This is an excellent article by Jason Hickell on degrowth and how Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) helps that narrative. Indeed MMT always helps anything that needs resources directed towards it because it actually explains how the monetary system works and shows that money is human created for whatever purpose is required! The article itself is… Read more
Category:
Banks
Victorian government Public Health
I have looked at at a BBC Factcheck on Covid -19 testing, which is certainly interesting, and seems to put Britain near the top in Europe – for testing. Fine, for Britain, which, as the cradle of Public Health, unsurprisingly it should be. The originator of the industrial revolution really should know all about it……. Read more
Payments need to go ‘bankless’
I’ve seen it suggested that if bank payments are called ‘cashless’, then cash payments should be called ‘bankless’. We need more of this – there is no reason why we have to give banks more power than they have already. The banks, of course do all they can to influence government and with Chancellor Sunak… Read more
Sunak is a dunce
Germany has extended its furlough scheme by 2 years, but apparently Sunak thinks that for the UK this is not possible. How can he realistically suggest that the largest economy in Europe can achieve this without a fully sovereign currency, but Britain with its own currency, and economically, only one or two places below Germany,… Read more
Hardship ahead
According to a Sky News report, Conservative policies have (either purposely or inadvertently) arranged for the country to be subject to hardship ahead. Rishi Sunak said: I don’t think it’s fair to extend (furlough) indefinitely. It’s not fair to the people on it. We shouldn’t pretend there is, in every case, a job to go… 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
The debt deception
It was announced on Friday that government debt for the first time since 1963 is greater than GDP. Indeed it might be worse because GDP is currently declining. Really that is all quite remarkable… How fortunate we are that there were people waiting in the wings with the odd billion in their back pockets –… Read more
Dire news for theatres and bad news for the rest of us
Cameron Mackintosh, the theatre impresario, knows which side his bread is buttered. The Guardian reports that: Mackintosh, his producing partners and Delfont Mackintosh Theatres are starting a process of consultation over potential redundancies for all employees on the four productions. [ Les Misérables, Mary Poppins, Hamilton and The Phantom of the Opera ] Mackintosh said that despite the government… Read more