Australia goes for country-by-country reporting
Funding the Future
Australia goes for country-by-country reporting
Australia has become the first country in the world to require full public country-by-country reporting. Country-by-country reporting for multin...
 21 years after I created country-by-country reporting for multinational companies as a way of showing how they might be using and abusing tax havens by shifting their profits into those places, Australia is going to require it on public recoird, blazing the trail by doing so.
The government’s latest accounts show its debt’s fallen massively The government’s own accounts, just released, show that its total liabilities owing fell between 2022 and 2023 by £1.5 trillion. They’re now much smaller than the figure the government claims the national debt to be. The whole claim that we’re supposedly burdened by debt is now complete nonsense. When will they admit it?
What is Labour doing?
Funding the Future
What is Labour doing?
There is an article in the Financial Times this morning with the following headline: The government has no time to lose if it wants to reform soci...
 When history comes to appraising Starmer's government, there will be one over-arching theme, and that will be of missed opportunity. Labour’s not doing anything of any use, and worse still, it has no idea about how to change that.
Trump has declared trade war and people in the US are going to suffer badly Trump’s trade wars are going to hike inflation and interest rates in the US and around the world, and won’t boost jobs in the US, or make middle or working class Americans better off. The price of his mayhem is going to be enormous.
The national debt has just fallen by £1.5 trillion
Funding the Future
The national debt has just fallen by £1.5 trillion
There is a very strange feature that, as far as I can see, has not had much attention paid to it so far within the Whole of Government Accounts for...
 According to the government’s own accounts to March 223, which have just been published, the national debt of the UK fell by £1.5 trillion during that year - and is now much lower than the government claims. They claim these accounts are true and fair - so why is it that the government is not shouting about this and saying that the debt obsession is over and that austerity can be consigned to history?
Why have the Tories given up on climate change? Climate change is the biggest challenge we have. It’s bigger than. Any war we’ve ever fought. It’s bigger than any political crisis we’ve ever had. That’s because it’s existential. Now, the Tories are in denial about it and are withdrawing their support from government policy on the issue. Why? What are they playing at?
Tax works
Funding the Future
Tax works
As I often note, there are six reasons to tax, which I usually summarise as follows in a way that reflects my thinking about modern monetary theory...
 Tax is the single most powerful instrument any government has to deliver change in the society it is responsible for. The problem is twofold. First, too many governments think tax is just about raising money. Second, too few governments want to upset the status quo.
Reeves suffers from two problems, and both are of her own making
Funding the Future
Reeves suffers from two problems, and both are of her own making
According to Politco: Rachel Reeves is preparing to face down the business leaders [today] who say her tax rises will cost jobs and endanger the g...
 Reeves is claiming she had no choice but make the decisions reflected in her Budget. That, though is not true. Thone decisions were the results of the own mistakes, and now she’s sticking to her guns and making things worse. She could change her mind, and everyone knows that’s what is required if the economy is to avoid a recession.
Does Trump really understand government, or is he going to run it like a business? Trump’s new government looks as though it is going to be made up almost entirely of people who have no clue about what government is but think it can be run like a business. The trouble is, the two are nothing like each other and as a result things could go horribly wrong, very quickly, for the Trump administration.
Why do Labour believe in private equity? The logic of private equity capitalists is contrary to everything that it seems sound government, good governance, sensible pension fund planning and long term thinking should stand for. So why is Labour besotted with it?