Yep, he really does say it:
In so saying, of course, let me make clear that there is taxpayer’s money: it is the money they have the absolute right to enjoy after they have paid their tax.
Yep, he really does say it:
In so saying, of course, let me make clear that there is taxpayer’s money: it is the money they have the absolute right to enjoy after they have paid their tax.
The Professor is a little grumpy this morning:
He also seems to believe, along with all the MMT loons, that only the State is capable of creating a currency. Ergo, all money belongs to the State.
His screaming desire to have Butcombe and any other crypto – currency banned. Like the apes facing Taylor in the courtroom: non-State currencies cannot happen, they are impossible. So if they do happen they must be destroyed.
This is all a part of his ‘Niente al fuori dello Stato’ world view.
Widmerpool? Seriously? He didn’t see that?
In fairness, he allowed a response by Baxter Basics.
But he does suffer from an optical condition which can affect his reading: it’s called Red Mist.
Ironman? Seriously? He didn’t see that?
Andrew Dickie tries to help by suggesting that “taxpayers’ money” could simply mean “money coming from the taxpayer” – ie it’s just one of language.
But The Potty Prof will have none of it, even from one of his most loyal and trusted lieutenants:
He’s bonkers – although, in fairness, he does preface it this time with “I would actually argue”. Maybe that’s an improvement on his earlier position?
@ Andrew K/Widmerpool: Richie is answering a different question. He was asked to confirm the logical consequence of his own opinion, but failed to do so. Instead he explained how his own view could be curtailed by the actions of others.
“There is a ballot box
And it works
It is fundamentally different as a result
Your question makes no sense in that case”
A complete non-sequitur.
Andrew
He must have been a little fatigued after a bit of punting and a few e-cigs, check the NHS thread.
His replies rarely make sense. Except in his own head. He is so gnomic that I suspect he is a gnome.
I rather suspect that this is our Andrew Dickie
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Andrew-Dickie/1718114424
Off-topic, but this looks like middle period Warhol
(Trigger warning)
https://www.youtube.com/user/RichardMurphyTax/videos
Ironman: Quite so. He doesn’t do irony. Btw, well done for posting on Murphy’s blog. He needs to be challenged repeatedly there. The more he evades and censors, the worse he looks.
Arnald: you aren’t very bright, are you? Stick to auto-sodomy, Laurence Sybian.
He’s an actual bona fide fascist isn’t he.
If he is given an official political position in the Corbyn team and keeps on spouting views like this then he will likely destroy the Labour vote far beyond anything Corbyn could do.
I’ve asked a follow-up to RM’s answer to “Mr Widmerpool”…
“The question makes perfect sense. It was a request for your opinion, Mr Murphy. The ballot box will indeed determine to an extent what the State will decide, as you say, but that determination will come from voters, of which you are one. So it’s entirely legitimate to ask for your opinion.
To restate then, “What restriction if any do YOU, Mr Murphy, see on the state’s right to impose taxes, or is it an absolute right IN YOUR VIEW?”
Geoffers:
I think you are more likely to get a response if your question is more sycophantic in tone. But, nevertheless, well done.
No matter he says the even a democratically elected Government doesn’t have an absolute right to set taxes as the left demonstrated by the Poll Tax riots.
I have had a reply …
“It’s an absolute right of a democratic state to tax within the limits of its electoral mandate”
That implies a requirement for intended tax rates to be explicitly stated in any election manifesto, does it not?
Geoffers, ask him if that is what he intends to so for Comrade Corbyn’s 2020 manifesto
“Although I would actually argue that the money does not even come from the taxpayer – they always hold it in trust for the state whose property it always is” says the tax expert and political economist with an.academic seat to.prove it.
Which is based squarely on the idea
of the State having a monopoly on money creation (imposed). This could only make sense if tax was purely taken from peoples’ cash reserves or liquid savings. It’s not though; it is an expropriation from a person’s wealth. It might be calculated on the basis of their annual income and might be deducted by their employer. It remains, however,, an expropriation from a person’s assets. If they don’t have the cash available to pay the tax, they must liquidate another asset to do so.
So, tax DOES NOT in the first instance belong to the State, unless you believe that all of a man’s assets belong in the first instance to the State.
Yet again our Ritchie holds a view thay no credible tax professional could gold.
Ironman
“So, tax DOES NOT in the first instance belong to the State, unless you believe that all of a man’s assets belong in the first instance to the State.”
It is entirely possible – with all this attention he is getting – that he might now genuinely believe that? Perhaps someone should interrogate him? Or has he commented enough for today!
@Geoffers
Interesting. No independent ethical reflection.
That’ll go down well with the Quakers.
Though that fits perfectly with his complete lack of comprehension of nuance in the independence of the BoE.
>[the taxpayers] always hold it in trust for the state whose property it always is
Except for currency, the vast bulk of our money is not created by the government, but by the banks. That is why the government must borrow its money, at interest, from the banks. I thought everyone knew this by now. The fact that Mr Corbyn’s chosen financial guru is under such a fundamental misapprehension promises lots more popcorn-worthy entertainment in the future!
Ironman – I don’t follow you. That’s not a criticism – just an admission of my own lack of understanding. Could you elaborate on your point, please?
Apologies if it has already been posted but here is a Breitbart piece about Murphy.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/09/19/david-cameron-championed-ideas-man-said-theres-no-thing-taxpayers-money/
Geoffers:
“It’s an absolute right of a democratic state to tax within the limits of its electoral mandate”
In which case the Professor cannot consistently object when a neoliberal government cuts taxes, providing it was in the majority party’s manifesto.
Geoffers
Sure. Ritchie’s view is that paying tax is.only paying back money the goverent created. My point is one is only the form, the means of exchange. In essence all tax is a wealth tax. So, if you have no money available, you sell an asset to get the money. Wherever the value comes from to.pay your tax, you see NOT just paying the government it’s own money back. And I utterly reject the notion that an individual holds property in trust for the state; I believe in freedom.
Thanks for that link ecksy. The article cuts to through the mad Professor’s verbiage to identify some very telling passages.
Thomas
The banks only create fresh “net” debits and credits, they don’t actually create anything “net new”.
Insofar as the government borrows, it is because they run deficits, and hence must borrow to fund the difference. If the government owes money, as it does, then the people who “ultimately” lend that money are those with net savings (the bank is a middle man, in that if it buys government bonds it then has to borrow from savers / others to fund that purchase, ie net nil).
Prof Murf’s delusion with money is a different one relating to the contractual relationship between the state and the citizen.
If you recall, when RTI was back as the set up stage, it was considered that there could be a centralised deductions system whereby ALL salaries (subject to PAYE) would be paid gross from the employer to HMRC, HMRC would take their cut (bit like a pimp), and HMRC would pay the net balance to the employee, who would hope HMRC had done their sums properly!
Yes, utterly bonkers, and that part of RTI didn’t get off the ground!
Of course that’s just one step away from where the final payment to the employee is determined according to need!
Ecks
2nd or 3rd comment down is a link to Tim – traffic here might increase?
“Widmerpool? Seriously? He didn’t see that?”
Knowing what we do about Murphy’s levels of intelligence and general education (low, and nugatory, respectively), why would anyone assume he would catch an allusion to A Dance to the Music of Time?
“Money” is just a credible and enforceable promise to pay later. When the government borrows from the banks, it creates money by doing so. The money is destroyed again when the loans are repaid. Likewise, anyone borrowing from a bank creates the money (in the form of a signed contract promising to repay the loan) that provides the backing for the more liquid funds the bank gives them in return. Savings on deposit at the bank are not the basis of value for this money being loaned – they just provide it with liquidity.
It’s a subject that causes much confusion, even outside Murphy’s circle.
Do the Quakers not accept Matthew 20? – in verse 16 the vineyard owner, defending his decision to pay a full day’s wages to the men he hired late in the day says; “Have I no right to do what I like with my own?”. Jesus assumes that the money in the pocket of the owner of the vineyard belongs to him, not the state.
Elsewhere He distinguishes between Roman coinage to be used to pay taxes to the state and Jewish coinage which may be used for offerrings in the Temple.
Ignore the Quaker bit. On the further reaches of the TRUK website is a 2006 CV in which he describes himself as a communicating Anglican. I understand that the Quaker bit is bound up in the transition from wife 1 to wife 2.
John77:
Many Quakers are no longer Christians, let alone theists. Those that still are place their trust in the ‘inner light’ rather than scripture or doctrine. This is where extremely liberal protestantism ends up.
Theophrastus
There or Unitarianism.
@ Andrew K
As an independent thinker, whose introduction to logic was Euclidean geometry, I may have some unusual views but I find most Anglican theology preferable to the alternatives, with the exception of “The Anglican Church takes a high view of the sanctity of marriage at the point of re-marriage” (quote from the leader of my second Bible Study group) so Murphy had to leave or face questions about his divorce and remarriage.
@PF Thanks for your response, but I prefer @NiV’s take. The whole question of fractional reserve banking and money-as-debt is a great puzzle to anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds, the Bank of England, the suspicious circumstances surrounding the formation of the Federal Reserve, etc., etc. The question is: why should taxpayers be on the hook for government debt, when governments are perfectly capable of issuing their own money (as used to happen here before the BoE was founded, and as happened in the US when the greenback was king)?
Occam’s Razor suggests that, in this case at least, a Bacofoil hat might suit.
@ Theophrastus
The official Quaker website says in is section on worship “What books do you use?
The Bible and copies of a book called Quaker faith & practice – a collection of writing and experiences of Quakers from our 350-year history – are to hand. We also use a small booklet called Advices & queries; a collection of prompts, insights and questions that Quakers read regularly. ”
The Quakers, apart from Murphy, DO use the Bible
John77:
Yes, I imagine you are right about Murphy’s reasons for joining the Quakers: his egotism would find CoE doctrine on divorce intolerable.
AndrewK: yes, unitarians and quakers have reached pretty much the same New Age-y vagueness.
John77:
I come from a quaker family, and I had a quaker wedding. Subsequently, I became an Anglican. Yes, modern quakers use the Bible occasionally, but only to refer to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Anything in the Bible deemed illiberal is ignored. I recall quakers quoting poetry and buddhist texts more often than the Bible. I imagine the Koran might be quoted today.
“but only to refer to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth”
That’s basically the norm for European Christianity.
@ Theophrastus
I shall accept that you know more about it than I do. I was basing my assumptions on the *small* number of Quakers I had known, all of whom used the Bible.
Thomas,
No problem and I understand completely! As we’ve seen with earlier threads, it really is impossible to deal with these issues in this kind of forum – I probably shouldn’t have commented!
FWIW – reading NiV carefully, I don’t disagree with a single word that he has said?
I am focusing from an accounting perspective – for every borrower there must ultimately be a lender (except for coins, notes and QE), and which NiV deals with when he talks about liquidity. Ie, a bank’s balance sheet will always balance, with all of the different financial assets and liabilities of varying liquidity (borrowers and lenders) netting off, bar a relatively small capital plus say whatever P&L reserves they have earned / retained.
Whereas NiV comes at it more from an economist’s perspective – and which is more easily understandable, and to my mind incredibly valuable and useful – in terms of the concept of “value” and “promise to pay” (ie from our future labour), and where “money” created and destroyed is technically a subset of the financial balance sheet.
For me, at a very simplistic level (before considering things like the effect of slack on inflation and similar), the important distinction is that “a lender for every borrower” should not in itself debase the currency (inflation), whereas materially “printing” money (a one sided transaction that simply creates apparent assets without any equal and opposite obligation) ultimately does?
Jack C
“That’s basically the norm for European Christianity.”
What I meant was that quakers tend to ignore the Christian story, generally see no significance in the nativity or crucifixion and see Jesus as one wise man among many. At one meeting I attended for some months, Nietzsche was more often quoted than Christ. That certainly is not the norm for European Christianity.
Theo,
I see, though you won’t find much evidence of Jesus in the Vatican City either.
And it remains the case that European Christians have down-graded the bible pretty significantly. Isn’t the difference just one of degree?
@ Jack C
A lot of them have not. I hear a lot from the Bible and nothing from Nietzsche, Marx etc in my (mainstream with evangelical leanings) parish church. we are urged to show the love of God in action, not in political ranting.
john77,
But not ALL of the Bible, much of which has been downgraded to “allegorical” in Europe.
The mainstream has air-brushed most of the “illiberal bits” as well.
“Ironman
Ritchie’s view is that paying tax is.only paying back money the goverent created.”
It is indeed.
Which makes me wonder why he gets so vexed about non-doms.
Or indeed income earned overseas.
If the justification for taxation is that the government created the money how can he possibly argue that the profits derived from a factory in India should be taxed here in the UK simply because of the accident that the factory’s owner happens to be living here?
I’d ask him but I’m in-between banned alter-egos
@ Jack C
We don’t take the Tower of Babel literally and I should prefer the word translated as “day” in Genesis 1 to be rendered “epoch”, but I certainly do *not* observe “much” of the Bible downgraded to allegory. Varying amounts of Genesis Ii to X1 which comprise *less than 1%* of the Bible.
john77,
Genesis is pretty central isn’t it? Besides, if you take the OT literally, then it must be difficult to believe in “God’s Love”.
JackC:
Humanists and atheists can find the Bible inspirational. Christians, however, believe in the incarnation and the crucifixion as world-changing events. The quakers generally do not; nor do they believe in the sacraments. So the difference is one of kind, not just degree.
And the allegorical interpretation of the Bible, including Genesis, dates back to the Greek Fathers, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.
Andrew
Are you suggesting his world view is.lacking I’m e way? Surely not.
@ Jack C
NO The Gospels are central
Genesis is merely an introduction to Exodus.
And if you think “much” means <1% then you are speaking a different language to myself
john77,
Genesis does have a few fairly important moments, such as the Creation, and of course the fall from the Garden of Eden, and the concept of Original Sin. (It was you who asserted the less that 1% figure, not me).
Allegorical is not the right word, perhaps I was being polite. There are a great many stories that paint God in a poor light, and a great many laws and rules that are no longer observed.
Mainstream European Christians certainly do not “live by the Bible”.
Ironman
So he has banned you under your real name but allowed you back into the fold under your moniker – he really is a card, isn’t he? Still at least Lawrence from Guernsey will be there to defend him!
@ Jack C
It has become fairly obvious that you are trolling when you claim that the doctrine of Original Sin is in Genesis. It was developed by Roman Catholic theologians based on excerpts from the epistles of St Paul.
I shall not bother with any more of your comments.
Jeepers, john77. Trolling?
Genesis is where that Original Sin occurred you absolute numpty.
@ Jack C
That is NOT the *Doctrine* of “Original Sin”.
Maybe you are just ignorant.
Who mentioned the doctrine?
Original Sin “occurred” in Genesis.
It’s not difficult.