Britain can’t borrow at these high interest rates, so we must tax the rich
Phillip Inman
The days of cheap credit that could have fuelled long-term investment have gone. Now chancellors must find a different source of revenue
So we used to have some amount of the economy that government and politics got to spend. OK.
Then came sheap credit and righteous money printing – at least at the start QE was righteous. So, poluitics got used to spending more. But the claim was that we should have a bolus, a burst, of spending because cheap credit.
But now the insistence is that that rise in spending must be permanent. And if we can’t have it by cheap credit then we must by some other means.
As the man said, nothing so permanent as a temporary government program, right?
Every morning I look around at what that two decade ling massive enforced spending orgy got us, and the first thing I think is just how righteous that spending was.
Truly amazing value for our grandchildrens birthright it is.
“the claim was that we should have a bolus, a burst, of spending because cheap credit.”
There’s something at the heart of Keynesian economics that I don’t understand. Keynes was a very clever fellow. Keynes was wily, wordly wise, experienced in government. How on earth did he persuade himself that politicians, having enjoyed the fruits of extravagant government spending, would ever cut it again?
Or did he just lie?
According to that American banker governments can’t go bust because they have the power to tax.
And if there aren’t enough citizens to tax they can always get some more rocket scientists and NHS employees from elsewhere.
Or, the experts could undertake some fact finding missions to Greece, and Argentina to see how to cancel the debt and save 100 billion.
I think that “American Banker” was Walter Wriston of Citibank and the context was, I think, sovereign lending specifically to Argentina.
He was, of course, correct in the sense only that he couldn’t send the bailiffs around and take possession but a country can’t repay dollar loans by taxing its citizens in pesos.