The reality of governments and money..
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay OK, let’s put that more politely. ” Cutting welfare spending is not only morally bankrupt, it’s economic vandalism”. Here’s why. “Welfare benefits”. Those words are deliberately chosen to cast the recipients as “weak”, “scroungers”, etc. “Benefits” has come to suggest something idle feckless people have as a nice little extra …
Continue reading “#19 Cutting welfare spending is not only wrong-it’s fucking stupid.”
Bristol September 12/13th 2025 “Changing the conversation around money and the economy in the UK” On Friday 12th September, Modern Money Lab UK held an anti-austerity Conference over two days at The Station, Bristol, to explore how the modern understanding of the government money and fiscal system (Modern Monetary Theory, MMT) gives a strong perspective …
Continue reading “#18 Modern Money Lab Anti-Austerity Conference”
Kindly made by web-wizard Rob Willox of web-media.co.uk Why “taxpayers-money” is actually a smokescreen, designed and endlessly reinforced, to persuade ordinary people to accept policies which only serve the ultra-rich. If you’d like to read my original post from 2019, it’s here. Thank you for viewing/reading!
Made by web-wizard Rob Willox of web-media.co.uk, thanks Rob. We’re all so used to hearing this well-known, endlessly-repeated “pay-for-it” spiel, many people still believe it. Here’s how to give it more thought If you’d like to read my original post on this, with a couple more details, it’s here. Thank you for viewing/reading!
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay. We are all used to hearing about the “National Debt”, aren’t we. Politicians, newsreaders, pundits, quoting some scarily huge figure, that sounds a bit worrying, because we all know about personal debt in our own daily lives. In fact, when you understand what the “National Debt” actually is, it’s not …
Continue reading “#15 The National Debt: A burden, or a blessing?”
It was just after midnight on MPC-Meeting-Eve in the upmarket-suburban houses of Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, and Chief Economist Huw Pill. They were woken from fitful, fretful, dozing slumber by three ghostly, shadowy figures. The first announced himself as The Ghost of MPC-Eve Past. He took them to 1942, when there were desperate …
Continue reading “#14 The Bank of England Interest Rate Rises, by the late Charles Dickens.”
image- Gerd Altmann, via Pixabay.com Like a lot of popular myths about economics, the “wage-price-spiral” sounds so convincing. “Wage demands cause wages to rise, so suppliers have to put their prices up, so workers demand higher wages. So inflation runs riot, everyone suffers.” Seems like common-sense? Well, it isn’t. It’s an outstanding example of the …
Continue reading “#13 The “wage-price spiral” is pure, full-fat, 24-carat BS. Even the IMF says so.”
“Whichever party is in office, the Treasury is in power”- Harold Wilson (UK Prime Minister 1964-1970, 1974-1976) Why is the Treasury, actually a government department, so powerful and prestigious? How much influence does it have on the policies of UK governments? And, has its influence been beneficial, or highly damaging in recent decades? Let’s have …
Continue reading “# 12: The UK Treasury: Servant or Master?”
(Image by fancycrave1 from Pixabay) This is a guest post. In it, Professor Richard Murphy (read his excellent blog here) explains very clearly everything you need to know about how money is created by governments. And why it’s important for all of us to understand it. Longer than most of the posts in this blog, …
Continue reading “#11 Where does UK Government money really come from?”
“Housing scandal: ITV News uncovers widespread problems with leaks, damp and mould in tower blocks across UK” ITN report, 01.04.2021. Pic: sodden carpet in Franzoy’s flat (ITN) “To prevent electrocution, the fridge has been unplugged for more than three months.She has no light in the bathroom, her sofa has been destroyed along with many of …
Continue reading “#10: ITN Squalid Housing Scandal Reports- what’s behind it?”
If you think economics is terribly complex, full of jargon and charts, dull and boring, only for professional economists-this book will change your mind. It will open your mind and make you understand how governments and their finances really work. As opposed to what we’ve all been persuaded to believe since around the 1980’s, which …
“Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge”. W. S. Churchill. Imagine that you personally own, outright, Britain’s largest bank, and you are legally entitled to put any credit figure you choose in your own account. Would you really go out and actually borrow any money from anyone? Of course not. But, you are aware that …
At the present moment, when it’s clear that the imminent economic crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, will need a massive financial intervention by the UK government to avert a catastrophe, a lot of people are worried about how the cost of this will be met. And, what long-term effects that will have. So, it …
the pound in your pocket