Rachel Reeves keeps saying that we should manage the economy as if it were a household. That is completely wrong. But if it was true, the decisions she is making would end up destroying the finances of that household she’s making such a mess of things.By Richard Murphy

I keep hearing people say that we need to get the money back from tax havens. That, though, is not necessary. There is no money in tax havens. All they do is record the ownership of money and other funds that are always actually deposited elsewhere, like the City of London. Instead, what we want back from them is the tax not paid on income recorded…

The national debt is widely misunderstood. The reality is that this is not a burden. It underpins UK banking. It’s fundamental to UK savers. And a part of it is the UK represents the government’s way of creating the money supply on which we all depend. Repaying it would be absolutely disastrous.By Richard Murphy

The accounts of the largest companies in the UK and around the world are works of fiction because no company in existence has undertaken the transactions that they record. Is that what we really need when we come to assess what the private sector is up to?By Richard Murphy

It would be great to think that Rachel Reeves might go down in history as both the first woman to be Chancellor and as a great Chancellor. The first is hers by right. But she is going all the wrong way about claiming the second title.By Richard Murphy

There is a lot of interest in wealth taxes right now. I understand why, but if we want to tackle the problems wealth creates there are two better ways to do that before we ever think of having wealth taxes.By Richard Murphy

The title of this video is a quote from William Beveridge writing in 1944 in the report that became the foundation of the UK welfare state. He realised then, as we should do now, that too many savings in too few hands could be deeply destructive within an economy.By Richard Murphy

Government bonds do not fund government spending, any more than tax does. So why do governments keep issuing bonds when there is no obvious need for them to do so? #uk #money #economic #politics #bank #government #tax #investment #shareBy Richard Murphy

Rachel Reeves says she wants growth. If so, she should tax wealth, because the wealthy save much of what they earn, meaning that they don’t spend it, and so reduce growth. If that same income was redistributed to those on low incomes who will spend it then growth would follow. It really is almost that easy to increase growth.…

Cryptocurrencies are nothing of that sort because almost none are ever used to facilitate trade – for which they are wholly unsuited because of their uncertain values. They might just be highly volatile assets. But they might best be seen as mechanisms to undermine the state.By Richard Murphy

It’s claimed that the Bank of England is independent of the government. Almost certainly that’s a complete sham. But it’s one that’s been used to impose policy against the best interests of people in this country. This pretence has to end, and the government has to be accountable for all our economic policy.…

It’s often claimed that business is efficient in a way government never can be. If that was true many fewer would fail. The reality is that both are only as good as the people who work for them – and their skill sets are likely to be remarkably similar.By Richard Murphy

Economics says high interest rates should deflate share prices. But that’s not been true since 2021, because the real world does not work the way economics says it does. Instead, high interest rates have led to high share valuations. And now all that could change.By Richard Murphy

Far-right politicians hate government, or so they say. For decades they tried to deny it revenue by operating from offshore. Now they’re trying to deny funding to onshore tax authorities. In both cases the aim is the same: they want to undermine the state by denying it the funding it needs. #uk #money #economic #politics #bank #government #tax…

The trouble with monopolies has been known for well over a century. They can abuse their power to extract excess profits. Google has now been ruled to be a monopoly doing just that. Suppose that this ruling was extended to all monopolies and the power of the big corporation was shattered? What could happen then? #uk #money #economic #politics #bank…

Politicians keep claiming that the government must run its affairs just like a household. Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth, or more harmful for our economy.By Richard Murphy

Around the world stock market values are falling as widespread selling of shares take place. Irrational investors are dumping shares they only recently drove to record high valuations. Is this a timely adjustment, or the sign of a recession to come? It’s hard to tell – but the signs aren’t good, especially for a new government that says it is depen…

Although Rachel Reeves seems to think otherwise, it’s a simple economic truth that no government can create growth by cutting its spending. That’s because without exception the government’s spending is someone else’s income, and so by cutting its own spending a government always reduces the income in its economy.…

As a matter of fact, tax does not fund government spending because government money creation does that. So why do governments tax? There are six good reasons to do that.By Richard Murphy

It’s widely claimed that our national debt threatens the well-being and stability of the UK, which is quite absurd when the national debt exactly equates to the value of private wealth that the government has injected into the UK’s economy. Why is it that those talking about the national debt do not seem to know this stuff?…

It’s an economic truth that every action has a reaction, and yet economists and politicians often ignore that fact by pretending that some forms of government spending - and most especially benefits – deliver no useful outcomes at all. That’s not true, but what it says is that this process of thinking about reactions requires their serious attentio…

The obsession with the national debt is absurd. The UK government has no need to ever borrow money. It can create all the money is wants, when it wants, from the Bank of England. The reality is that the City is desperate to save its excess funds – created by government spending more than the sums it reclaims in taxation – with the government becaus…

The UK’s banks are amongst its least popular businesses in the country because they don’t give a damn about their customers and provide a perfunctory service. The UK government could provide an alternative in that case – and did at one time, called the GiroBank. I argue that Labour should get on and do this again.…

It’s an economic truth that every time a government spends it creates new money to do so. It does not spend what is commonly called ‘taxpayers’ money. Nor does it spend funds borrowed from the City. It simply asks the Bank of England to make a payment – and that’s what that Bank does, extending an overdraft to the government to let it do so.…

The Bank of England is signaling we’re going to have high interest rates for a long time because it thinks we are still at risk of suffering inflation. But that’s absurd. The Bank of England is now the biggest creator of inflationary pressure in our economy.By Richard Murphy

The Bank of England is signaling we’re going to have high interest rates for a long time because it thinks we are still at risk of suffering inflation. But that’s absurd. The Bank of England is now the biggest creator of inflationary pressure in our economy.By Richard Murphy

Like almost all economic truths, austerity works in the opposite way to that which most people think. It does not save money. Instead, it prevents the government creating the money required to deliver what the economy is capable of.By Richard Murphy

It’s not true that bank savings fund bank loans. The economic truth is that bank loans create the money in bank savings accounts.By Richard Murphy

If Rachel Reeves wants to go down as one of the worst Chancellors in history, then she set about establishing her claim with yesterday’s ‘blame the Tories for things we all already knew’ speech. When her ambition is to penalise pensioners but let the rich off tax increases you known from the outset how badly she’s misjudged the mood of the country.…

The government will agonise over the cost of paying NHS workers and teachers the above inflation pay rises that have been recommended for them, but doing so is absurd. Once tax is taken in to account a large part of any payment due heads straight back to the government, quite quickly. So why does no politician ever talk about that?…

Most people think banks take in deposits from people and then lend that money to those who want to borrow from them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Banks take deposits and make but they don’t loan out depositors’ funds.By Richard Murphy

Labour says it is incredibly short of money. It need not be. I suggest that they just stop paying maybe £30 billion of interest to our commercial banks each year that they have done nothing to earn and then see what they can do with it to change the well-being of people in this country.By Richard Murphy

It’s an economic truth that no one has money with their name on it in a bank. All you have when you make that claim is a bank statement with an IOU printed on it. The bank has a debt owing to you. And that’s it.By Richard Murphy

I'm excited to introduce a new video series on this channel. When I asked readers of my Funding the Future blog what they wanted from these videos, the message came back loud and clear: they wanted me to explain some pretty basic economic concepts. Instead, I want to talk about the opposite of myths. I want to talk about truths. This series is goin…

Is Labour really going to let some UK universities go bust, which they almost certainly will if it does not step in to save them? Do they really want to be the party that oversaw the start of the decline in UK education? That’s a long way from the legacy they’ll want.By Richard Murphy

Sugar is a substance as addictive as tobacco and alcohol, and may be much more dangerous now given the scale of obesity and type 2 diabetes now evident in the UK. The biggest improvement to healthcare and wellbeing in the UK that Labour could deliver would result from them helping us break our addiction to sugar. So, isn’t it time they did just tha…

The row over the two-child poverty cap has revealed just how shallow the moral leadership of the new Labour government really is. If it carries on in this way the next five years are going to be agonising.By Richard Murphy

By law we are meant to enjoy clean water and safe food, but air quality is very largely ignored in law. This is absurd because improved air quality in this country would save hundreds of thousands of lives, save the NHS a fortune and massively improve productivity. The gains would massively outweigh any costs. Labour should be delivering it.…

Big business pays a large proportion of the UK’s taxes. They should be detailing exactly how much in their accounts. If Labour wants to hold business to account, this is a chance for them to do so.By Richard Murphy

Pensions are in the news because they very obviously are not working for people in the UK. The trouble is, the solutions assume a bit of financial engineering, and pouring some more money into the bottomless pit of the City of London will solve the problems. As I explain in this video, that’s definitely not true.…

Millions of people living in private rented accommodation are still facing well over inflation-rate rent increases when increases in wages are falling dramatically as most inflation does as well. This penalises those living in that accommodation in a grossly unfair way. Labour could cap rent rises so they must be less than the rate of inflation to …

We have lived through a forty-year period when just about every government minister has believed that nothing government can do is as good as what the private sector does. There is, however, no evidence to support this claim. It really is time politicians believed in the ability of government itself.…

The Tories said they would end no-fault evictions from private sector accommodation but failed to deliver. Labour could deliver this reform now, and end this threat hanging over millions of people.By Richard Murphy

Scotland already has proportional representation for its local authority elections. England needs it, and Labour would win as a result. If we’re to have a pathway to better democracy in the UK as a whole, this is a place to start it. It’s time Labour gave us PR in local elections.By Richard Murphy

Vast numbers of people are paid the minimum wage, but it makes no allowance for out-of-hours working or weekend and night working. It really should, and Labour could deliver that change to improve the well-being of all who work in this way at very little cost to it.By Richard Murphy

Politics in the UK is blighted by the influence of big political donors, all of whom are seeking to influence how our politicians behave to advantage themselves. That influence is malign. We need clean politics and Labour could deliver that by ending large donations, for good.By Richard Murphy

Labour could end the curse that the UK's tax havens represent to this country's tax revenues - and to those of other countries. It demanded action on tax havens when in opposition. Now it is time for it to deliver to open up the secrecy that lets these places operate, once and for all.By Richard Murphy

There is still massive opacity available to businesses in the UK, many of which provide little or no information as to who they are, especially on the web. Labour could change that by demanding full disclosure wherever a business trades, meaning we should all be better protected from fraud.By Richard Murphy

Labour has already introduced a 20mph speed limit in Welsh towns. It’s already working to reduce the severity of accidents, saving money and lives, and helping the environment. Labour could extend this to the whole of England at almost no cost to the government.By Richard Murphy