Pieria View

I came across the (mis-)quote above from the 19 th Century French orientalist Ernest Renan in the most recent Julian Barnes novel Elizabeth Finch. Barnes notes the import of “being” and not “becoming”. Getting history wrong is not just part of the foundation of a nation on these terms but an ongoing process that reinvigorates, replenishes and sustains the thread of nationhood and shared identity. The fact that the collective history is largely myth is not incidental, but part of the initiation into the community – getting history wrong is a condition of entry. In Renan’s essay, the actual quote centres not on the “historical error” though, which is an extension of the thought, but on the importance of forgetting. “It is good,” he goes on to say, “for everyone to know how to forget” such that we don’t fall into an endless spiral of chasing historical grievances that would tear at the delicate fabric of a nation. Yet the frame of forgetting is interesting in its distinctness from the ...

The quality of summer is its silence Humidity forcing the world to slow So even the flies seem lethargic In their bids to escape Hanging in the air with words, if spoken At all. The quality of summer is that Burnt salinity of an evening where The bricks hold their heat Hold us close till we don't want to Eat and can't face to ask if we've Played this all out before under the watch Of an unblinking sun. If spoken at all, I'd tell you it doesn't Matter that we know the form, as the Quality of summer is that it can't tell If all happiness is alike Your fingers pressed into my palms To draw out a shiver of recognition I would know you in the silence, In the heat, in the light.

Planting I planted the seeds Into the dirt around the tree stump Still sap-bleeding out its last   Where in a few hours Children will linger to play, as anxious parents Try in vain to hurry them past   Leaning heavy on the railings - Already exhausting the dry last dregs Of a morning’s first caffeine   As rows of parked cars Let the engines choke their low murmur Though it might wake you.   But I didn’t come in Past the gate hanging slightly away From its post, and swung open   In the crisp early wind That must have blown the leaves down Treading the season underfoot   I planted the seeds Beneath the moss and the pebbled soil Kicked up by foxes   Scratching for a meal In all that we leave behind, still Perhaps they’ll leave   These just where they are Since they’re no good for them really Or even for us, yet,   You not knowing And I not willing to tell what the earth ...

It is fair to say that I would not have imagined myself writing a post in defence of the Office for Budget Responsibility. Nevertheless, here I find myself (sort of). That is not to say I intend to offer any excuses for the OBR’s worryingly poor forecasting record for UK economic output, which have been used all too frequently as a fig-leaf to cover a litany of equally poor policy decisions. Instead I want to defend Robert Chote and his team from a particular charge levelled at them by the FT’s Chris Giles last week. In an article entitled “ How to ‘plog’ the hole in our awful public finances ” Giles writes: “Had the OBR assumed significant spare capacity now alongside extremely weak growth in the economy’s potential output, it could combine a lacklustre forecast for output growth without the assumption that spare capacity would still exist in 2017-18. The benefit would be a logical and consistent forecast, but the assumptions would come at a cost: the OBR ...

In my latest feature " The price of safety ", co-written with Frances Coppola, we take a look at an issue I have been closely following over the past few years - the economic impact of corporate cash hoarding. To my mind the story is a crucial one to help explain why more than five years since the start of the financial crisis Western economies are still struggling to achieve meaningful growth. For me the key to understanding this point is an appreciation of sectoral balances. The concept was eloquently summarised by Martin Wolf in 2011 : "If the government wishes to cut its deficits, other sectors must save less. The questions are 'which ones' and 'how'. What the government has not admitted is that the only actors able to save less now are corporations." Since the onset of the crisis executives of cash-rich firms (along with a number of commentators) have argued that they have good reason to build up capital buffers. Macro threats such ...