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About KU’s Trollope Prize.
1. Seven Short Poems by Lucian Staiano-Daniels.
2. Reflections on Anonymity 2 by W.D. Jackson.
3. On Learning a Poet I Admire Often Carries a Pocket Knife by David Greenspan.
4. Hautes Études and Mudra by Michael Londra.
5. Rhyme as Rhythm by Adam Piette.
6. Windows or Mirrors… by Charles Martin.
7. Three Texts by Rupert M. Loydell.
8. Two Poems by Moriana Delgado.
9. Mariangela by Ian Seed.
10. Six Prose Poems by Pietro De Marchi, translated by Peter Robinson.
…and much more, below in this column.
Audio archive: Two poems, with an audio track, from Heart Monologues by Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani | Daragh Breen’s Aural Triptych | Hayden Carruth reads Contra Mortem and Journey to a Known Place | Anthony Howell reads three new poems | James Laughlin reads Easter in Pittsburgh and five more | Peter Robinson reads Manifestos for a lost cause, Dreamt Affections,Blind Summits and Oblique Lights
New to The Fortnightly Review? Our online series, with more than 2,000 items in its archive, is more than ten years old! So, unless you’re reading this in the state pen, you may never catch up, but you can start here with ITEMS PUBLISHED DURING OUR 2023 HIATUS (July-August 2023):
Master Ru by Peter Knobler | Four Poems on Affairs of State by Peter Robinson | 5×7 by John Matthias | You Haven’t Understood and two more poems by Amy Glynn | Long Live the King and two more by Eliot Cardinaux, with drawings by Sean Ali Shostakovich, Eliot and Sunday Morning by E.J. Smith Jr. :: For much more, please consult our massive yet still partial archive.
2011: Golden-beak in eight parts. By George Basset (H. R. Haxton).
2012: The Invention of the Modern World in 18 parts. By Alan Macfarlane.
2013: Helen in three long parts. By Oswald Valentine Sickert.
2016: The Survival Manual by Alan Macfarlane. In eight parts.
2018: After the Snowbird, Comes the Whale, by Tom Lowenstein.
LONDON
Readings in The Room: 33 Holcombe Road, Tottenham Hale, London N17 9AS – £5 entry plus donation for refreshments. All enquiries: 0208 801 8577
Poetry London: Current listings here.
Shearsman readings: 7:30pm at Swedenborg Hall, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1. Further details here.NEW YORK
10 reliable poetry venues in NYC.
· The funeral of Isaac Albéniz
· Coleridge, poetry and the ‘rage for disorder’
· Otto Rank
· Patrons and toadying
· Rejection before slips
· Cut with a dull blade
· Into the woods, everybody.
· Thought Leaders and Ted Talks
· How Mary Oliver ‘found love in a breathing machine.’
By Roger Berkowitz, Juliet du Boulay, Denis Boyles, Stan Carey, H.R. Haxton, Allen M. Hornblum, Alan Macfarlane, Anthony O’Hear, Andrew Sinclair, Harry Stein, Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé, and many others. Free access.
· James Thomson [B.V.]
Occ. Notes…
A dilemma for educators:
Philosophy and the public impact.
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Michelene Wandor on Derek Walcott and the T.S. Eliot Prize.
.Nick Lowe: the true-blue Basher shows up for a friend.
Kate Hoyland: Inventing Asia, with Joseph Conrad and a Bible for tourists.
Who is Bruce Springsteen? by Peter Knobler.
Martin Sorrell on John Ashbery’s illumination of Arthur Rimbaud.
The beauty of Quantitative Easing.
DEPARTMENTS
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A short history of an always-growing national debt.
A Fortnightly Review of
The National Debt: A Short History
by Martin Slater
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd | 256 pages cloth | £20.00
By NICK O’HEAR.
Our debt was in dollars and our negative balance of payments made maintaining the value of the pound difficult and ultimately impossible. This led to large devaluations — in 1949 from $4.03 to $2.80 and in 1967 to $2.40. Our debt, of course, was in dollars, so devaluing the pound nearly doubled a crippling debt. This didn’t deter Prime Minister Harold Wilson from saying, “It does not mean that the pound in your pocket, your purse or in the bank, has been devalued.”
War is also the main driver for the national debt. The government issued bonds of one sort or another to raise enough money to prosecute whatever war was in vogue at the time. There was always a hope that, by being victorious, the spoils of war would pay for the war itself or “reparation” payments could be imposed on the loser. This is what happened to Germany in 1918. The Allies owed the British and the British owed the Americans. It would all work out if the Germans could be made to pay for the cost of the war and reparation. In one calculation, the German debt was assessed as being £24,000 million and that Germany should pay annually £1,200 million every year for 20 years. Bearing in mind that the British GDP in 1914 was £2,400 million, Germany had no hope of paying such a large amount to anyone. As a result, the Allies couldn’t pay the British — and the Americans refused to waive the British debt.
Similarly, the Second World War further increased Britain’s debt to the Americans. Generally, though the national debt was money owed by the state to the people and institutions in the country. In trying to manage the debt, the government devised various schemes such a the ‘sinking fund’. This was first proposed in the eighteenth century. It worked similarly to an endowment policy for a mortgage, where interest payments were separated from capital repayments. In short, the idea could work if the Government could lend money at higher interest rates than those incurred by the national debt. It was presented as a miracle cure – a financial sleight of hand. Any scheme of this type involves banks and brokers and gives them opportunities to to profit from the debt.
The current debt is about 80 per cent of GDP. This, in itself, is not particularly exceptional. At the end of the Second World War, it reached almost 2½ times GDP. However, it is of some concern is that it is increasing without very good reason. After all we have had more than 70 years of peace.
The reader is introduced to unfamiliar concepts such as Consols and Tontines. Quantitative Easing is also discussed (without much enthusiasm) and how it contributes to increasing house prices. There is a lot to come to grips with but Prof Slater presents the material in a clear and understandable way.
The main current issue is not that the national debt is too large, but that it is growing in a time of peace and prosperity.
The main current issue is not that the national debt is too large, but that it is growing in a time of peace and prosperity. The argument revolves around the need for austerity and a more Keynesian view that we should invest for growth. Martin Slater points out that even Keynes believed in restraint. Government investment is targeted at infrastructure projects but this increases borrowing and may not be as helpful to the economy and growth as investment in industry. This leads us to Private Finance Initiatives. This enables the government to saddle the country with added debt without it appearing in the national debt. On its own, this might not be too bad. After all, everybody wants new hospitals and high speed rail links to get to them. The catch is that the government has to offer high returns as well as extremely attractive terms and guarantees. The cost of everything financed in this way cleverly combines the worst points of capitalism and socialism.
Judging by the reviews of this book, economists praise it. But while Martin Slater does not avoid numbers he presents them in a very readable way. As a result, the book should interest a wide section of the general public. It is well worth reading.
♦
Nick O’Hear is chairman of Tension Technology International, Ltd., based in Schoonhoven, The Netherlands.
Note: This review was altered immediately after publication to correct an editing error.
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Publication: Sunday, 8 July 2018, at 13:32.
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