To continue on from yesterday’s blog about where people think money comes from and how it is created, now people realise that the era when money rested on the value of gold has long past, so most, these days, seem to consider that money comes from tax. After all everyone ‘knows’ that there is no… Read more
Category:
Money
MMT is real gold
The misleading title is because one reader has suggested (thank you, Damien) that I might respond to an ‘Economist’ article on MMT (Modern Monetary Theory). Which seems to go under various headings ‘Magic or logic?’ ‘Nutty or essential?’ depending on which Economist edition you are reading. Remarkably, it summarises MMT fairly well, whilst pointing out… Read more
Money is abstract not physical
There is an interesting piece from Joanna Montgomerie of King’s College London, on Storytelling about Debt in which she calls out the: …£1.64 trillion of private debt [86% of GDP]. This enormous stock of debt must be fed a steady stream of present-day income, flowing from households… and she shows that this private debt is almost… Read more
Thinking like China
There is a very interesting piece in the FT about China building a road in Montenegro, to link the Adriatic port of Bar to Serbia’s capital Belgrade. The Montenegrin government’s borrowing from China to finance the road’s cost, estimated at €1.3bn, has sent the country’s debt soaring from 63 per cent of gross domestic product… Read more
Universal Basic Services (UBS) and also UBI?
There is a very interesting article ‘Can we have UBS and UBI?’ on what appears to be a new site devoted to Universal Basic Services (UBS). UBI is of course Universal Basic Income. It says: When we think about how to transition to a 21st century future that will deliver a larger life for the… Read more
Allies of Positive Money have actually educated the BBC here:
This is one area, at least where Positive Money can create progress. Let us at least ensure, between us all, that ‘loans are created by bank deposits’ doesn’t get repeated: We have, regrettably a way to go on the BBC’s ideas on Money Creation……. Read more
That dreaded Fiscal Credibility Rule…
I listened to a radio interview with James Meadway, who is, I understand, now John McDonnell’s former economics advisor. No matter. He came accross as highly intelligent and with a good grasp of ideas (even, rather shamefully to me, some I hadn’t encountered!) The real question which he was almost asked and which he almost… Read more
From Bloomberg to Positive Money nobody seems really to get it right
Bloomberg has offered another piece on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). This one is more complimentary and quite reasonably compares MMT with the seventeenth century scrip issue of Massachusetts, which they claim rather dubiously I’d have thought, to be the “first fiat currency in the Western World”. Personally I’d have thought that honour should go to… Read more
Modern Monetary Theory is logically inconsistent with a Job Guarantee
There is an interesting piece (which I was alerted to by Graham) from the Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies about Universal Basic Income (UBI). The Gower Initiative, being ‘Modern Monetary Theory’ (MMT) advocates, believe of course, in the advantages of the Job Guarantee (JG), but whilst, whichever your preference, there is much to agree… Read more
The case against Universal Basic Income (UBI)
Continuing with the review of the GIMMS criticism of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and their proposals in favour of what they call a Job Guarantee (JG), which is in fact, more accurately, a Job Offer. RegrettabIy I consider that their criticsm of UBI to be ill thought through. I take issue with “the problem of… Read more