Funding the Future

A bonfire of red tape transfers risk from risk creators to consumers

Keir Starmer has said he wants a bonfire of red tape. That is the same goal that ended at Grenfell when David Cameron promoted it. What it actually means is that consumers take the risk in society and those who create the risks don’t and there’s not an iota of sense in that.

What is of value?

Having to clear my late father’s home recently it became very apparent how the material focus of economics is wrong. What he had mattered for little in the end. The memories he left did. So why does economics get this so terribly wrong?

Inheritance tax is all about fairness

My interview on BBC Radio 5 Live on 18 October

MMT is not a policy option: it’s a description of the economy

Some people seem to think that modern monetary theory (MMT) is a set of policy options a country might adopt. It isn’t. It’s a description of how the economy of the country we live in really works. What’s powerful about it is that it describes actually happens – and so leads to better decision making.

Why aren’t young people working?

Thirty-eight per cent of young people who could work are not doing so. They’re not lazy, or indifferent. Nor have they dropped out. They just can’t fit into the machinery of conformism that modern employers demand of them. As a result, vast numbers of talented young people aren’t delivering of their best for this country.

Premium Bonds will not crash the economy

The national is nothing more than the savings of people with money to spare. It’s not a threat to our wellbeing. It won’t bring the economy down. It doesn’t need repayment. Our grandchildren (if we have them) are not threatened by it. That money just needs to be put to good use.

The investment we need is in people

Keir Starmer is inviting the world to the UK to invest here, but he’s looking for the wrong type of investment. We don’t need his ‘big ticket’ schemes that will become white elephants as we head for a world where sustainability will matter most of all. What we really require is investment in the diverse skills that the people of this country have but which need development – and there’s no sign he’s going to deliver that.

Rachel Reeves has to get her numbers right

Most of the data being used when discussing the economy is hopelessly incorrect. We even have up to six figures for the national debt in the UK – and all of them are wrong. It really is time for Rachel Reeves to start publishing decent data so we can have a proper economic debate in the UK.

How late is too late?

The world might already be at a tipping point when it comes to climate change and yet our leaders still seem to be in denial about the reality that we have to face. So, how late is too late when it comes to making the changes required if human life is to survive on Earth?

Are the rich going to leave?

In the run up to the budget I have seen claims that as many as one in five people are planning to leave the UK because taxes are too high. If they are, they’re in for a shock. The well-off and the wealthy get a great tax deal in the UK that they’re going to find hard to replicate anywhere else.