Since 1960, Britain has spent almost half a trillion pounds on foreign aid in today’s money — even as governments have routinely spent more than they raise.
The government spends my money (my taxes) and my grandchildren's money (debt they are saddled with repaying). At no point do politicians behave as though they have any duty toward the money they take from me and my descendants.
We do want to help other countries when disasters like famines and floods occur, but we do not want to pay for dance lessons in Ethiopia. Our contribution should be proportionate to what we can afford. In good times we might fund a programme about how to use a condom in Pakistan, but not when we have homeless veterans here.
There is a moral dimension to aid. It is just that we who pay for all this are excluded from consideration. Some of us find that immoral.
Spot on, Stout. When debt interest alone tops £100bn a year, it’s hard to justify funding niche pet projects abroad while basic priorities at home are stretched thin. True compassion starts with being honest about what’s actually in the bank.
I watched an interview with Caroline Lucas of the Greens. This was about having open borders. She said "Britain is the 6th richest country in the world and therefore we can afford to support the immigrants". But it doesn't feel like we are the 6th richest. It feels like we are poor and getting poorer. We seem to be short of money for almost everything.
That "6th richest" line gets wheeled out constantly, but GDP measures the size of the whole economy, not whether the Treasury has spare cash lying around. If you earn £50k but run an overdraft every month, you aren't feeling flush either!
It’s always far easier to be generous with other people’s money! Though I suspect even the best accountants would have a hard time getting those sums to add up.
Excellent point Jamie. Once again the idea of SPENDING money we don’t have seems ludicrous.
So your right to highlight such a situation.
As you know my mission is to point out we can have surpluses. We don’t have to suffer deficits.
But my answer isn’t cuts in government SPENDING. We clearly need more government SPENDING to pay for our needs. More hospitals and schools, houses and increases in defence and nuclear power. As examples.
So cutting government expenditure is not really what we need. We have to think better.
My view is we can increase tax take by increasing the flow of money already out there. My view is whatever the total amount is on any one day, not enough if it is being SPENT by us.
I firmly believe that the pot if money that us being SPENT and rotated and revolving around our economy is a very small proportion of our overall money stock. That’s why we feel poor and money seems to be non existent and in short supply.
My attention wants to turn heads towards the vast sums held by Banks on behalf of people and institutions like wealth funds and pension funds that hold money or rather withhold money from flowing back to our hands. Vast sums are being held outside our daily economy. Not participating in our economy. Not contributing to revenues, profits or ages and tax take.
It’s this huge pot of money that needs to be within our grasp not out of our reach.
Because if it were to be SPENT alongside the SPENDING of government and us now then, all that money moving would create the turnover for tax to be sufficient for government SPENDING to start being affordable.
We can at last have a constant and perpetual flow of money bring SPENT by everyone that invests in everyone and rotates money to resupply the need for our economy to be well funded, sufficiently funded and our government to at last be in so much surplus we can afford all our needs.
More SPENDING if money hitherto being unspent is our only way out of this mess.
Unspent money isn’t even taxed! Unspent money doesn’t contribute to the system of money moving.
So Jamie it’s not whether we can afford this it’s more how can we increase the SPENDING of all money and not just a bit if it and doing it faster than now.
The government spends my money (my taxes) and my grandchildren's money (debt they are saddled with repaying). At no point do politicians behave as though they have any duty toward the money they take from me and my descendants.
We do want to help other countries when disasters like famines and floods occur, but we do not want to pay for dance lessons in Ethiopia. Our contribution should be proportionate to what we can afford. In good times we might fund a programme about how to use a condom in Pakistan, but not when we have homeless veterans here.
There is a moral dimension to aid. It is just that we who pay for all this are excluded from consideration. Some of us find that immoral.
Spot on, Stout. When debt interest alone tops £100bn a year, it’s hard to justify funding niche pet projects abroad while basic priorities at home are stretched thin. True compassion starts with being honest about what’s actually in the bank.
I watched an interview with Caroline Lucas of the Greens. This was about having open borders. She said "Britain is the 6th richest country in the world and therefore we can afford to support the immigrants". But it doesn't feel like we are the 6th richest. It feels like we are poor and getting poorer. We seem to be short of money for almost everything.
That "6th richest" line gets wheeled out constantly, but GDP measures the size of the whole economy, not whether the Treasury has spare cash lying around. If you earn £50k but run an overdraft every month, you aren't feeling flush either!
It doesn't sound like Caroline Lucas is in the top 20% for wisdom, but I expect her bank balance is rather healthy.
It’s always far easier to be generous with other people’s money! Though I suspect even the best accountants would have a hard time getting those sums to add up.
Excellent point Jamie. Once again the idea of SPENDING money we don’t have seems ludicrous.
So your right to highlight such a situation.
As you know my mission is to point out we can have surpluses. We don’t have to suffer deficits.
But my answer isn’t cuts in government SPENDING. We clearly need more government SPENDING to pay for our needs. More hospitals and schools, houses and increases in defence and nuclear power. As examples.
So cutting government expenditure is not really what we need. We have to think better.
My view is we can increase tax take by increasing the flow of money already out there. My view is whatever the total amount is on any one day, not enough if it is being SPENT by us.
I firmly believe that the pot if money that us being SPENT and rotated and revolving around our economy is a very small proportion of our overall money stock. That’s why we feel poor and money seems to be non existent and in short supply.
My attention wants to turn heads towards the vast sums held by Banks on behalf of people and institutions like wealth funds and pension funds that hold money or rather withhold money from flowing back to our hands. Vast sums are being held outside our daily economy. Not participating in our economy. Not contributing to revenues, profits or ages and tax take.
It’s this huge pot of money that needs to be within our grasp not out of our reach.
Because if it were to be SPENT alongside the SPENDING of government and us now then, all that money moving would create the turnover for tax to be sufficient for government SPENDING to start being affordable.
We can at last have a constant and perpetual flow of money bring SPENT by everyone that invests in everyone and rotates money to resupply the need for our economy to be well funded, sufficiently funded and our government to at last be in so much surplus we can afford all our needs.
More SPENDING if money hitherto being unspent is our only way out of this mess.
Unspent money isn’t even taxed! Unspent money doesn’t contribute to the system of money moving.
So Jamie it’s not whether we can afford this it’s more how can we increase the SPENDING of all money and not just a bit if it and doing it faster than now.