I have just noticed that I posted my 15,000th blog post yesterday. Given that this blog began in June 2006 that means I have posted, assuming they were evenly spaced, 1,250 times a year or about 3.45 times a day over nearly twelve years, assuming I blogged 365 days a year (which even I do not do).
There have been 14.64 million reads in that period; 2.5 million of them in the last year.
So why have I done this? Simply to try to effect change in a way that I believed was within my ability day in, day out.
The most persistent goal has been to make the world a fairer place where greater equality leads to better opportunity and self-esteem for the vast majority of people.
Tax has been a persistent theme. But so too have economics, politics (whilst never supporting one party), the NHS, accounting and other themes intruded, often. The blog reflects some of my own eclectic interests and concerns.
There have been successes. The tax laws of the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey were changed by this blog.
Country-by-country reporting may have happened without it, but I suspect not the way it did.
The Green New Deal found a home here.
An anti-austerity narrative built on beating the tax gap was created here.
People's QE and Corbynomics started here.
Now it influences MMT debate.
The U.K. general anti-abuse rule in all likelihood owes its origin to discussion here.
The Google Tax story happened as a result of my blogging. My engagement in other similar stories arose for the same reason.
So there have been successes but the failures should be noted too.
Tax havens persist.
There is no wealth tax.
LVT is a dream.
The UK looks much more like a tax haven than it did.
HMRC has been denuded of resources.
Austerity continues.
MMT is but a dream even though the case for it is overwhelming.
Democracy is at risk.
The NHS is imperilled by political hostility to common care.
Racism is now rampant.
Brexit is tearing this country apart and it will get much worse.
The accountancy profession still fails daily to deliver meaningful information.
CBCR is not public yet.
There is, then, much to fight for and new ideas to develop.
I might be 60 but I am not retiring for a long time to come.
Here's to the next 15,000.
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“There have been successes. The tax laws of the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey (and Sodor) were changed by this blog. 🙂
“MMT is but a dream even though the case for it is overwhelming.”
Not so. MMT is the reality.
The acceptance and appropriate implementation is the dream.
My warmest congratulations. Such achievement deserves an award such as in the New Year’s Honours. I very much doubt you will get one, which says a lot. But it’s not why you do it.
I make a much more modest contribution in my field and the reward is worth more than any gong.
I never sought a gong
And to be candid don’t think I would accept one if offered
Well, maybe a cross bench peerage I’d think about
But I could not be sure
The rest, forget it
the work becomes its own reward and is stored where there is no chance of theft
Agreed
Congratulations! It’s a formidable achievement by any standards, more especially considering you have a day job and multiple other commitments. So, thanks for your inspiration, education, persistence and patience!
All too often change is disappointingly slow but “a journey of a 1000 miles ……”. May you find the energy to continue the march for many more years to come.
Barista, una tazza del tuo miglior caffè colombiano per signor Murphy!
Gracia!
Serendipity offers you this:
The only real difference between enthusiasts and sceptics is a time frame […] but a century from now nobody will care about how long it took, only what happened next.
(Gary Marcus) – who he ?
Doesn’t really matter if it’s true. Intellectual property is theft. Nobody ever had an idea in isolation.
Agreed, wholeheartedly!
Congratulations, Richard. Not just for the posts, but for establishing and nurturing an essentially civilized forum in a social media that is subject not just to intolerance, mindless hysteria and gross insincerity masquerading as comment, but the scourge of trolling, and what often seems to me, like organised trolling; this is a relative rarity. Thank you for the generally calm and thoughtful (and at times even good humoured) atmosphere.
Thanks
It takes effort
But let me thank all who contribute so constructively
Nevertheless; even ensuring the troll-free, civilised environment here, I imagine requires a firm, sure and steady hand on the tiller (or whatever is used for a tiller in railway engines).
Regulator
I trust everyone is now stumped!
It just had to be …….!
“stumped” ??
Are we being ferequinoxial here ? Or fereqinological or some thing like that ?
I mean I reckon a 2-6-4 is an entry in a score book not a wheel pattern.
And I hope I was batting not bowling when it was entered.
You couldn’t make it up. Well, speaking ferroequinologically, you couldn’t.
I’d like to echo JSW’s congratulations to Richard and endorse his views of this blogsite’s many virtues, but I’d also like to add an additional virtue that I’ve benefitted from. Richard has managed the apparently impossible and kindled in me an interest in economics that I would have laughed out of court a couple of years ago. During my accountancy apprenticeship in the distant past I loathed the subject and just managed to scrape a pass in the exams with great relief, knowing that I’d probably never need to re-engage with economics in my career.
Stumbling on this blog in retirement, my curiosity was aroused by the informed discussions about MMT in particular and suddenly I was interested in economics. In particular, it’s improved my understanding of how economics and politics inter-relate, how few politicians appear to have a decent grasp of economics and especially how dogma has shaped national and international economic policy. So, take a bow, Richard!
Thank you
Remember I write most of this stuff to work it out for myself
I appreciate that others think it’s useful
Thanks Ken
“I appreciate that others think it’s useful”
It is.
Thank you for your efforts. I first read about MMT in a book edited by Mariana Mazucato (sorry about the spelling) discovered your blog shortly afterwards and have been reading it regularly for about a year now. I consider it essential daily reading and feel I now know much more about what is going on. I can’t help thinking that Dennis Healey could have avoided calling in the IMF in 1977 if he had known what power he actually had. Am I right there?
You are right
But back then no one had really worked this out
Bravo! A determined and consistent effort, with results as you note…
I discovered your blog a couple of months ago, so happy to have found it, even went and bought the Joy of Tax. Please don’t stop.
Congratulations, Mr Murphy, on your 15,000th post on your “most excellent adventure” of a blog.
I don’t believe in god, but if he/she/it exists, then truly do they move in mysterious ways. I discovered your blog purely by mistake. I was in fact trying to re-access another blog (also discovered by accident) by an ex-diplomat who ran off with a belly dancer in Uzbekistan. But I didn’t remember his name properly. I miss-typed in Raigh Murphy instead of Craig Murry!!!!
And up popped your blog instead. So I clicked on it anyway…. Why not?
I was bemused/confused/intrigued, in equal measure, by your posts from the get go. Like Colin Peel above, I too have bought your ‘Joy of Tax.’ I’m slowly but surely beginning to click it. I’m on my second reading…. I am nothing if not determined!
I check out your blog every day. I’m no economist, but love your blog anyway. It’s serious food for thought. Much needed ‘food thought’ for an economics anorexic (metaphorically speaking) such as myself.
Many thanks for that. Please accept a cyber kiss of both congrats & thanks X
Thank you
X
What a lovely response, Sandra Harvey.
And how refreshing after a Friday night on the ‘Sensible Debate’ Facebook page where much of the exchange is moronic and argumentative.
I found the site largely by accident. Enjoy.
It’s good ‘ere.
Mr Murphy
This Blog is a major achievement.
Thank you so much.
I count myself as very lucky that I “have access to” and can learn from you on a daily basis.
The constant reiterations of ideas are a great way to embed new ways of thinking.
Keep the posts coming.
Thank you
I am not sure I would know, fitness permitting, how to stop the posts coming
Congratulations!
You have achieved much, and will continue to bring honesty,ethics and clarification to economics and political debates.
I came across your blog while browsing Twitter, your short comments and posts were clear and to the point. I thought I’d like to learn more about economics, which always interested me but time was an issue while I was still working and I could not find enough neurones left in my brain to read on “heavy” subjects outside of work.
Well, I’m glad to say that among other achievements, you have helped re-establish my neurone connections. Thank you for all you do, you’re a formidable thinker and doer, keep at it!
Formidable, I doubt
But I sure as heck do it!
Thanks
Many thanks for your blog. I have found it incredibly enlightening.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks
I’m also a daily reader of your blog. It has inspired me to learn about and share the need for MMT with ordinary folk like myself. But there’s so much more than that.
I like the knowledgeable contributions from others on here, your humor in closing down trolls is a shear delight. My favorite (so far) “if you were invited to a dinner party you might be considered to be an expert.” Any stage comedian would be proud of that response!
Thank you Prof Murphy for giving us knowledge to fight the manufactured ignorance that is so prevalent in the mainstream press and political circles, in the UK.
I look forward to the next 15,000 too and heart felt congratulations on your massive achievements so far
Thanks
Thank you Richard, for your abundance of blogs. There are some I understand fully and others that go over my head – and then there are the ones in between. All good. The comments too.
Funnily enough, in my everyday life, I have almost zero interest in economics, tax, or anything money related. It’s probably the relationship of it to the well-being of society that interests me about your blog.
In any case, I’m looking forward to the next 15,000. Keep them going.
Thanks
Congratulations and thanks Richard. My only regret is not finding your blog earlier, i.e. well before September 2014. Thanks also to your many excellent contributors.
To hack a well known saying – “keep going , and thanks for all the fish”!
Fish?
Thanks for all the fish.
Hitch hikers guide to the universe ? I think.
Ok
Cottoned on….
Brain nourishment!
(Dolphins to humans as they left just before the Earth was destroyed in The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy: “So long, and thanks for all the fish” – suggesting dolphins are a more intelligent species.)
And in at least 11,000 of those you’ve predicted a collapse of neoliberal economics and an economic recession for the UK.
We’re still waiting………
Not for long
Your exaggeration somewhat destroys your own credibility
Congratulations and thanks indeed! Like several others I discovered your blog by accident, can’t remember how. Since my retirement it as been a source of information and education. Thanks to all the excellent contributors too, the constructive ones that is.
Just keep up the great work, I really don’t know how you do it.
Thanks again.
John
It’s s8mple
I wake up and blog
I confess, often starting in bed
Richard