Instead of picking on children on poverty and pensioners needing support with fuel bills to pay the price for the Tory economic aftermath Labour should be picking on tax cheats to fill its coffers, as the National Audit Office agrees, and as I show in the Taxing Wealth Report 2024, would not be hard.…

Of all the groups in society anyone expected Labour to pick on when it came into office Labour were the least likely excepting, perhaps, children in poverty. Now it turns out they are the two groups Labour thinks should pay the price for the mess that Labour claims it has I inherited from the Tories. Political incompetence on this scale is hard to …

The Bank of England, and most especially its Monetary Policy Committee, have imposed misery on the UK over the past couple of years for absolutely no reason. If ever there was a reason for the Bank to be independent of the government, it has long gone. If the best interests of the people of the UK are to be served the Bank is long overdue for refor…

The UK’s devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland need proper powers to tax or they will always be governing with one arm tied behind their backs. Without such powers devolved government is a sham – and so too is the so-called United Kingdom.Oleh Richard Murphy

You can’t discuss macroeconomics without knowing about modern monetary theory. So, what is it all about? In this longer than usual video I offer my explanation. You won’t regret finding out.Oleh Richard Murphy

There is no such thing as a state economy. Nor is there a private sector economy. There is always a mx of the two. The cappuccino is the perfect metaphor for that fact.Oleh Richard Murphy

Inflation is always a temporary phenomenon that always cures itself. History proves that. In that case to make it the epicentre of economic management in the UK is absurd. We need much better goals if the country is to make progress, whether on employment, inequality, investment or climate change.Oleh Richard Murphy

The far-right won an election in Germany last weekend, following on from successes elsewhere. Why is it so popular? And how can it be contained? The answers all come down to neoliberalism. It has destroyed faith in existing political parties, undermining the left in the process. Until the left comes up with a plausible way of beating neoliberalism …

The EU has offered the UK the chance of free movement for people under the age of 30, but Keir Starmer is adamant that this must not happen. He has offered no good reason, just like the parent who says no to a child without offering explanation as to why. Could it be that having the chance to say no without good reason is why he sought power?…

A survey has suggested that young people in the UK are much more dissatisfied with their lives than equivalent teenagers are in other countries. Could it be that our economic model is depriving them of hope, opportunity and the chance of well-being?Oleh Richard Murphy

Labour was built on the basis of a proud left-of-centre tradition that was based on support for working people and a belief in the power of the state to build well-being for everyone, and not just a few. But that’s gone. Just like the Tories, it is now dedicated to the cult of the individual and is opposed to the state and all it can do for us. The…

Economics always seem to be written from the perspective of the City of London. Even Labour now seems to only exist to serve its interests. But what would economics look like if it was written from beyond the City’s walls? The Mile End Road runs from the City to the East End of London – the traditional home of its new migrant populations. And at it…

Labour claims it has a “black hole” of £22 billion to fill in the government’s finances. They should stop making a fuss. Doing so would be easy. There are at least six – and maybe more – ways to do it.Oleh Richard Murphy

Two months into office as prime minister Keir Starmer is claiming that we should anticipate ‘more pain’ under his leadership. That’s unsurprising. So far, he has provided no clue as to what he will ‘change’, despite that being the theme of his election campaign. Instead, he says he will struggle to deliver what the Tories promised. As early admissi…

People like to claim they have a gross income out of which their tax is paid. But is that gross income ever really theirs when it comes with the legal obligation to pay tax attached to it, meaning that the tax owing always belongs to the government? And what does that do to the idea of taxpayer money?…

Land value taxation is a 19th century idea that has very rarely been used. Its proponents say it is the great unavoidable tax that could potentially replace all other taxes. The problem is it is based on assumptions that might be fine in theory, but which would be incomprehensible in practice – and that’s no way to impose a tax charge.…

Politicians like to pretend that we live in a binary world. It’s us or them, they suggest. But the real world is really not like that, so are they doing us a massive disservice by pretending that politics has to work that way?Oleh Richard Murphy

You’d think politicians should be good at decision making, but they aren’t. Of all the options available to them they usually choose prevarication when there are usually five other alternatives they could use. As a result our politicians are paralysing our political processes.Oleh Richard Murphy

I’ve been creating social media content since 2006, whether it’s been blogs, tweets or now YouTube and TikTok videos. There’s only ever been one reason for doing so, and that has been to change the world in whatever way I can for those who get a less than fair deal from it.Oleh Richard Murphy

Many on the political right wing obsess about interest paid on government debt as if it disappears into some black hole. It doesn’t. It’s just interest paid on savings deposited with the government and there’s been nothing excessive about its overall cost of late.Oleh Richard Murphy

Macroeconomics suggests how governments work. But at present it’s almost all based on microeconomics, which is about how individuals, households and companies work. But that’s absurd when micro entities and governments are completely different as to purpose, goals and the tools available to change outcomes. No wonder we’re in a mess.…

We’ve had limited liability companies in their current form for about 170 years now, but no one back then imagined we’d have more than five million of them. So, are we really doing the right thing giving limited liability to anyone who asks for it now, or should we be more circumspect?Oleh Richard Murphy

Politicians, commentators and journalists all like to claim that the UK government could run out of money, but that is total nonsense. The UK government can always create the money it needs to pay its debts. It is the one and only organisation in the UK that can never, as a result, run out of money. #uk #government #money #economic #politics #bank …

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.Oleh 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.Oleh 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?Oleh 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.Oleh 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.Oleh 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.Oleh 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 #shareOleh 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.Oleh 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.Oleh 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.Oleh 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.Oleh 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.Oleh 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.Oleh 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.Oleh Richard Murphy