Why does this “we’ve maxed out the credit card” narrative persist?

Money is created as debt and taxation isn’t collected into a big government “piggybank” — tax is effectively the destruction or ‘removal’ of money from circulation and a way to control inflation. A sovereign state can create money, which is either lent to the legacy banks (aka “quantitive easing”) or is “realised” in the economy as government spending.

Governments that can print their own money cannot run out of it and this is why we can have endless war, “quantitive easing”, bank bailouts, subsidise massive loss making industries, or effectively pay people to stay at home during in “lockdowns”, etc.

So why does this narrative that the UK is somehow always on the verge of bankruptcy persist? Why is it never challenged in the media? Most people seem to accept the UK has a fixed money supply and this must be at parity with taxation, in the same way income is with household spending.

These are a set of beliefs I have about money, given admittedly fairly minimal research into the matter (a few documentaries and documentation from the BoE), but I’d be interested to know from anyone who’s a specialist on this. I won’t accept the Zimbabwe as an example because I do not accept it to be an equivalent to a food-secure and fully industrialised European power such as the United Kingdom.

@rone to the forum!

My God op.

You. Are. A. Monster!

Somewhere in the Bat cave he stirs…

If you create too much money you devalue the currency and cause inflation.

However ask 3 economists get 3 different answers.

Most economists however would agree at times like the the economy needs a stimulus and there is room to create more money before the downsides / side effects creep in.  MMT and Keynes would have different points at which you need to turn the stimulus off.

Why labour continue with this nonsense?  its because they are terrified of the right wing propaganda organs and of backlash from currency speculators – and there is also a fetish for keeping the value of the pound high.

Responses partly to the eff ups of the 70s and black friday

You only have to go back to the heady days of the Truss government to see the trouble cutting taxes and borrowing more can cause.

Lower tax/more borrowing sends the cost of government borrowing upwards and interest rates for the rest of us follow.

And yes OP too much borrowing does cause problems in developed countries, Greece and Argentina being two very good recent examples.

Why has nobody mentioned this before?!!!!

This is how the singularity begins…

This is worse than Radio4 Last Word obituary program being on a Friday @16:00 just as I’m clocking out of work and driving home.

You only have to go back to the heady days of the Truss government to see the trouble cutting taxes and borrowing more can cause.

I think the tenuous household analogy for that cautionary tale is that using cheap debt to fund a partying lifestyle which also harms your ability to repay is a bad idea. Truss might have avoided that iceberg* had it been widely believed that her chosen path was actually likely to grow the economy.

*sorry; not sorry.

A food-secure and fully industrialised European power such as the United Kingdom.

ergh this again.

printing lots of money has been tried a lot of times. its never ended well

I won’t accept the Zimbabwe as an example because I do not accept it to be an equivalent to a food-secure and fully industrialised European power such as the United Kingdom.

Errrr.

You only have to go back to the heady days of the Truss government to see the trouble cutting taxes and borrowing more can cause.

I’m not for one second suggesting Trussonomics was in any way good policy, but there’s a significant sociological component in economics, and I do wonder how much of the reaction to that was down to it being delivered by Liz Truss.

Would the markets have had the same reaction if it was delivered with confidence by a Blair or Obama type figure? I’m not convinced they would.

I tend to agree with the OP’s premise – however, if everyone knows (secretly) that this is true, why do we underfund the NHS and all essential services?  Why don’t we just take all the previously privatised utilities back into public ownership?  Why don’t the government do all these things and just say nowt?

there is also a fetish for keeping the value of the pound high

On this idea that the value of the pound isn’t important when it comes to quality of life…

46% of our food is imported.

We import £25 billion worth of drugs a year (we export nearly as much, but specialisation means we’re 100% reliant on imports for many of our needs, eg insulin, insulin delivery and CGMs).

So a FAST fall in the value of the pound would could drastic problems with food and healthcare.

Slower devaluations are easily absorbed though. Well, I say easily… they hit the least well off hardest, and cause inflation in healthcare well above inflation in the wider economy. We’ve seen this in the last 8 years to some degree… but that’s stretched budgets enough already.

It’s possible for these two things to be simultaneously true:

1) The “household budget” analogy is hopelessly misleading, the Govt can definitely spend more than it takes in taxes, and frequently should

2) Unlimited spending in excess of taxation is likely to have poor outcomes.

It’s a pity that those who shout loudest tend to struggle with this concept.

the Govt can definitely spend more than it takes in taxes, and frequently should

And nearly always does.

Simply put: you don’t understand Economics.

That makes at least two of us, it baffles the crap out of me as well.

Kelvin – yes but for decades we have kept the pound at an artificially high level – which creates its own issues.  Remember black friday?

Cougar – no one does.  its all guesswork and theories and there are many competing and mutually exclusive theories.  ~sometimes you can look back and see what has worked in the past but that is no reliable indication of the future

hence ask 3 economists and get 3 different answers

So why does this narrative that the UK is somehow always on the verge of bankruptcy persist? Why is it never challenged in the media? Most people seem to accept the UK has a fixed money supply and this must be at parity with taxation, in the same way income is with household spending.

Printing more money is always seen as a last resort in a developed economy. Doing so causes inflation to rise, which in turn usually grows the inequality between the rich and the poor. Keeping inflation as low as possible is usually very high on any governments agenda, so much so that traditionally the perceived ability to keep inflation under control has been a swing vote winner in previous elections.

Keeping inflation low, encouraging prudent spending (and borrowing) etc. tends to cause more economic growth and maintain the health of the country’s currency. Of course, the flip side is at what point does a policy of low inflation become “austerity” and it penalises those who actually have no choice but to borrow money too much…?

There are people who understand this FAR better than I do… Thankfully for us, some of them do seem to have been working at the Bank Of England whilst the outgoing government were trying to tank the economy to the benefit of their hedge fund manager mates etc…

My God op.

You. Are. A. Monster!

Somewhere in the Bat cave he stirs…

Post of the week. Genuine real world LOL, thank you Poopster.

Printing more money is always seen as a last resort in a developed economy. Doing so causes inflation to rise,

From my understanding even in Keynes which is as close to accepted widely as anything this is not true.  You can pump money in to stimulate growth so long as there is space in the economy to do so.  Its only after a certain point that inflation will become an issue.  MMT would put that point further away

I think and thats about as much as I understand

yes but for decades we have kept the pound at an artificially high level

Not the last few decades. In the previous century perhaps.

Money is valuable because it’s scarce. Sometimes that scarcity is real (e.g. gold) sometimes manufactured e.g. bitcoin.

The rationale for tax is to discourage bad behaviour and raise revenue. Most spending still comes from taxation. The effect on inflation is marginal. Interest rates have a larger effect on that.

Broadly, economics is either MACRO (to do with the economy as a whole e.g. employment, inflation + tax) or MICRO ( related to individuals e.g. choice and prices).

printing lots of money has been tried a lot of times. its never ended well

Meh, the post war boom years were built on borrowing heavily for investment in public infastructure including huge capital outlays for social housing, the NHS and social safety nets for the whole population. This was repeated through much of mainland europe. So to claim it never ended well is demonstaratably complete bovine manure.

Printing more money is always seen as a last resort in a developed economy

I don’t accept this — industrialised/developed economies constantly print money. When the 08 crisis broke, the Federal Reserve printed 17 trillion dollars and gave it to mostly foreign banks. Corporations use debt to finance their operations, although unlike individual borrowing, it’s known as leveraging. You simply couldn’t have the capitalist system without debt. Debt, as far as I understand it, is money.

As I said, and I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but the idea the HMRC actually “collects” money is false. In short, all money is created as debt, and taxation functions to give legitimacy of a currency and to cool things off. When the government suddenly needs a vast amount of money, it simply prints (or rather creates it on a computer) the money and then can use it because it is the sovereign currency and has agency in the economy because businesses, workers and banks accept it as currency.

“Most spending still comes from taxation.”

So you’re saying that the government actually “collects” the tax and puts it into an account somewhere and then dishes it out to its various departments? I’m not sure I could dig it out now, nor fully understand it, but I do remember reading something from the BoE that said this was a fallacy.

Money is valuable because it’s scarce. Sometimes that scarcity is real (e.g. gold) sometimes manufactured e.g. bitcoin.

It’s not scarce when you can print it, which is rather the point of the thread. Of course, you can’t print gold or BTC, but that’s a different discussion.

What’s interesting is why there’s always billions for nuclear weapons or foreign occupations but not for financing new infrastructure or paying public service workers. It feels like some things are never spoken about in public discourse, but it seems bizarre to me that something as important as money, where it comes from and how it’s produced, is never mentioned.

Maybe so Kelvin.  I still think its too high but for sure not as bad as 30 years ago

for decades we have kept the pound at an artificially high level

The GBP is pretty much at a 40 year low against the USD (apart from 2 one-week long crises in Feb 1985 and Sep 2022)! It’s a similarish story for the EUR.

I can’t embed the chart – Google “GBP to USD chart” and select max.

I don’t accept this — industrialised/developed economies constantly print money. When the 08 crisis broke, the Federal Reserve printed 17 trillion dollars and gave it to mostly foreign banks.

You’ve already admitted that you know bugger all about economics, yet you’ve got some very strong opinions already! ?

Anyway… Knowing that sooner or later, all that money would end up back in US circulation, the Fed printed a metric shit ton of money… The US is and always has been (since the $ was accepted as the world’s standard trading currency) a little different to everywhere else. Them printing money and sending it to other countries actively increases the flow of money back into the US economy. This doesn’t really happen to the same degree, if at all, in other countries.

Meh, the post war boom years were built on borrowing heavily for investment in public infastructure including huge capital outlays for social housing, the NHS and social safety nets for the whole population. This was repeated through much of mainland europe. So to claim it never ended well is demonstaratably complete bovine manure.

The key word there is “ended”…

Borrowing copious amounts of money will always have significant benefits in the short term!

It’s when the debt has to be paid back that the pain is often felt…

Of course, nobody will ever agree on a cost vs benefit analysis of governmental borrowings and spendings, it is literally the biggest topic of argument for grabbing our votes come general election time (or at least always has been historically)… So you absolutely cannot say for sure it’s bullshit… That’s just your position on it. Other viewpoints will differ!

What’s interesting is why there’s always billions for nuclear weapons or foreign occupations but not for financing new infrastructure or paying public service workers. It feels like some things are never spoken about in public discourse

It’s worth remembering what is important when it comes to thinking about how easy money is to come by, or not, for a government…

Put simply, YOU (or me, or anyone else) DO NOT MATTER!

In the UK we have mostly lived under centre-right political institutions since the inception of the Houses of Parliament. There has briefly been periods where it has swung left of centre, there has briefly been periods where it has gone quite far to the right, but historically, we are a centre-right voting country overall… France is the opposite, they are much more left leaning, and have been for a very, very long time now (albeit it was a close thing in their recent GE, and it required the left leaning parties to form a coalition to defeat the far right). What that means here in the UK though is that our acceptance of things that do not serve our own personal interests (Welfare State, the NHS, free education etc. etc.) being less effective than they should be is far greater than in countries like France, where everyone goes on strike in such a situation!

If we valued things like Healthcare, education, the environment and voted more consistently so, then they would get more respect from the political elite… As it is, even the average voter typically values the performance of the £ and the economy over and above the social security system that actively benefits them, which is why things like defence spend (it keeps many hundreds of thousands of UK citizens in very well paid jobs too, don’t forget!) have been given so much higher importance by successive governments.

It’s worth remembering that whilst certainly not a socialist echo chamber by any means, the typical contributor to this forum (from my lengthy experience at least) is often better educated and also more left-leaning politically than your average voter… So whilst it might “make sense” to you to print loads of money, typically our govt has believed otherwise…

Of course the other problem with just printing money, is that unless you put all sorts of checks and balances in place to make sure that it doesn’t just end up in the assets of the ultra rich, it can VERY quickly worsen the rich/poor divide, as poor people use it to buy necessary things (rent, food, taxes) and rich people accumulate it through rent (and tax loopholes) and then use it to buy up all the assets!

For anyone who really wants to dive further into how economics really works, it’s worth giving this guy on youtube a follow… https://www.youtube.com/@garyseconomics/videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkWPXVUteY

Maybe so Kelvin.  I still think its too high but for sure not as bad as 30 years ago

New Labour govt has picked the value of the £ up very slightly against the $ already (or it might just be that confidence is dying in the US, given the ludicrous Biden/Trump debacle that is going to affect their next 4yrs!), but otherwise the £ has been pretty weak against the $ for a while now… Brexit didn’t help that of course, but that only accounted for about 10% of the 35%+ devaluation we have seen in the £ against the $ over the last 15yrs…

Yes – that does not mean its not overvalued.  This fetish of a high exchange4 rate has been all my adult life.  Maybe its not so overvalued now as it was.

Its why we have no manufacturing left – imports are cheep and exports are expensive with an overvalued currency

Its why we have no manufacturing left – imports are WERE cheap and exports are expensive with an overvalued currency

FTFY tj

So why does this narrative that the UK is somehow always on the verge of bankruptcy persist?

Tories say this to justify cutting things and shrinking the government. They believe in less government and letting us get on with whatever we want, which generally means screwing each other and the environment over without a care. Labour have been careful not to dispel it because otherwise people will expect too much too quickly.

If Wales were independent and the monarchy were abolished and the rest of the UK went back into the EU, then we’d technically be able to borrow cryptocurrency against the pound and then nationalise the debts the Bank of England owes the banks.

If Rachel Reeves borrowed a trillion pounds from HSBC and JP Morgan, but signed the loan agreement while she was standing in the US Embassy in London, then technically America would have to pay it back because embassies are foreign territory. Or if she signed the agreement in Belfast, then Ireland would have to pay it back because they claim Belfast is part of Ireland. Or if she borrowed the money but then changed the name of the UK, we wouldn’t have to pay it back because the country that signed the agreement wouldn’t exist any more.

It’s just Starmer’s lack of imagination that he won’t explore all this.

MMT is a beautiful theory, same as communism, but the problem is implementing it in a country that is just not black and white like the theory. As someone else stated, the only country with a real chance of using MMT is the US, and that’s because they have the power behind their currency to counter any hyperinflation or financial attack. There’s a few others who can barter a bit better as they have the resources to do so, but again, in the UK, we don’t have a lot of natural resources that give us stability in the long run either.

I think on this board i keep seeing stuff that makes out the UK is stronger than it really is, we are not a superpower, we are not at the top table anymore, we are in quite a large crowd now in the tier below the US, China, Russia, etc.

@fatmountain because what you’ve written is classic student union stuff comrade. It simply isn’t true. Ask Liz Truss.

Hi Joe. So out of curiosity, then, do you believe that the UK government has a sort of savings account with a bank which it funnels all our tax into and then pays it people on the dole, etc.? (Also, why the comrade jibe? Do you think talking about monetary policy makes me a communist?)

Its why we have no manufacturing left – imports are cheep and exports are expensive with an overvalued currency

This is a myth btw.

The UK is still one of the foremost manufacturing countries (apparently 9th) in the world. What happened was that it modernised, outsourcing heavy, labour-intensive production of low-value goods, moving into the production of high-value, high-skilled output, like vaccines or aerospace, etc. Deindustrialisation isn’t unique to the UK.

Fatmountain : The UK is still one of the foremost manufacturing countries (apparently 9th) in the world.

That may well be but the companies involved will be offshored for tax reasons and owned by foreign entities, the UK manufacturing base has been gradually sold off since the mid 80’s.

We are a now a poor 2nd rate country.