I have repeatedly said that I do not support Jeremy Corbyn's "People's QE". But there seems to be considerable confusion about what exactly I oppose. And that is for one simple reason: the deliberate conflation of government investment spending and QE by the architect of this scheme. PQE is composed of two separate and distinct strands: 1. Government spending to finance investment in infrastructure, innovation, R&D and housing 2. Bank of England purchases of government bonds. ...
Read More »Monetary Snake Oil
Guest post by Paddy Carter. Jeremy Corbyn’s People’s QE offers the alluring prospect of spending more without borrowing more. Which is just the ticket, if you want to replace austerity with largesse, and cut the deficit to boot. Sadly, this appealing miracle cure is pure snake oil (although there is, perhaps, a version of the idea which might be helpful, if substantially less miraculous). The basic idea behind People’s QE is to finance public spending by printing money. This is actually...
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