This post is by my old friend and Green New Deal colleague, Colin Hines, who is convenor of the Green New Deal Group of which I am also a member. It was originally published by the Green Alliance.
Colin is well aware of modern monetary theory (MMT). He has heard far too much about it from me. But, he believes that the UK political scene is not ready for MMT as yet. There is a great deal of evidence to support that view: there is massive political reticence to embrace it right now, annoying as that is.
And simultaneously Colin is aware of two issues. The first is the enormity of the climate crisis. The second is the need to answer the question ‘how are we going to pay for the transition that we need?'
A decade ago Colin and I created the idea of green quantitative easing to answer that question. I had not heard of MMT at the time. But the proposal can be thought of as applied MMT. It's not quite the same. But it does address the same issues: it is about permitting deficits to fund essential public services in a way that does not create inflation, and (crucially) it also addresses the need for a mechanism to utilise the money created via central bank reserve account balance increases that neither standard QE or MMT addresses, in my opinion.
Pragmatically, developing QE in this way is likely to garner more political support than suggesting MMT, simply because QE is now known and accepted (unlike 2015, when it caused near hysteria in the Labour leadership election when Jeremy Corbyn used this idea as the basis of his economic appeal, only for John McDonnell to then abandon the idea). Hence, Colin's blog:
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Last year was certainly the ultimate grim “Events dear boy, events” year. On the brighter side, despite Covid having drained discussion away from most other issues, one of the gratifying exceptions was progress on the climate crisis. This was kept in the limelight throughout the year, albeit at an elite scientist, economist, NGO and concerned politician level, the pandemic having cleared the streets of the protestors who had so successfully dominated climate coverage in 2019.
On the less bright side was a return to attempts to soften up of the public for austerity mark two, led by the Chancellor Rishi Sunak. Indeed, this process has already begun with the introduction of social austerity, via the effective cuts in non-medical front line workers pay, and green austerity through the risible £4-8 billion promised for new measures to tackle the enormity of the climate crisis.
Also worrying was an increase in the ‘back to normal' fantasies, imagining that the economy will bounce back after the nationwide use of the vaccine and hence that emergency spending can be curtailed. This is despite the fact that huge job losses are expected in retailing and some hospitality sectors, not to mention the Brexit hit that may come for manufacturing and financial sector jobs.
To see these threats off will require the opposite of austerity and instead a massive reorientation of the economy towards a ‘jobs in every constituency' alternative, of face to face social provision and environmental infrastructure.
A new approach is needed to fund recovery
At the risk of falling into the trap of that old joke ‘How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans for the future', the way forward is clear. As Covid hopefully subsides throughout 2021, the priority must be to find the massive amount of upfront money to compensate for the adverse social and employment effects of the pandemic, whilst also tackling the climate crisis.
This will include paying for the hundreds of thousands of secure, adequately funded jobs needed to fill the shortfall of doctors, nurses, carers, teachers etc. In addition, there will be a need to tackle rising mental health problems, for extra face to face tuition for pupils adversely affected by school disruptions and personal interaction for the lonely, and to help those, particularly the elderly, excluded from so many services because of an inability to use digital technology.
Then, in the short and medium term, there are the massive financial inducements necessary to provide green jobs in every community. This will involve making all the UK's 30 million buildings energy efficient, as well as installing the national charging network required for the transition to electric only vehicles and the provision of high speed broadband for all areas.
Building back better without austerity
This trillion pound, decade long programme could predominantly be paid for by adapting the Bank of England's present quantitative easing programme into a transformative ‘build back better' initiative, funded by social and green quantitative easing. The advantage of such an approach is that such expenditure doesn't need to be paid back, and therefore avoids the need for austerity.
The message that opposition parties and activists need to ram home to the chancellor is that what needs addressing are our social and environmental deficits, not the budget deficit. As this approach gains momentum there could also be an increasing role for government borrowing at low interest rates, fairer taxation and the use of private savings.
There are potentially encouraging developments in the US and the EU whereby a similar potential for using quantitative easing may be used to fund climate action. The expertise of Janet Yellen, former chair of the US Federal Reserve and the next Treasury Secretary will be pivotal in securing the huge amounts of upfront money and swift action required. She should be able to persuade the Federal Reserve to contribute substantially to Joe Biden's $2 trillion climate plan. In the EU there have also been calls to use quantitative easing for its Green Deal plans, expected to need €1 trillion over the next ten years.
Such approaches would act as a positive exemplar for the world and hopefully could convince the UK to put a similar green job funding mechanism at the centre of its contribution to next November's climate conference in Glasgow.
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The shift in the allocation of our available resources as Colin suggests inevitably leaves less room for production of consumer goods and for sectoral inflation in consumer goods prices. This is what happens in a war economy.
The mechanism for addressing this risk is to promote savings by “government borrowing” – I think this would create a sovereign wealth fund. I also think this is what Keynes proposed FDR should do in the USA during the New Deal era when resources were directed to massive infrastructure development, and again later during WW2 when the US economy was put on a war footing. FDR didn’t do that but instead adopted interventionist policies to micro manage the economy through price controls, rationing etc. The US right attacked this approach and portrayed it as “socialism” at a time when the USSR was emerging from WW2 as a potential superpower rival. In this lay the seeds of McCarthyism in the 1950s.
What is being proposed is not what Keynes suggested re financing the war, but could be seen as a development of it. I need to do more on this
I don’t think Keynes proposed this as a means to finance either WW2 or the new deal but as a means to control inflation during a period of massive public investment.
And you think all these issues are independent?
Come on Jim, if you are going to be back here please demonstrate some joined up thinking
@ Jim,
You misunderstand the purpose of a Sovereign Wealth Fund. The countries who run them have, for one reason or another, more money than they know what to do with. Norway has huge exports of oil for example. The influx of money into Norway causes their currency, the krone, to be extremely expensive – as anyone who has visited Oslo in the last few years will appreciate. This causes their own conventional industries to become uncompetitive.
The Norwegian government needs to export as much capital as possible to keep their krone from becoming even more expensive. That where their SWF comes in.
The UK doesn’t suffer from quite the same problem of an overvalued currency.
There was no attempt on the part of the Roosevelt administration to create a ‘sovereign wealth fund’ in the U.S. during the Great Depression. Infrastructure projects were paid for as they proceeded, accompanied by what are now standard Treasury bond sales. The same thing was true during World War II. Rationing and price controls were used during World War II, but so was voluntary deferred consumption in the form of war bond sales. That was important, not just for anti-inflationary reasons, but for public morale as well. During the war the U.S. government did not impose involuntary deferred consumption, but otherwise it made use of all the anti-inflationary mechanisms suggested by Keynes in “How to Pay for the War” (1940).
For application of this line of approach to the climate crisis, see Yeva Nersisyan and L Randall Wray, “How to Pay for the Green New Deal” (2019) (http://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/how-to-pay-for-the-green-new-deal).
“Colin is well aware of modern monetary theory (MMT). He has heard far too much about it from me. But, he believes that the UK political scene is not ready for MMT as yet.”
This is an interesting statement by Colin. I’ve just read it after reading a comment on a Guardian article on the United States by Jonathan Freeland the sub-title of which is “The most obvious corrective to conspiracy theories is the facts that people can see with their own eyes.” The commenter states the following:-
“Better education is the best remedy against conspiracy theorists. Most of the conspiracy theorists I’ve spoken with (argued on Facebook with) seem to have some difficulty in separating facts from opinions. They talk about the lies they have swallowed as offering an ‘alternative viewpoint’ “
The comment reinforces an argument I’ve tried to make here on Richard’s blog several times which as one of Britain’s main political parties the Labour Party should be leaders in helping educate the public how the country’s monetary system really works. Up in Scotland it ought to be the SNP. Colin Hines’s thinking amounts to nothing more than a woolly “which comes first the chicken or the egg” if you’ll forgive me mixing my metaphor!
I’ll be writing about this some more, sufficient for the moment though that even I until yesterday didn’t know that the Romans minimised tax in Italy by getting other countries in their empire to pay more. They masked it by calling it tribute. This has a direct parallel with most people in the UK believing it’s “a fact” the taxes they have to contribute pay for government goods and services because government has no money of its own.
The logic that follows on from “this opinion” is the nation has to pay interest on loans from private sector bankers in order to pay their taxes. This is clearly a form of tribute, “at another time and place” as they say, that non-Romans came to resent paying and probably helped lead to the fall of the Roman empire yet here in Britain it’s meekly accepted because most people don’t deal in “logic or facts” but the “opinion” of those with vested interests. Isn’t it the job of a political party that claims to be acting in the interests of the many to now start spelling “the facts” out?
https://www.elca.org/JLE/Articles/605
Helen
You know you are way ahead if the curve
Colin is nit in denial in MMT
Green QE is also far from conventional QE
But the point is that when Labour and the SNP do not do what we want, what do we do? Wail, or repackage?
The argument is repackage.
The climate crisis is too big to wait
Richard
But it’s not just climate crisis that’s important is it albeit that it’s top of the list?
No, it isn’t
But unless it’s tackled you can forget all the rest
And MMT is not top of the list
It helps us understand how things are done
It’s implicit in green QE and is the most likely route to something like MMT happening in this country
Something like will be good enough for me for now
I have never let purity get in my way when there is a bigger objective to achieve
Bill Mitchell might. I won’t
“MMT is not top of the list. It helps us understand how things are done. It’s implicit in green QE.”
Joe Biden takes a different approach which is likely to be the mainstream approach in many countries. This approach ignores MMT. I personally don’t think using Green QE bonds will do that much to put MMT on the map. I interpret it that you think differently and there we must leave it begging to differ.
https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/
If MMT has no hope, as yet (and I stress the as yet) I will go for what is possible.
I cannot wait for MMT to deliver climate change
That is all I am saying
For Labour to educate and inform the public on how government finance actually works, Labour first needs to understand it themselves.
Is there any evidence that the upper echelons of the Labour Party actually understand MMT?
None
But they might get QE
Helen, again, it’s fascinating to read about what you know on the history of money, and thanks for the link to the article (having had some interest & study in the Romans at Hadrian’s Wall and in Scotland, and it’s interesting to see it from another perspective. It has been postulated that the Romans failed to get a permanent foothold in Scotland because of the lack of infrastructure or money – that is, it was too expensive to have a permanent military presence, and would have cost too much to set up the administrations needed to collect taxes & govern, their usual method after military conquest. It never seems to be a popular hypothesis, but sounds perfectly reasonable to me.) (I’ve just realised, the Romans would have had to give everyone the money first before being able to collect the taxes! Haha, my study of Romans predates economical study).
Richard – on how to sell MMT: I was using this example recently to convince someone to not use known phrases and descriptions, if you want people to listen to the substance of a suggestion. Alex Salmond, on one of his RT shows, presented a discussion on ‘new economical thinking’ or similar – at no time did he mention MMT during the show. It’s took me a few days to work out, but it was quite a clever ploy – I had to listen to everything that was said before deciding what was new about their ideas. And getting people to listen is the first step to persuading people of the benefits of your proposal. So, I’m not suggesting making up any fab new name, but using generic terms and avoiding any known terms (MMT, QE etc), the effect is twofold:
1) people’s automatic prejudices are avoided, so they are more likely to listen and be open to the suggestions.
2) people have to listen first, before they can argue against any part of it – so they will then argue the substance, not give the standard set of already prepared replies.
You’ve said yourself you version of MMT isn’t quite the same as others? Make it a brand new economical model,,, not sure how you’d avoid saying ‘tax’ mind you, and there are plenty of pre-formed centuries-old judgements on them,,,
I’m still thinking about your solution to the missing £50 Billion in cash by the way, but with logistics, and people, it’s still not going in your favour – certainly not as a first step, or a standalone one, it needs to be part of a strategy (e.g. Reinstate public ownership post offices in every small settlement – they could take on the burden of exchange – but the cost, or is there will, to do that? Reinstating PO’s would help with trust in government too, and provide public services again in rural and deprived areas). Anyway, for another day, that one.
Thanks
And I have noted
I happen to be recording with Alex today
QE is possibly not the right term for what is being proposed. QE is the process of the central bank buying up bonds in the market to increase their price and so lower longer term interest rates.
It sounds like Green QE is a form of Monetary Financing which would involve the direct supply of money from the central bank to Government. It’s an additional step to QE. But I accept that in practice the end result may be much the same.
This is not to say that we should not take it but some caution is needed. If the Government has spent lots of money into the economy to keep it going during the Pandemic, and which has not yet been returned in taxes, there has been a build up in potential spending power. We could expect some overheating of the economy in the next year or two. Whether or not that happens will depend on the total spending levels in the economy. The level of private spending just as much as public spending. The Government isn’t in complete control.
We never pretended it was pure QE
But Boris it pure DMF either. The trick is in managing savings ratios. That’s not capital raising, mind you. It is savings management. But it does matter.
Under the heading New approach is needed to fund recovery, it is mentioned that it involves installing the national network required for transition to electric only vehicles.
We are all in danger of being totally misled by the car lobby.
If we are to get to carbon neutral, there must be a MASSIVE reduction of energy use, not only with investment in making buildings energy efficient, but also in energy efficient transport.
That is not electric cars and lorries. It will, by necessity have to be, walking, cycling, public transport and rail, electrically propelled.
That is where investment must go.
There are not enough resources in the world to make all the batteries necessary, See Natural History Museum Study –
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html
If that is not enough to think about, there will not be sufficient sustainably produced electricity for all those cars and lorries.
This is a subject that needs much more airing and study.
We must not be taken in by all the electric car adverts, put out by motor manufacturers, who are desperate to be allowed to carry on polluting us all.
Thank you for that report,fascinating and at the same time chilling
A move from personal to collective (zero-carbon) transport needs to occur (& I concur with your views that EVs are not, on their own the solution) – but until Uk transport systems look a bit like Vienna’s that won’t happen. As an Austrian friend remarked to me: you don’t need a car in Vienna. Also pollution cause by EVs in terms of tyre and brake pollution is very similar to that from ICEs-based vehicles.
Where I take issue is your comment: “If we are to get to carbon neutral, there must be a MASSIVE reduction of energy use, not only with investment in making buildings energy efficient, but also in energy efficient transport.”.
Running the numbers: EU uses around 18,000TWh of energy per year. Out of that & taking one example, the residential sector uses around 1000TWh of gas. You can reduce that by circa 50% (energy efficiency) – ta-da that’s 500TWh less – not even 3% of current demand. You can then do a 50/50 split heat-pumps and hydrogen – so you then need circa 300TWh of elec to produce the H2. Speaking of which: EU uses around 3000TWh of elec per year that is forecast to expand – probably 4000TWh by 2030 and more after that. Thing is: energy efficiency measures (transport and heating_ will only get you so far – probably down to 12, maybe 11,000TWh . There will be a reduction in energy use – maybe 30% & what is left will be electricity driven (renewables providing both elec directly and indriectly via H2).
Good news is the EU can generate just using on & off-shore wind around 25,000TWh per year – so nature has set no major limits in that area (PV – probably 10,000TWh). You can pro-rata for the Uk (well actually Scotland has the largest EU off-shore wind resource – so come independence you can be sure the red carpet will be rolled out for EU membership, if only for that reason.).
Mike Parr
You say….
“Good news is the EU can generate just using on & off-shore wind around 25,000TWh per year — so nature has set no major limits in that area (PV — probably 10,000TWh). You can pro-rata for the Uk (well actually Scotland has the largest EU off-shore wind resource — so come independence you can be sure the red carpet will be rolled out for EU membership, if only for that reason.).”
The link that David Lucas posted above shows that nature DOES set limits. In theory there is enough wind to power Europe, but as the analysis from The Natural History Museum shows, there is not enough raw materials to make the wind turbines. Plus they won’t last forever and will need replacing. It not a one off payment.
I come across lots of homes, in my work, that have gone ‘green”. I walk into “plant rooms” filled with air/ground source heat pumps, PV arrays, heat recovery systems etc, and laugh.
The energy produced may in part be “green’ but the equipment is anything but. It’s like the carbon footprint of the equipment is an “externality” that is kinda forgotten.
From the mining of the raw materials, transportation, refining into metals/plastics etc, manufacture of equipment and final transport and installation. Is the carbon footprint ever really calculated?
Does an old floor standing 60% efficient Ideal Mexico boiler, that will chug along for 30 years with very little to go wrong in it, have a bigger carbon footprint than an all bells and whistles condensing boiler that will need replacing after, say 12 years? (I just replaced one that lasted 5!) When you factor in all of the above inputs, which is actually best?
I still think the best option is to put on a jumper!
The conclusion I get to from reading the Natural History Museum findings is that we need to use less energy than we do now, not just try to maintain our present levels of consumption through a change in technology.
I have some sympathy with a comment here
Why do people think it’s appropriate to heat houses so that they can just wear T-shirts in winter?
David Lucas.
Thanks for the link. Very sobering, to say the least!!!
Reminds me of the conclusions of the documentary Planet of The Humans.
We can’t just switch to green tech and carry on as we have been. We need to drastically reduce what we all do.
The implications are far reaching but never really discussed. Even on this blog.
I get MMT. It makes perfect sense as and explanation of government finance, but I’m not sure how it fits into a zero growth economy.
It’s not that we need to have zero growth, we actually need to have a reduction in our activities. “Negative Growth”, if there is such a thing.
In such a scenario, the money supply would need to not grow. This has huge implications for government spending, tax and bonds. In such a situation a government would have to tax out, ALL its previous spending, if the money supply is to stay the same and not grow. If the money supply does grow but consumption does not, then there will be too much money chasing a fixed amount of stuff.
This is the real dilemma of Climate Change. Well………along with crop failures etc 🙂
I slightly disagree
We must do less in the sense of material consumption
But we can do so much more for each other
I agree that we all need to do more for eachother, but all human activity consumes stuff somewhere down the line.
Health and social care needs big investment, but it does use lots of resources. By its very nature, the NHS uses lots of single use stuff. It’s hard to see how it could not.
Even online activity uses resources. Those servers whirring away somewhere, being fuelled by a small power station. To increase our online actually, an increase in the hardware is needed, plus energy consumption.
I don’t know if it is true or not, but I’ve heard that one Google search requires the energy equivalent of boiling the water for a cup of tea.
I’m not sure what the activities are, that we can do, that will create growth, but not involve an increase in the consumption of stuff. Without that growth, the economy can not function in its present form.
I think it is right to pursue the GND as QE rather pure MMT – the public might be more aware of it and therefore find it more plausible but hopefully the message can also be got across that a GND helps EVERYONE (and more genuinely so) than the QE that got the irresponsible and corrupt off the hook 2008 and also inflated asset prices if I remember (not good if you didn’t have any or lost had them).
GND is neither Wall Street or ‘main street’ – its ALL streets.
MMT will have its day – and I hope I live long enough to see it.
Me too
But there are still lessons for MMT from this type of QE
At least, I think so.
I am working on it, on Saturday night.
Yes, undoubtedly there are lessons – for example how to actually get the money into the economy for a start – the QE into the banks may not have been the best way and would be nice to see a national bank with subsidiary allocative powers to work with the private sector/business start ups in order to really make the funds count.
Because it really has to this time.
Current batteries wear out with lithium batteries loosing 20% after 1,000 charges. For example how long does your mobile phone battery last. So evey 3 or 4 years every car would need a new battery. This magnifies the amount of resources required.
I’d agree with Colin’s thesis and I like the idea of QE as ‘applied’ MMT. Its struck me for a while that you can start with the argument that banks create money. Thats pretty hard to argue with given that the BofE and Andy Haldane have said it is so. Then you move to QE which is now pretty much mainstream though the mainstream, neoclassicals can’t quite make up their minds as to whether it is borrowing or not. The argument with QE is about how it is used and most here would agree that it has been badly used in the past, notably for bailing out banks and inflating assets.
The step to full MMT is difficult in political and ‘marketing’ terms as it is a big jump, however obvious it might be to people here. If Green QE could be seen as an acceptable way of funding all that is required for the Green New Deal that would be a huge step forward. We should not let the best be the enemy of the good, though that is something the purist left are very good at. Get that use of QE accepted and we’re well on the way to MMT.
I know that the total funding needed covers more than just GND. Rebuilding public services and perhaps some combination of UBS/UBI. Massive upskilling to repair the neglect of recent decades. Rebuilding industries and some form of industrial strategy as well as that included in GND. That requires a toolkit of funding mechanisms, including tax, borrowing, Green QE, Green/regional investment banks, local authority borrowing and other creative schemes.
Pinning all hopes on MMT is several bridges too far and will not fly politically or with the public
Pragmatically you are right
One alternative future
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-01-15/a-review-of-chris-smajes-a-small-farm-future/
Disclaimer, I do know Chris, and I have suggested he sends Richard a copy
John Boxhall.
Thanks for the link. Looks like an interesting book.
Reminded me of a documentary someone previously linked to, on Richards blog a few months back. It was about how Cuba had to adapt to food shortages after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Very interesting and a clue to where we need to be heading.
I can’t remember the name of the documentary, but if I can find it, I will send a link.
Thank you for your post Colin,
Your input is fantastic and for a crucial way forward when all we see about us is doom and gloom. There is scope for hope, especially now the sunshine seems to appearing through the dark clouds over in the USA.
However a word of caution is that this new Democratic regime has this one unique chance to do the right thing here and let itself be bound by the usual reversion to orthodox monetary beliefs. They will have to overcome the usual Jeremiah’s wailing about “where is the money going to come from” or the other knee jerk reaction,”it will cause hyperinflation” .
So we have this one beautiful chance to take action to save the environment ,the fact that we can also at the same time rescue our economies and improve social welfare seems to good to be true…..but for once it is not too good to be true, we are only limited by our lack of understanding about what money is. It is a manmade concept not a limited resource, so why cant we use it to improve the lot of mankind, rather than benefit a few. We have been given a way out of problem , we must convince every single person this is the right thing to do.
The one good thing to come our of the Covid crisis is that ordinary people can now see that money has been provided by govt who had always previously pleaded poverty. The mechanics of how they did this is largely obscure to the majority but they know it has happened. The sound of pennies dropping has been fantastic to witness. Not only in the media but in discussions I have with my friends and family. The subject of public money creation, that I have been banging on about for years now, gets a totally different reception. I see peoples eyes lighting up at the potential. They now understand that the state can never actually be short of money and that is very liberating.
According to marc Robinson in “Bigger Government” the effects of climate change are dwarfed by the extra funding required for health and social care.
It was a FT book of the year and it reads plausibly.
If the Netherlands keep back the waves for 0.1% GDP it may be that justifying the necessary investment in mitigation is not so great after all.
No the biggest argument against funding directly the costs of adequate housing, healthcare, social care, and education, public transport , infrastructure etc is that everyone would do it, expectations and consumption would rise, and the world would burn to a crisp.
If you think the impact of climate change is just rising tides please think again, and very rapidly.
That is naive thinking, in the extreme
No I don’t but I also don’t think that climate change is the biggest problem the world faces.
It always seems that spending money on the sick and elderly is never the priority even when the evidence points that way.
Given that the sick get maybe 100 times more than climate change now I a, not sure the point you ar3 making
I think the argument is all about persuading the ordinary person that things are possible and I agree that education is important. It does follow that e.g. Labour types do need to up their game. But during the current void it is important to suggest things that are located in MMT understanding without having to badge it MMT, as if it is some kind of brand or religion.
Using MMT principles to explain what can and should be done e.g. job guarantee and certainly GND stuff would be really helpful. The Covid crisis has shown us that Govt can waste a shed load of money and wouldn’t it be better to spend more wisely? That we need to keep the economy moving and that we face real problems with climate change.
I think the public are ready to embrace these things – I think they instinctively get the need to spend now to get GND type stuff in place. Major economists are saying that you can ‘borrow’ very cheaply.
So an investment led strategy can capture the public mood.
Am I optimisitic of that happening? No, but we do need to keep these things in the public eye and using what is already in the public domain / consciousness.
Keep up the good work, Richard, and others here – don’t give up and do make some noise.
it could be that the problems of the sick and those in need of care are 100 times greater.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not against doing something about climate change but if the issues are exaggerated to people with more immediate and pressing needs you are in danger of losing them.
Similarly the issue of funding change is important to address but establishing what change you are pushing over what range of issues and why is probably more important.
That’s my point.
Roger
If you think that climate change is exaggerated, given the overwhelming science behind it, then Id suggest you are straying into the territory of Trump supporters, lockdown deniers and the rest.
Richards point stands; currently we spend massively more on health and social care, in particular on the elderly (which probably includes myself these days), than we do on climate change. Thats not an argument for spending less on climate change, or less on care. It is the the need to do both and the funding required that drives the need for a very different approach to how the state funds its activities.
I am not denying climate change.
Doing something about it however is not as big an issue as made out is my point, and is smaller than other bigger issues (according to Robinson cited earlier).
Not least of course on getting agreement to the most effective means of dealing with climate change across the world. For example in the absence of world government the danger is that action in one place is defeated by other things elsewhere and lip service will be adopted as the means for the well off to survive, while kicking the can down the road in the meantime. Addressing inequality; the powerlessness of the poor; policing the world; overconsumption by the few; controlling pandemics; population growth; migration; continuing military potency all spring to mind on top of the needs of an increasing elderly population; crumbling infrastructure; and the need to give meaning to the lives of more and more people either unemployed, under employed or in bullshit jobs etc.
The Green New Deal doesn’t quite cut the mustard I’m afraid and neither is MMT a sufficient condition for dealing with all of the above.
For the purposes of again avoiding being misunderstood I repeat effective measures could be taken , which are affordable and effective to address climate change. But bigger problems exist that will prevent action being taken. Not least more urgent and pressing problems which distract , divert and put obstacles in the way and for which no one has yet proposed effective governance.
Richard and others are doing there best and maybe under Boris’ enlightened leadership the Glasgow climate summit will be a great success…but we all must recognise the war is being lost at present. I don’t mean to be defeatist but realistic.
Sorry, but you are contributing to the defeat