Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Green shoots? Strictly for the colour-blind

David Blanchflower also thinks the UK is up the chuff, and that the recent happy talk protestations from people like Edmund Conway that 'The Recession is Over' are nothing but flim flam. However, before you say 'David Who?', just check out this CV entry:

David Blanchflower is the Bruce V Rauner Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, USA, and served on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee until earlier this year.
Crazy.

Here's my response to his article:

Jack Maturin on June 17, 2009 at 10:01 PM

David, as a follower of Austrian economics myself, I agree entirely with your analysis. What puzzles me though is why you deliberately made this worse, when you were taking the Queen's shilling at the Bank of England, by agreeing to lower interest rates to re-inflate the burst bubble, to make a future bubble even worse?

This worsening crisis is entirely down to central banks and their printing press mentality of using counterfeiting to solve every problem. Can you explain why that now you are no longer taking the shilling, that you have completely reversed your position?
If he ever gets to read this, I would love to be a fly on the wall to witness his reaction! :-)

4 comments:

Paul said...

What does "up the chuff" really mean? I googled and got a reference to fringe adult behaviour (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=up+the+chuff)...

Jack Maturin said...

It's a Jeremy Clarkson expression (from Top Gear). I suppose the technical expression would be "up the exhaust pipe" - some might say it is a slight homophobic expression, indicating a more primeval part of the human anatomy, and involving a sexual act. A more prosaic translation would be "Stuffed into a deep dark hole". I suppose you could also use "Up the bottom", "Down the Swanee", "Up the proverbial river without the proverbial rowing implement", or "In the deep brown stuff".

Whichever English expression you use, it's not a good place to be! :-)

A typical Jeremy Clarkson expression might be, "I was racing round the M25 at 90, but there were still some boy racers right behind me, up my chuff (i.e. driving so close as to be coming up his exhaust pipe.)

I suppose English is a lot more complicated than we English people ever realise! ;-)

Paul said...

Sure it is, I'm pretty well versed in American lingo but some of the English frases from UK are new to me.

Jack Maturin said...

Ah, but so much more interesting.

Actually, I think my favourite form of English is Australian, a strange mixture of East End Cockney, Sailor talk, plus 200 years being cooked under the Antipodean Sun.

'Strewth' is the best Australian expression, which is what you say after really rough day just before you drink a really cold beer, as in "Strewth, it's been a hot one - pass me a tinnie".

Curiously enough, a London Taxi driver might say "Strewth, guvnor, I'm not going that way - you better get another cab".

It means "God's Truth", in the same way that "Crikey" means "Christ Forsake Me".

No wonder Australians like coming to London so much. They've got half a chance of being understood without translation.

BTW, what is it with that Australian woman in "Lost" who everyone says is English? What's that all about? You'd have thought all he Englishmen on the show would have put them right about that, by now.

Even Cockneys don't sound that Australian.