I have started subscribing to Money statistics at ‘The Money Charity’. I rather wish I hadn’t. It is an uncomfortable realisation that a whopping 3,118 Consumer County Court Judgements were issued every day in 2017, with an average value of £1,493. Meanwhile the so called National Debt (which many might prefer to call National Savings)… Read more
Category:
Money
Money is created for the common good
Isn’t it? The New Economics Foundation has brought out a report ‘Framing the Economy’, which I confess I have downloaded but not yet fully read. I’m sure it is important, but what I’ve seen so far seems to be reflecting what people currently think and how their thinking can be ‘turned’ towards a correct understanding… Read more
‘The End of Banking’ – is it as appealing as it sounds?
I attended a talk based around an interesting book, ‘The End of Banking’ by Jonathan McMillan (in fact a made up name from two authors – one of whom works in finance so wanted to remain anonymous). The book defines banking as “the creation of money out of credit,” which nails the unspoken truth in… Read more
Crowding out commercial lending
A recent Oxford University report points out that banks’ lending to the property sector ‘crowds out’ commercial lending to companies. Usually we are told that government spending ‘crowds out’ private spending. That is a fantasy, but this report shows that the private banks creation of money actually has effects. Although this is no real surprise… Read more
Positive Money – game on perhaps?
Positive Money have now privately admitted to me that the statistic that 97% of money is created by private banks is very ‘confusing’ because it ignores the other sources of money creation. That is a start. Positive Money are clear that our governments do not tax and spend (see the ProgressivePulse post from Charles Adams… Read more
Bankruptcy – financial or philosophical?
I’ve been listening one of Steve Keen’s lectures. He is challenging as ever. But he says – and this speaks to me having been within touching distance of bankruptcy – “without bankcruptcy you’d have a complete collapse of the economy”. It is, therefore, extraordinarily odd that bankruptcy prevents you from being an MP. This suggests… Read more
Pension money
A recent article on pensions led me to recall the recent blog welcoming everyone to the Money Factory. This pension article and the OECD graph below suggests that the UK does not do well on pensions. I suspect that things like the NHS and the winter fuel payment, or council tax and pension credit… Read more
Welcome to the money factory
After rather an animated discussion last evening I was reflecting on why , even when the Bank of England acknowledges that we don’t spend and tax (“Regarding whether taxation is necessarily required to finance government spending, the answer is no, it is not”), it is not enough for some. Of course there is the £435billion… Read more
The Swiss Magic Money Tree
The Swiss hold regular referendums on lots of unlikely subjects as we know. Well there is one coming up in June on money. They are voting on a so-called Sovereign Money system where it will be put to them that all new money in the state be created by the Central Bank. This is basically… Read more
Five reasons why universal basic income is a bad idea – but only one is right
The FT has today, 11 February, an ‘opinion’ article by Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development at the University of Oxford, giving five reasons why UBI is such a bad idea, which is a useful addition to the discussions we have had here on Progressive Pulse a while ago and on TaxResearch UK in the last… Read more