In praise of... George Osborne

This is actually a pretty good speech, with a few caveats. First, presentationally he fluffs it a bit. He's not a charismatic speaker IMO, and he makes a few stumbles early on. Secondly I think he actually tries to have his cake and eat it in theoretical terms. He references a lot of different economic thinking, but I'm not at all sure the perspectives mesh together. It comes across like he is cherry-picking ideas that enable him to critique recent policy (which is fair enough politically, but makes for a less interesting speech).

But... there are a lot of good bits in here even if the message isn't coherent (yet). I'd love to hear a speech from a Labour MP that covered this kind of ground. Really talk about what we can learn from Robert Shiller or Hyman Minsky ought to be coming from the Left, but where is that happening? Of course Osborne may have his speechwriter to thank for all this, and in power the Tories' attachment to behavioural economics might last as long as Blair's attachment to 'stakeholder' capitalism. But however you cut it, this was a pretty good speech, and does suggest some thinking might be going on in the Stupid Party.

Bits and bobs

1. CTW is calling for the clawback of ML bonuses

2. There's an RSA paper PDF encouring long-term investing. It's a bit of a rant, and some inaccruate/outdated generalisations in there (about UK pension funds' home bias in equities for example). But hey, who am I to criticise.

3. The news that Aon is cutting contributions to its DC scheme is, I reckon, a rather worrying development. It's a pay cut plain and simple. TUC response here.