Patricia
@PatriciaNPino
CEng, MSc Econ & Finance. PhD Candidate at @IIPP_UCL. Co-host of @MMTPodcast . Associate @GowerInitiative . http://patriciapino.bsky.social
If you argue that to fund the welfare state you first need to tax the rich all the establishment needs to do is fearmonger that the rich will leave (something that they often do very successfully) or prove that the revenue wouldn’t be sufficient, to kill your argument.
A lot of mainstream economics errors can be attributed to the assumption of full employment (FE). Or a long term trend towards FE. This assumption is often adopted even by sceptics in the absence of any alternative understanding of what anchors the economy to a specific path.
Some are missing my point here. I understand @garyeconomices is saying that the austerity defining choice is wether to tax the rich or not. I disagree. Taxing the rich (or not) does not in anyway force the govt to starve the welfare state of funds & its dangerous to say it does.
“They’ve got virtually no choice but to shut the welfare state down” This is not true. And it is not a progressive thing to say. Austerity is always Always ALWAYS a choice.
Is it a good time to remind people that almost every other time the US government achieved a budget surplus it was followed by a recession?
BREAKING: The US Government posts a rare $27 billion budget SURPLUS in June, largely fueled by the collection of tariffs. Tariffs collected in June totaled ~$27 billion, marking a +301% gain from June 2024. 2025 tariff collections have totaled $113 billion, up +86% YoY.
The precarity of the UK economy has nothing to do with solvency. The UK has much *real* wealth. The precarity is brought about by the squandering of our wealth through the manufactured scarcity of money, by a govt that acts in the interest of the rentier (unproductive) class.
By insisting on enticing private sector investment with further cuts to wages and benefits, deregulation and tax cut “incentives” to the already wealthy you are merely exacerbating the problem and further increasing financial instability in an already precarious economy.
As government spending grows so do tax revenues. There is generally no need to argue about who is to pay more tax before spending takes place. Tax is part of a set of fiscal tools available to address inflation and inequality. It is a completely separate discussion.
The lesson from this should be : global shocks happen unexpectedly. Therefore You can’t set strict fiscal rules because you may be obliged to break them to keep the country stable and your electoral base happy. Ditch them. That’s it.
The UK’s public finances have emerged from a series of global shocks in a relatively vulnerable position. At the end of 2024, the UK government had the sixth-highest debt, the fifth-highest deficit, and third-highest borrowing costs among 36 advanced economies. #OBRfiscalrisks
Those speaking of government pension spending merely as a cost to the public purse are (once again) underestimating its wider impact on consumption, on business income and consequently on GDP.
So help me out here. Everyone who replies negatively to MMT concepts uses the term 'printing money'. Do they all use that phrase to mean the same thing? Is it just the existence of a gov't deficit that they are referring to?
The state doesn’t need the money; the goal of a wealth tax is to get rid of private concentrations of wealth
🚨 NEW: Rachel Reeves is set to reject calls for a wealth tax over fears it wouldn’t raise any money as wealthy people would simply leave the UK [@thetimes]
Michael Gove: "You can't just magic tens of billions out of the air" The govt can literally do exactly that #GMB
What the UK cannot afford is economic illiteracy and austerity