Ragging on Ritchie

The thing about all this, which I am sure that others know all too well, but which I am now experiencing on a personal basis for the first time, rather than as an observer, is that urgent does, in the case of the NHS, have a very different meaning to that which it has in any other context. It implies a need for speed and conveys a sense of stress, neither of which is reflected in the actions taken.

What I am also discovering is that the NHS is excellent at sending information without explanation, whilst providing no opportunity to ask the most basic questions to secure understanding.

But of course that is not what Spud will conclude now, is it?

It would be all too possible in this circumstance to blame the NHS and state care, but I am not persuaded that that is appropriate. I think the depersonalisation of what is described as care, but which should properly be described as process, is deliberate and is a consequence of the medical-industrial complex.

Nope, he ain’t, is he?

The reality is that, at present, UK pension funds enjoy overall tax relief worth more than £70 billion a year, making the cost of this subsidy one of the government’s largest expenditures in any year,

People saving for their pensions gain a tax deferral. The pension funds don’t gain that tax benefit. The savers do.

As tellingly, the framing around support for Israel is significant: this reveals the real issue in US politics, which is whether the US should be a sovereign state, or one run for rhe the benefit of Benjamin Netanyahu’s factions in Israel.

Spud’s never less than fashionable now, is he?

Restore Britain scarcely acknowledges that history. Instead, it assumes that Britain’s current problems arise because government has become too large. That is the central proposition on which everything else in the paper depends. Cut spending. Cut taxes. Reduce regulation. Withdraw the state. And, it claims, prosperity will follow. That is an extraordinarily simple view of how an economy works.

Works for me.

Our YouTube traffic in July was only around 1.1 million views, when at present something closer to 2 million is more commonplace,

A quick look at ad rates for creators says $1 to $5 per 000. It would surprise if Spud were at the top end of that.

£1500 a month income?
£3,000? Out of which he’s got to pay the staff?

The aim of the day is not to deliver a series of lectures, but to offer an opportunity for discussion, chaired by John Christensen, with me introducing each theme. Each session will then be open to Q&A, discussion, and a focus on finding solutions to the problems our economy and society face.

Discussion, eh?

This meeting is not about defining the issues, as the meeting we held in Cambridge earlier this year was.

How Trotskyist. Anyone who ever did student politics knows this one. No, sorry, we cannot discuss this issue, that was at the last meeting….

The madness of SpaceX
Posted on August 3 2026

Do you remember all the hype about the SpaceX share offering and how maybe 100,000 people in the UK struggled to buy shares on launch day?

I suspect they are regretting their enthusiasm now.

Y’know how Spud is adamant that stock markets are just trading in second hand pieces of paper? How they never do raise new money for anything?

SpaceX raised $87.5 billion – with a b – at its IPO. New capital raised on a stock market. Bad thing apparently.

It is easy to feel powerless when politics is failing, inequality is growing,

Inequality is not growing. So, you know.

To do so, I look at why millions of graduates in India cannot find work,

Because they sent million upon million to third rate universities with fourth rate teaching staff?

The rate is staying fixed for now, but three of the nine members wanted an increase, apparently thinking that inflation caused by oil price increases, in turn caused by war, represent excess demand in the UK economy that they must stamp out with an interest rate rise, when the exact opposite is true: the inflation is a sign of shrinking demand in the eocnomy as spending power is shifting to oil and we need a rate cut as a result.

By simply ignoring everything about a subject.

The policy relevant inflation rate is the core one, the one without fuel prices. Therefore the MPC looks at inflation *without* fuel prices to see whether they should change rates and in which direction. They specifically, and deliberately, exclude the very thing Spud is wibbling about.

Sigh.

In this video, I look at the evidence on lifespan and healthy lifespan, explain why they are diverging, and ask what is driving the trend. Poverty, insecure work, poor housing, ultra-processed food, excessive reliance on medication and growing inequality all play a part. Unless we tackle those underlying causes, social care costs will continue to rise.

Memory giant Sandisk — which fell 11 per cent on Monday — plunged more than 13 per cent on Tuesday. The stock has lost more than 50 per cent of its value this month, but nevertheless remains more than four times higher since the start of 2026.

There is no logic to any of that.

And we are told markets should be relied upon and that they know the answers to all questions.

If there is one thing I know for sure, it is that they don’t.

AI uses lots of momery, memory prices rise, makers of memory rise as their profits soar – their production costs have not gone up, only their selling prices.

Then, some time later, we find out that maybe AI isn’t going to be quite the thing we thought it was going to be. Thus memory prices, the margins of memory makers, might fall. Moemry maker prices fall.

Prices in markets have reacted, twice, to new knowledge about what prices should be. This is proof that markets don’t know? Rilly?

Let me then suggest a better tax, if we do want a progressive consumption tax, which I happen to think might be desirable.

I’ve described this alternative on a number of occasions. It is a financial transactions tax on all financial flows through UK-based bank accounts,

A financial transactions tax is not a consumption tax. For it’s a tax on financial transactions, not on consumption. Obviously.

Anyway, institute that and gaze in wonder as cash usage soars.

And I can sympathise with the pressures as well. It is stressful being under constant scrutiny. That is particularly true in my case because I choose to read my below-the-line comments. I am aware that most of the time these are helpful, add value, and are appreciated by others. That is why I try to provide the relatively secure space that this blog makes available, which in itself is unusual. I do that by quite deliberately getting rid of commentators who appear here quite regularly who are rude, offensive, or just have the apparent intent of wasting my time. In part, that is because I wish to create a place for others to comment, but it is also about surviving the process of blog publishing. Constant attacks do have an impact. Whoever first said that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me totally misunderstood reality. Words can hurt, and sometimes they do. I have developed a thick skin, but not impermeability.

So, apparently, are facts, knowledge and logic. That’s why they’re not allowed.

Zucman shows no understanding of the role of tax in the economy.

John Bates Clark Gold Medal winner there. Sure, I disagree with him too but at least I know why.

If debt must be repayable in local currency then – and therefore – there need be no debt. For the local government can just print more money without having to take out the debt at all.

Spud’s just solved development financing!

Their whole identity is wrapped up in the falsehood they have spent their lives promoting. They are totally invested in the household analogy, the belief that money is an exogenous variable within the economy, and not an endogenous one that governments can control, and if they accepted the truth, the whole of their reality – as they perceive it – would collapse.

Monetarism was the idea that money could be controlled by government. But monetarism is wrong according to Spud.

John Healey began his first speech as Chancellor by making four big claims.

He said:

fiscal control is the first duty of any Chancellor,
fiscal credibility delivers economic stability,
fiscal credibility creates growth, and
growth delivers national security.
Those ideas sound reassuring, but what if every one of them is wrong?

In this video, I explain why those four assumptions have already failed Britain before and why, if John Healey governs on the basis of them, he is likely to fail as Chancellor as well.

I argue that:

putting fiscal control ahead of outcomes means confusing accounting with economic management.

The whole point of MMT is that it uses fiscal control over inflation, not monetary policy. Yet leading MMT Guru insists fiscal control is a bad idea.

The opening claim was that fiscal control is the first duty of a Chancellor. The obvious question to ask is, why? That is not a rhetorical question. Instead, it is because I think that a Chancellor’s first responsibility is to create a prosperous, resilient and fair economy.

After all, why should controlling the government’s finances be considered more important than maintaining full employment? Or ensuring the delivery of decent public services? Or tackling climate change? Or investing in the country’s future?

Managing the public finances is one of the tools available to achieve those objectives, but it cannot be the objective itself. Confusing an instrument of delivery with the purpose of activity has become one of the defining characteristics of Treasury thinking. And that confusion has consequences, because once fiscal control becomes the goal rather than the means, every other ambition the government might have is subordinated to it. To open your description of the job you plan to do with a category error is quite something, but Healey managed it.

So the Minister specifically there to do the fiscal bit – other ministers deliver public services etc – is not to do the fiscal bit job?

Seems odd.

Note that under MMT the Chancellor is still there to do the fiscal bit. Sure, spend away, then tax back to prevent the inflation. OK, someone still has to do that fiscal bit, right? The Chancellor…..

No one needs to play around to find £16 billion of potential spending capacity in UK fiscal rules. They just need to highlight the folly of such rules when the UK also has around £8 trillion of supposed financial wealth (and maybe more), most of whih is used for financial speculation. It could instead be used to fund constructive investment in ways I have outlined, many times.

You’ve got what I want to spend. Gimme.