Funding the Future

Dangerous thinking

Thinking is not just a private act – it shapes the world we live in. Right now, powerful voices are framing our politics with paranoia:
War paranoia – pundits talk calmly about conflict with China.
Migration paranoia – a tiny minority problem inflamed into a crisis.
Fiscal paranoia – false fears about debt used to justify austerity.
These distortions threaten to distract us from the real crises: poverty, underfunded services, the housing shortage, and climate change.
But as Viktor Frankl once reminded us, we always retain the power to choose how we frame the world. The question is: will we give in to paranoia, or think differently?
 

Trump’s economic disaster

Donald Trump promised to Make America Great Again. Instead, he is wrecking the US economy. Job creation has collapsed, farmers can’t sell their crops, foreign investors are leaving, and tariffs are pushing up prices for ordinary Americans.
In this video, I explain why Trump’s economic policies are a disaster — and why the UK should take note as the far-right tries to copy them.

Are companies carbon insolvent?

The truth is stark: companies are hiding the real cost of the net-zero transition. Without honest accounting, capital is misallocated, pensions are at risk, and businesses will fail. Sustainable cost accounting is the solution.

The curse of PFI

Wes Streeting wants to fund 200 new NHS health centres through PFI. But the Public Finance Initiative was a disaster in the past – locking hospitals and schools into decades of expensive contracts. Profits were privatised while risks and debts were socialised. This video explains why PFI 2.0 is a betrayal of the NHS, why it costs more, and why the government should fund health centres directly using its own currency.

Steve Keen: the podcast

In this first podcast style interview between me and Steve Keen, the author of 'Debunking Economics', Steve recounts how early encounters with neoclassical and neoliberal economics, and the realities of firm behaviour, led him to reject economic fairy tales and become a rebel.
His politics shifted too, from Vietnam-era conformity to organising for a political economy curriculum.
Today his priority is climate change. Economists’ models have trivialised existential risk and hobbled action with myths about government finance.
Steve broadly agrees with MMT’s “spend first, tax later,” but challenges Warren Mosler’s theories on trade, all of which mean that in the longer term he plans a wider assault on comparative advantage.
And, at the end of the interview, we may clear that this is the first of what might be a number of conversations with Next up a discussion on double-entry as the missing economic grammar and how and why he created his RAVEL software to model it.

Democracy or bankers?

We are told that central banks are neutral and above politics. The truth is, they’re not. Central bank independence was created to remove responsibility from politicians and hand power to unelected bankers. This video explains why the idea is a con trick, how it undermines democracy, and why it’s time to put money back under democratic control.
 

Fiscal rules stop everything

Fiscal rules are not laws of economics. They are political straitjackets designed to stop change. Every Chancellor since Gordon Brown has used them to limit public spending, block climate action, and enforce permanent austerity. The result? A weaker NHS, failing schools, inadequate housing, stagnant wages, and rising inequality. It’s time to abandon fiscal rules and rebuild democracy with fiscal freedom.

Without tax, MMT fails

Some claim modern monetary theory (MMT) proves that tax doesn’t matter. They’re wrong. Tax is not about funding government spending—it’s about controlling inflation, creating demand for currency, and sustaining democracy. In this video, I explain why without tax, MMT collapses.

Stablecoin crash?

Stablecoins are being sold as safe, secure cryptocurrencies. In reality, they are shadow banking in disguise – with the same risks that nearly destroyed the global economy in 2008. Nobel Prize–winning economist Jean Tirole is worried, and so am I. If these private tokens collapse, the public will pick up the bill. It’s time to call stablecoins what they are: a threat to financial stability and democracy.

Who owns this £5 note?

Politicians love to talk about “taxpayers’ money.” But here’s the truth: every pound in circulation is created by the government or banks licensed by it. This video explains why a £5 note is really a promise from the state, not something you or I created. If we stop believing in the myth of taxpayers’ money, we can start demanding real accountability for how government spends its own money.