Peter May got to this issue quicker than I did yesterday. Peter writes regularly on the a Progressive Pulse blog that I publish. He said yesterday:
Nick Macpherson, former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury has tweeted:
Writing off NHS trust debt only justifiable if correlated with high pressure areas, eg London. Otherwise an inefficient way of addressing resource constraints. Of course, it adds another 0.7% to national debt/national income ratio. This crisis is becoming expensive. #soundmoney
Which comment is, as many will detect, complete junk.
Firstly ‘#Soundmoney' is sound just so long as government creates it — so there's no problem there then. If government is writing it off that is absolutely inherent in its ability to create it in the first place….
In the end the NHS' supposed debt is a result of insufficient finance in the first place and as we are now realising, finance is created by government.
Debt is a control, long used by banks of course, but for the last 40 years or so governments, so often influenced by, and even made up of bankers, have used the same technique: debt gives the creditor control — specious though it always is.
The technique is to slice and dice what government itself is in charge of and then arrange the system so as to suggest that a previously unenvisioned debt to another pseudo governemtal agency means that you cannot have what you need.
That Hancock, not as a Treasury Minister, but Health Secretary, is writing off this debt, at a stroke, he has, I suggest, exposed the chirade of any debt at all.
Debt is, in short, a preferred weapon of control.
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I would add one thing: nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of student debt. That's another issue where a write-off is now required as well.
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Would student loans be as offensive if the funding system stayed exactly the same, but it was labelled a “graduate tax”?
Yes
Completely so
In that case why not a nursery tax?
And a SAT level 2 tax?
Or a GCSE tax?
Or an NHS tax?
Or even a prison user’s tax?
Why?
Well i remember just before the 1997 general election the tories were talking about giving loans to parents to found education from nursery to 18, at the time it suggested £400,000 per child or family i am not sure but it was considerable amount. i wateched on granada reports in the north west.
Writing off student loans sounds great for me!!..can we write off my mortgage too?
Why?
You have the private asset
A student’s education is a common good
“A student’s education is a common good”
Well yes if they study something which helps society i.e medicine or scientific research etc
But how does 10s of 1000s of humanities graduates help the common good? What it does is give them three years of getting pissed, loads of sport, sleeping in and cramming at the end of term. I know I’ve done it its great fun!! Would be great if the cost of all that could be written off. A definite vote winner (though for entirely selfish reasons)
I despair….
Please don’t call again if you are so small minded
“i despair”
I don’t blame you one bit but its bang on the truth..university is a fun 3yrs before having to enter the big bad world.Unless you do a “real” degree at a “proper” Uni.. a Student loan is a pain but it would be brilliant if written off
Your comments would be fine on the Daily Mail
This is not the Daily Mail, thankfully
And note, Peter’s quote comes from ‘Nick McPherson former Permanent Secretary at the Treasury’.
And by his own writing he has no idea that the NHS ‘debt’ was no debt at all – as you explained repeatedly elsewhere – and I assume, therefore, also little idea of how money is actually created.
As progressives we rightly complain about politicians of the right who use ideology to mask the real nature of money and government debt so they can promote and deliver other, ideological, agendas – such as austerity after the 2008 financial crisis. But what Peter’s blog graphically illustrates is that there are very influential people within the Civil Service, who we seldom hear about, who are also central to the maintenance of dangerous and malign ‘myths’ and half-truths about the whole subject of the creation of money, the/a government role in that process, and wider issues regarding debt and fiscal and monetary policy.
I have met the man once…I was not impressed, at all
It’s amazing how these old Etonians effortlessly rise to the top, a bit like scum in Grover Norquist’s Bathtub (See: http://www.progressivepulse.org) – you would almost think the system was rigged.
The idea of the NHS owing money to government which creates it is so absurd “the mind is repelled.”
Another of Macpherson’s tweets explained that Treasury control (of the NHS) was necessary otherwise they would just “spend, spend, spend and, ….the taxpayer would pick up the bill.”
If this is typical of the “Treasury View” and the kind of thinking that passes for economics in that institution then it’s long past time for a clear out.
Control yes.
But also control using fear Richard – David Graeber points this out in his book ‘Debt – the First 5000 Years’ – the fear of violence – whether personal or in society.
All societies have the threat of violence at their core. It’s what holds them together.
Laws, for better or worse, are ultimately enforced by the threat of violence. If you don’t follow the rules, you go to prison. If you don’t go willingly, then you will be restrained and dragged there.
The problem is, who makes the Laws?
(Graeber is an anarchist.)
Just listening to Russell Napier..Says Inflation with be with us for 20,30,40 years
https://moneyweek.com/economy/global-economy/601106/the-moneyweek-podcast-russell-napier-how-much-debt-is-too-much
Money Week is the land of gold standard nut cases
The equivalent of the flat earth society
I don’t know money week but Russell Napier isn’t one of their journalists, he’s a very experienced economist / strategist.. got decent credibility
Have you listened to it?
No
I can’t be bothered to read or listen to anything Money Week produces