Archive for William Rees-Mogg

We have recently had an innovation in the House of Lords, and a good one. The Lady Speaker invited a group of peers with experience or knowledge of economic policy, to discuss the present economic crisis. There were four speakers, one of whom was Nigel Lawson, an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer from the Thatcher years. There was also a group of peers and a group of journalists who joined in the discussion. The House of Lords, like any other House of Parliament…

The credit crisis came at the weakest possible moment of the American political cycle, the last period of an outgoing Presidency. The first serious sign that subprime mortgages were toxic came in the middle of 2007, approximately six months before the start of the 2008 primaries. The first crisis came in August 2007. When the President put the Paulson Bill to Congress, his authority was at its lowest, and he initially failed to persuade Congress to pass the Bill…

In 1933, the United States passed the Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited commercial banks from dealing in investments, and prohibited investment banks from doing commercial banking activities. This was a very sensible measure, and kept the banks in reasonable order until 1990. Unfortunately, in 1990, this Act was repealed – for reasons best known to the psychiatrists of the legislators…

In February 1946, when they were both old men, Joseph Schumpeter wrote a letter to Irving Fisher explaining why he could not accept a plan on a proposed committee on monetary policy…

The events of 2007 and 2008 have shown the limitations of the mathematical method. The credit crunch was not foreseen by anyone that I read, but it came as a shock to the number-crunchers – it took them completely by surprise. It did not come as a shock to the economic historians, who happily settled down to discuss the resemblances between this credit crisis and earlier ones…

On the whole, I have a better record of forecasting American elections than British. Distance makes one see the developments more clearly. I certainly can claim to be one of the early birds in detecting the strength of the movement towards Barack Obama. I am not sure that those early forecasts are of any importance except to the columnist himself, but they do reassure the writer that he, or she, is in touch with some sort of political reality.

Those who experienced the 1970s were taught a painful lesson about the negative effects of inflation. In standard monetary theory some emphasis is given to the initial phases of inflation in which an increasing money supply funds economic expansion and tends to cause booms, bubbles and speculation. Less attention is usually given to the second stage of inflation in which prices rise…

The parliamentary ratification took no notice of public opinion. The Labour Government rejected an amendment to the Lisbon Treaty Bill which would have called for a referendum. The Government’s majority in the House of Commons was 63, on a vote of 311 to 248.