The state has no source of money, other than the money people earn themselves. If the state wishes to spend more, it can only do so by borrowing your savings or taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay – that ‘someone else’ is you. There is no such thing… Read more
Taxpayers’ money doesn’t exist and is in the hands of the receivers
Ministers, government and mainstream media, insist on calling government money taxpayers’ money. Indeed everyone ‘knows’ it is taxpayers’ money and that is exactly why the government has to be so careful with it – because it’s not really theirs. So indeed did one Neil Mendoza, who is in charge of distributing the £1.57 billion in… Read more
Difference between PoMo and MMT may principally be just Strategy
Having contributed to a paper which may even appear on the Positive Money (PoMo) website in due course, I wonder if I may at last be able to shed further light on where Sovereign Money Reform (SMR) differs from Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), (which I’d love to rename Sustainable Government Finance – I can hope!)… Read more
Wrong framing can often just be a subtle influence…
The headline in yesterday’s Observer was ‘NHS chiefs in standoff with Treasury over emergency £10bn’. Apparently: The row piles pressure on Sunak to find more money for the NHS ahead of his summer statement on Wednesday. The article says that, according to the NHS: “There’s a very, very significant difference between the phrase ‘the NHS… Read more
Hope nobody missed this!
Coronavirus logic – or not?
With Coronavirus outbreaks in meat factories in Anglesey and in Kirklees Council area (aka Huddersfield) there is much wondering about why food packing should be so badly hit. I would have thought this was obvious; every food processing plant has a form of air conditioning – for the obvious reason of preventing outside infection –… Read more
The National Happiness Fund
Sounds like a Boris Johnson rhetorical idea but it is real in South Korea – and they have undertaken (rather timidly to me – but it is at least a start) to write off some long term outstanding debt: I think Britain could at least set out to establish a ‘National Happiness Fund’ – it… Read more
Any logic has long deserted our ‘government’
We are thoroughly misled if we believe Johnson’s idea of build, build, build is a cure for economic difficulty. First how long does it take to build? Second, in spite of his completely devious idea that planning issues are the problem, most developers have lots of planning permission granted land, and simply meter out the… Read more
Out on the town on Saturday – or maybe not
There is an interesting survey from Hallgarten wines, which shows all too clearly how a so called ‘V’ shaped economic recovery from the covid-19 shutdown is highly unlikely. Not only do 11% of on premises not plan to open this weekend, 13 % don’t know and 22% plan a phased opening. The findings show just… Read more
Understanding R: Why we need more intelligent leaders
This week I have heard people claim that locking down earlier would not have made much difference. This is wrong. Even locking down a few days earlier would have made an enormous difference, and I can prove it! In early March, as I wrote on March 12th, we knew that cases were growing at over… Read more
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