Tuesday 6 September 2022

Spades In The Ground?

Day One, and Liz Truss has already outflanked Labour on the left. If £100 billion or more is going to be "borrowed", then why not tack on the mere £2.8 billion that it would take to renationalise energy, as favoured by the huge majority of the electorate, including at least half of Conservative voters?

But "borrowed" from whom? This is an accounting trick. The Bank of England and the Treasury are both the State, so there is no debt. In the event of a "default", then would bailiffs be sent round? What items would they seize? A sovereign state with its own free floating, fiat currency cannot be in debt, and it certainly cannot be in debt to itself. Therefore, there is no reason effectively to issue every household with an energy mortgage to be paid off over 10 or 20 years.

And the entirely ineffective sanctions regime against Russia, where even The Sun has found that prices are down and that energy bills are far lower than they are in Britain, is significantly worsening the cost of living crisis that the working class has been suffering since the beginning of the austerity programme 12 years ago. But this year's invasion of Ukraine is not the cause of that crisis, nor is Brexit, and nor is anything to do with Covid-19. 

2 comments:

  1. Tears of laughter at this economic illiteracy. Applying Modern Monetary Theory and simply creating rather than borrowing money would cause wild inflation on a scale that dwarfs anything we have today by creating excess demand and overheating the economy. MMT proponents themselves say we would have to reduce public spending and hike taxes to control the inevitable resulting inflation.

    Today's inflation crisis is the predictable result of the half a trillion Rishi Sunak pissed up a wall paying people to sit at home during the totally unnecessary shutdown of the economy. Everyone now accepts Boris Johnson was entirely vindicated in reopening the economy in August last year and keeping it open at Christmas (as "Omicron" turned out to be an entirely phantom threat), and so of course he should never have closed it in the first place.

    The worst Prime ever indeed. The only leader who would have been even worse was the leader of the useless "Opposition" Leader which supported this madness and wanted to lock us down for even longer.

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    Replies
    1. MMT proponents themselves say we would have to reduce public spending and hike taxes to control the inevitable resulting inflation.

      Yes, at least on the taxation point. That is what taxes are for. They are not for what Margaret Thatcher, who had never read a book, thought that they were for. That is just a fact.

      Today's inflation crisis is the predictable result of the half a trillion Rishi Sunak pissed up a wall paying people to sit at home during the totally unnecessary shutdown of the economy.

      Funny how it goes back 12 years, then. Or 46, depending on how you measure it.

      Everyone now accepts Boris Johnson was entirely vindicated in reopening the economy in August last year and keeping it open at Christmas (as "Omicron" turned out to be an entirely phantom threat), and so of course he should never have closed it in the first place.

      No, they don't. A handful of pub bores think that because they read it in the newspaper columns of people who are paid to be "contrarian". Johnson used to be one of those, and he very soon will be again. It's a living, I suppose.

      You have entirely lost the argument. This is what is happening. Now. Under Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. Do not even bet against renationalisation. If you objected to any of this, then you could always vote for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. Someone has to.

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