[Reposted from Dec 2014] Hammerson's Brent Cross shopping centre under Barnet's corrupt planning consent: Relying on wealthy new customers or out-of-control consumer debt?

Link to The Observer

"According to the OBR’s chilling analysis, 'subdued earnings' caused a shortfall in tax revenue from income tax and national insurance contributions of £8bn this year. That is predicted to rise to £15.2bn by 2018-19. By the end of the next parliament, the country will have experienced 18 years of lost wage growth, while the top 5% will have become ever richer.

As economist Özlem Onaran writes: “The share of income in the national income pie will contract in favour of the owners of capital.” And that brings with it the related problem of spiralling debt. In this country, the ratio of household debt to incomes is predicted to reach a staggering 184% by 2020. In 2010, at 170% it was high. Many of us don’t earn enough, so we continue to borrow – a tightrope for the clumsy-footed, unbalanced as soon as interest rates rise.

In November, the Bank of England appointed Michael Kumhof, formerly of the IMF, as a special adviser. In 2010, he co-authored an authoritative paper, 'Inequality, Leverage and Crisis' that also made reference to the 1930s. The paper argues that two periods – 1920-1929 (followed by the Great Depression of the 30s) and 1983-2008 (followed by the recession) both exhibited a large increase in the income share of the rich, a large increase in leverage (borrowing) for the remainder, and an eventual financial crisis. Kumhof’s favoured more effective solution to avoid this is the “restoration of the lower income group’s bargaining power”.

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Link to web site

Sunday Telegraph:
"Ten more years of borrowing if productivity lags"

"The Government will take a decade longer to balance the books if Britain's low productivity recovery continues to drag down the economy, experts have warned.

"George Osborne admitted last week that weak wage growth and a rise in low paid work meant the Government would borrow £91bn this fiscal year – £5bn more than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast in March. It is still predicted to post a surplus in 2019.

"A key part of the OBR's forecast centres around stronger productivity growth, which is expected to gradually rise to 2pc by the end of its forecast in 2020.

"However, the OBR calculated that if productivity grew at the rate as it has since 2008 – just 0.5pc a year – it would leave 'living standards materially lower', with wages still 7pc down on their pre-crisis peak after [another] five years."