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
Category:
Economics
Economics Theory
Bus companies might end up teaching us something…
I am conscious that the live performing arts sector, which is a great export earner for Britain, has, with social distancing, a major difficulty in trying to survive, and that is a sadness for all of us. Government help will certainly be needed before live performances finally become possible. But of course that is not… 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
Understanding the Right Wing mind – William Hague
Here is yet another article in the ‘Daily Telegraph’ – I know – people will think I read nothing else! Which is probably why I chose – just in case – to add this piece to our series on understanding the Right Wing mind. If Johnson is the after-dinner speaker as Prime Minister, then I… Read more
Brexit disaster looms…
There is worrying news from the WTO, which seems to be little noticed. The only record I can find is here, and which ‘Yorkshire Bylines’ are, I suggest, well worth following. The USA has long refused to approve more WTO ajudicators (arbitrators for disputes) so these judges are now inquorate. Trump has only accentuated the… Read more
‘We print money digitally’ – so says the Fed
The current Chairman of the Federal Reserve bank of the USA – otherwise known as the US Central Bank, says that Central Banks have have the ability to create money digitally … and also print actual currency. This really could be not more obvious that this is THE MAGIC MONEY TREE that we have always… Read more
Rebuilding the tax base – but for fairness not finance
The New Economics Foundation (NEF) has written about rebuilding the tax base – after the pandemic. Here we have, unfortunately, a basically progressive organisation, which thinks we have to renew the tax base, because Covid- 19 suggests we’ve spent it all, and got nothing left. They mention that tax take is likely to be reduced… Read more
Is the country really poorer?
I happened to bump in to George Osborne on a radio programme and there he was opining that “Coronavirus has made the country poorer”. It may well be that some people in it are now poorer, simply because they are getting 80% of their wages or maybe they’ve lost their job and are eking out… Read more
What is democratic government for?
I thought that the Tax Research idea of a National Wealth Service was inspired. I commented and said exactly that. A ‘National Wealth Service’ sums up both how we pay for it and where it comes from. (I was inspired enough to suggest that the ‘National Wealth Service’ might even be the slogan for the… 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