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duncan smith
Richard J Murphy
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Comments by "duncan smith" (@duncansmith7562) on "Richard J Murphy" channel.

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when academics closeted away in their ivory towers actually walk around downtown areas of Western European towns and cities, they won't bother even asking the question.
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@imconfused1237 yep, you nailed it with the words "condescending undertone". he drones on as if his audience has never considered the subject matter in hand and that he has some stupendous revelation to offer his pleb audience. if only!
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"spending always has to come before taxation" other way round. you can't spend what you don't have. first something of value is taken from the people, and then when that thing of value is in the hands of the authorities, they start spending, and so the cycle goes on. without taxation first, borrowing is impossible too.
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@BatMan-oe2gh less government services does not mean more suffering
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@BatMan-oe2gh affecting people can mean in a positive way or a negative way. Only a fool would assume that anything that affects more people must mean more suffering. Look up the word "affect" in a dictionary.
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yep, avoiding tax DOES count towards well being, because it allows more money to be in the hands of people who will spend it wisely, as opposed to waste it, as the government does. As Milton Friedman pointed out, those who spend most unwisely are those spending other people's money on other people's projects (governments).
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just a fancy way of saying governments can't just print money to maintain or increase spending, otherwise rampant inflation would destroy the economy. Taxes are needed to restrain such inflation. So what? You think we don't know that?
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Absolute nonsense. Taxes go into the pot, and it covers a chunk of government spending. It's the REMAINDER of spending NOT covered by taxes that needs an overdraft. No wonder you are confused about things! You don't even know the basics!
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thanks for the blabbering lecture on how banking is just a system of keeping a record of who owes whom what amount. if your point was that offshore banking is just the same as regular banking in this respect, i think we all knew that!
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@richyphillips Tax is income for the government. If it isn't, what income would governments have without it?
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@mireillelebeau2513 and a lot of us DO listen attentively to every word, and we conclude that Richard is idiotically wrong, that the government DOES need taxpayers' money!
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"insure that it is properly taxed elsewhere" as if you have the one and only proper definition of "proper taxation". why do you assume the rate of taxation you assume to be "proper" is correct, while the number assumed by others must necessarily be wrong?
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the problem isn't private companies. there are 2 problems. 1. the idiots in government who can't create a contract that holds water companies responsible for their failings, and 2. imbeciles who assume a nationalized industry would necessarily do a better job.
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@patarciepaul it's the profit element that motivates people to do a good job and satisfy the client. without the profit element, no service needs to be provided at all.
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@patarciepaul you seem to think that profit just happens. it doesn't. Profit only occurs when good service has been established. Profit depends on good service to customers. you can't separate the two. Profit cannot be prioritized over good service, because profit only occurs following good service. you are putting the cart before the horse! Yes, staff can just be compensated by wages for "providing" a service, as they were in the USSR, but then the "provision" of service becomes appalling, because the worker gets the salary for showing up to work and providing the absolute minimum of service...no need to win over the good wishes of any customer. As the workers in the USSR used to say "they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work"
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@patarciepaul whether you are talking about essential services or non essential services, the result is the same. remove the profit element and you will see horrific declines in service. Hence people hate going to the Post Office but much prefer using DHL, Amazon, FedEx etc. It also explains why there are so many taxpayers who were already compelled to pay for the NHS, but STILL spend even more money on a private health plan, because the "essential" service provided by the state is so awful! "Staff can be fired if they do not perform". why? why would anyone be bothered to fire someone if they fail to perform? if there is no profit element, there is no reason for a worker to be fired. Older people like me remember how nationalized industries worked in the UK before privatization. They were much worse than you see today! The problem is not the profit motive. The problem is government incompetence. Government employees are so useless they have given water utility contracts to entities that can pollute the country with no serious consequence. Whichever government employee drew up that contract is to blame, not the profit motive,
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@patarciepaul have you ever lived in a country where the health care system is in private hands? Can you make a fair comparison?
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"All people are born equal" about time this fool started understanding genetics.
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as usual, the biggest load of cobblers from an absolute ignoramus. this alarmist fool was probably clutching his pearls 30 years ago when we were told the Maldives would be underwater by today, that hurricanes would have flattened the Bahamas etc. The reality is, banks are still investing in beachside properties in those countries, and are, and will be, raking in the profits. just play safe, mate, and move your rear end to the summit of Ben Nevis and live happy ever after.
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post war prosperity happened despite Keynesian principles, not because of them.
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"we all know we need to survive climate change" there you have this dope's agenda thrown at you full in the face. there is NOTHING that UK can do that can alter any climate change consequences, but this fool pretends there is.
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yeah, such an achievement of yours to drive those banking in places like Jersey to withdraw more funds and put them in the Bahamas and Cayman Islands. Really proud you diverted so much money from one corner of the globe to another? what a waste of time you are, you self-righteous prig.
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The Far Right died in 1945. The people you call "far right" are only "far right" from your Marxist perspective. The Right have gained such popularity because the far Left has ruined the Western world and turned into a dystopian horror.
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@davewoodward1155 you reckon only the rich spend their money only on self interest? Newsflash...the whole world spends on self interest. The rich have a lot more to give to charity, and so do. you should bow down and worship the philanthropy of the rich. the poverty of Victorian England was slightly more bearable than the poverty of pre Victorian England...it was a great stepping stone to the middle class affluence we see today. of course, a small number of aristocrats inherit their fortunes. The vast majority of the wealthy made their money by having great entrepreneurial ideas and working hard. no surprise you are jealous of such people. Roads, schools, hospitals all existed before taxes, and such things exist where taxes are minimal. you have no clue how the world works.
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@diablosv36 no one is claiming there is NOT a big difference between running out of money and potentially risking inflation. On the contrary, a LOT more thought has to go into spending decisions when you have a hard limit! You got it backwards. Government spending does destroy economies. You never heard of the Weimar Republic? Austerity is like medicine. It hurts in the short term, but brings recovery long term. it's a wise trade off.
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@diablosv36 the difference between you and me is you seem to think government can cause a whole bunch of unemployment. It can't. Market forces and trade create employment, and thus unemployment. Government can only interfere with the market and alter those market forces, slightly redirect of stifle those forces, not cause them. what on earth is "real capacity"? for that matter, please define "unreal capacity". You have forgotten what inflation is. Inflation is an increase in money supply. In Weimar, it became a vicious circle. More money had to be printed to keep paying all the bills until the system collapsed, but maybe that is what you mean by achieving "real capacity"? Austerity is medicine, not poison. "the money required to do things". Again, you are lost. Money is just a means to exchange goods and services. If the goods and services aren't there, no amount of money will create the goods and services. Austerity is just a reality check, your bank manager saying you reached the limit of your credit card, so given we don't want a Weimar, no more irresponsible spending, time to cut back.
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@diablosv36 i just want to make sure you understand that inflation is not price rises. rising prices are the effects of inflation, what inflation causes. inflation is the governmental decision to increase money supply. agreed? "more money chasing same number of goods = inflation" is nonsense. inflation = more money, and when chasing same number of goods = rising prices. agreed?
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@Youchubeswindon "the government is the biggest customer" every penny the government spends comes from taxpayers, loans or the money printing machines. that's hardly the definition of a "customer". it's a mafia. no one ever suggested "shutting off spending". reducing spending is not the same as shutting off spending. Is English your second language? no economy based on the free market comes to a grinding halt. where there is supply and demand and no governmental interference you will have a functioning economy.
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@Youchubeswindon pure waffle. EVERYTHING is an emotional response to internal and external conditions! My crying when I stub my toe is an emotional response to internal and external conditions, but has nothing to do with economic matters! This really is a most basic point. Inflation is an increase in the money supply in excess of any increase in goods and services. Rising prices and rising wages are the EFFECTS of inflation. Prices RISE, INCREASE or GO UP, they don't inflate! "Inflation" describes an all round expansion and is the perfect word to describe added money supply. like air going into a balloon. Until you fully grasp exactly what inflation is you won't be able to figure anything out regarding economics.
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@Youchubeswindon take a really close look at the graphs that plot quantity of money per unit of output against the CPI. For EVERY country you will see the two lines track each other. As the money supply increases, so does the CPI, in perfect step. so, please, ditch this "inflation is an emotional response" foolishness. it's just baby talk. The latest round of inflation in the West is simply due to the increased money supply needed to pay people to stay at home and not work during Covid.
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other way round (as usual, you got it all backwards) it's not Jersey et al creating legislation to undermine other jurisdictions. it's jurisdictions that have created punitive legislation on its taxpayers, like the UK, that leave places like Jersey with more attractive banking opportunities. Tax havens wouldn't exist if certain jurisdictions didn't create such punitive tax laws.
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@downshift4503 No one is questioning to whom the money belongs once the taxes are paid. No one is questioning that government spends whatever amount it decides to spend. My point is that income from taxation IS spent by the government and IS a major factor in how much the government then decides to spend in total. To dismiss tax revenue as irrelevant to government budgets is just childish nonsense.
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@downshift4503 "the process then repeats" so given the process is always repeating, what came first, the chicken or the egg? were taxes raised first, or government started spending from a treasury account first? back a few centuries, you will find tax raising came first, and spending followed, so, NO...FIRST come the tax revenues, and THEN budgets are decided upon based on borrowing requirements and borrowing conditions. You got it backwards. The government is ALWAYS spending taxpayers' money, as this taxpayers' money makes up a large chunk of what the government has in the pot to spend. it's not rocket science!
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@downshift4503 Coins, in the first place, are precious metals that hold a certain value accepted by society as a whole, and this notion predates any formalized government! If your point is that it is a governmental authority that assumed the role of minting coins, then sure, yes, but those coins were of the value they contained, and governments always knew they needed tax payers contributions to buy the silver first that went into the coins. You seem to be ignorant that the government has no money! it only has what taxpayers give and what it can borrow. Which silver mine is going to hand over loads of silver to a government that can't pay for it? ain't gonna happen. it starts with the government first assessing taxes in the form of payments in anything that holds universal wealth, and with those initial tax payments, in whatever form, it can start to mint coins. Raising revenue/wealth through taxation comes first, minting second. it's always been that way. Post barter communities, the first step was for a central power to accumulate a stock of wealth from contributors before minting any coinage!
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@downshift4503 if none of government spending is from taxation, then why bother taxing anything?
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@downshift4503 ah ha, "initially because the government needs its population to provision it"....finally you admit that the tax payments come first! without such an initial provision, the government can't function. now, moving on to the absurd notion that the sole purpose of taxation is as a brake on inflation. what exactly is inflation? and when we see the definition of inflation, we will get to the heart of this nonsense.
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@downshift4503 Governments have no money! Governments can only GET money from taxpayers or borrow from institutions, and from that point on we have the cycle of tax revenue coming in and government spending going out. oh dear oh dear oh dear. looks like you have no idea what inflation is! rising prices is an EFFECT of inflation! Tell you what, when you grasp the basic notion that inflation is an increase in the money supply into an economy, then the debate can continue, but describing the effects of inflation as the cause of inflation has shown you are not that bright, really. Because inflation is an increase in the money supply, taxation as a brake on inflation makes no sense, as taxation is transferring money, not creating it!
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@patrickokeeffe-i7i looks like you and Samuelson have no idea what cause and effect is. rising prices is the effect. what causes prices to rise? increase in the money supply. Friedman got it right, you and Samuelson got it wrong.
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@downshift4503 in this never ending cycle of taxation and spending, you have to go way back into the mists of time to see what came first. the first authorities that had power to tax and spend would have taxed first. the peasants had to contribute chickens, eggs, their labour to the baron BEFORE the baron would build better defences. Learn some history.
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@patrickokeeffe-i7i what's hilarious about your useless definition is that it just describes the effects of inflation. you are looking at the symptoms, not the cause. if inflation were related to rising prices it would be called "arising". but inflation refers to the expansion of money supply, hence "inflation", a growth in all areas, not a linear up and down of prices! maybe English is not your first language?
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@downshift4503 "it doesn't explain how you got money from the government that you need to pay tax" that's because taxation and spending predates money and government, Einstein. as already explained, the taxing/spending cycle started during the ages of barter.
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@downshift4503 "it is not possible for you to create your own sterling, so how did you get them in order to pay the tax?" I don't need to create any sterling. there's so much of it floating around society going from one person to another every day! how did i get these pounds sterling from other people? they gave them to me. you really do ask some surprisingly childish questions!
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@downshift4503 and pass the parcel is EXACTLY the nature of the economy, as goods and services are exchanged non stop in a never ending pass the parcel process! Slowly, you are getting it! If your point is that cash is, these days, originally minted by the government as opposed to individuals writing out IOU's, then sure, an IOU slip is now issued by a central bank, to be used by the public as needed, though individual IOU's are still valid. But that's only cash. Other transactions are just numbers passed around, like pass the parcel, a record of who owes whom a certain debt. Got it?
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@downshift4503 what you call "money" ended up in the hands of citizens as a replacement for a bank deposit receipt. When a customer would deposit gold or silver in a bank, said customer would receive a deposit slip. those slips then acted as cash in transactions in the community. the only thing that changed was such deposit slips later became printed and issued by a central bank as opposed to a local bank, but no difference in the role of the bank deposit slip. it was, and is, a promise to pay the bearer a certain amount on demand. the deposit slip became accepted as a thing of value whether the individual had gold or silver to back it up or not, just because everyone in society accepted the bank deposit slip as having the worth it bore. you need to learn about the history of money, and do some homework. here, I'll give you some. research how tobacco was a form of money in Virginia during the colonial period.
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@downshift4503 1. No, you aren't getting it, no matter how many times it's pointed out to you. 2. Chickens and eggs are NOT produced by the economy. Chicken and egg production is PART of the economy. 3. reserves and cash are "sourced" by all of us, not JUST the government. Look up the meaning of "source".
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@patrickokeeffe-i7i of course there was an age of barter, and in some places, until relatively recently! Did David Graeber know that tobacco was used as a means of exchange in colonial Virginia?
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@downshift4503 Taxing and spending, today, happen simultaneously and continuously. It is infantile to say that one comes first. Back in the mists of time, taxation would have come first. You can't spend what you don't have.
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@downshift4503 Individual IOU's ARE cash, because they can be transferred from one individual to another, and the debt remains payable.
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@downshift4503 tax can be paid in many forms, hence possessions like luxury yachts can be seized for tax payments because such things have a value that is universally acknowledged.
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@downshift4503 not sure where your obsession with "creating" cash comes from. Individuals have access to cash because it freely circulates throughout the community. you talk as if the ONLY source of cash is waiting for the next batch of bills to be printed off at the mint! Economies still function when the cash creation stops. you will get deflation, as happened in the US Civil War when the North seized the printing presses of the South. The economy of the South did not come to a grinding halt!
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