Funding the Future

The government can never run out of money

Politicians, commentators and journalists all like to claim that the UK government could run out of money, but that is total nonsense. The UK government can always create the money it needs to pay its debts. It is the one and only organisation in the UK that can never, as a result, run out of money. #uk #government #money #economic #politics #bank #government #tax #investment #share

Rachel Reeves would make a mess of any household’s finances

Rachel Reeves keeps saying that we should manage the economy as if it were a household. That is completely wrong. But if it was true, the decisions she is making would end up destroying the finances of that household she’s making such a mess of things.

There’s nothing in a tax haven

I keep hearing people say that we need to get the money back from tax havens. That, though, is not necessary. There is no money in tax havens. All they do is record the ownership of money and other funds that are always actually deposited elsewhere, like the City of London. Instead, what we want back from them is the tax not paid on income recorded there as a consequence of this.

The national debt need never be repaid

The national debt is widely misunderstood. The reality is that this is not a burden. It underpins UK banking. It’s fundamental to UK savers. And a part of it is the UK represents the government’s way of creating the money supply on which we all depend. Repaying it would be absolutely disastrous. 

Large company accounts are works of fiction

The accounts of the largest companies in the UK and around the world are works of fiction because no company in existence has undertaken the transactions that they record. Is that what we really need when we come to assess what the private sector is up to?

Rachel Reeves is already making a mess of her Chancellorship

It would be great to think that Rachel Reeves might go down in history as both the first woman to be Chancellor and as a great Chancellor. The first is hers by right. But she is going all the wrong way about claiming the second title.

We don’t need a wealth tax, yet

There is a lot of interest in wealth taxes right now. I understand why,  but if we want to tackle the problems wealth creates there are two better ways to do that before we ever think of having wealth taxes.

Saving in itself is merely negative

The title of this video is a quote from William Beveridge writing in 1944 in the report that became the foundation of the UK welfare state. He realised then, as we should do now, that too many savings in too few hands could be deeply destructive within an economy.

Why do governments issue bonds when they don’t need to?

Government bonds do not fund government spending, any more than tax does. So why do governments keep issuing bonds when there is no obvious need for them to do so? #uk #money #economic #politics #bank #government #tax #investment #share

It the government wants growth it should be taxing wealth

Rachel Reeves says she wants growth. If so, she should tax wealth, because the wealthy save much of what they earn, meaning that they don’t spend it, and so reduce growth. If that same income was redistributed to those on low incomes who will spend it then growth would follow. It really is almost that easy to increase growth.