THREAD 1/x ONLY new government spending can increase private sector’s net savings. Taxation does the opposite. Every £ comes either from government spending (adding to total government debt until taxed back) or from bank lending (creating deposits but no extra wealth overall).

I’m old enough to remember this result #worldcup - lovely to see Cape Verde making history fantastic defending

Creating trillionaires the old-fashioned way. One rate hike at a time.

Now, watch how none of the fiscal hawks will scream about trillions being transferred by the central bank to the banking sector. Why? Because there is a comfortable alliance between the financial sector, mainstream economists, the media, and governments. As long as the sovereign money creation power is used to protect financial interests and enrich those at the top, it is considered “prudent policy.” But the moment that same monetary capacity is proposed to create jobs, strengthen public services, or improve the lives of ordinary people, suddenly the deficit becomes a catastrophe, and the sky is supposedly falling. The hypocrisy is impossible to ignore.

The return to the gold standard after the Civil War is often presented as a triumph of sound money. The reality was more complicated. Yes, prices fell between the 1870s and 1890s. But falling prices do not automatically make people better off. Much of America was heavily indebted. Farmers, small businesses, and railroads had borrowed in nominal dollars. As prices and incomes fell, those debts became harder to repay because the dollars owed grew more valuable over time. This was not simply a refund to savers. It was also a transfer from debtors to creditors. The period was marked by repeated financial crises, including the Panics of 1873, 1884, 1893, and 1896. Banks failed, unemployment surged, and economic activity contracted. Many contemporaries argued that tying money creation to gold constrained the financial system's ability to accommodate a rapidly industrializing economy. Even economists who favor low inflation often acknowledge that persistent deflation can create problems. Falling prices increase the real burden of debt, discourage investment, and can trigger debt-deflation dynamics later analyzed by Irving Fisher. The political movements for silver coinage and monetary expansion were not merely demands for perpetual inflation. They reflected a genuine conflict over who would bear the costs of restoring pre-war price levels. Creditors generally benefited from deflation. Debtors generally did not. The lesson is not that inflation is good or that deflation is bad. The lesson is that monetary systems create winners and losers, and the gold standard was no exception.

Yesterday I suggested that allowing a judge to include something as serious and disassociated as 'terrorist connections' as an 'aggravating factor' during sentencing is effectively like adding another charge. Then I discovered that numerous people on this site - including barristers - can't understand what 'effectively' means in this context. Will this country survive? I'm not sure.

"Sky News has verified the identities of everyone from the school who was killed. 120 students, 73 boys & 47 girls, aged from 6 to 13, & 26 teachers, who were killed in the strike". @Chesh reports on the primary school bombed by the US. 120 children & 26 teachers, all murdered.

Ahead of a potential U.S.-Iran deal, the Israelis do exactly what everyone expects them to do. Bomb Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Sentenced and imprisoned on grounds of “terrorism” that no jury ever convicted them of. Meanwhile, the British government continues to aid and abet the greatest crime of our time. A historic miscarriage of justice — and a truly dark day for civil liberties in this country.

BREAKING: Apocalyptic scenes in Lebanon’s capital right now. Israel is bombing residential buildings in densely populated neighborhoods of Beirut. A ceasefire that still allows bombs to fall on civilians is not a ceasefire.

Times puff piece on private equity boss saying the answer to all our problems is greater private sector involvement in defence procurement, and greater role for private finance. Something odd is happening in this country.

If you play Monopoly by LVT rules, everyone wins. Try it.

Israel flattened Beirut in 1982. No Hamas. No Hezbollah. No October 7 to point to then. Just 17,000 dead Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. Even US president then Ronald Reagan, who armed Israel, called Begin furious after seeing a photo of a 7-month-old baby with its arms blown off and said “It is a holocaust”. They killed so many innocent people that the survivors had no choice but to pick up weapons. Then Israel had the audacity to keep using “Self-Defense” excuse every decade. Israel didn’t stumble into endless war. Israel built it. Brick by brick. Own it.

You don't save first and then create investment. In a modern monetary economy, investment comes first. Firms invest when they expect sales and profits. Banks create credit to finance that investment, generating new deposits in the process. The act of lending creates the purchasing power that makes production possible. Savings are not a pool of money waiting to be lent out. At the aggregate level, savings largely emerge as a result of investment and income creation. One person's spending becomes another person's income, and income generates saving. Interest rates do not coordinate a fixed supply of savings with a demand for investment. Investment depends primarily on expectations, profitability, demand conditions, and access to credit. A low interest rate can help, but it cannot make firms invest when they see no customers. Modern banking does not transfer existing savings from patient households to ambitious entrepreneurs. Banks create deposits when they make loans. The constraint is not prior saving, but creditworthiness, profitability, regulation, and the willingness of banks to lend. Economic downturns occur not because people consume too much and save too little. They occur when profits weaken, debt burdens rise, expectations deteriorate, and investment slows. What looks like excessive consumption is often the consequence of an economy attempting to maintain demand in the face of insufficient income growth. The challenge for a capitalist economy is not encouraging more abstinence and delayed gratification. It is maintaining sufficient demand, productive investment, financial stability, and income growth to keep resources fully employed without generating unsustainable debt dynamics.

Short report from Hermel, which is situated in the northeast of Lebanon, approximately 3 hours from Beirut.

Just listen to this... 🥹 Goosebumps as the Scotland fans belt out Flower of Scotland at the World Cup 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🎶 #BBCFootball #FifaWorldCup

YOUR SAVINGS, THEIR DEFICIT Here's a simple accounting identity that changes everything: The government's deficit is the private sector's surplus. To the dollar. When the government spends more than it taxes, it is injecting money into the economy. That money becomes our savings. A government "surplus" means they are taking more money out of the economy than they are putting in. It is a net drain on our wealth. buff.ly/SlJ4mjE #MMT #ECON

RT @TweetForTheMany: Approximately 800,000 people suffer homelessness in the US, with roughly 40% (hundreds of thousands) unsheltered—in te…

This is West Virginia. They are super excited America has its first trillionaire.