Failure of liberal economics

How the Economy Was Lost By Paul Craig Roberts talks about the madness of free trade.Roberts worked for the Reagan administration in the early 80's so he is no wild-eye socialist; and he mentions Reagan's imposition of quotas on Japanese goods. This article was linked from the MartinKelly blog, itself linked from An englishman's castle, linked from EU Referendum; which shows how the blogs can support each other.

The right can never have moral legitimacy unless it ditches neo-liberal ideology around free trade, immigration, globalism in general. These policies don't work and the require governments to ignore their own people, who resent the unpeopling, offshoring and outsourcing of their countries. When people talk about detoxifying the Conservatives, this is the way to do it, not by burning incense with the Equality and Diversity priesthood. It should be stressed that left-leaning governments in the 90's and in this decade have been as bad, if not worse, something the BBC won't tell you. The choice is not between Socialism and Capitalism, but Capitalism framed to advance the national interest rather than some global vision. Dare I call it a moral capitalism? I still don't understand the specifics of Cameron's economic programme; they seem to be making it up as they go along.

Well done to George Osborne on yesterday's Today programme for noting that it was the Clinton administration who abolished the Glass-Steagall firewall, between investment and commerical banks; it was also the Clinton administration who encouraged banks to finance sub-prime debt to empower the underclass and increase social mobility. These catastrophic policies were continued by the Bush administration, which cut taxes without cutting spending, a fake stage-conservatism. But one of the key political battles of the next 5-10 years will be to ensure that the other side gets blamed for it.