The government has suggested that local authorities should 'share the financial burden' of coronavirus with the Westminster government. They have admittedly allocated an additional some of £1.6 billion: in the sum of things this might technically be described as 'an insignificant amount'. It is, after all, just £24 a person in the UK.
I admired this response to this crisis from the leader of Gateshead council that has been sent to me. It is an appropriate response. If it has been written in the context of modern monetary theory, saying that central government can create the money to pay for this as it is the controller of the central bank and the local authority is not, it would have been even better, but it's still good:
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Typo in the last sentence
Organising the local population to provide services does not have to cost £s
In the past, before charity become “Profession”, When a local community needed something done, it went and did it! Stuff got done. It is only in the last few decades that economists have managed to monetise everything, and in the process, hidden available resources behind a “Paywall”.
My self-sufficient community in Norfolk is planting stuff, building stuff and sharing stuff, currently without even any accounting.
Over 600,000 people have volunteered to help in the Corona crisis.
Are Economists, putting themselves and their invention £s and $s, between people, the problem?
Peter
Stop being ridiculous
Charity used to be the preserve of the entire wealthy
Those who work for a living cannot also do much charity
And your community is ridiculous – wait until someone needs an operation and then see how self sufficient they are
Richard
Ultimately it will be the LAs that deliver the “solutions” needed to move away from lock-down. Over 10 years the LAs have been stripped to the bone with respect to funding – which has had a knock-on effect on capacity to deliver (anything). Unfortunately, the tories have a tin-ear (& a tin-brain) when it comes to cause-effect and indeed, accepting that it was/is their policies that have led the Uk to it’s current situation. No substantive support for the LAs – very difficult to move away from lock-down, no move away from lock-down – no economy.
Here in Belgium there is a noticeable increase in traffic as the building trade (& others) get back into gear). If the Uk does not get a grip, fast, then ……..??? I’d hazard a guess at no UK. Something has to give.
This the most spellbindingly stupid thing I have ever heard in my life.
We agreed that this could happen – and this proves what is going in their tiny Tory minds.
If the Tories try this, I’m telling you now that we are going to have to face up to marching on London and Parliament itself and sorting this out once and for all the hard way.
This will simply NOT do. It’s treating the monetary system as a closed loop.
If that were the case, we would have left the banks to fail in 2008. We didn’t. I bet we haven’t even spent anywhere near the liquidity we pumped into the banks then and afterwards on Covid-19 yet.
If we stand for this, then God help us.
What is Government for, if it is not to sort out things like this for its people?
Agreed
Last week’s copy of The Economist magazine spells it out – with reference to “the fiscal squeeze that will inevitably follow the splurge in spending driven by the pandemic”. They don’t say whether this inevitability is due to adherence to the religious cult of Monetarism, or just to economic illiteracy on the part of government. But inevitable they believe it is. And this is a magazine read by the people at the top. Indeed, it has a full page article by Mark Carney!
All the evidence points to a doubling down on austerity as soon as the government can see the way forward. Some of the old favourites are putting their oars in;
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-20/architect-of-u-k-austerity-says-retrenchment-needed-post-crisis
And let’s face it, an end to austerity was firmly rejected by the voters last December.
I am fighting back already
Excellent letter – perhaps they should ask if, as tax collectors, and as a way of changing the narrative, the government really wants them to create their own local money instead?