Posts written by Phil Entwistle

I’m 57, married with two grown-up daughters. I have a science degree and worked in IT in local government for most of my career, before retiring in 2007 to become a full-time artist. Apart from painting, my main interests are walking, gardening and photography.
I have no special expertise in economics, and have always found it confusing. Recently I’ve begun to realise that it’s not just me! My background in systems design leads me to think that feedback, chaos, phase changes & other mathematical concepts are crucial to our understanding of the economy and of society generally.

Whoops! Discussion of the book by John Lanchester

February 7, 2011 – 11:47 am

I’m sure others who use Quakernomics are ahead of me and have already read and digested this book. I’ve just read the last chapter – title “The Bill”. I found it reassuring in one sense. It confirms what I’ve been thinking: about a broken system; enough is enough; it’s mainly the banks’ fault; and a [...]

Posted in Investment, Uncategorized, Zero Growth Economy | Comments (3)

Why save unethical banks?

November 22, 2010 – 11:39 am

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I’m feeling angry about Ireland and the bail-out. No-one seems to be asking the banks to pay for their mess. Surely it would be better to let them fail, instead of giving them the chance to do it again. Perhaps then we’d get some banks whose ethics more nearly matched those of most of their [...]

Posted in Investment, Uncategorized, Zero Growth Economy | Tagged | Comments (4)

Co-operatives and the Coalition Government

November 22, 2010 – 11:37 am

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It’s good to know that our government is interested in developing co-operatives for large organisations, including possibly the Post Office. But I’m disturbed that they seem to have public-sector services in mind – seeing co-operatives as another kind of privatisation. The private sector might need the John Lewis model more urgently. In 2007, the Co-op [...]

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Values not logic

November 15, 2010 – 12:58 pm

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I came across a report last week that gave me hope. It made me realise that my usual approach to trying to argue for change is the wrong one. I like to quote facts, trying to be objective and reason things out. But I now see that people generally stick with opinions that reflect their [...]

Posted in Campaigns, Zero Growth Economy | Tagged , | Comments (1)