Crises tend to reveal unacknowledged truths. In 2008, we learned that the majority of the financial wizards we had been taught to treat with awe for the previous two decades were, in fact, little more than scam artists — and rather clumsy ones, at that. The coronavirus, and resulting lockdowns, is teaching us an even… Read more
Category:
Banks
We may be on the money – towards a common outlook
I have been contributing to a ‘Positive Money’ paper on the Covid-19 consequences. I have no idea if it will be accepted but I thought it would be interesting to discover how they are becoming much more ‘government money creation’ friendly! Indeed I think they suggest that they probably always have been (and, actually who… Read more
If the rich knew what tax was for they might actually appreciate it…
This shortish piece (below in quotation marks) arrived in my inbox a couple of days ago after somebody had viewed the excellent ‘Money for Nothing’ video. “Three questions: Why doesn’t the Labour Party explicitly adopt this approach [that money is created out of thin air and we spend and tax in fact] to tax and… Read more
Forgive us our debts…
The extract below is from Fran Boait, Executive Director of Positive Money. I also should mention that she is the unfortunately defeated Labour candidate for Gloucester. We thus have no person in Parliament as far as I can tell, who thinks about money in terms other than ‘can we afford it’? Some would argue that… Read more
Practical problems for universal income
My recent encounters with the New Economics Foundation lectures lead me to highlight some more of the ideas of Eric Lonergan. For he is, unsurprisingly in the country’s current predicament, in favour of a monthly cash handout (as I understand it as long as the lockdown lasts) to everyone to ensure the economy doesn’t collapse… Read more
Different interest rates for different purposes
I have just attended what I suppose is called a ‘webinar’ by the New Economics Foundation. There was all the normal ‘lockdown’ stuff that will be familiar to all readers, though I did detect a striking interest in Direct Monetary Financing even if nobody seemed actually to overtly suggest it was the way forward. There… Read more
Surely a seminal moment..
Even the Daily Telegraph has now admitted there is a Magic Money Tree. The assistant editor (no less) starts: Conservative Party politicians have spent much of the past decade deriding the “magic money tree” spending plans of the Labour opposition. and continues, … a whacking great oak of a magic money tree has been discovered… Read more
More on CCFF
I’m highlighting again the ongoing scandal of how companies able to issue so called ‘investment grade’ debt get automatic Coronavirus support via the Bank of England without qualification or condition. This is not a level playing field for all companies, even when small and medium sized companies employ the majority of the population. This is… Read more
We need ‘easygov’
Amazing – this is the ‘form’ (below) for applying for a Coronavirus loan in Switzerland. It couldn’t be simpler and money is already in bank accounts. Why is Conservative Britain so confoundedly bureaucratic – is this simply Tory ‘blue’, red tape – which I’d always thought Conservatives were supposed to be against? What is the… Read more
Too many F’s in CCFF
I was a bit critical of Positive Money (PoMo) earlier this week but this latest piece deserves much more attention for its welcome insights and conclusions. There is in effect, a strangulated and arbitrary, rule based help for small and medium business (so called SME’s) while the big battalions get immediate and substantial help from… Read more