QE is staggering on – and is in need of change
This letter was in the New Statesman (which is nicknamed the Staggers):
The global economy is facing a ‘triple crunch’. It is a combination of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, accelerating climate change and the looming peak in oil production. These three overlapping events threaten to develop into a perfect storm, the like of which has not been seen since the Great Depression. To help prevent this from happening, and to lay the foundations of the economic systems of the future, we need a Green New Deal.
There is still time. Act now and a positive course of action based on the framwork set out in A Green New Deal can pull the world back from economic and environmental meltdown.
Cutting the cost of PFI with People’s QE
This was the lead Guardian letter on 27 September 2017:
In your editorial (26 September) on John McDonnell’s proposal that PFI contracts be bought back by a future Labour government you suggest that any such action might be constrained by the need to persuade the financial markets to continue to lend the government money. This was an [...]
Green spending could help rescue UK after debt crash
Colin Hines and Richard Murphy had this letter in the Guardian on 5 September:
Zoe Williams is right: another credit crunch-induced “crash” is likely and the only affordable rescue package will be some form of quantitative easing (With Britain’s addition to debt, another crash is certain, 4 September). This time it must generate jobs for [...]
Time for a Green New Deal?
All ideas ideas have their moments. Some of them are pivotal. The trouble is knowing when those pivotal tipping points arrive.
Post Hurricane Harvey in the USA the Green New Deal is having one of its moments. The New York Times ran an articlelast week by Rebecca Elliott that specifically referred to the idea, saying:
Certainly, the hurricane’s victims [...]
Jeremy Corbyn must revisit and vigorously shake his people’s QE “money tree”
This letter was written by Colin Hines and was published in the Guardian on 12 June 2017:
Sorry Brenda from Bristol, but another election looms, and this time a progressive alliance of Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid and the Greens need to get their policy ducks in a row to win it. Firstly, these must [...]
It’s time for Labour to adopt the Green New Deal
This article is co-authored by Richard Murphy and has been re-posted from the Tax Research blog. It was posted there on 12 June 2017:
In July 2008 I was one of the authors of what a group of us called the Green New Deal. It was a plan to revitalise and transform the UK economy in the [...]
An Open Letter to Jeremy Corbyn: Labour needs to act fast
This article is co-authored by Ann Pettifor and Jeremy Smith and has been re-posted from the Prime Economics blog. It was posted there on 10 June 2017:
After an exhausting and successful national campaign, it is hard for campaign strategists to think of next steps. But we are at a critical historical juncture, and a range [...]
Europe needs a Green New Deal
The FT reports this morning that:
The European Central Bank has passed the €1tn mark for its controversial purchases of government bonds, putting pressure on policymakers to address the scarcity of available assets when they meet in Frankfurt this week.
Three thoughts. First, there is no inflation, and that was the desire.
Second, there is no real growth, and [...]
It’s time for a Green New Deal
Larry Elliott wrote this in the Guardian newspaper yesterday:
Hammond has apparently given some licence by the prime minister to be radical with fiscal policy and should use it. Investment by the private sector has been weak since the Great Recession and is likely to be even weaker in the aftermath of Brexit. The government, therefore, needs [...]
The need for climate bonds
This letter appeared in the Guardian today:
The risible inadequacy of the government’s £40m “extra” spending on flood defences (Cameron’s £40m flood money criticised as ‘sticking plaster’, 4 January) means that it’s time to seriously address how to find the countless billions needed to effectively mitigate this inevitable consequence of climate change. One answer is to [...]