Jake Carter

[Richard Murphy @RichardJMurphy]

The bond market is being treated by the media as if it has a veto over any Labour move to the left. The media are, then, complicit in the whole conspiracy to make sure democracy cannot deliver what people want and need so that the wealthy might gain. https://t.co/06MiczuhNw

[Malcolm Reavell @malcolm_reavell]

@JStuartMacLean Per Bylund🤣

[Steve Hall @ProfHall1955]

True. We learn from cutting-edge neuropsychology and anthropology that the basic molecular message the interoceptive nervous system receives is the pre-emptive avoidance of suffering, which minimises sacrifice in a given environment. Our powers of abstraction and cognition developed around the principle of the social group we needed for survival - we were amongst the weakest animals, easy prey as individuals. Imagining the suffering of others as the same as ours - empathy - is a primal abstraction.

The diffusion of human rights throughout the social group isn't simply a 'fiction' or even just a contractual convention or self-evident truth. It's fuelled by the most primal biological functions, affective drives, metaphysical traditions, material circumstances, external needs and forms of sociopolitical cohesion. Basic survival.

Perverting and suppressing empathy guarantees social division, oligarchy, exploitation, instability and violence. The danger we face is that today's technologised, financialised and atomised economy has enhanced the individual's ability to survive with minimal social contact and obligation if enough money can be acquired. We are on the road to the 'war of all against all'.

[Proudofus.uk @ProudofusUK]

They were starving. The cotton was right there. They refused to touch it.

Lancashire, 1862.🇬🇧

The cotton mills that clothed the world. The cotton came from American slave plantations.

Then the Civil War began. Lincoln blockaded the Southern ports. The cotton stopped coming.

331,000 people lost their jobs. The most prosperous workers in Britain were queuing for charity soup. Children went hungry.

Everyone expected them to break. Demand the government side with the slaveholders. Get the cotton flowing again.

They didn't.

New Year's Eve, 1862. Manchester Free Trade Hall.

Workers packed the hall. Hungry. Unemployed. Freezing.

The Manchester Guardian told them not to come.

They came anyway.

They voted to support Lincoln. To keep the blockade. To keep starving.

They refused to buy their survival with someone else's chains.

Lincoln wrote back. He called it "sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country."

Then he sent ships full of food to Lancashire.

There's still a statue of Lincoln in Manchester. His words are still on it.

But here's what most people don't know.

That hall, the Free Trade Hall, was built on the exact site of the Peterloo Massacre.

In 1819, cavalry charged into working people on that same ground. Demanding the right to vote. At least fifteen killed.

Same ground. Same working people. Two generations apart.

In 1819 they were cut down for asking to be heard. In 1862 their children chose to starve for someone else's freedom.

Lancashire. Every time.

Help us get the stories of our ancestors out of the archives and into the people.
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No sponsors. No ads. Just us.

Be part of us.

Be proud of us. 🇬🇧

[michael mezz @michaelmezz]

jobs don't exist because of wealthy people.

the reason we need jobs in the first place is that wealthy people - with support from the state - enclosed public lands to force peasants into jobs at factories. that process continues today.

@graceblakeley on Better Future podcast:

[Danny @Dannynn__]

When Britain "cuts back the red tape" for Private businesses:

[Steve Hall @ProfHall1955]

The Marxists are right about this. The tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The 'investors' - the creditor class - can no longer make enough money on normal stuff like agriculture and manufacturing. They have to cancel democratic politics, disempower the state and privatise everything that was once public. One sweeping, final asset-strip for the rentiers. They also task their tech nerds with the creation of a decadent fantasy world we can rent from them every day. To sustain 'investor confidence', nothing must be public, nothing free, nothing sacred and nothing real.

But it rests on the big lie that we need their money. In fact we have our own money, created by the state every day. They're desperate to restrict that, so the IMF tells each nation to keep its spending/investment down to 3% of GDP. Enough for the minimal welfare and everyday maintenance required to quell civil unrest. Defy the creditor class and they'll sell off your bonds and currency on global markets and tank your economy. The other big lie - they can do that only if we let them.

This is why the creditor class is terrified of the economic truths uncovered by heterodox economics positions such as post-Keynesianism and #MMT. Understanding this simple fact - we do not need them or their money - is revolutionary.

[Your Fav Disabled Hottie❤️‍🔥 @nilanmorton]

You cannot prevent disability. I want people to understand that.

Even if you eat healthy, exercise, and have access to healthcare. Disability can and will happen.

Advocate for free healthcare. Advocate for better resources. Advocate for accessibility. Advocate for inclusion.

[David McNab @[email protected] @DavidMcNab17]

Zack’s right.

We spend, then tax and issue bonds. Look at Japan, look at China. Ask how China has been able to do so much so quickly without ‘borrowing’. Ask why Japan has been swatting away the bond markets for decades.

[Jake Carter @jakefcarter]

Manning out, Knapper out #ncfc

[Michael Sanderson @ecoproducer]

WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE HAPPENS:

1. Taxpayer pays tax
2. Currency Issuing Government spends tax

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS:

1. Currency Issuing Government spends currency
2. Taxpayers use currency to pay tax

GET IT?

[ℹ️ Not The Torygraph 💚 #SaveOurNHS #ScrapNHSBill @TweetForTheMany]

@simonmaginn @helenmcollins1 Bond issuance is a choice, and it’s not “borrowing”.

https://t.co/yEoitJF2CZ

[Richard Murphy @RichardJMurphy]

There’s a persistent myth that our government is somehow at the mercy of the financial markets and that it has to dance to their tune. This is most definitely doing the rounds this week, mainly as a result of Labour's mismanagement of its own party, and Rachel Reeves' subsequent very public tears.

It’s a myth I have been challenging for years, so let me summarise why.

1. The government creates the money

The UK government is the monopoly issuer of the pound. It spends all of that money into existence. Every pound of government spending creates a matching financial asset for someone else. It is only afterwards that the government issues bonds, not because it needs the money, but to provide a safe place for savers to deposit their funds when banks cannot provide this service.

This point is critical. The government does not need the markets to ��fund’ its spending. It is simply swapping one form of money (reserves) for another (gilts). Bizarrely, it pays interest to those to whom it provides this service.

2. Gilts are a choice, not a necessity

The sale of government bonds, gilts in the UK, is presented as if the government is dependent on the markets to keep spending. This is nonsense. The government issues gilts largely because:

It wants to drain reserves from the banking system to help the Bank of England hit its (currently too high) interest rate target.

It wants to give pension funds and insurance companies a safe deposit facility to underpin their promises to those who use their services.

It believes it must maintain an outdated and now unnecessary City-based financial architecture.

None of this means it needs the markets to spend. If no one bought gilts, the government could continue to spend. In fact, as quantitative easing and now quantitative tightening prove, there is no relationship between bond issues and Bank of England market interventions and the capacity of the government to spend: the evidence is all there for anyone to see.

3. The central bank is always the buyer of last resort

When financial markets are in turmoil, as happened in the mini-budget fiasco under Liz Truss,  the Bank of England steps in. Its role is to stabilise prices and yields. This is not optional. It is a fundamental part of having a sovereign currency and a central bank that acts as the lender of last resort. This means the financial markets are, in fact, dependent on the government and its central bank. Not the other way around.

4. Interest rates are a policy choice

People say, “but the markets set interest rates, and so they can discipline the government.” Again, this misunderstands monetary operations. The Bank of England sets the base rate. It can cap or control longer-term rates by buying or selling bonds as it chooses. The so-called market rates are policy-contingent. When push comes to shove, the central bank can always enforce the interest rate it wants.

5. What markets really influence is ideology

So why the obsession with ‘market confidence’? The reality is, politicians and economists often invoke markets to justify austerity. It is easier to say “the markets demand it” than to admit their own ideological choice, which would otherwise be unpalatable to the electorate. Financial markets do, in that case, play a political role, but they do not hold the government hostage. They operate within the monetary framework that the government and its central bank set. We could just as easily choose to run the economy with other priorities, but it does not suit neoliberal politicians to do so. That is because they view politics as the City does, at cost to us all.

Summary

I keep returning to this issue because it is so fundamental: the UK government is a currency creator, not a currency user. It is not like a household. It does not need to beg or borrow from the markets to spend. Financial markets are accommodated by the government, not the other way around.

Understanding this changes everything. It means that economic policy decisions — on public services, investment, climate action, and inequality — are political choices, not technical constraints imposed by bond traders. That is why misinformation on this issue matters so much, and the fact that it is so widespread shows just how strong are the forces that wish to deny that democratic choices can still be made in the UK.

[latsot @latsot]

It's horrifying.

I have a disability and live in constant pain. My condition gets worse every month and will at some point in the not too distant future become imminently terminal.

And there's every chance I'll have my disability benefit taken away this year due to enormous cuts by the same government that wants people who have lost their disability benefit to kill themselves.

Because of this I will become a burden to my loved ones, whom the government feels should coerce me into suicide, with that burden in mind, no doubt via very attractive ad campaigns.

The reason this feels like a package deal is the blindingly obvious one: it is.

Labour, a formerly socialist party, cares *nothing* for members of society who can't contribute in the here and now, regardless of how much tax they've paid or societal good they've done their entire lives.

If we can't work, Labour is telling us, then we're a drain on society who must not only be eliminated, but must *take that responsibility upon ourselves* by killing ourselves. And to help us along the way, they're taking away the benefits we need to live meaningful lives.

Not one part of this is an exaggeration. This is today's Labour and today's UK.

[Justintime @tykestakeonit]

I bet they don't mention how the soldiers returning from the war helped kick Churchill out on his arse and voted in a government that created the welfare state.

[Prof. Steve Keen @ProfSteveKeen]

Government "debt" isn't like household debt. When governments run deficits, they're creating fiat money that flows into the private economy. It's a feature, not a bug.

[Stan's Account @tristandross]

the grandson of britain's hitler is currently convincing keir starmer to cede control of numerous aspects of the state, including parts of the nhs, to a profoundly evil company founded by peter thiel. just good stuff

[Marl Karx @BareLeft]

The fact we've had rock bottom rates of Corporation Tax for a decade while everything in Britain gets tangibly worse suggests that, perhaps, economic prosperity isn't inherently linked to giving the mega rich literally everything they want.