Linkage

This paper constitutes a first detailed institutional analysis of the UK Government’s expenditure, revenue collection and debt issuance processes. We find, first, that the UK Government creates new money and purchasing power when it undertakes expenditure, rather than spending being financed by taxation from, or debt issuance to, the private sector. The spending process is initiated by the government drawing on a sovereign line of credit from the core legal and accounting structure known as the Consolidated Fund (CF). Under directions from the UK finance ministry, the Bank of England debits the CF’s account at the Bank and credits other accounts at the Bank held by government entities; a practice mandated in law. This creates new public deposits which are used to settle spending by government departments into the economy via the commercial banking sector. Parliament, rather than the Treasury or central bank, is the sole authority under which expenditures from the Consolidated Fund arise. Revenue collection, including taxation, involves the reverse process, crediting the CF’s account at the Bank. With regard to debt issuance, under the current conditions of excess reserve liquidity, the function of debt issuance is best understood as a way of providing safe assets and a reliable source of collateral to the non-bank private sector, insofar as these are not withdrawn by the state via quantitative easing by the Bank of England. The findings support neo-chartalist accounts of the workings of sovereign currency-issuing nations and provide additional institutional detail regarding the apex of the monetary hierarchy in the UK case. The findings also suggest recent debates in the UK around monetary financing and central bank independence need to be reconsidered given the central role of the Consolidated Fund.

Despite the widespread harm caused by cars and automobility, governments, corporations, and individuals
continue to facilitate it by expanding roads, manufacturing larger vehicles, and subsidising parking, electric cars,
and resource extraction. This literature review synthesises the negative consequences of automobility, or car
harm, which we have grouped into four categories: violence, ill health, social injustice, and environmental
damage. We find that, since their invention, cars and automobility have killed 60–80 million people and injured
at least 2 billion. Currently, 1 in 34 deaths are caused by automobility. Cars have exacerbated social inequities
and damaged ecosystems in every global region, including in remote car-free places. While some people benefit
from automobility, nearly everyone—whether or not they drive—is harmed by it. Slowing automobility’s
violence and pollution will be impracticable without the replacement of policies that encourage car harm with
policies that reduce it. To that end, the paper briefly summarises interventions that are ready for implementation.

This guy's pretty funny. And I endorse the message:

A nice little restatement of some basic facts:

I often hear progressives say that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is all very well, but given the real politic, within which these debates are contested, it is better to rely on mainstream understandings to make the case for more government spending on progressive goals.

I remind these economists of the way that John Maynard Keynes used the (erroneous) neoclassical concept of marginal productivity theory for labour demand in The General Theory, to allow him to concentrate on the supply side, where he believed the differences between his approach and the orthodoxy could best be highlighted.

It was a decision that he regretted when it became obvious that the orthodoxy manipulated the debate to categorise Keynes’ quibbles as the special rather than the general case.

And the result was the neoclassical synthesis which dominated macroeconomics for the next several decades and allowed Monetarism an easier path and then the current New Keynesian paradigm to emerge.

The essential message of Keynes was quickly lost because he made that sort of strategic error – using neoclassical framing.

There’s a story about being trans that you’ve definitely heard, whether you’re cis or trans: such-and-so loudly protested that they were a girl from their youngest days—three or four or five. She—because The Story is always and exclusively about trans women, isn’t it?—played dress-up with Mom’s clothes and high heels, always knew she’d been born in the wrong body, fought for transition from as soon as they knew it existed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The Story is so pervasive, so overwhelming that its mere existence keeps many of us from even imagining that we might be trans until we’re well into our lives. Even then, it’s held over our heads through every step of our transitions. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” “But you like beer and trucks and building things!” “But there were no signs!”

As if our identities were written in the stars, to be foretold by blind seers in a Greek tragedy. 

The Story is profoundly toxic to the foundations of trans existence at every level. […] The Story demands that extremely young children invent language to describe a thing that their parents don’t even know exists.

[…]

The real problem with The Story is more nuanced. Not having the words to describe a feeling you’re feeling doesn’t mean you don’t feel it—but also—not having those words dramatically changes your understanding of the feeling itself.

In the days since [Charlie Kirk's] killing, the US right wing has fallen over itself to blame trans people or, as Alex Jones put it to his almost 5 million followers, “the tranny death cult”. Similar formulations can be found across social media. Trans people are terrorists, a death cult, like the Taliban, need to be socially ostracised and banned from transitioning. And we all know there is only one type of trans person most of these people are imagining when they call for us to be electroshocked, shunned, and – let’s be real – beaten and killed. And that’s trans women.

It's over. There and here in the UK. Today I doubt I will see another progressive measure (either in legislation or healthcare policy) put in place for trans people in my lifetime. Who knows what may yet be taken away. In the UK, the terf campaign groups make their goals quite clear: they would like transition banned before the age of 25 and for trans women to be compelled to carry male government ID in all contexts. Once the EHRC guidance banning us from all women’s groups and spaces across society is in place, they intend to sue organisations and service providers that don’t exclude us. Right now, I think it’s best to assume all these things are a likely prospect in the next ten years.

In the community itself there’s been a definite shift in the way we speak about the future. The middle-class trans micro-economy that boomed in the 2010s: Pride month corporate sponsorship, jobs at LGBT charities, DEI talks and panels, diversity modelling and ad campaigns, progressive theatre, educational books about being trans etc, which some of us used to make a living, has gone. A friend and I used to riff on the old Susan Stryker joke that as a trans woman you must commodify yourself one way or another: it’s either escorting or the diversity and inclusion panel. The friend (a sex worker) always said she found more dignity (and better money) in the former.

Why is this happening now? The Right itself offers two contradictory answers simultaneously. On the one hand, they are constantly trying to project strength: They want us to believe they represent a vital, virile alternative to anemic liberal democracy – and a cohesive vision far superior to weak, divisive pluralism. Liberal democracy, in this tale, is destined to surrender to the far right. On the other hand, rightwingers are also obsessed with their own weakness. The Trumpist imagination is defined by a sense of besiegement: Powerful enemies everywhere, anti-American forces both from without and from within conspiring to destroy the nation, “real Americans” constantly victimized by a society they believe owes them eternal adulation and deference, made to suffer under the yoke of crazy leftist politics.

Relentless self-victimization – a veritable persecution complex – has been a defining feature of modern conservatism since its inception. The heightened version of this type of siege mentality we are seeing now points to something that is diagnostically important: Until very recently at least, the Right was indeed losing the fundamental struggle over what kind of country “America” should strive to be. The idea of a “crisis of liberal democracy” has dominated the political and broader public discourse over the past decade. But in crucial ways, it is the conception of “real America” as a white Christian patriarchal homeland that has come under enormous pressure. Socially, culturally, and – most importantly, perhaps – demographically, the country has moved away from the rightwing ideal since the middle of the twentieth century. It is not just a figment of the reactionary imagination that America has become less white, less religious, and more pluralistic in basically every dimension. As a result, the conservative hold on power has become tenuous. In a narrow political sense, they may be in charge right now – in the White House, in Congress, at the Supreme Court. But it is not just political power the Right seeks. They desire cultural domination and affirmation. In the cultural sphere, the public square, and across many societal dimensions like the family, the shift in power away from white male conservatives has been more pronounced. The Right has engaged in a comprehensive counter-mobilization in response – a radicalization fueled not by a feeling of strength, but by a sense of weakness.

[…] Clinging to the idea that “The Right won’t go THAT far” is futile because they have convinced themselves that their leftist enemies have already gone *much further*.

Just so, so angry:

Alix and her partner, Tiarn, are among the first tenants of a new public-private housing development the Victorian government is using as a template for its planned demolition and redevelopment of the state's 44 public housing towers.

Under the so-called Ground Lease Model, the state demolishes existing public housing blocks and leases the land to consortiums of private developers and non-profit housing providers for 40 years.

The consortiums then rebuild the sites with a mix of social, affordable and market-rate rentals, and hand them back to the government when the lease period expires.

The Flemington complex includes 240 community housing units and 116 affordable apartments for couples like Alix and Tiarn who earn less than $111,000 a year, and for single people earning less than $71,000.

But less than a year after they moved in, Alix and Tiarn were told by the consortium that operates their development that it had decided to increase their rent by 17 per cent.

"Since then, it's been nothing but stress and anxiety," Alix said.

The proposed increase would see the weekly rent for their one-bedroom apartment rise from $322 to $377 — an extra $55 the couple says they can barely afford.

So many bad ideas:

Reviewing the welfare payment for low-income renters is one of several ideas presented to Housing Minister Clare O'Neil after the election to reset Labor's housing agenda.

A table of contents which was accidentally sent to the ABC has revealed Treasury told Ms O'Neil and Treasurer Jim Chalmers the government's signature target of 1.2 million new homes in five years "will not be met".

[…]

Headings from the contents table show Treasury made nine "recommendations" of housing policies for Ms O'Neil to consider. While the materials do not include those recommendations in full, they give an extended glimpse at the department's focuses.

One of the nine recommendation areas focused on support for renters, listing several "policy reform opportunities" including a review of Commonwealth Rent Assistance, a supplement for welfare recipients who rent.

The supplement was increased by Labor in its first term, but economists and welfare advocates say it is still insufficient. Matthew Bowes, a Grattan Institute housing expert, told the ABC it should increase by 50 per cent for singles and 40 per cent for couples.

… which will just be a pass-through to landlords.