Neoliberalism is not a viable option
Funding the Future
Neoliberalism is not a viable option
As is apparent from this blog, the issue of fascism has been much on my mind this week. Amongst the things that I’ve read has been a fascinating ...
 Fascism is built on fear. Any politics that can successfully challenge it must, then, be built in the diea of freedom from fear. That rules neoliberalism out as an option.
Banks cannot lend their depositors’ funds
Funding the Future
Banks cannot lend their depositors’ funds
Introduction I keep getting comments from people who claim that my suggestion that banks do not use funds deposited with them to make loans is wro...
 People like to claim that banks lend the funds deposited with them. They don't. In fact, they can't. It is technically impossible for them to do so. In this post, I explain why that is the case and how banks really create the loans that they offer to their customers.
Why the household analogy in economics is wrong
Funding the Future
Why the household analogy in economics is wrong
As I have written many times before, one of the most persistent and damaging myths in economics is the so-called household analogy. This is the ide...
 The choice is stark: either we keep pretending the state must balance its books, like a family in a soap opera debt-crisis scene, or we face up to the truth that it has far greater responsibilities and capacities than most of our economic and political establishment will acknowledge and start using them for the common good.