Ah-so

I saw the typo yesterday, but decided not to change it - the golf standard has a ring to it.

I will look at it later, but as we were on the golf standard in 1929 and not on it in 2008, I would suggest that being on the gold standard or not does not determine whether a banking crisis occurs or not.

Haven't watched it myself, but am generally familiar with the libertarian and Austrian school of economics. I'm not going to call any of them stupid - they obviously weren't, but it always seems to lack there nuance and sophistication of the Keynesian perspective, yet while being highly appealing to those with a limited knowledge of economics due to the simplicity of some of its arguments. Nothing wrong with simplicity if correct, but there is if it is just naïve.

Both of my parents worked to pay the mortgage, but we manage on just one income, so I reject your generalisation. I also do not believe your argument about pruchasing power. Of course, if I leave a ten pounds note in the drawer, it will lose purchasing power. But a week worked today will get you much more much more than a week worked fifty years ago.

Population growth is not always cased as a positive. I am not going to Google "over-population" but it will bring up millions of results. A population reduction combined with an increasing life span is not a positive, however, for very obvious reasons

No it isn't. It would be more like you saying that if Russia launched a nuclear attack against the West, we would be stuffed. The impact would be bad for both countries. However, being a richer country per capita, I think that the West could survive for longer. China would feel the punch when it's income dried up. But there is no need for a trade war.

Without doubt globalisation has been marvellous for living standards, particularly in areas like electronic goods. Go back to the 1990s and a CD would cost 13.99 and a decent budget CD/tape player over £150. But trade has always been the driver of economic growth and has been understood right back at the dawn of classical economics. True, a lot of stuff is bought with credit, but we still seem to manage. The slave labour claim needs to be evidenced better. Some working conditions are poor in these countries, but globalisation has been responsible for massive increases in living standards in the developing world.

So will they.

That's the interesting thing. Someone is always saying that it isn't sustainable and that today's fiscal and monetary irresponsibility will come back to bite us one day (and this someone includes me at times), but it never seems to happen. When I look at Japan, which has been running a big budgets deficit for years, its challenges seem to be more demographic rather than economic.

So what? The average salary was £7 p/w back then. £12 for professional footballers. So your £7 had the purchasing power of £240 today. At least there wasn't much to spend the money on - rationing was still in, there were hardly any restaurants and the pubs were closed for most of the day. How you come to the conclusion from this that we would be better off under a gold standard I'll never understand. It just sounds like you are convinced by a discredited economic cult.

And we're all still alive and have somehow seen a pretty steady constant rise in living standards over the past forty years.

Actually it is 50 years since the US left the gold standard. The world economy has worked, with some obvious glitches, but has not brought about some economic apocalypse that die hard monetarists imagine.

My heart bleeds for them. The situation must be the same in the UK. The banks will provide them with some breathing space on the mortgage debt, but that will still need to be repaid. The outstanding loans could be added to the mortgage, but banks do not like doing this for regulatory reasons (they need to hold more capital against the loan). All positive news.

That is a very interesting graphic. I hope that the recent sunshine has helped us build up a store of vitamin D. Perhaps also a reason why the virus has had less of an impact in Japan where they eat more fish.

Should be OK - a bit of partial defrosting is hardly the same being allowed to rot. Reheating should ensure that it is OK.