before they even do anything as absurd as trying to create singapore on thames tax haven that they'd love to create in london which is going to be massively disruptive for our relationships with other countries around the world so what would that explain thinking about the detail of this you know why i'm not the one michael gove talks about short term disruption on the other hand they're full of ham and. catastrophe or a hard no deal bracks there's a short term disruption that we will face and nobody disputes it my worry is that
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it will last a lot longer some businesses will simply fail as a result of that short term disruption they won't be there to recover to face the longer term if we lose truck companies if we lose people who are importing and exporting if we lose those jobs then actually the destruction goes on and on and on because literally the infrastructure our transport systems for example may well not be there to carry on doing important export into 2023 long term consequences of this. let alone the difficulties in that tax authority are enormous and let's apollo universe that the forces of the conservative party to a few years ago who were so let's have a look at the if the style european economic blips that would that have avoided all of these destructive tendencies that if we had been willing to look at a single market. norway style or swiss star deal with europe a lot of these economic disruptions would have disappeared if we'd had
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a political breaks it in other words separating control of migration which was one of the major motivations although often denied if we'd actually been trying to take back control of the political level through the court system or whatever then maybe we would have actually still achieved the brics it but stayed in the economic cooperation area around the single market and so on and then we would have been ok then we would have avoided most of the disruption as it is we've gone for maximum disruption to achieve the small political gains that will be one. thing can look at the quiet of night among even the key most blokes of your vote we're a little voice saying perhaps we should look more closely we're here to be an economic area stale bread so what i find really strange ship out the brick city is most of them claim to be pro-business you know i cannot think of a policy which is more anti business that anybody could have put forward than
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bricks it is undermining the certainty they need is undermining the trading relationships that they have to have is undermining their contracts it's creating extra administration which they claim to hate all of that for what they must have to house or else they just abandon their old principles which were we're pro-business because pranks it is not pro business it's absolutely fundamentally anti business and that leads us in this. very strange place that we have the traditional parties of business apparently undermining it what more do we want as an indication that we live in unusual times perhaps than debates to come mr cobb should be speaking about anti bankers blacks are being proposed suppose but i couldn't break well bank as i don't know the position here only for look at what corbett is doing he's right to say there's a banking bret's it but remember banks are not the same as business this is a good for the people who want to extract money from other people it's
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a bad breaks it to the people who want to make money by working and they're fundamentally different parts of the insurers a hedge fund bankers puella hedge funds and bankers probably coordinate in a very large degree these days i'm afraid the dividing line between those 2 is there but when i was in practice is a chartered accountant and i was a lot of my clients had to decide who they disliked most their tax authority or their bank manager and sometimes it was a close run thing professor books of wealth these were the house ian days and even a nice days of course this was one essential well it was the authorities on the bike mileage and that was to get a look in the clear skies gulliver loving cup and pass it on to over bike mileage or types of occlusion just like do we start. up the brakes a debate in the house of commons has dominated every other issue even the economy
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which usually dictates everything has taken a back seat to ignite utopian drama last week for example the chance those autumn spending statement which would normally be a parliament she highlight was sandwiched almost as an afterthought between prime minister's questions and the bill by which the rebel alliance of m.p.'s thoughts to exclude the possibility of an ordeal brix it. however in the 1st 2 programs of the c.d.'s we have explained 1st how world economic conditions and today are the political economy underlying the brecht debate in the united kingdom have in reality dictated the existence and the tightening of the european withdrawal process it to me is to be seen whether it will also be the economy which dictates eventual outcome and next week show we should turn back to the international environment and also what was top economists about the effect of economic conditions on the possibility of political change professor collins bush of princeton university and says the question of whether governments around the world have the financial firepower to effect if we combat recession but until then from
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alex and me and all of the team at issue is good bye for now and we hope to see you next week thanks . i am. when we're talking about sustainable growth is just about the sustainable development it's not only. grow the number of tourists the sustainability is itself in the world war which is the month aim bonus between there were meant to be a war between culture and. conservation again. nature in
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isolation of everything this is our role in this is to support them so to manage them so you see it in your circle michelle going to. the party there are good terrorists and bad at it it's the bad terrorists and those in yemen who the united states deems to be a threat the look to those who are in syria the cia and the u.s. military were engaged in covert actions really throughout the world. where they were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up right wing military speak those funding an army of death squads there's no phones anymore because there's always a small pickup truck or a really good. profit. and
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the moment. that he's got his. you know you don't. go to work. that's for sure. so there's a lot on the call from day to recall no calls when he does it's always you know the false sun or just like your risk on the you can sleep and view of the thing with bullets of from someone not so much the last i was there lots and lots to know something shook i'm not sure. look you just wrote a song to me she's on that. follow my p.p. down at this time i don't talk. to me. or you want to leave the d.c. to the police to show you the police roubles for the work. story.
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that. was. taliban sends a clear message to donald trump in an exclusive interview to r.t. saying it hopes the u.s. president rethink his decision to call off peace talks with its leaders. in american t.v. networks who is one of the most n.b.c.'s top hosts for describing pay for russian propaganda look at the track record of the president in question when it comes to making claims about the coming. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu putin not just wrapped up talks in the russian resort of sochi the pair discussed syria iran and security in the middle east among others.

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