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The counttry can "afford" whatever it likes. The only limits are real resources and inflation.

So what? The deficit is merely the difference between the money government has spent into the economy and that clawed back in tax. The UK is a self-funding state. It creates money by spending. Whether its £3 billion a year to give food to starving kids - or the £40 billion a year hand out to...

This is not an opinion piece about what should happen, but a description of how the Treasury works now and has done for years. The government always spends by "printing" money, then destroying money by taxation. The paper is a descriptive analysis based on thorough research on the workings of...

This is what has happened for years,, inflation has risen and fallen due to other factors, not because of the governments ability to create money when it spends and destroy it when it taxes.

Thanks for broadly agreeing, but one point, the government doesnt have to "borrow" at all in the sense that a household does. The issuing of gilts, bonds, whatever you like to call them, also is a policy choice which the treasury and the Bank of England use to control the money supply. They...

Its not a theory you "have a go at". Its a theory that explains the functionings of our economy right now. Its politically neutraI and can be used by politicians of any persuation. I doubt if Lynn Truss has any more of clue about MMT than I suspect you do.

So what? I agree with the UCL working paper, "The Self Financing State", (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2022/may/self-financing-state-institutional-analysis), and I quote "There is no requirement for a provisioning of money balances through taxation and ‘borrowing’...

Well, actually you dont need the money from anyone, rich or poor. The government can issue new money to pay for the resources it needs to meet public purpose. A currency issueing government is not like a household. If the government wants to improve public services it can do so within the real...

In what way ignorant? Do you believe tax funds government expenditure? If so, why?

I agree with most of this. However, the purpose of tax is not to raise income for government spending. The rich should be taxed because they are too rich - we dont need their money to fund anything.

Harry, you misrepresent the MMT position which I have explained at length in other threads. Government finances are not like a household. Central government creates new money every time it spends. Tax is the return of some of that money to the treasury which is then destroyed. Tax does not...

How do you define the "far left" ? What are these issues to which you refer, and what are these long standing conspiracy theories? A link to the article would be useful

I think it’s you that we need to chat to, not each other. What would it take for you to re-think the way the UK economy actually works now?

We could give kids good meals anyway, tax doesnt fund school meals - or anything that central government provides

As I mentioned, it’s the real resources available that are the key. Also, taxation is only one tool that can be used to control inflation. It’s main role is to make sure people use the currency.

Completely wrong, governments with their own sovereign currency neither need to tax, nor borrow to fund public services. They are nothing like a household. If you don’t believe me, I suggest you read Professor Stephanie Keltons best seller “The Defecit Myth”, or Warren Moslers “Seven Deadly...

Not just me, as well you know, thousands of economists throughout the world, including, for example, Senator John Yarmuth head of President Bidens budget committee

Yes it is that simple. The only constraints are the actual resources. And yes it has been done before - mobilisation of resources for the second world war as laid out by the economist John Maynard Keynes in a BBC broadcast and Listener article in April 1942 “ I am sure there have been many...

They can do this without waiting for the economy to grow. Central government can kick start the economy by investing in the NHS and public infrastructure. It’s economically illiterate to suggest otherwise

Tax doesn’t pay for student loans nor do the payments to the students loan company as they’re not loans, but another type of tax.