About that Tory Money Tree

Image credit Paul Mason

As Theresa May and her colleagues use their new catchphrase "The Money Tree" Phil Tyler shares a few thoughts;

Where will the money come from?

Here are few ideas I have collected, from here and there, for finding the money to support public expenditure etc. They are all controversial in one way or another but people have thought them; I am sure there are many more thoughts and ideas around.

1. Last year the government (Bank of England) created, £70bil, (not out of taxes or borrowing, but part of the £420bil Quantitive Easing Programme) and put it into the banks and financial markets. This has only helped for the few but in future could be put into the real economy where we live work and earn a living.

2. Avoid spending £billions on Trident.

3. Increase the national income, and the tax taken, by investing much more in infrastructure, without increasing government debt, by putting the Bank of England (BOE) created money directly into projects or through a national or regional, investment bank/s. This would create decent jobs and help build the communities where we live.

4. The same could be done for housing by building social housing and not selling it off.

5. We could stop the financial institutions and large corporations avoiding tax and getting billions in handouts.

6. If the receipts from National Insurance had been used for generalised spending; It is said that there is enough money in the NI account if it were used for its intended purpose.

7. £2.8 billion pounds are taken out of the railways in profits to shareholders etc. annually and we also subsidise the system. Nationalise the railways and save money. Money put into renationalising the railways would not be inflationary and so could be produced by the Bank of England without debt.

8. Legalize and regulate and tax cannabis, and perhaps some other drugs.

9. Build social housing and increase public ownership of housing so that billions in housing benefit is kept in the public sector thus using this money more than once before it disappears from the real economy into our bloated financial sector.

10. Have a higher rate of VAT on internet purchases. This could help level up the playing field for smaller/local businesses and effectively get some tax out of large corporations who avoid paying any. This tax take could be used to reduce business rates particularly for small businesses who employ local people.

11. Stop foreign investment in UK housing so that Housing Benefit money circulates within the UK economy.

12. Restructure/pay off at original value / expropriate PFI schemes, by money created by Bank of England.

13. Banks have close to complete control over the supply of new money. New Economics Foundation (NEF), Positive Money and the Copenhagen Business School have shown that this monopoly means in practice an average annual subsidy of banks by us of £32bil. If the Bank of England issued electronic money, this cost could be avoided and further money gained to invest in the real economy.

WE SAY

Where there is a will there is a way and it is all about political choices and priorities..

#ForTheManyNotTheFew #VoteLabour