It's interesting how we were told that Corbyn spooked 'the markets' and now it turns out that at the other end of the spectrum, Truss spooks 'the markets'
Essentially, it would appear that 'the markets' rule out anything on either side of the political spectrum that doesn't resemble a status quo.
This, do we actually live in a democracy or do we live in a dictatorship of the markets?
I'm the last person to defend Ms Truss's ideological viewpoint BUT... at the same time, it troubles me that we appear to be stuck in a rut where we do the same thing forever because of invisible, unelected, faceless forces that have more influence than anything else...
Discuss:
This might kick me off into a bit of a rant, even more than crap refs and Brexit, but ill try not to.
Its an interesting concept the dictatorship of the markets. I've long felt that economics was the tail wagging the governmental policy dog. Markets are the flea on the tail of the dog which somehow manages to garner enough leverage to wag the tail for the dog.
The markets are largely perceptional, in that value is determined by what people believe constitutes value. I've written quite a lot in the past about how we live in a perception economy. If we all start getting the heeby-jeebies about the markets then the markets fall if we are confident then they rise. The fact that "the markets" are fundamentally disconnected from the companies, corporations and states that they are trading and securing against. As an example, the tweet by one of the Kardashians about the logo of a tech company wiped two billion or so off of its market value. That tells us that firstly the tech company was overvalued, because a throw away and mostly illiterate tweet about a companies logo should not affect its valuation unless the valuation is entirely perceptional.
The disconnection of the markets can be very well illustrated by (at the time) unexplained recent spikes and drops in several market sectors and currencies. The ultimate explanation was automated investment bots, which see a price rise or fall and then either buy or sell, because they do it very rapidly it creates a chain reaction. Each time this has happened the solution has been the off switch, but when most retail investing (according to Forrester) is now done through automated platform using bots or others forms of AI. but we see the same thing with high profile investors, if Warren Buffet or lately Elon Musk puts money into a stock it will go up as individual and institutional investors all chase whatever they think Buffet, Musk et al might be on to. In most cases they are at best playing hunches in many cases they are possibly manipulating the markets.
This gets me to what was widely reported about Truss and Kwarteng meeting those who had taken a massive short on sterling. It may be actual manipulation of the markets with Truss and Kwarteng literally blowing up the economy on behalf of their backers, or simply that their backers having the ability to influence naïve and not very bright politicians used them to that purpose (in either case a wider investigation should be taking place). Reap a couple of billion in the process whilst creating trillions of pounds worth of damage to ordinary working peoples finances.
Moving out of the perception economy, and back towards real value is difficult because all the pain of doing that falls onto working people, with (ever riskier) mortgages, and pensions and bills to pay. I've modelled the scenarios in the past for a variety of moves from perceptions to some form of reality and there isn't one of them where actual financial pain isn't felt by a vast majority of the population with attendant knock on effects, in all the scenarios (and I've had help from actual macro-financial economics people) where I model to protect working people the elites at the top of tree would only ever feel perceptional pain (ironic i know). One of the Russian oligarchs that we used to work for lost about 3 billion dollars in the 2008 crash which was about 60% of his reported wealth - did it physically affect him - not one iota; he didn't have to sell any of his many homes, or his yacht, or either of his private jets, he was still able to acquire more than 2 billion in financing for numerous projects he had where he swept up then low value assets. It did however give him the excuse to tighten the belt at his many companies making thousands of people redundant and cancelling contracts with suppliers who also made thousands of people redundant.
A dictatorship of the markets is an interesting concept on another level. My own hypothesis is that the current perception economy is slowly moving to a control economy, where key players literally control the markets that they inhabit, forcing out competition. Tech, energy, banking and international transport are all either partially monopolised/ du / tri-opolised or they are co-operative competition, ie barely competitive and smaller innovative players are kept out through a number of means, stagnating the market. I had never given much thought to the markets themselves being another of the control mechanisms, but having thought about it there is a case where the main players in any market sector will be protected by the markets and its ability to swing economic response which then wags the government to its bidding, and additionally creates the perception of dynamic markets, and reduces the perception of risk whilst at the same time increasing systemic risk. Currently the markets are simply a giant ponzi scheme, but so much is tied into it we cannot have it crash down.
I may have to steal the idea of "dictatorship of the markets (copyright MCLF / td53)" because I think there is something bigger in this.
can‘t remember now. Or am I thinking of that video where he admitted to not knowing any of the working class 
