The mainstream media trumpeting Neoclassical orthodoxy:


(Daily Mail)


UK national debt could be as high as £12TRILLION -four times recent estimates, analysis finds

.....etc etc; you don't need to read all the usual nonsense about government debt.

Provided inflation is controlled  (with price controls and rationing if necessary), the UK treasury can issue UK sterling any time it wishes (being a legal currency-issuer) and hence repay the debt-holders any time it wants, at no cost to taxpayers.

The blindness of comfortable Conservatives on full dipsplay:

(News24)

‘Deeply wrong’: Labor MPs celebrate falling house prices and declare market is fixed.

News24 host Jaimee Rogers discusses the federal budget’s harmful impact on the housing market and reacts to Labor MPs who are celebrating the sharp housing price fall.

“There is something deeply wrong with the way this government is talking about Australia's housing market,” Ms Rogers said.

“Because while Labor MPs are out there celebrating falling house prices. Australians who own those homes are watching their wealth disappear.

“Young owners are being pushed into negative equity. Mortgage applications are collapsing. And a record number of homeowners are now at risk of defaulting on their loans.

“That is not a housing success story. It’s alarming … Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale declared the government's changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax had ‘fixed’ the market.”

......

So, making houses more affordable is "deeply wrong"?

What's wrong is eschewing the necessity for a vital public housing sector to ensure provision of secure housing for low income groups.

Of course Laxale (ALP) is also wrong; the Lab-Lib economic duopoly - based on Friedmanite monetarist 'balanced government budget ideology is to blame for increasing homelessness, lower home-ownership rates, and increasing poverty.

The electorate is becoming restive...and Labor is fiddling around the edges instead of rebuilding the nation's essential public housing stock.

Gary Stevenson explains the difference between the comfortable middle class and the super rich; and the need to tax the latter to prevent a reversion to the inequality which existed 100 years ago.

Why the super rich never get touched

In short: because governments don't tax assets owned by the wealthy.

When people hear tax the rich, they worry it means them. This video explains the difference between earning well and being truly wealthy. It breaks down how wealth is really distributed and why ordinary families are being squeezed. The focus is on who owns assets, not who works hard

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/other/why-the-super-rich-never-get-touched/vi-AA...

......

And right on cue:

(Times Now)

Elon Musk adds over $800 million a day as world’s richest person

Easily refuted Conservative codswollop:

(Daily Mail)

Key Burnham ally puts pressure on for 2% wealth tax on the richest

Andy Burnham will 'cost taxpayers billions' it was warned on Monday – after the new PM's Labour pals piled more pressure on him to introduce a wealth tax.

My comment: Conservative lie #1 - It will cost the richest taxpayers billions.

In troubling news for Britain's highest earners, Mr Burnham has been urged by a staunch ally to bring in a two per cent wealth tax at his first Budget next month.[/]

Troubling news for whom? Someone with a wealth portfolio worth more than 10 billion UK pounds?

[i]A new report from Compass, a Labour group headed by Neal Lawson, is pushing the new Prime Minister to introduce a two per cent levy on net wealth above £10million – a move it claims would raise £24billion a year and affect 22,000 Brits.

The leftist pressure group also calls for capital gains to be levelled with income tax, which it predicts will squeeze a further £11billion from Britain's richest.

But Mr Burnham was warned last night that caving to demands for a wealth tax would 'send the signal that Britain is not a place for aspiration, investment or success'.

[i]Sir Mel Stride, shadow chancellor, said: 'Andy Burnham has barely got his feet under the desk and his allies are already drawing up a list of whose pockets to go through.

'It made no difference Andy Burnham replaced Keir Starmer because Labour are the problem. Andy Burnham's tax-more, borrow-more, spend-more agenda will cost taxpayers billions of pounds.

'Only the Conservatives have a leader with the backbone and strong team needed to restore confidence in the public finances by cutting debt through our Golden Economic Rule.'

Comment: Conservative lie #2 - Conservatives lost the confidence of the electorate at the last election.

Robert Jenrick, Reform's economic spokesperson, added: 'Time and again history has proven wealth taxes simply do not work.

'Labour seems to think there's a bottomless pit of millionaires who'll swallow every tax rise. They won't. They'll leave, just as they have been leaving under this government, taking their businesses, jobs and tax revenue with them.

Comment: Conservative lies #3 and #4 - the formula for wealth taxes has in the past been riddled with exemptions; and moving from the nation which enabled the creation of a wealth portfolio can be 'discouraged' by taxing the entire wealth portfolio 100% (forget 2%...) 

Instead of dreaming up new ways to raid people's savings, the Government should focus on cutting government waste such as net zero, tackling the welfare bill and growing the economy through common-sense reform.'

Comment: Conservative lie #5 - "growing the economy through common-sense reform"; Conservatives never achieve that when they are in government, which is why they are always turfed out of office.   

Of course, "progressives" don't know how to achieve it either...hence this MMT board examing the myriad of issues involved.

And Daniel Herring, head of Fiscal and Economic Policy at think tank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), told the Daily Mail: 'As the CPS and many others have repeatedly pointed out, wealth taxes are unfair, unworkable, and send the signal that Britain is not a place for aspiration, investment or success.

Comment: Conservative lie #6 - "wealth taxes are unfair"...it would be interesting to explore Herring's concept of "unfairness" when the top 1%'s wealth is exploding and the middle class is disappearing, as confirmed by Gary Stevenson. 

'Andy Burnham would do well to ignore those around him who are pushing for wealth taxes if he wants to see Britain return to growth.'

Comment: Conservative lie #7 - already noted above (#5).

The number of millionaires has reduced by seven per cent since 2024 after former Labour chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her tax-raising Autumn budget.

Comment: Conservative lie/distortion #8 -

(Guardian) "Gabriel Zucman, an economist at University of California, Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics, said that while in the postwar decades GDP growth numbers were broadly indicative of how income was growing for most of the population, “today, there is a total disconnect between macroeconomic indicators and the reality of income gains for most people”.

He added: “The upsurge of income and wealth among the super rich – and the accounting of manipulations of multinational companies in Ireland – are distorting macroeconomic numbers.”


But Labour figures are now capitalising on their party's lurch to the left under Mr Burnham by clamouring for a new tax on wealth.

Yes,  because economic inequality and poverty are increasng in the  UK (and elsewhere).

From Prof. Steve Keen:

Do we actually need bonds?

Life would be simpler if governments didn't issue bonds, but the finance sector, that complains when there are too many, would really complain if there were none at all.

There’s only one reason a government issues bonds. It’s so their account with the central bank is not overdrawn. It’s only regulation that stops the central bank from saying a rapidly expanding deficit is fine. After all, it’s an indicator of how much government money has gone into supporting the private sector.

But economists and finances see that as monetising finanacing, and it’s a no no. Instead, regulations insist bonds are issued to the value of the government’s spending deficit.

But what purpose do they serve, other than allowing investors to influence their price and yield, often as a response to government spending. In short, they seem to think their market pricing can influence government policy. So, why do we pay so much attention to an artificial process that only happen because we can’t trust governments to regulate their spending and keep inflation in check?


https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/do-we-actually-need-bonds?utm_source=podcas...

(News Wire)

'Sad day' as national debt hits $1 trillion

Australia is marking a “sad day”, opposition economy spokesman Tim Wilson has said as the national debt ticks over $1 trillion.

Federal debt is set to briefly pass the milestone on Thursday morning as the Australian Office of Financial Management borrows another $4bn, before dipping back down on Friday when other loans are settled.

“Today is ultimately a sad for the country,” Mr Wilson said, claiming that “this government is addicted to spending”.

“It’s addicted to inflation, and it’s constantly focused on how it spends that spending and … stokes the economy, stokes the inflation, then they go and tax the inflation and they spend the inflation in a vicious cycle, which is why Australians are falling further and further behind.”

He warned that future generations would ultimately bear the cost, saying that “today’s debt is tomorrow’s taxes”.

“This is why the task is so important, to confront debt, to make sure it doesn’t continue to be part of an intergenerational legacy that’s being left behind,” Mr Wilson said.

Labor has pumped billions into cost-of-living relief since its elections in 2022, as wars across the globe strain supply chains and drive up energy costs.

The Albanese government initially delivered two back-to-back surpluses before slipping back into deficits for the last two federal budgets, with further deficits forecast until the mid 2030s.

However, it has found more than $100bn in savings and reprioritisations.

A spokesperson for Treasurer Jim Chalmers pushed back against Mr Wilson’s claims, saying that “gross debt would have crossed the trillion dollar mark three years ago”.

“If the Coalition had been in power today gross debt this year would already be approaching 1.2 trillion dollars,” they said.

“The government’s responsible economic management has got debt down from what we inherited from the Coalition and Australia is avoiding more than $70bn in interest.”

Australia has one of the lowest debt burdens when compared to other advanced economies, including the G7 countries.

Moody’s and S&P Global, two of the world’s biggest credit rating agencies, earlier this month upheld Australia’s triple AAA credit ratings.

......


So Oz remains one of the few countries with a AAA credit rating - what's the problem?

The silly part about it all is that currency-issuing governments are forced to tax, or borrow money from rich people or institutions, when such governments are legal currency issuers.

All because laissez faire markets  need independent central banks to contol inflation, whereas direct  mobilization of (non-monetary)resources , to avoid inflation, is a task which should be the preserve of governments.   

It's a pity Trump has got bogged down in the Iran war which is causing global inflation to rise, alongside his tarrifs which are supposed  to remove the burden of taxation from US citizens to the rest of the world.

So both are working against  Trump's chance to show lower taxes and higher debt is immaterial for a currrency-issuer provided inflation is kept under control.

Gary Stevenson admits his plan is only enough to prevent the UK from sliding back into Dickensian poverty, in this BBC TV interview. 

Gary Stevenson says Britain is FINISHED unless we fix this problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPeP9xFrtP0