I have out up Marsh family videos here before. This one is very good ..read more

This was Stephanie Kelton on The Daily Show in the USA last night, talking about modern monetary theory: In case the link does not work (and YouTube seems to be unreliable this morning), it's also here ..read more

One of the strangest consequences of running a blog that has quite a high volume of traffic is that I receive a great many press releases a day. Most go straight into the electronic bin, but there are exceptions that demand that I read them. One of those came in from Extinction Rebellion this morning. It said, and I unashamedly quote: Extinction Rebellion, BBC Wildlife legend Chris Packham and tens of thousands of members of the public will ‘unite for nature’ by joining a legal and family-friendly demonstration on the streets of central London on Saturday 22 June 2024. Backed by a wide-range ..read more

I posted this video on YouTube this morning: This is the transcript: Taxes should be fair. I think that's obvious. Well, it should be to anyone. They're not in the UK at present because we know that the wealthy underpay tax compared to those on lower incomes, and that's one of the reasons why I wrote the Taxing Wealth Report, precisely because we do need to redistribute income and wealth from those who've got high levels of both to those who have very little of either. So obviously, that's one reason why we can increase tax fairness, but we need some sort of guide as to what we mean about tax ..read more

I had a Twitter direct mail message from a quite well-known person a few days ago, asking two questions about the Taxing Wealth Report 2024. The first was: If you were PM would you do all those things or just some ? The second was: Second question - didn’t you say that govts don’t really need tax money in order to spend ? Inflation allowing, they can just print? Maybe inflation doesn’t allow any more? I am obviously not going to disclose my correspondence name, but since what they have asked has been quite commonly raised since I published the Taxing Wealth Report, I thought it worth shari ..read more

I posted this video on YouTube this morning: This is the transcript: Who are the wealthy? That's a really important question, especially when I've written something called the Taxing Wealth Report, because very obviously that is targeted at those who are wealthy. There are two definitions that we can use of those who are wealthy in the UK. One is to simply look at the money and other assets that they own, because that is the clearest indication of wealth in common parlance, or in normal plain speak. And if we do that, we can see, from information provided by the Office for National Statistics ..read more

The Office for National Statistics has produced new figures for the national finances for March 2024 this morning. In their release, they say: Borrowing in the financial year ending (FYE) March 2024 was provisionally estimated at £120.7 billion, £7.6 billion less than in the same twelve-month period a year ago but £6.6 billion more than forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Compared with the annual value of the UK’s economy, borrowing in the FYE March 2024 was provisionally estimated at 4.4% of the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP), 0.6 percentage points less than in the sam ..read more

I returned to the subject of capital gains tax on people's homes yesterday, knowing well that of all the proposals I made in the Taxing Wealth Report 2024, this was the one that proved least popular when I put it out in the first draft. Despite that, I felt it appropriate to include it in the final report and to raise the subject again. The fundamental reason for doing so is that the capital gains tax exemption on people's homes is now creating enormous divisions within our society because of the massive wealth divide that home ownership is now creating in our country. This is being repeated a ..read more

The Lords gave in to the Commons on the Safety of Rwanda Bill last night, as ultimately they must. Democracy is sovereign and if those who have been elected insist that red is blue then the Lords, having used their best endeavours to request that the Commons change its mind, must give way even though they know that what the Commons is claiming is wrong. This is what happened last night. The Lords eventually agreed to let a Bill promoted by a corrupt and racist government pass despite all the false claims within it. Rwanda is not safe, whatever the Tories say. The Lords are also right that the ..read more

As the Guardian notes this morning: Thousands of voters in the May local elections are at risk of being disenfranchised because of “cynical” rule changes that make photo ID compulsory, Labour’s metro mayors argue. Mayors including Sadiq Khan in London, Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire and Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester have come together to raise awareness of changes they say are a “brazen assault on our democracy”. The new system, they argue, is a Tory attempt to make it easier for the Conservative party to win and are “inspired by the voter suppression tactics of the US Republican party ..read more