Ann Pettifor: Debtonation

This article was first published on the Prospect magazine website on 15th October 2017 “Strong and stable” seems of a world so far, far away. Yesterday’s Daily Mail headline “PM slaps treacherous Chancellor down” portrays a government in political chaos. Thanks to open, unresolved intra-Brexiteer warfare, ministers are unable to agree the basics of how to exit the European Union. This state of uncertainty intensifies just as the risks to British jobs and living standards are becoming starker...

April 18th, 2017 The production of money is ultimately the struggle for control over resources, wealth, people and our environment. But there is a surprising level of ignorance around how banks create money out of thin air and the benefits which flow from it. So on this programme we shine a much-needed light on who should get the privilege of creating our money. Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by the economist and author of the recent book The Production of Money, Ann Pettifor and founder...

Pettifor’s new book, The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of Bankers, aims to elucidate the nature of money, the better to help women advocate for their needs. Money, credit, interest rates, bank regulations, the way things are accounted for in the public budget; all of these, Pettifor argues, have tangible effects on women’s lives, and the condition of society as a whole. And in order to make change, we’ve got to get passionate about topics that most of us have been conditioned...

Image from Jeff Djevdet – Flickr It will take Big Money to steer Britain through this rocky period. Instead, Chancellor Hammond has promised to continue slashing the very departmental expenditure essential to smooth the path. We must conclude that he does not wish to invest in a safe Brexit at all. We live in perilous times. The demand by millions of people for protection from austerity and globalisation has fuelled support for extreme right-wing parties across the world. The possible...

October 5th, 2016 Ann Pettifor spoke on a Bloomberg TV panel with Gerard Lyons, Ambassador Paquale Terracciano and host Francine Lacqua on The Pulse.  The U.K. services industry recorded a decent expansion in the first month after Brexit, all but scrubbing the chances of the U.K. economy contracting in the third quarter. The data make it more likely that that Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee will refrain fromeasing further this year, although policy makers will want to see the...

October 5th, 2016 Ann Pettifor recently travelled to New Zealand at the invitation of Professor Ian Shirley of The Policy Observatory  and Vice Chancellor Derek McCormack at Auckland University of Technology, and also Mike Smith of the New Zealand Fabian Society. She spent 10 days delivering public lectures on economics in Wellington and Auckland. In one of her media interviews Ann spoke to the formidable and highly regarded Kathryn Ryan, host of Nine to Noon on Radio NZ about the...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Ann Pettifor discussed how Phillip Hammond’s stint at the treasury will differ to Osbornes on Share Radio yesterday, with their regular economics commentator John Weeks. Listen to the full show here. 

July 13th, 2016 On the 1st July Ann Pettifor spoke at the FT’s Festival of Finance. Ann gave a presentation on ‘The New Nationalism: the money story’ and discussed nationalism, and Polanyi’s Double Movement. She was joined by a panel made up of Frances Coppola, Tyler Cowen, and Srinivas Thiruvadanthai. The discussion was moderated by John Authers. The full podcast is available on FT Alphaville. 

June 29th, 2016 In September 2015, we were pleased to accept the invitation to serve on an Economic Advisory Council (EAC).  We felt strongly that it represented an opportunity to develop a vision of a progressive economic policy for Britain that departed from the destructive austerity narrative. Our collective view is that the EAC, and its various policy review groups, has indeed had a positive influence on the development of Labour’s economic policy, and we hope it continues whatever...

I have been criticised by among others, Professor Simon Wren-Lewis, for the earlier blog criticising the economics profession. To bolster my case, am sharing here ex-governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King’s, views on the profession. While his is an “on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other” approach, nevertheless it is clear on the culpability of the profession. The quotation is from page 3 of his recent book, ‘The End of Alchemy‘ published by Little, Brown in 2016. “Since the crisis,...