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Mariangela
Ian SeedThree texts
Rupert M LoydellVessel
Melita SchaumSome Guts
Simon Collings (with collages by John Goodby)Three Short Fictions
Meg PokrassThe Campus Novel
Peter RobinsonCharlie Boy and Captain Fitz: A One-Act Play
Alan WallSnapshot, Sachsenhausen and three more poems
Peter BlairSeven short poems
Lucian Staiano-DanielsFour prose poems
Olivia TuckThe Back of Beyond and two more prose poems
Tony KittTwo poems
Moriana Delgadofrom Reverse | Inverse
Lucy HamiltonSix haibun
Sheila E. MurphyKingfishers and cobblestones and five more new poems
Kitty HawkinsZion Offramp 76–78
Mark ScrogginsCome dancing with me and two more new poems
Marc VincenzPlease Swipe Right
Chloe Phillips‘Three Postcards’ and a prose poem
Linda BlackStill Life
Melita SchaumIn memory of
John Taylor with drawings by Sam ForderImmortal Wreckage
Will StoneNew in Translation
Snowdrifts
Marina Tsvetaeva, trans. by Belinda CookePoems from Prière (1924)
Pierre Jean Jouve, trans. by Will StoneSix Prose Poems
Pietro di Marchi, trans. by Peter Robinson -
A new Review of John Matthias’s Some Words on Those Wars by Garin Cycholl.
Anthony Howell’s review, A Clutch of Ingenious Authors: Michelene Wandor Four Times EightyOne: Bespoke Stories | Annabel Dover Florilegia | Sharon Kivland Abécédaire
Essays by Alan Wall
· ‘King of Infinite Space’: The Virtue of Uncertainty
· AI: Signs of the Times
· The Lad from Stratford
· Stanley Kubrick: Sex in the CinemaWill Stone’s Missing in Mechelen and At Risk of Interment
G. Kim Blank’s Civilizing, Selling, and T. S. Eliot Curled Up behind the Encyclopædia Britannica
Tronn Overend’s Samuel Alexander on Beauty
AND Conor Robin Madigan’s Master Singer, Simon Collings’s Robert Desnos, Screenwriter, and Igor Webb’s Never Again
New Fortnightly Serials
from The Ruinad
Anthony Howellfrom White Ivory
Alan Walland much more below this column.
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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
Previous Serials
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.’
AND read here:
· James Thomson [B.V.]
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.
Anthony Howell: The new libertine in exile.
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.
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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.
MY ENGINEERING DEGREE included a course in Economics. This was in 1968. At that time, focus was on the balance of payments and little or none on the national debt. Martin Slater, in this excellent book, explains why: We owed a fortune to the Americans, who seemed to have bankrolled a large part of both the First and Second World Wars.
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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