Author: Paul Scholes

1. Introduction When considering how to mitigate the effects of the climate and nature emergency, or what has to be done to adapt to the effects we can’t mitigate sufficiently, the talk will mostly involve a myriad of practical things like switching to renewable energy, electrifying transport, changing the way we grow and consume our…

2. The banks, the government, and that Money Tree Back in the late 1970s, after qualifying as an accountant, I went to work for a large city practice. I was told by those who had experience of them that, if I valued my will to live, I should avoid bank audits. Whilst training I had…

3. The mythical government purse Back in the 1970s & 80s, my prime function as an accountant revolved around the concept that tax was an overhead not an obligation and so, according to clients and my bosses, it was my job to keep their tax bills as low as possible. As I developed my own…

4. Government “borrowing” As an accountant I was reasonably cautious in advising clients over their finances, but was anything but cautious with my own. I spent several years accumulating maximum balances on credit cards and overdrafts only to resort to what were known as “consolidation loans” in which various banks would lend me the money…

5. So what is Quantitative Easing (QE)? Before describing the process, whilst MMT sees QE through a different lens, proponents of MMT are not generally in favour of it. As mentioned above, before 1971, the quantity of pounds the government could put into circulation was limited. This was because, following the Second World War, sterling,…

More often than not, when discussing what needs to be done about the climate-nature emergency, thoughts turn to practical issues around reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other impacts we have on the natural world. If we are lucky, and we don’t get distracted by promises of future technical solutions to solve the problems, maintaining business…