Funding the Future

Trump crossed the line

Did Donald Trump persuade FIFA to overturn a World Cup red card? More importantly, if he did, why does it matter?
This video is not really about football. It is about something much bigger.
Sport only works because everyone accepts the same rules. Referees make decisions, appeals follow established procedures, and no player should receive special treatment simply because they have powerful friends. Once that principle disappears, confidence in the game disappears with it.
The same is true of democracy.
Courts, regulators, election officials and public institutions all depend on one simple principle: that rules apply equally to everyone. The moment powerful individuals can bypass normal procedures, trust begins to collapse.
In this video, I examine the controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s intervention over a USA World Cup red card and ask what it tells us about the growing willingness of powerful politicians to expect different treatment from everyone else.
Whether you support Trump or oppose him is not the central issue. The real question is whether any individual should be able to bend institutions to their own advantage. If we lose confidence that rules apply equally, we lose far more than a football match. We begin to lose confidence in democracy itself.
I’d be very interested to know what you think, so please vote in the poll, leave a comment and join the discussion below.
If you enjoy these videos, please like, subscribe and share. Your support really does help this channel continue to grow.

Farage is not a victim

Nigel Farage has resigned as the MP for Clacton-on-Sea, only to trigger a by-election in which he intends to stand again.
Why?
In this video, I examine what appears to be an extraordinary political manoeuvre and ask whether it is really about democracy, accountability or something quite different.
I argue that this is an unnecessary election which will cost taxpayers money while doing nothing to change Farage’s status as the sitting MP. Instead, I suggest it is an attempt to appeal directly to voters while an investigation into his previous election campaign continues.
I also look at Farage’s claim that he has become the victim of media persecution. Is that true, or is this an example of what psychologists describe as DARVO — deny, attack and reverse victim and offender? I explain what that means and why I think it matters.
So, will the voters of Clacton accept this strategy or will they conclude that they are being asked to take part in an election that simply never needed to happen?
As always, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Is Grievance Politics failing?

The politics of grievance has dominated debate in both Britain and the United States. Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe and Donald Trump have all built political narratives around anger, blame and the promise that someone else is responsible for people’s hardship.
But is that politics now running out of road?
In this video, I argue that grievance can win attention, mobilise anger and even win elections. But it cannot govern. It cannot build houses, restore public services, fund healthcare, educate children, tackle climate change or create security. Eventually every politician has to answer one question: what are you actually going to do?
The problem for Farage and Trump is that their answers remain deeply neoliberal: lower taxes, smaller government, more markets, and more blame. That does not solve the grievances they exploit. It recycles the same failed model in a more extreme form.
The alternative is a politics of care, coupled with an economics of hope. That means understanding people’s anger, and then using the capacity of government to address its causes. I think this is the moment to move beyond grievance and build something better.

Your savings are being wasted

The UK savings system is dominated by ISAs and pensions. Together, they account for most personal savings. But are they delivering what the country needs?
In this video, I argue that they are not. ISAs receive generous tax relief. Pensions receive even more. Yet the result is not the investment in productive capacity that economic theory says savings should deliver. Instead, much of the benefit goes to the City of London, while savers often get disappointing returns and society gets too little investment.
The real purpose of saving should be capital formation: building the assets, skills, infrastructure, public services and ecological systems that make life better. That is not what our current savings system is doing.
I suggest that the government should offer new, safe savings products through National Savings and Investments. These could be linked to real social purposes: health, housing, education, green investment, regional development and long-term public need.
This would not be about clever marketing. It would require real accountability, with savers told how their money had been used.
 
Savings should not just preserve private wealth. They should help create public value.

Money isn’t the problem

People often ask me what difference Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) would actually make in practice.
The surprising answer is that, in many respects, MMT already describes how the UK monetary system actually works. The government already creates new money when it spends, through the Bank of England. Taxes do not fund spending in the way most politicians and economists claim. Instead, they remove money from circulation and help manage inflation.
So if that’s already true, what difference does MMT make?
The answer is that it changes how we think about policy.
Using the current debate over defence spending as an example, I explain why cancelling infrastructure projects to “pay for” defence makes no economic sense. Roads are built by different people with different skills from those who design advanced military equipment. Destroying one part of the economy does not magically create capacity somewhere else.
The real constraint is never money.
It is always people, skills, technology, energy and other real resources.
MMT encourages governments to ask the right question: do we have the resources to do this? If we do, then financing them is not the obstacle politicians pretend it is.
This changes everything from defence to healthcare, housing, climate policy and public investment.
Whether you agree with me or not, this is one of the most important economic debates taking place today.
Please join the discussion in the comments and vote in today’s poll.
If you enjoy these videos, please like, subscribe and share them. Your support really does help the channel continue producing independent economic analysis.

What is money, really?

Most discussions about economics begin with money. I think that’s a mistake.In this video I explain why money is not the economy, why wealth is not the same thing as money, and why economics has become obsessed with the wrong things.Starting with a simple thought experiment about being stranded on a desert island, I explore what really creates value, why energy and human potential matter far more than financial wealth, and why money is simply an accounting system that allows society to organise itself.Along the way I explain:• why money is information rather than a thing• how governments actually create money• why taxes do not fund government spending in the way most people imagine• what really limits government spending• why inflation is about real resources, not simply money creation• why the purpose of an economy should be to help everyone realise their potential rather than maximise GDP or financial wealth.In a narration of a series of essays, I explain economics in plain English without losing the underlying theory. The essays draw on decades of my work on accounting, economics and modern monetary theory, but are written for anyone curious about how our economy really works.If we understand what money really is, we can begin asking much better political questions, and perhaps build a society that serves everyone instead of just protecting wealth.Please let me know what you think in the comments.

How to find £17 billion

Britain is constantly told there isn’t enough money.
We’re told there isn’t enough to build council housing. Not enough to improve transport. Not enough to invest in local communities. Not enough to repair public services.
Ignore modern monetary theory for a moment, and ask instead, what if that isn’t the real problem?
In this video, I examine HMRC’s latest tax gap statistics, and they reveal something ridiculous. According to HMRC’s own figures, around £17.3 billion of corporation tax owed by small companies is not being paid. That is part of a total corporation tax gap of around £21 billion, and it raises serious questions about whether Britain is choosing not to collect money that is already legally due in tax.
Andy Burnham says he wants to invest much more if he becomes Prime Minister, but he also says he will stick to Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules. If he believes government needs more money before it can spend (even if that is not true), then recovering tax that is already legally owed surely has to come before introducing entirely new taxes.
In this video I explain:
• what the tax gap actually is;
• why the small company corporation tax has become the fastest-growing part of it;
• why HMRC’s own figures point towards an explosion of non-payment by small companies;
• why honest businesses are being placed at a competitive disadvantage;
• how £17 billion could fund around 50,000 new council homes every year;
• why I drafted legislation over a decade ago that would have tackled much of this problem.
This isn’t simply a debate about tax.
It’s about whether Britain still believes in enforcing company law, maintaining fair competition, supporting local economies and encouraging honest business to invest by ensuring that everyone plays by the same rules.

Where's s the next crash?

The media thinks government debt will cause the next financial crash.
I think they’re looking in entirely the wrong place.
The UK government cannot run out of pounds to repay debt denominated in pounds, so government debt is not where I believe the real systemic risk now lies. Instead, I think the danger has been quietly building in US stock markets, where global investor concentration is now higher than at any point in modern history.
Foreign investors now own around $22 trillion of US shares. Pension funds, insurance companies and investment funds across the world have become increasingly dependent upon rising American stock prices. The AI boom has accelerated this trend, drawing ever more money into a relatively small number of companies and creating a level of concentration that should concern us all.
If those markets suffer a major correction, the consequences will not be confined to the United States. The effects could spread rapidly through pension funds, household savings, and banks and financial institutions around the world, including here in the UK.
In this video I explain:
why government debt is not the financial threat many people imagine
where I think the real systemic financial risk now lies
why US stock markets have become so dominant
how AI investment has fuelled an unprecedented concentration of capital
why UK pension funds are much more exposed than many people realise
why the next financial crisis, if it comes, is likely to look very different from 2008
what this could mean for your savings, your pension and the wider economy.
Whether you agree with my analysis or not, these are risks that deserve far more attention than they are currently receiving.
Where do you think the next financial crash will come from? Let me know in the comments below.

Time for a change?

I’m back.
An unexpected week away from making videos—thanks to a kidney stone that I wouldn’t wish on anyone—gave me something I almost never have: time to stop and think.
For more than twenty years I’ve written about Britain’s economy and politics. For the last two years we’ve talked about them here, almost every single day.
Together we’ve explored why neoliberalism has failed, why living standards have stagnated, why our political system no longer seems able to meet people’s needs, and why so many people have lost faith in politics altogether.
But being forced to step away made me ask a different question.
Should this channel change?
Not because the issues have gone away. They haven’t.
Not because exposing failure no longer matters. It does.
But because perhaps the time has come to spend more of our energy asking a different set of questions.
What should replace neoliberalism?
How should we reform tax?
How should we reform money?
How should government work differently?
What would a politics of care actually look like?
How do we build an economy of hope instead of an economy of fear?
Those are the questions I increasingly want to explore.
The question is whether you want to explore them with me.
So this isn’t an announcement that I’ve already decided to change direction.
It’s an invitation for you to help decide whether we should.
Please vote in the poll, leave a comment, and let me know what you think. I genuinely want to hear your views, because they will help shape the future direction of this channel.
Thank you for being part of this journey.

Burnham misses the point

Andy Burnham has positioned himself as a future Prime Minister and delivered what was billed as a serious economic speech.
 
It was not.
 
He promised more council housing, cheaper utilities, lower transport costs, greater devolution, more investment, and a full industrial strategy. Then he committed to keeping Rachel Reeves' fiscal rules, proposed no new tax powers, and made GDP growth the centrepiece of his entire programme, without appearing to notice that cheaper housing, cheaper energy, and cheaper transport all reduce GDP, because GDP rises when prices rise and falls when they fall. That is not a minor inconsistency. It is a fundamental failure to understand the metric he has chosen as his measure of success.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that around 14 million people in the UK currently live in poverty. Burnham acknowledged this reality and built his entire pitch around improving lives for ordinary people across the North and Midlands. But he cannot do that while accepting fiscal rules that prevent investment, refusing to raise taxes, and targeting a GDP figure that goes up when people's bills go up. The arithmetic does not work, the logic does not hold, and the speech answered none of the questions a serious alternative economic programme must answer.
The fact is that growth is the wrong target. Wellbeing, full employment, and the elimination of poverty are the right ones, but Burnham is not there yet, and Britain cannot afford a Prime Minister-in-waiting who is still this confused about economics.