In a recent video, Gary Stevenson said:
“Governments are running out of money, just like a person running down their savings.”
Gary Stevenson has become a significant critic of inequality in the UK today. His video this week is no exception. It is urgent and angry. And it is right about some things. But it is also deeply wrong in ways that matter, particularly when it comes to how government finances actually work. That matters because if we misdiagnose a problem, we inevitably come up with the wrong cure.
I have summarised some of my major concerns in another post already today, but let me explore them further here.
First, Gary is absolutely right that we are living through a class war. The very rich are undoubtedly increasing their share of wealth within our economy. This is not happening by accident or through merit. It is happening because government policy — on taxation, regulation, labour rights, and public services — has been systematically designed to favour capital over people. This is how neoliberalism was intended to work and does work.
As a result, the poor have already been impoverished. Millions of children in the UK now live in poverty, wholly unnecessarily. The welfare state has been cut to the bone so that the wealthy might have ever more saved uselessly with their investment managers. And now, as Gary rightly points out, the middle class is under threat. The coming budget might well raise taxes on those just affluent enough to be visible, but not in any way rich enough to resist. This is unjust and politically dangerous, although I would add that his definition of the middle class as those earning more than £100,000 a year is way out of kilter, and a sure sign of a wealthy man who has lost touch with reality. Those people are exceptionally well paid, as the data I have explored in my series on the wealthy shows.
Second, Gary is also correct that taxing the rich is not only possible; it is necessary. The UK, like many countries, has a vast untaxed reserve of private wealth. Governments that claim “there is no money” are lying. There is money. It's just in the wrong hands. But, and I have to stress this, we really do not need a wealth tax for all the reasons I explain in the Taxing Wealth Report.
But third, and this is the key problem, Gary's central metaphor used in his video is not just wrong; it is false. Governments are not like households or individuals, as he makes clear that he thinks they are. The household analogy that he uses to explain his ideas is intellectually bankrupt: governments and households work in diametrically opposed ways, and he suggests that they are the same.
Governments do not run out of money the way a person depletes savings.
They do not depend on prior wealth to spend.
And they do not face the same constraints as a borrower at the mercy of creditors does, because they create the money in our economy, meaning those constraints cannot exist. They guarantee people's loans precisely because they do not need to borrow.
When governments spend in their own currency, as the UK does, they create the money that they spend. Every time the Treasury tells the Bank of England to make a payment, new money enters the economy. This is not controversial. This is what has happened since 1866.
In that case, the idea that the government must finance its spending by “selling assets” or “earning passive income” from its past wealth, as Gary suggests, is wrong. That may be how households function, but it is not how states like the UK work. Mistaken politicians might think that to be true, but that does not mean they are right, and nor is Gary.
Of course, governments can issue bonds. And, of course, they tax. But these are macroeconomic policy tools to balance the fiscal cycle. They withdraw government-created money from circulation to control inflation. They fund nothing at all. Most particularly, what is called borrowing exists to manage interest rates and to meet the needs of the City of London and those facilities are offered as a favour by the government, which cannot then be dependent upon them, whilst taxation exists to shape society, reduce inequality, and control inflation. But money is never a scarce resource for the government. The constraint is not running out of pounds; it is running out of real capacity in the economy to acquire so that the government might achieve its goals, whether those resources be people, energy, land, or materials.
Fourth, in that case, framing the problem as a government “running out of wealth” leads to dangerous conclusions. It encourages a politics of fear. It lends credibility to the idea that the government must “tighten its belt” and deliver austerity when what we actually need at present is bold public investment. In effect, such framing endorses everything that neoliberalism has to say about the funding of government, all of which is wrong.
Worse, it obscures the true mechanisms of exploitation. The rich are not gaining because the state is poor. They are gaining because the state is complicit with the narrative that ensures they are poor. The transfer of power from the public realm to private wealth has not been a natural decline. It has been a deliberate act.
So, where does this leave us?
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Gary might be correct to say that the middle class is the next group in society to be taxed excessively so that the rich might avoid the liabilities that they should pay, but it does not help that he gets his definition of wealth very wrong.
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He might also be right to say that in some ways, politically, only two options remain: tax the rich or let the rich eat everyone else. But that still does not require a wealth tax.
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And he is right to call for solidarity between the middle and working classes against a billionaire elite that will otherwise consume us all. But in that case, he has to be clear that those earning considerable sums have to pay more tax.
But Gary is wrong to suggest that the government has “run out of money.” It hasn't. It never could. What it has run out of is political will, including the will to create a public understanding of how the economy actually works. That is where the real problem lies. And to tackle that, we have to:
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Reject false household analogies.
- Reject neoliberalism.
- Demand more effective taxation of wealth of the sort I describe in the Taxing Wealth Report.
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Demand that the state serve people, not capital.
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And above all, we must challenge the economic myths that allow this class war to continue, which unfortunately, Gary is not doing.
If we let the metaphor of “government as a bankrupt householder” dominate, we will always end up taxing the wrong people, cutting the wrong services, and blaming the wrong causes.
That's not a future worth funding. I want something significantly better than that, and I hope others do too, because Gary's current offer will, unfortunately, perpetuate the economic conditions that have led to austerity, and that cannot help anyone.
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Well said! Households cannot do the following ‘We find, first, that the UK Government creates new money and purchasing power when it undertakes expenditure, rather than spending being financed by taxation from, or debt issuance to, the private sector. The spending process is initiated by the government drawing on a sovereign line of credit from the core legal and accounting structure known as the Consolidated Fund (CF). Under directions from the UK finance ministry, the Bank of England debits the CF’s account at the Bank and credits other accounts at the Bank held by government entities; a practice mandated in law. This creates new public deposits which are used to settle spending by government departments into the economy via the commercial banking sector. Parliament, rather than the Treasury or central bank, is the sole authority under which expenditures from the Consolidated Fund arise. Revenue collection, including taxation, involves the reverse process, crediting the CF’s account at the Bank.’
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/publications/2022/may/self-financing-state-institutional-analysis
In some ways, it is not people’s fault that they accept the economics education that they have been given.
We assume that the best economic system is designed to benefit all, when it is designed to benefit the wealthy.
I can recommend:
The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and How to Build a Better Economy (2021) by Stephanie Kelton. https://amzn.eu/d/cSH2HzA
The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (2024) by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison https://amzn.eu/d/5VGWvpU
The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook (2021, 2nd Ed) by Rod Hill and Tony Myatt. https://amzn.eu/d/6PanJFs
The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook (2022) by Tony Myatt. https://amzn.eu/d/3hBPwKj
Rethinking Economics: a global network of students and organisers fighting for a new way of teaching and practising economics so that it truly helps us deal with the real-world challenges we all face today like climate collapse and inequality. https://rethinkeconomics.org/
Have you tried reaching out to Gary? I think you’re both trying to do the right thing, and you’ve both got an audience. It would be a shame if instead of working together, you both end up squabbling. I don’t disagree with the points you make in the post, but the only way anything is going to change is if sufficient people are in agreement. Even if you can’t agree, I think it would be of value to watch a discussion between you both, as viewers would at least be presented with the choice of whose argument best holds up to scrutiny.
As I have related here, yes I have reached out and he is too busy to engage.
And I am not squabbling. I am signposting fuindamental differences of opinion.
I wiuld, of course, engage if he wanted to do so.
The issue now will be if Gary can back out of what he has said – ‘egg on face’ and all that? And also, how he is set up – who s supporting him?
There is no doubt in my mind that the household analogy is totally poisonous.
But also, for Gary, it reveals a lack of depth that I have NEVER found on this blog and why I’ve stuck with it and have never bothered with his – FWIW.
Aw, shame he’s so busy. Would love to listen to you two dissect each other’s economics for an hour on a podcast. Fingers crossed it can happen some time.
I do hope you might persevere with Gary as he does feel to me to be on the right ‘team’ and might be open to some education. My sense is that he has been on a massive learning curve and might be open to it.
Also he is especially useful as a trenchant critic of the City and its prominently ‘socially useless’ activities in Adair Turners famous words, having seen it from the inside. Also economically and environmentally destructive
Tomorrow’s video keeps the door open.
An extremely competent take down of the household analogy.
It puzzles me why people like Gary and Dan Neidle end up being so shall we say so disappointing – they burst onto the scene asking valid questions, get your hopes up and somehow end up supporting the status quo over time.
It’s not as if they have not got enough time to go and look and research and find out is it?
I asked the other day whether their partial and inaccurate views were based on the fact that the system had awarded them so well and that maybe this blunted the acutance of their approach. Maybe its a genuine cognition dissonance or perception problem as a result of personal well being contrasting with the wider picture?
Or maybe with Gary it is just good old fashioned dyed in the wool anti-statism we are seeing – ignorance, denial and refutation of state sovereignty in an age of hyper-individualism? As a trader – former or not – I mean, what are rules to Gary who has worked where rule breaking is institutionalised? Where one can create one’s own reality? Where theft is legitimised?
Candidly, I was reluctant to venture into this topic. It is your Blog; your rules. Really, there little more to be said.
On Gary Stevenson, I have not studied him sufficiently to make decisive conclusions about his theories. I am a little puzzled, however Richard why you have spent so much time deconstructing his economic theories, in order to prove he is wrong.
My view of all this is robust and uncomplicated. You used AI to produce this interpretation of Stevenson; “The poor have no assets or disposable income left to tax. – “You can’t tax an empty bucket.””.
Both Labour and Conservative keep on taxing the empty bucket, or near empty bucket as the first, and typically only resort to policy; partly for neoliberal ideological reasons, but partly (I think more importantly than ideology) because all the efficient, functional taxes they currently have (VAT, PAYE, NI, income tax thresholds and so on): and that is because they exist, are proven, the culture of UK administration is tied to them, they are cheap to operate, and by far they have proved the most powerful and effective in producing the required results for government, and hit the poor first and hardest (and the richest, least effectively): ie., they work far more efficiently and effectively, for the least political blowback (because they effect most those with fewest defences, and the politically powerless).
That provides a real point of common ground between you and Stevenson, whatever is the case about MMT. To me both politics and business are best operated by functional alliances, to work where possible on common, functionally usable ground, if and where it can be found – on practical issues, and practical solutions. You do not need a comprehensive theory to do this. I have always believed the pursuit of ideological purity is a waste of time. I am only interested in outcomes. If they don’t work, ditch them; but if they work, why reject them out of hand? Most human endeavours work best on the basis of test and experiment; not ‘a priori’ decisions founded on pure theory.
I have nothing more to add on this subject.
John
356 words to say you did not want to say anything.
And then you accuse me of using AI – which quoted what Gary actually most definitely inefrred and might have actually said, not what by insinuation you suggest I made up.
And then you say I should compromise with what is very clearly wrong when, as I have made clear, there is no real commnon ground between us becvasue we have different models and want fundamentally different things. But I am apparently being ideological for saying so.
I am disapppointed, and will say so because you can do better than that.
Richard
Sorry you feel that way Richard. I didn’t ‘accuse’ you of using AI: I thought it perfectly legitimate. It made the point you wished to make, quite reasonably. Nor was there any insinuation. You have completely misunderstood my argument. I had no problem with that. I do not understand why agreement requires that we all use the same model, applied to every single policy application. I was making the simple point that it is possible to agree with someone, in spite of disagreements on a wide range of issues. Your disappointment is disappointing; but doesn’t change my opinion.
Sorry – I misread you on AI then.
And of course I am not saying we all need to agree, but I am saying we can most definitely disagree. After all, how else can progress happen?
John Warren
Some thoughts……….
One thing Richard has been since I have been here is very consistent because he genuinely thinks it through with a moral back bone – that is why I will still come here and why I will ignore the Gary’s and Dan’s of this world who will pass through and contribute nothing new because they essentially support all that is wrong and prevent ‘better outcomes’.
The thing is, we know how Neo-liberalism works – Steve Bannon has told us in a typically bullish fashion – it floods the zone with shit to obfuscate the real issues and tell us that the real problems lie in the solutions. Watching opponents fall over small details is manna from heaven for them.
In many ways, Gary Stevenson is no better than Farage when he says that the state can run out of money. He may not be talking about letting people drown but he is cutting off a reality that could be used to address our issues, just like Farage is.
And many people are listening to Gary Stevenson. He must not go unchallenged. Whether it is deliberate or through ignorance – he needs to discuss this more and explain it.
I know that there is a saying along the lines of ‘never wrestle with a pig as you’ll just get dirty and the pig likes it’ but I’m afraid that that saying was probably before the advent of social media and its power. I’m afraid that getting dirty now is part of the job.
Gary Stevenson is negating the power of the state. Yes John, the power of the state – power than can be used for good or ill. But within Gaz, there is a denial of that power to solve a problem that is leading to atrocious outcomes. It cannot be ignored John.
I have a full time job and other responsibilities, I am not a full time blogger, but if I was I’d happily get down and dirty with Stevenson about this issue. It’s fundamental and Richard is right to tackle it.
Thanks
Since Gary Stevenson has managed to gain a fair amount of attention and he has mentioned your work in his comments do you hold any hope that he will actually engage with it and be prepared to alter his own thinking and messaging in response, or has his ideological thinking been totally conditioned by his economics education?
I don’t know
His choice.
Please let’s avoid the “Judean People’s Front” trap here. Gary is effectively getting a message across that complements yours. It would be tragic to let your differences prevent you collaborating on the major elements that you agree on – the necessity of rebalancing an increasingly unequal society.
You are mistaken.
Right now we have very different narratives. Sorry, but do not Judea in common in way he is arguing at present. But, let’s see. .
Excellent! Succinct, not aggressive or confrontational, very clear, very convincing, very necessary.
You’ve given credit where credit is due, and given the arguments plainly. I was sad yesterday, thinking ‘Oh no, that’s torn it, they won’t talk now’, but taking emotion out of it, reading this post I tend to agree with RobertJ.
GS has done a vast amount to convince many people that taxation needs changing. Many of those people will want to read or view more. Those who wish to satisfy their curiosity rather seeing everything as entertainment, will consume your output and his, and make up their own minds, whether Gary responds to this now or sticks to his message / plan. He has got a lot going on.
Is it intentional?
I mean, Stevenson and Neidle both, seemingly are thrust into the media eye. But, both reject MMT . A few years back MMT was really beginning to attract media attention. But, with the likes of the above pushing neoliberalism covertly in the media, MMT has taken a back seat.
Stevenson is an ex city trader, perhaps with many contacts in the city.
I also saw an interview between Dan Neidle and the Institute of Economic Affairs a while back. This is telling.
We are being played. This is the Media Elite filter, of Chomsky’s 5 filters, in action, pushing ‘experts’ onto TV, onto radio, to covertly push a particular narrative. This is why they refuse to engage.
You may be right.
Are either of them being funded?
I remember Chuka Umunna, the once Labour politician saying that we would be poor whether in work or out of work, which now seems to be the reality for millions of people. Then he split from Labour and joined some fledgling party that collapsed almost as soon as it was created. He never uttered anything as radical or should I say as honest as that again and I read a while back he was being funded by a think tank of some kind. So I guess, and usually do, that if someone is singing from the neoliberal hymn sheet, they are very probably being funded by someone or organisation. Sad really.
This is exactly what is happening.
Thank you.
I am with you on this and thank you for trying to bottom it out, it is difficult for some to understand MMT, to see money as Voltage rather than Mass, as it is difficult to understand quantum mechanics, it is a direct contradiction to our daily experience. It is not a surprise it took us very long to figure those things out.
My question on MMT would be always the “picking winners” as it has been described in UK’s popular media of the time.
Politicians are not impartial, their minimum interest as a class is to get elected and as it happened before (can give examples), they will print money give it to their voters only (in priority) and the message would be “electe me and you get free money, you don’t have to produce something”. Yes inflation perhaps, but those voters (minority, but that can elect governments) will take the deal unless they have super high moral standards.
As a system it might be still better than what we currently have, because this let’s say 20% of the free money voters, will spend the money, unlike current system that wealth accumulates (stagnates). But this hubris will make people think that people can have money printing machine for themselves through political involvement.
You are a very moral and righteous person and assumes that printing will not create any sense of injustice.
There is a very old philosophical question (fire of Prometheus) that we need transcendent (If this is the correct translation) players, like God, because religion sets a universal moral code that without it we might lose sense of belonging (our compass) and start digressing to individualistic ways (idiotic is the literal translation).
Same with MMT, people should behave as If money is in scarcity and state should behave otherwise, but this would work If you have a state that cannot be hijacked by said people.
Apologies If I digress, no prob If moderation cuts my comment.
Like most replies, I wish you and Gary were on the same page in terms of monetary theory, and I think you will converge over time. What would be helpful is an explanation of how the ‘city’ shapes/influences monetary policy, interest rates, inflation, etc, in relation to your premise (albeit right) that the treasury/BoE create new money all the time. Does the government borrow from City traders/institutions? Why would it ever need to?
I have a video on this coming now – maybe it will help
Now this is a good point!
I honestly believe that the interest charged on the CBRA makes it look like the Government is being charged interest by private banks. Now I have no idea how that interest looks on that account – it is just a sneaky reflexive feeling I have about how all of this is being made to look – as if the Government DOES borrow from private banks and is overly indebted. To me, the CBRA is a line of credit to insulate society from the casino banking going on, and it is the banks who should be charged to use it, not the other way around.
Having said that, you know my limitations and this is where people like Clive Parry may need to sit me down and probably put me right.
You have oassed 10,000 comments today – the only person ever to do so, barring me.
Your instinct is right.
Sorry to hear this about GS and the meeting not going ahead to explore similarities and differences.
The Margaret Thatcher’s handbag theory of economics has to end. It’s a ridiculous simplification of real life complexity.
The economy is not like a housewife’s purse!
Thatcher really did milk her gender, the frugal canny housewife, the iron maiden. Reeves only to happy to emulate her idol. None of this helped women, who populate public service sectors.
I hope Richard’s perspective becomes the perspective and policy base of the new political party emerging on the left. If half a million people can be trained to understand this and use accessible language to communicate it, we can help the public to vote for options in their interests instead of against their interests.
I don’t think they will. Bernie Sanders in the US won’t mention MMT. I think it might be a case of the concept of a government being like a household is so entrenched that they are scared of giving hostile news outlets the chance to call them an economically illiterate loony lefty. It’s about stories, as our host has mentioned. Perhaps they fear changing the narrative too much.
Some politicians I know are in that camp.
A macroeconomics education blind spot?
From Gary’s MPhil ‘Throughout, my models will be “real” models, in the sense that I will not at any point include money in the model.’ (p17)
‘I do not believe it is true that capital is fixed. But I also do not believe it is true that capital can be formed effortlessly from consumption goods…I believe that more discussion of capital accumulation, its causes and especially its behaviour in the post-2008 zero interest rate economy is needed, and I would be very keen to read any such discussion.’ (p59)
‘the mechanism that it describes is a real thing that is happening in the real economy and causing harm to real people. I expect wealth inequality to continue to worsen, as the dynamic described in the model is self reinforcing. Thus, according to this theory, I expect asset price to wage ratios to continue to worse until a point where housing will never again be affordable to working people, and will become the privelige primarily of inherited wealth.’ (p66)
https://www.wealtheconomics.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Stevenson-2019.pdf
Perhaps the household analogy of government finance is so entrenched because it’s easy to understand? I am starting to come around to the fact that it’s a false analogy but I’ll be honest – understanding MMT and economics is not easy and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. I can understand that the government creates money to spend and then taxes afterwards, but if it can’t run out of money then why does it need to “borrow” money and then pay interest to service a huge national debt? To the ordinary man down the pub like me, it’s all a bit baffling. That said, I shall persevere with your blog, Richard, it’s very well written and your vision of a “politics of care” is something I very much agree with.
It does not boporow. It taeks savings in from the City as a favour to it. I am going to do a whole video series on this very soon, but just use ChatGPT to ask my opinion on this issue.
Nice round up.
The UK ended up in a state of high inflation of 25% in the 70s and went to the IMF for a loan of $3.9B. Now I know we didn’t use all of it and it was paid back. The question I have is why? if we can never run out of money and taxation/money destruction is the hammer to combat inflation then why did we get that loan or was this the first stirrings of the neoliberal agenda?
I know the oil crisis had it’s part to play, in which case, was this an exogenous shock and would have either sorted itself out or the solution would have been in diplomacy not in borrowing? I just don’t understand how under MMT that loan was needed.
You’ll have to forgive me, I wasn’t alive during this time, even my mum was only a child so I won’t really understand everything that was going on during and for decades after.
No one realised we could not run out of money then.
No one had worked that out just after Bretton Woods ended.
Asd I keep saying, the stories we tell matter, and the story I now tell did not exist in 1976.
That makes sense, thanks Richard.
Stevenson has stated before that his favourite economist is Ha-Joon Chang, and has even interviewed him on his channel. Chang, and correct me if I’m wrong, is a proponent of MMT, or at least has written about it. That makes Stevenson’s position even more baffling.
I know Ha-Joon Chang a little. I would not exactly call him an MMT proponent. More an MMT agnostic. Not an opponent, but not embracing it either.
People should read Ha-Joon Chang’s book 23 Things they don’t tell you about capitalism to get a broader view.
They should also check out Tucker Carlsons interview with Richard Werner about his book Princes of the Yen and how the Bank of Japan and neoliberal approaches and US influences caused the Japanese economy to stagnate over decades.
Brilliant. Central banks seem to be a big problem together with misguided government policies that follow neoliberal pathway.
I appreciate Richard you mentioning GS in recent times as I may not have come across him
I believe GS is doing great stuff. I hope he keeps it up as he is having impact
Apologies for coming late to the party (as it were). Out walking all day so only just sat down with my laptop and read through all the comments.
Leaving aside the issue of there being a fundamental and legitimate reason for not aligning yourself with the views of GS – which as numerous commentors have noted is based on what appears to be a lack of understanding of money creation on his part – it strikes me a lot of this misunderstanding/misconception/denial springs from this awful (in my opinion) term MMT.
Why the hell do we have to constantly get drawn into a discussion/debate about this theoretical approach – and thus its various strengths, weaknesses, personalities, squabbles, etc, when the focus of our attention is on a simple question: How is money created? And then on an answer that’s factually correct and as concisely put as possible (of which numerous versions have appeared on this blog either written by Richard, or submitted by others).
Surely this is the clearest – and thus most effective – way of coming at this issue. Forget framing this as about MMT – it isn’t. If something called MMT (which is a misnomer if ever there was one – as discussed at length on this blog at some point last year), had never been invented, either as a theoretical approach or as a label, we’d still be able to ask the question: How is money created? And answer it without any reference to MMT.
And just to be clear, of course there are aspects of MMT (debates, discussions, research etc), that are, as with any theoretical approach, important to developing our understanding of how various features of political economy do, should or might operate (and thus, our policy responses and choices), but that’s all above and beyond answering a straightforward but fundamental question: How is money created?
Much to agree with
I haven’t watched all of Gary’s videos but I have never heard him say anything that would indicate that he has heard, or knows anything at all about MMT. He went to university to study economics fairly recently so I’m guessing that he’s simply a born again Keynesian.
I have not heard evidence he is that.
Your arguments are coherent, convincing and yet incomprehensible to the majority of people because of the way in which political economics has been framed over the years. There is now the possibility of a left of centre party that could use your ideas as the basis of a political strategy.
In order to turn ideas into practical policies there has to be parliamentary influence. People who reject neoliberal ideas and want a government that cares have the opportunity to turn thought into action. Yes, having a left party might complicate the electoral map, but that is happening anyway and it is essential that the electorate has the opportunity to vote for a party that is truly opposed to neoliberalism. There is no doubt that “Your Party” has to re-think its policies in order to succeed. Surely the people that agree with the ideas in this blog should be part of this re-think
Martin Hime
Bringing Garry in has certainly brought the boys to the yard.
As the dullard in the corner, I watch both, and enjoy both. My subscription to Gary probably made the algo suggest Richard.
A few points.
I kind of get MMT, but only the Andy’s simple brain idea of it. Used to watch Steve Keen more before, still do, but it gets a bit dense. Gary has always been about presenting economics to folk in a relatable way so they would get their head around what was going on in a broader sense but still see how it might relate to them. I heard nothing in his budget prediction vid that wouldn’t need a massive sideline explanation of fiat currency and and the gov’t’s role in it’s creation to explain why the gov’t had a third option.
His schtick has always been wealth. The football clubs, the shopping centres, the hospitals and schools. Housing. And he’s also fully aware of money’s zero sum. If you’re in debt, you owe it to someone. Same as us and the gov’t when it wants something and issues I.O.U.s in payment. I think he’s using money, the bank balance and the folding, the bills and the P.A.Y.E. as a way of making it relatable to people who might otherwise glaze over.
A lot of what I read above seems to be splitting hairs about whether the flower beds look better from the lake or the drawing room, though Richard is right to point out that there is actually another option if you’re on an ‘administrator’ login.
(Spell check picked me up for ‘centre’. Look. It’s done it again.)
Respectfully, that is nonsense.
I would not have wasted my time pointing out issues if they were not really significant, and they are. If you don’t undertsand why, I suggest you learn some more. That is why this channel exists. Berating it really does you no credit.
This makes sense.
As a supporter of Gary’s, it’s such a shame if he’s wrong on this.
I agree the sentiment of people not capital. So regarding the criticism on inflation, if the government were to spend more, it would be possible to rectify further inflation?
Regarding Gary’s message, I have considered that he perpetuates ideas such as the government as a household because it’s a narrative that people already believe – it’s much easier to attach a slightly new set of ideas to an existing one than it is to succeed in dispelling the myth. And that maybe it’s to win the public over.
While I agree some tactics of misinformers perhaps need to be employed to win a significant public following, any substantial error like that doesn’t sit well with me. Even small ones, truly. In the video on taxing the middle class he said that government are no longer cutting disability benefits. It’s actually now law that they will limit those able to claim in what’s currently called the LCFW aspect of UC. That he brushed over this honestly felt like a betrayal.
I understand the importance and the difficulty of getting middle-class on side. But it feels that he’s somewhat dismissive of the working class on some videos, depending on which audience he’s addressing. It’s concerning because the working class will always have the biggest potential for volume of voters.
Are there any videos that cover this topic of government spending? I have no background in economics (nor in maths – I got a D at GCSE), but I want to learn.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think you raise some really important issues.
On the economics: yes, in principle, if the government spends more, that can create inflation, but whether it does depends on what is happening elsewhere in the economy. If there’s unused capacity — unemployed people, businesses running below full potential, empty housing, underused public services — then extra spending can bring that capacity into use without pushing up prices. Inflation generally becomes a problem when there’s no more capacity to expand and too much money is chasing too few goods or services. So, spending more doesn’t automatically mean more inflation — it depends on timing, the state of the economy, and how that money is used.
On Gary’s approach: I understand the argument that using familiar, even if misleading, analogies like “the government is like a household” might make ideas easier to communicate to the public. But the risk is that repeating the myth also reinforces it. If the core aim is to help people understand how the economy actually works, it’s hard to see how starting from a falsehood — even a partial one — can build lasting understanding. This is why I do not like anyone using this approach.
I share your concern about glossing over important facts, such as the changes to disability benefits. Accuracy matters, not only for truth’s sake but because if a communicator gets caught out, it undermines trust. And you’re right: the working class is a huge part of the electorate, and being perceived as dismissive (even unintentionally) can alienate the very people whose support is essential for change.
If you’re looking to learn more about government spending and inflation in a clear, accessible way, you might like my ebook ‘Money for nothing and my Tweets for free’. It’s free, here. https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Money-for-nothing-and-my-Tweets-for-free.pdf