Two titans of UK politics face off over government interest payments, while completely missing the obvious answer: stop giving rich people free money

Spending only happens if there was something to buy. If that spending is then deficit spending it has a lower inflationary impact than spending that is tax-matched.

Time for another exercise in mythbusting. It turns out it is very difficult for something that cannot move to fly. Who knew?

There is no risk that interest rates on UK government debt will reach crippling levels. Interest rates are policy variables. Paying interest is a political choice. Betteridge’s law of headlines applies.

Bill Mitchell explains how MMT sees the effect of Interest Rate changes on the economy

Here’s the real reason ‘asset managers’ object to ‘printing money’

MMT presentation in London on 20th April 2023

The Asset Purchase Facility has landed HM Treasury with a ~£90 billion bill over the next two year. This paper lays out an approach that requires no further vote funding from Parliament, no additional debt interest payments, and restores “postive cash flow” from the APF for the remainder of this Parliament.

The 2020s appear to be a never-ending parade of global groupthink. The Russian Oil Price Cap is yet another stupid and self-destructive idea that should have been suffocated at birth. It cannot possibly achieve what its supporters claim, and it represents emotional value signalling from the Big Hug Club rather than any semblance of rational thought.

Once intra-government transactions are eliminated, QE represents an exchange of gilts (liabilities of the National Loans Fund) for central bank reserves (liabilities of the Bank of England)

The public debt markets add less value to national prosperity than their opportunity costs. A proper cost-benefit analysis would conclude that the market should be terminated.

The government borrows at a price of its choosing. Here’s how.

My favourite BBC article has been rewritten again and more inaccuracies added. Let’s go through them.

When the HM Government buys anything, all the money to pay for it is automatically borrowed from the Bank of England, interest free and without limit

Today we discuss the errors of thinking in the article: ‘Trussonomics’ has put the PM on a collision course with the Bank of England

The failure of its leaders to understand how sovereign currencies work is now starting to cripple the West

Listening to politicians talk about the UK energy crisis is like watching bald men fighting over a comb. None of them get to the root cause - a shortage of natural gas. When you take an MMT view, that’s where you start.

Sim CB is a new economic simulation game, with some interesting MMT outcomes

Since 2018 Russia has had an alternative payment clause in its Eurobond contracts that allows it to pay principal and interest in Roubles

How the new payment process for gas in Russia will work, including how it is settled at the Moscow Exchange, all of which leads to some interesting observations

Journalists really should take some time to learn how correspondent banking works

In all international transactions they consumer pays with the currency they have and the producer gets the currency they want to hold. So why the big fuss over Russia’s requirement to receive Roubles?

How two nations trade to the benefit of all — allegedly

Russia has easily countered the attempts at financial sanctions, resulting in some interesting outcomes that further confirm the view taken by Modern Monetary Theory

Electronic impulses on computers only stop tanks in Call of Duty. War is not a game, and stopping it will require rather more than attempts at financial alchemy

A Job Guarantee is a straightforward concept. It is the government’s offer of a job to everyone who wants one, at the living wage, working for the public good.

A government can get the best credit card deal in the world. Here’s how it works and how they could use it.

Let’s do a couple of impossible things with the UK monetary system. All without requiring a single change to the legislation

Raising interest rates in an attempt to control inflation is a myth that could, instead, lead to a price spiral

This is a transcript of the 1857 report that lead to the Exchequer and Audit Department Act of 1866, the law by which government payments are both regulated and permitted to this day. Although only five pages long it revolutionised the accounting, audit and payment systems in the United Kingdom.