"It’s certainly true that #Polanski polarises opinion. It’s also the case that he might just be the most exciting politician of his generation. He became a member of the London Assembly in 2021, but his cut-through since becoming leader of the #GreenParty last September has been remarkable. Membership has more than tripled to 184,000, putting the once fringe party ahead of the Conservatives."
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/zack-polanski-keir-starmer-vile-comments-b1269694.html
Towards the end of the article the journalist tries to criticise Polanski's economic ideas - but in so doing actually reveals her own ignorance...
She equates MMT with 'printing more money', and then equates this with the German inflation crisis of the 1930s, etc. What MMT actually says is that printing more money is OK as long as the economy can absorb it without causing inflation, or it can be removed through tax before it does. She is way behind modern analysis of the Weimar inflation - which is not now thought to have been caused by printing too much money, but by excessive First World War reparations having to be paid in foreign currencies, which meant directing German production into exports and therefore causing domestic shortages - limiting the capacity of the economy to absorb money - hence rising prices.
She's also wrong about the national debt - only a very small proportion of which is in the international bond markets, and it is those markets that need the bonds, not the government. If a bank attracts lots of savers everyone thinks it's positive - but much of the national debt is just the same - it really isn't a problem. And Polanski is absolutely right when he says that the huge chunk of the national debt owed to the Bank of England (I think its a quarter, maybe as much as a third) is not really debt at all, since the Bank of England is owned by the government. If you owe money to yourself, it's a fiction, not a debt.
Journalism marred again by the poor economic understanding of journalists.
@PoliceStateUK @GeofCox To add to your already spot-on assessment, a key concept missing from much of today's macroeconomic discourse is that of productive capacity. If it's true that to create inflationary pressures there has to be too many pounds sterling (or whatever) chasing too few goods and services, it's also true that national spending can't trigger runaway inflation unless it exceeds productive capacity. If the raw materials, willing and able workers, etc. are there, we can afford it. 🤷🏻♂️
@ApostateEnglishman @PoliceStateUK
I was also amazed and annoyed at her proclamation that if university tuition fees are abolished it would 'clearly' mean fewer university places. Errr - I'm here, living in France now, which like many of the UK's neighbouring countries doesn't have tuition fees - and in France more kids go, and more get degrees, than in the UK now.
She is mouthing a journalistic 'factoid' - which is 'clearly' unevidenced.
@PoliceStateUK @GeofCox Excellent analysis, thanks!
"A Labour insider recently said if the party lost the hotly contested Denton and Gorton by-election — in which Andy Burnham was banned from running — to Reform it would be awful, but if they lost to the Greens it would be “existential”." !
@GeofCox @PoliceStateUK
Interesting. From Labours point of view, it's easy to slate Reform, it's much more difficult to criticise The Green party. They're terrified by the Greens increasing popularity. They know many traditional Labour voters will switch.
Labour have stabbed us in the back more times than I can count. They deserve to go down the pan.
