From Salmon Rushjob (no less): (Click to enlarge)… Read more
Towards understanding the right wing mind – part two
Sean Danaher has written the first part here. This is a less profound, but still gobsmacking (to me at least) suggestion of why people persist in voting Conservative. In short, Conservative voters think they are going to win the lottery of life. I feel that I should quote the piece in full because I think… Read more
The unbalanced economy
I’m pretty certain that Capx website is not for the most radical of writers. And certainly the author I stumbled upon used to write for the ‘Telegraph’. But under the heading: ‘There’s a new sub prime crisis’ and ‘the payday lending market has exploded since 2008’ the article considers Provident’s problems. This is a company… Read more
What they did not tell us – austerity pushes households into the red
To understand what is going on you have to look at data. I like sectoral balance data because it shows us how money is flowing around in the economy. I have talked about this before (here and here) but will try and keep it simpler this time. Both David Graeber and Richard Murphy have also recently discussed worrying signs in… Read more
Money’s golden connections
A recent email from Positive Money posed an interesting question: “How is it that lack of money, the only resource that can be created at will, forms the main obstacle for addressing effectively society’s problems?” If we presume that the resources they refer to are labour, land, energy and money, then it is delightfully true… Read more
The quantity of money
After considering what is money and how it is created, the next step is to look at how much there is, how the quantity changes over time, and what this is telling us. We are in luck because we can look at real data.* Below I plot the amount of money in circulation in the UK… Read more
Sovereignty is a matter of degree
This is a copy of a letter recently sent to a newspaper though I regret have lost the reference as to which. Its destination is not important but its sentiment is. We have someone here from a very small (rather attractive, if I recall correctly) town of about 5,000 in Bedfordshire, who considers sovereignty beyond… Read more
This Is What Your Tax Really Pays For
I recommend this article from Lee Carnihan in The Huffington Post. Very clear discussion of spend and tax…. Read more
A new definition of Brexit
Was mentioned to me recently . It is one which, in our current situation, seems wholly undisputable: Brexit ~ Noun The undefined being negotiated by the unprepared in order to get the unspecified for the uninformed…. Read more
Why can’t a household be more like a bank?
The short answer to this question is of course that householders don’t issue their own money. But banks do. So perhaps we should be complaining less about the household analogy that is the bugbear of a proper understanding of how the economy works – and suggesting another more fitting analogy. A government with a sovereign… Read more
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