Last summer the cornerstone of Corbynomics was People's Quantitative Easing.
That was pretty illogical at the time, and I say that as the person who created the idea in the form described as green quantitative easing. I had no choice as a result but explain last summer that the commitment was for a future crisis when emergency action was needed to dig the economy out of a hole, which was what PQE was designed for. We did not have that in the summer of 2015 so I offered the excuse, in all sincerity but also to dig Andrew Fisher, who had used the idea for Jeremy Corbyn's economics manifesto in a straight lift from my work, out of the hole he had got himself into.
Today the country is in a hole.
The Bank of England wants to boost the economy and is going to pump money into making the wealthy wealthier again through conventional QE. It's even going to do some QE with commercial debt. But People's QE did not get a look in.
And what of Labour's commitment to People's QE through a national investment (all of it outlined in the Green New Deal and my book The Courageous State) which was the big original idea in Corbynomics? According to the Guardian Jeremy Corbyn said:
it would be better to borrow because interest rates are so low than go for the “people's quantitative easing” plan advocated by Corbyn in his last leadership election.
So, no commitment from him to debt constraint.
No commitment either to making sure that government debt is not simply a boost for private wealth.
And definitely no attempt to cut banks out of the funding mix to constrain the City of London.
No, nothing like that at all.
Just the same as ever relationship of fear between Labour and the bond dealers. It's as if Gordon Brown is riding again.
All that really is, to put it mildly, incomprehensible barring one thing, which is Jeremy Corbyn can't now admit it was a good idea all along. He'd rather abandon Labour principles and support the City than do that.
It's very sad to see.
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I am wondering if you have actually spoken to Mr Corbyn personally? Or,did you speak to John McDonnell?
Or, is your opinion based on the Guardian?
I am most interested to know please
I last had discussion with them in late May
The quote from The Guardian is clearly not a quote from Corbyn, yet you present it as such.
It is based on what he said
I trust Guardian journalists
If you are shocked by that I am truly sorry for you
I wonder if PQE wouldn’t be very risky if we have a rise in inflation after the latest bank rate cut.
We need inflation
Why is pqe dangerous in that case?
I had an opportunity to speak directly to Jeremy Corbyn last night after the Cardiff hustings. I asked him if was in favour of the BoE using the £60bn QE to buy newly created government bonds to fund investment. Answer: Yes. Don’t always believe what you read in the press.
So why has he specifically said he has no intention of repeating the exercise?
Because he has
Do you have a quote to this effect? As you frequently state he isn’t an economics guy, perhaps the way the question was framed led him to a misunderstanding about what was being proposed.
To that end I do think ‘People’s Quantitative Easing’ is a lousy piece of phraseology, because it carries the very negative baggage associated with the existing QE scheme. Why not something straightforward and simple which does what it says on the proverbial tin?
The Infrastructure Fund
The National Investment Fund
The Social Investment Fund
I’m sure I heard JC say as much on one of the many recordings of him speaking recently.
It would help if he know what he was saying so he might be consistent then
It’s bad enough having one trump in the world
Richard – in your article you suggest that Corbyn said:
“it would be better to borrow because interest rates are so low than go for the “people’s quantitative easing” plan advocated by Corbyn in his last leadership election.”
Not so it would seem.. this the Guardian quoting a Radio 4 interview with John McDonnell – *not* Corbyn.
However I take your point – and clearly we need some clarification of this. There is a manifesto commitment by him to invest £500bn but little on any detail. It makes a difference and we need to lobby McDonnell and Corbyn to make sure that this *is* going to be QPE and not borrowing.