But first, we need to understand that government spending is what creates money.
And then we have to be willing to tax more to control inflation.
And we have to be willing to tell the wealthy that they can consume less of the stuff with which they are creating climate change.
And we have to be willing to tell them that the asset price gravy train that currently guarantees their separation from the rest of society is over,
And we have to care.
We could care.
But democracy is dying because we – or rather, our elected politicians – do not care enough to do these things.
And they are too stuck in their ways to understand what they can do about them.
As a result, democracy is dying, and our hopes with it.
The people have decided, in their delusion, that a nation with more government spending and more taxation is not what they desire.
This means democracy is dying.
Wrong choice, see?
“And we have to be willing to tell the wealthy that they can consume less of the stuff with which they are creating climate change”. He probably wouldn’t give a fuck about climate change if he couldn’t use it to further his war on those with more than him.
But I agree democracy is dying though – we have a government with a 163 seat majority off the back of 20% of the electorate voting from them.
You missed this high level political analysis :
The French government fell this week because it could not find the money it needed.
Really – I thought it was due to near irretrievable political deadlock which had relatively little to do with money. Additionally wasn’t Brexit Britain supposed to be the only problematic country in Europe or was that on Friday?
Trump took the US election because Biden could not get money to the people who needed it.
Biden did exactly what MMT said he should – spend money he didn’t have by printing it. The result was calamitous inflation – also the theory is bunk but even if it were not the taxpayer dependent ratio in the US is approaching 1:1 or lower. Therefore there is no one almost left to tax. The U.K. is finding the same issue. To quote from the Sopranos ‘You opened this clam’ my friend’
!The neoliberals took over democracy. Then they told us there was no money left. As a result, they are selling out democracy to the far right.
If Starmer is neoliberal then the term is bereft of any meaning. His is the worst government, and the hardest Left in human history and to say he is undertaking a neo liberal policy with public expenditure at 1.2 trillion indicates a level of delusion that should see such a believer detained for his own welfare, as well as that of the wider community…
I’m confused. I thought governments could just print as much money as they need. Or was that yesterday?
Does he have part-time job as Romanian President?
It’s only democracy if the peasants vote the way I tell them.
V_P,
In his own way Spud hits on a kernel of truth but without realising it and if he did he wouldn’t want to acknowledge the reason.
After Macron’s hissy fit of calling an early election after the EU election debacle the hard left, in the form of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, got the upper hand. Macron has really pissed them off because won’t to appoint a left wing PM and one reason he doesn’t want a left winger is that he needs to get a budget through that will get signed off by the EU and at this stage the left won’t allow the necessary spending cuts.
At the stage Marine Le Pen is playing 2nd fiddle but is also quite happy to torture Macron by joining the left in their no confidence vote.
So, its really about the left wanting to spend like Spud and the EU wanting France to at least play lip service to their budget rules.
It’s unfortunately too much to hope for that the Fat Controller will give up the polemical lunacy and become a full time duck-botherer.
Oh FFS, another Dachau moment.
“And all this is facilitated by ‘public service ‘ media promoting ‘there is no money’ ignorance.
You are right to be angry Richard.
People are already being locked up for resisting all this.
+3
Reply
Richard Murphy says:
December 7 2024 at 1:08 pm
Who knows?
They might come for me one day.”
FFS. Democracy is merely a method for discovering the majority view. A democratic government is one that takes that view, turns it into policy and implements it. Nothing more, nothing less. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Murphy’s list of sanctimonious, sentimental whines.
By “democracy” Murphy actually means “authoritarianism”. Standard-issue Orwellian meaning inversion. But we all know that.
Mind you, I did notice how Kameltoe and her hangers-on played the same game, utterly inverting and debasing the word. Actual democracy won a clean sweep. But we all know that, too.
More adolescent sanctimony and virtue signalling – And we have to care – with added teenage self-dramatisation – They might come for me one day. What a wazzock!
Addolf + 10
Authoritarians and collectivists just love climate change…
And we have to be willing to tell them that the asset price gravy train that currently guarantees their separation from the rest of society is over,
Mmmm…. Returns us to that discussion about value. And what he no doubt meant was “asset value gravy train” but he doesn’t seem to understand the difference. Can’t be price because price has yet to be discovered. What is the value of an asset in the now? The only thing one can be sure of is its utility value. What one might charge for the service of renting it out. Its price is indeterminate. Its price will be what’s offered if an attempt is made to sell it. So what is his gravy train? Past holders who’ve taken profits? Or current holders of assets of indeterminate value? Could be a lot. Could be nothing. Depends on how many holders are attempting to gain liquidity & how many aspire to own assets.
Raise this point because he never seems to think of consequences. I don’t know what particular pot of money he thinks he can get his grubby paws on now but does it even exist? I suspect there would be gravy for early jumpers from the train but past that or if the train ran into the buffers possibly little or none. And I don’t think it’s just him who doesn’t think of consequences. Nor do many of our supposed “great financial minds”. Story of 2008 wasn’t it?
@BiND
Marine Le Pen is playing 2nd fiddle but is also quite happy to torture Macron by joining the left in their no confidence vote.
From what I know of Marine, there’s a bit of Trump about her. Shrewd lady. I’d watch what she does rather than listen to what she says. She has a shot at power. If she gets it, she’ll want to keep it. And I doubt she’ll have any illusions about the state of the French economy. So expect her to do what’s necessary to rescue it. Unlike Mélenchon’s left, she isn’t the slightest bit economically ideological.
Unlike Mélenchon’s left, she isn’t the slightest bit economically ideological.
Well, if we believe the RN manifesto (yeah, right!) she wants to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy. But that could well be a ruse to get some of the discontented Left to vote for her party.
Raise this point because he never seems to think of consequences.
His mob never do, do they? Which is why their great moral plans always come disastrously to nought.
bis,
By 2nd fiddle I meant she doesn’t have the largest group in parliament. I agree she’s a very shrewd operator which is why she didn’t put down the motion of no confidence but only supported it, all the headlines went to Mélenchon and he’s starting to lose support from the soft left.
@CR
I had pretty good connections with FN. my ex’s father was FN in Marseilles. politics. And the department I lived in was strong FN then NR. Posters everywhere ( unvandalised!) FN (& presumably RN) were never economically idealogical. Nearest thing would be poujardist. Which was a party of small shopkeepers. So small business favourable with a touch of protectionist? NF always attracted the individual rather than the unionist. The French were always touchy about foreigners. All of them. So anti-immigrant doesn’t signify much
“government spending is what creates money”
No it doesn’t. Apparently there are no checks, no bank notes, no IOUs. No bonds.
There is no beginning to his knowledge. I suppose that’s been said before.
Richard Murphy says:
December 7 2024 at 1:08 pm
Who knows?
They might come for me one day.”
With a straitjacket.
Ah yes… Spud championing Democracy… As long as he constitutes the “Demos”….
Last month we had a holiday in La France Profonde, ending up in Port-sur-Saône, a commune of 3,000 souls in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. Down by the river we saw a couple of houses draped with printed banners about 10mx2m (so clearly not home made) reading; No more immigrants – France for the French – keep our French culture.
One might note that government spending is an increase in demand not supply.
So government spending inevitably makes you poorer.
@ Van Patten
You very rarely say something stupid but if you think Starmer is worse than Harold Wilson, then your memory is failing (or maybe non-existent if you are too young to remember 1964-79)
M – yes, that sums him up!
A ridiculously simplistic person with no real knowledge of finance, giving advice from the depth of his ignorance to fools that follow him. I wonder how many idiots have followed his advice and impoverishes themselves from it.
The fool should be banned – he’s a danger to sense.
Potato logic is best avoided.