If the popular political narrative was to be believed then the national debt would rank high on the list of threats to our well being. It is apparently the 'burden to be repaid that we will pass to our grandchildren', which given that its average age is about 14 years means they're going to have to get pretty busy very soon.
Alternatively, that claim is false, as are many of the other claims made about the national debt. and although modern monetary theory makes clear that a government need not borrow, I think there are still good reasons why it might. And that's because the national debt has a valuable role to play in the economy. In this video I explain why:
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[…] morning's video addresses some o these […]
I have watched all your videos and they play a crucial role in helping people understand the realities of money. I found this video on the virtues of the National Debt very illuminating. Keep them coming
Ten more being made this morning
Another great addition to the growing collection of videos on your You Tube channel Richard. I have now created another channel of my own (JiMMT) which just uses imports from your channel (and other material I come across) to create a playlist with the idea of using this as the basis for a local discussion group about MMT. I am approaching local groups such as Yes Bute and local XR and Black Lives Matter as well as other people I know, to try and get a discussion going and get people interested in and to understand MMT and its importance for creating the kind of society these groups aspire to. What I plan to do once I have a number of interested people is screen the videos on the playlist and use them to generate the discussion and the questions. Finger crossed!
Good luck
It is not debt that will be a burden in coming years, it is carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Not just a burden, but a series of physical and FINANCIAL catastrophes … *unless* we stop burning fossil fuels — not just ‘reduce a bit’, STOP.
David Wallace-Wells shows (RSA Animate 4 minutes 33 seconds ) how the carbon we’ve released into the atmosphere in the last 25 years has taken us to the brink of climate catastrophe. https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/rsa-animate/rsa-minimate/2020/climate-change-future-humanity
Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester reports that the first IPCC report came out in 1990. In 2016, emissions were 60% higher than in 1990. CO2 emissions are still rising. In 2017 emissions went up by 2%.
“So what we’ve had is 27 to 28 years of abject failure on climate change,” Anderson comments. “We have actively chosen to fail. And why we’ve failed? We’ve had a litany of technocratic frauds.”
“The Paris Agreement commits us to ‘zero-carbon in our time’”, Anderson says. The Paris Agreement commits us to take action to, “hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C … to undertake rapid reductions in accordance with the best science … on the basis of equity”
“No country in the world, including the UK, takes any notice of the equity dimension at the moment,” Anderson adds.
He points out that 2°C is a global average, and that 2°C is not safe, which is why poorer parts of the world ask for 1.5°C.
“At 2°C, many people will die. They will be poor. They will be a long way from here. They’ll have almost no role in actually causing the problem. And they’ll typically be non-white. But they will die. And we’ve known that for the last 25 years. And we’ve known everything we need to about climate change to act. So we have deliberately carried on our lifestyles knowing that’s the case.”
https://redd-monitor.org/2019/09/05/nature-cannot-be-fooled-kevin-anderson-on-mitigation-as-if-climate-mattered/
Agreed
My work in sustainable cost accounting us continuing
Richard, Thanks for your explanation.
For my own peace of mind ,I thought of it as follows
National debt is a clumsy term to describe , what in effect , is an accounting explanation
It describes a balancing set of items in the Govt.s accounts to , well, ” balance” the collection of
the various saving accounts in the private sector’s investing in UK Govt.
Not easy to give a flavour to it. is it ?
It is a virtually meaningless number as a liability – because no one really thinks it’s going to be paid, for start
So to nail it
Is it a real debt –meaningless or not –
or
Is it just a Balance Sheet ” balancing ” figure?
Your answer would really help me to understand it more- & spread the word- more convincingly
It’s a savings account and in theory that means it’s a sum repaid to the depositors
It’s just that the chance that they’ll claim it is remote in the extreme
I understand that cash, pound notes and coins, are included in the debt. I am sure that people will not want to give these back to the government.
Fascinating. For me, it was realising what the other side of the equation is that helped in understanding what the national debt is.
Really enjoying the videos produced so far.
Regards,
Craig
Twenty more have now been recorded…..
“Twenty more have now been recorded…..”
How many are watching?
You can see the views on YouTube
But that does not include those who watch from here, Brave New Europe and elsewhere