[He] will be drawing on work from the all-party social mobility group, the Policy Exchange thinktank, the Sutton Trust and the Labour MPs Frank Field and Graham Allen ...

He is likely to focus on the work of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) set up by the Sutton Trust.

In April last year it was awarded a government endowment of £125m to improve the performance of poor children in the worst performing schools.

The foundation plans to spend £200m over the next 15 years, made up of the original £125m plus income from the endowment and fundraising.

The foundation in the long term is trying to establish initiatives that most effectively raise the attainment of the poorest pupils in the most difficult schools.

A key target will be to increase literacy of six-year-olds by checking on whether they have mastered phonics ... [Gdn]

Like its predecessor, the current government doesn't actually know very much about the teach of phonics. [BaP]

Worse, the odd £125m here and £200m there, becomes rather insignificant compared to the previous cuts in education spending ...

Nick Clegg makes yet another speech claiming to promote social mobility, despite myriad policies to the contrary. Does it fool any of the people any of the time? The IFS says education funding is cut by 13%, the largest cut since the 1950s. Early years take a heavy hit, yet that's where deprivation is best countered. Over half of schools say they use Clegg's pupil premium to plug holes in their other spending: some are using it well to re-employ education welfare officers lost in the cuts ... [Gdn]

More smoke and mirrors. But the corporate press lap it up with their usual uncritical, short-term memory deficit, it all gets passed on to us as the story of a government busy making Britain a better place to live in.

1. Privatisation of public enterprises;
2. Deregulation of the economy;
3. Liberalization of trade and industry;
4. Massive tax cuts;
5. 'Monetarist' measures to keep inflation in check;
6. Strict control on organised labour;
7. Reduction of public expenditures, particularly social spending;
8. The down-sizing of government;
9. The expansion of international markets;
10. The removal of controls on global financial flows.

[WC] Answers.com

Neoliberal Policy in Practice:

John Gray on the failure on 'limited government' ...

Neoliberals wanted to limit government, but the upshot of their policies has been a huge expansion in the power of the state. Deregulating the financial system left banks free to speculate, and they did so with reckless enthusiasm.

The result was a build-up of toxic assets that threatened the entire banking system. The government was forced to step in to save the system from self-destruction, but only at the cost of becoming itself hugely indebted.

As a result, the state has a greater stake in the financial system than it did in the time of Clement Attlee.

Yet the government is reluctant to use its power, even to curb the gross bonuses that bankers are awarding themselves from public funds. The neoliberal financial regime may have collapsed, but politicians continue to defer to the authority of the market.

Hardcore Thatcherites, and their fellow-travellers in New Labour, sometimes question whether there was ever a time when neoliberal ideas shaped policy. Has public spending not continued to rise over recent decades?

Is the state not bigger than it has ever been?

In practice, however, neoliberalism has created a market state rather than a small state.

Shrinking the state has proved politically impossible, so neoliberals have turned instead to using the state to reshape social institutions on the model of the market - a task that cannot be carried out by a small state ...   

John Gray

The 'outsourcing' programme, begun under New Labour - the latest example of which is the outsourcing of the highways - is now systemic to the provision of what was once public.

Full-monty privatisation of the former public services - one of the dirtiest words in the neoliberal lexicon, btw - has proved politically impossible to undertake in any shock doctrine manner, since elections have not yet been abolished.

So, in order to create the appearance of maintaining a social programme the social state mutated into the corporate state, in which parasites like Capita and A4e - to name but two examples of the genré - become symbiotic with government.

They may, as John Gray suggests, 'model' the market, but in no sense is this a true market, since government remains in control.

When a true Conservative - like David Davis - spots the oxymoron, we might ask why Ed Miliband's Labour Party has failed to do so.

In Britain, the symptoms of western capitalism’s sickness—rocketing executive pay, bankers’ bonuses, shameless tax avoidance and cosy relations between politicians, press barons and business leaders—have become known as “crony capitalism.”

Since the term was coined, coalition and opposition leaders have battled to be seen to lead the fight against crony capitalism and all that it entails.

But when it comes to crony capitalism, government is often not the solution, but part of the problem ...    [PM]

Davis goes on to attack: the allocation of ministerial 'buddies' to Britain's 50 largest companies; allegations of tax leniency shown to large corporations, which he contrasts with the fines inflicted on small companies who are (merely) late with their tax returns.

He also delivers an easy blow to the last government concerning the award of ten knighthoods to bank bosses.

His comments on the lack of competition with the banking sphere are spot on ...

Labour’s closeness to the financial sector led to it restricting competition authorities from intervening in financial services, and this played a huge role in creating and sustaining our monopolistic banking sector.

Spain has 20 major banks. With the sixth largest economy in the world, it is nothing short of absurd that Britain has just five major high street banks, the same number as Belgium ...

In banking, we need a high street with 30 major banks, not five. Not only will this drive down costs and offer the consumer more choice, it would make the sector more stable, ending the “too big to fail” phenomenon and protecting the taxpayer from having to fund multi-billion pound bailouts ...

Trust busting - a feature of American government since the 1890s - has not been pursued with any real conviction in the UK, witness - for example - the soft 'regulation' of water and power companies following the Thatcher privatisations, and the manner in which Rupert Murdoch came to dominate the media after he bought 'The Times'.   [RM]

The corporate state (UK) is light years away from the fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus.

Since Britain is still - nominally - a democracy with multi-party elections, so even Margaret Thatcher rejected the methods used in Chile.

This left post-1979 governments with a dilemma: how to move towards the end of the post-war social state without frightening the voters.

The solution comes under the general heading of displacement activity. ... Power as euphemism.

Since this involves deception on a epic scale, the corporate media have - wittingly or unwittingly - played along by building a diversionary culture in which a prurient concern with 'celebrities' melds with ever more complex game and talent shows, both of which act as a 21st century incarnation of the Roman Emperors' 'Bread and Circuses'.   [B&C]

Alongside this, a corporate-inspired hedonistic consumerism has successfully brought about a vacuous mileux almost entirely anaesthetised to the reality of the political, economic, and ecological line of travel.
Before examining that line of travel, it's important to understand (1) the lure of the neoliberal utopia, and (2) how it became the only show in town.

Britain's economy was hollowed out both by Margaret Thatcher's 'Big Bang, and Blair's Enterprise Act (2002).

Alex Brummer takes up the story:

Data produced by the Paris-based ... OECD shows that in each of the years 2006 to 2010 foreign investment in British stocks and share exceeded a trillion US dollar a year ... according to Treasury analysis, foreign ownership tose from 40 to 50 per cent of national output ...

During the same period ...

... the manufacturing share of the the ecobnomy shrank to just 12.4 per cent in 2007 (compared to 29 per cent in Germany) ...

Once the credit crunch started ...

... the lack of a vibrant manufacturing base was now shown to be inmpeding economic recovery ... this time there simply has not been enough of a manufacturing base to give the economy as a whole the support it needs.

What's nmore, those manufacturers that are still going strong often have to import key components ... because so much of the supply chain has been fractured ...

Britain for Sale

Alex Brummer goes to list the coalition's "austerity auction" which shows that the branch office Britain trend continues, despite much chatter about 'rebalancing' the economy.

On both left and right, there are serious concerns about to the current model of banking.

Austrian School economists - like Murray N Rothbard - warned against fractional reserve banking, the launch pad both of the current recession, and the huge increases in inequality since 1979.  [GIWT]

Barclays gives £30m in shares to eight directors

The Bretton Woods agreement arranged for a return to the Gold Standard via the dollar.

Other currencies were linked to the dollar; the dollar was linked to gold.

This system lasted until 1971, when the debts incurred by the Vietnam War lead to the Nixon Shock, ending the Bretton Woods system, and opening the way for convertible currencies and fiat money systems.

The existence of fiat money systems, the financial imbalances between the dollar and the renmimbi, and the costs of the war on terror, all played their part in the creation of the credit crunch, but a series of policy decisions taken in the US and the UK were also of critical importance:

1. Margaret Thatcher's 'Big Bang' ... Gdn



2. Clinton's abolition of Glass Steagall ...
   
   Bill Clinton, Glass-Steagall and the Current Financial and Mortgage Crisis



3. The War on Terror
   
   Economists Debate Link Between War, Credit Crisis
   
   Joseph Stiglitz on Our 'Three Trillion Dollar War'
   
   A look at costs of Afghan war to U.S. taxpayers

The UK's tripartite politics clings resolutely to the belief that the free market utopia can be restored to health by variations on a theme of deficit reduction and growth.

Where the balance lies between the two is a matter of controversy, but the idea that - for long-term reasons - growth might have had its day, and that an alternative - sustainable - economy is the coming imperative, is as yet advocated only on the margins of mainstream politics.

The single irrefutable demonstration of this belief - some might say illusion - is the failure to face up to the fact that the economy is dominated by fiat money finance, with its grotesque rewards.

Displacement activity and the third face of power

Aseem Malhotra's rant shows a superficiality of mind that fails to look beneath the surface of this tiresome displacement activity.

The message from neoliberal-corporate government is mostly 'third face of power' smoke and mirrors.

Concentrate on symptoms to avoid - at all costs - discussion of the real issue: full employment - and a rising standard of living - is not coming back in the lifetime of today's young people.

Government could devote its efforts to switching to a green economy - with all the jobs that will create - or cling to the wreckage of yet another utopian dream turned to nightmare.

For the purposes of exhuming 'growth', we must - according to the neoliberals - educate out children to accept precarity ...

Enter "Obesity and anxiety" into your search engine and you will understand that the doctors haven't a clue ...

'Prozac Nation'    The Precariat Log

"Greed really has become a part of America’s value system.

"Get as much as you can, while you can, and don’t worry about the other guy.

"Corporate greed often exploits the poor for greater profits.

"Political greed makes promises never meant to be kept in order to achieve position.

"Personal greed sets us free from a sense of responsibility to the community, and establishes love of self as the greatest commandment."

Joe Thorn.net

Growth - like capitalism - may well be 'the only game in town', but the impact on the planet is now beginning to show up in all manner of unintended consequences. The New York Times sums it up ...

Bypass the banks and go direct to green projects

The Bank has a long history of lending directly to the economy, not just to banks or the government.

It needs to expand the range of assets and investments it undertakes.

For example, it could purchase solar panel installations for the nation, with newly created money.

This would be highly productive, hence not inflationary, creating thousands of jobs, reducing electricity bills, and cutting climate emissions.

There are many other options, including funding green R&D, nationwide broadband ... cycle paths in every city – you name it ...

Gdn  10 Feb 2012

Gift Economy

Resource-based economy

Basic income guarantee

Communitarianism

Resilience