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Ben Wray — The magic money tree is real: Treasury confirms taxes are not needed to fund government spending

Summary:
A LETTER from the Economic Secretary of the Treasury has confirmed that the government does not need to raise money from taxation to fund government spending, leading to advocates of increased public investment to declare “the magic money tree exists, as a matter of fact”.... The argument goes that the government can only spend what it has raised in taxation, with any additional financing having to be raised through debt from financial markets which subsequently has to be repaid. Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said “The government has no money of its own. It’s all your money.” But Treasury secretary John Glen’s 18 July reply to Peter May, a Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) advocate who had written to his MP Ben Bradshaw last year to inquire of the Chancellor as to where

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A LETTER from the Economic Secretary of the Treasury has confirmed that the government does not need to raise money from taxation to fund government spending, leading to advocates of increased public investment to declare “the magic money tree exists, as a matter of fact”....
The argument goes that the government can only spend what it has raised in taxation, with any additional financing having to be raised through debt from financial markets which subsequently has to be repaid. Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said “The government has no money of its own. It’s all your money.”
But Treasury secretary John Glen’s 18 July reply to Peter May, a Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) advocate who had written to his MP Ben Bradshaw last year to inquire of the Chancellor as to where money came from, was in contrast to Thatcher’s position.
Glen answered: “While it is theoretically possible for monetary authorities to finance fiscal deficits through the creation of money, allowing governments to increase spending or reduce taxation, without raising corresponding financing from the private sector, there is a risk that money financing could rapidly undermine the stability of inflation expectations.”...
Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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