Andrew Rawnsley wrote this in The Observer this morning:
Nigel Farage can promise the moon on a stick. Sir Ed Davey can oppose every tax rise while bemoaning every spending curb. They enjoy the luxurious privilege of being opposition leaders many years ahead of a general election. For the residents of Downing Street, there is no magic money tree.
It takes years in the Westminster bubble, with a mind dulled by far too many lunches with the occupiers of desks at the Treasury, to write something so crass.
The reality is that if Reeves wants to spend, she can. She can:
- Borrow from the Bank of England.
- Borrow from financial markets, creating the capacity to do so for more conrsructuvbe purposes by ending quantitative tightening, which is sucking £100 billion a year out of markets right now.
- Raise taxes on the wealthy. U have shown her how to do it, very straightforwardly.
The options are money creation, borrowing and tax, or a mix of all three to control inflation.
There is no shortage of money.
There is only a lack of three things:
- Understanding that money is available.
- A willingness to use the options available.
- An understanding that balancing the economy is much more important than balancing the books.
One day, we might get a Chancellor who understands all this. Rachel Reeves is not that person.
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I read The Guardian almost every day, and financially support it – but I never bother with Rawnsley, Freedland, or any of the other ‘westminster bubble’ staff reporters.
The Guardian does have some brilliant regular columnists – Monbiot, Chakrabortty, Malik, etc – but moreover often features guest contributors that are not journalists, but real experts in their fields. This is where, for me, it wins out even over publications editorially more aligned to my own views.
I agree
But reading the idiots is a necessary part of understanding what those for whom they act as mouthpieces are thinking.
100%. ‘Westminster bubble’ writers, like Rawnsley, can’t hold a candle to Monbiot. Its notable that the former group are usually huge egos on legs – Useful idiots the lot.
The Guardian is a liberal paper and some say also state security asset. It played a full part in taking down Labour under Corbyn because of the threat to neoliberalism and imperialism. It allows a few voices on the fringe to break with this but only when there is no chance of change.
The Observer, which was worse, has been sold to Tortoise Media and is no longer a Guardian Media Group asset and had only been since 1993.
I stopped buying both a long time ago.
The Establishment’s Ministry of Truth aparatchiks, reinforcing the lie into a dominant reality.
I really blame the mainstream media, their job is to find out and tell the truth not print Pravda.
I didn’t know Andrew Rawnsley was a human writer – I always thought he was some sort of weird programme that generated stuff which the subs turned into something readable.
Jokes aside he is part of the “steady as she goes – must generate something to keep the proles on the straight and narrow”. The man is a laughing stock. & I agree with Mr Cox, a significant slab of the G’ contributors are, frankly trash. I include Tonybee in this – long past her sell-by-date.
Agreed
Inclusing on Toynbee
“weird program that generated stuff…”
That’s AI.
(Artificial Idiocy)
He’s become a bit bitter and twisted in his more recent works BUT it was interesting to see a bit in one of Bill Bryson’s books about the difference between the England he arrived in in the early 70’s and now.
We had a much smaller economy but we did have flower beds on roundabouts etc………
So there clearly was the money, where has it gone? Or more likley we have lost the balls to spend it
Lots of my friends and family
are totally wedded to the narratives;
“there is no magic money tree”, “we must live within our means” and the ever popular
“there is no such thing as government money only taxpayer money”.
They are so convinced of the absolute truth of these “facts” that to suggest otherwise one ls dismissed as talking nonsense.
I have often thought that this must be what it was like to suggest that the earth is round to a world convinced it is flat!
Yes, mine as well. They are regurgitated as though they are infallible truths, fundamental laws and immutable and unquestionably facts. My current retort is “and where do tax payers get the money to pay these taxes?” And then follow the money backwards. It at least gets a humph
“Repetition of language has the power to change brains. When a word or phrase is repeated over and over for a long period of time, the neural circuits that compute its meaning are activated repeatedly in the brain. As the neurons in those circuits fire, the synapses connecting the neurons in the circuits get stronger and the circuits may eventually become permanent, which happens when you learn the meaning of any word in your fixed vocabulary.”
– George Lakoff, Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea
Exactly!
I think an alternative word to ‘borrow’ needs to considered. Purely and simply because, in the context of the economy, it reinforces the notion that the economy runs like a household. Just a thought. I can’t think of one though!
Better word is ‘government buying.’
I like “public investment”.
“Public” substitutes for “taxpayers” but without the macro-economic falsehood – its still the public’s money because it is being created and spent by the government/public.
“Investment” substitutes for “spending, carrying the positive idea that the money is performing a public good, not merely being draied, or wasted or running up a deficit.
I seem to remember in kinder times, we DID use to call it that. Then Thatcher arrived, and that nasty thing called “government spending of taxpayers’ money” arrived, and threatened us with eternal penury, and even worse having to go “cap-in-hand to the IMF” so naturally that had to be stopped, and mass unemployment was a “price worth paying”.
Rewiring everyone’s neural networks is going to be a long hard road, isn’t it?
Thinking about it there is not really an alternative. Probably just a personal thing but I’m just convinced that 90% of the adult population do not understand what ‘borrowing from financial markets’ or ‘borrowing from the BoE’ means and only hear the word borrowing. Which is interpreted as we’re skint (bad), debt (bad), how is the government going to pay it back? By taxing me more. All household budget stuff. Perhaps the only way forward is to carry on chipping away with hope that kindness and compassion coupled with government coming clean that neoliberal economics has failed and a radical reappraisal of how an modern economy can and should function is required.
Noted
I see the IFS is up to mischief again.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c787385qx62o
It is…