Tweet

How to get URL link on Twitter App

On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
Click again on or Share Via icon
Click on Copy Link to Tweet
Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
More info at Twitter Help

Mary Francis 🕊

@maryeffrancis

Apr 23 • 9 tweets • 3 min read Twitter logo

Read on Twitter

Modern Monetary Theory: economics based on facts. Not myths. I know I keep banging on about this, but until it’s widely known that the U.K. cannot run out of money, the, “we can’t afford ( insert any progressive programme…)” mantra condemns us to a future of endless austerity.

Here’s a primer by #MMT economics professor Stephanie Kelton:

bbc.co.uk/reel/video/p08…

The truth is, a government that can print its own money, has an inexhaustible supply of it, and can spend it on whatsoever it chooses. (This is why U.K. should never buy into the Euro. There’s a soverignity that DOES matter.) It’s the CHOICES that matter.

War: No problem. HS2:bring it on. Waste billions shoving contracts to party donors: who cares? Throw a few million at a coronation: Way to go.

Pay nurses a living wage? How dare you suggest such profligacy! Get homeless people off the streets? No way.

We’re being suckered.

What about inflation? You ask. Don’t get me started. Wages have fallen in real terms whilst corporations and their CEO’s rake in the cash, but guess who’s forced to tighten their belts to “control inflation”?

You are.

Suckers.

If you’re interested in learning about MMT from the experts, you’re going to have to look to social media. Ever queried why you get “The Taxpayers Alliance” shoved down your throat, but never hear from a Bill Mitchell, Richard Murphy, or Steve Keen? You should.

Modern Monetary is neither left-wing, nor right-wing. It a different paradigm, a way of describing how money works without having to pretend we’re still on the gold standard. So, yes, it’s progressive. It frightens politicians. They won’t take it on board because … guess what?

It threatens the neoliberal status quo. When you can’t shut down demand for a better society by repeating, “We can’t afford it,” people may actually start answering back.

I think it’s time we did just that.

#MMT

@StephanieKelton

What do I know? I’m just a granny. Here are a few people who DO know. Follow, and learn. It COULD change your life, or at least stop you being suckered. Over and over again.

@StephanieKelton
@RichardMurphy
@ProfSteveKeen
@billy_blog
@sdgrumbine

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @maryeffrancis

Mary Francis 🕊

@maryeffrancis

Feb 28

Why the 1% have us over a barrel:
They fund campaigns of people who will maintain the status quo. The only A3 poster with glossy pics and glowing references, I received during Labour’s leadership campaign was from Keir Starmer.

I didn’t know till then that rich people funding Labour Party leadership elections was even was even a thing.

I was THAT naive.

However I’m not so naive as to believe the rich aren’t confident they’re going to have their agenda addressed in return for their cash.

Not mine

So the 1% get their guys elected, and are in a great position to lobby for their policies, their priorities, which then become government priorities too.

Not mine.

So the rich get public services sold to them cheaply, the interest rises they want, the tax cuts they demand …

Read 7 tweets

Mary Francis 🕊

@maryeffrancis

Sep 11, 2022

As promised, my letter to the king:

Dear Charles,

(No disrespect, but I hold all people in the highest possible regard, so don’t use titles) I’m writing to you to, firstly, offer you my sincere condolences for the loss of your dear mother.

I never had the pleasure of meeting her, but I’ve lost mine, so I know how bereft you are. It’s a loss that doesn’t dim.

You’re a year older than me, and we’ve lived lives world’s apart, that touched briefly this year when you shook hands with my husband at the Samaritans HQ in Gloucester. He was impressed by your evident concern for desperate people. (Husband doing a lurch as a bow, left.)

Read 11 tweets

Mary Francis 🕊

@maryeffrancis

Jun 20, 2022

I’m a granny, not a banker like that nice Mister Javid, so I don’t know a lot about economics, but I was born a long time ago, and I remember things he probably never knew, and I think about them.

I remember, for example, that the last huge rise in inflation was NOT due to working people getting decent wages, but to OPEC being pissed-off over our support for Israel and jacking-up the oil price, and I think something like that might be responsible for the current crisis?

Of course it was politically convenient to blame the Labour government back then, so many youngsters may not know the truth, and be about to blame the workers (this time)which works really well, because Mr Javid’s oily donors make another fortune and he gets re-elected. Win-win.

Read 10 tweets

Mary Francis 🕊

@maryeffrancis

May 29, 2022

Me and Modern Monetary Theory: A short story.

I remember the Thatcher Era. The people who did more work in a month than most Tories do in a lifetime, became the enemies of “progress.”
All I valued about MY Britishness: equality, social justice, public service, came under attack

My inherited wealth - the services owned by the British Public was sold off to financiers and corporations at knock-down prices, with the promise that some of that wealth would, at some indeterminate time, “trickle down,” and everyone would be richer! Meanwhile …

… Monetary Theory, which removed all concept of “regulation” or “common good” from the capitalist smash and grab mentality, was gleefully adopted by our government to justify daylight robbery.

Read 9 tweets

Mary Francis 🕊

@maryeffrancis

Apr 30, 2022

I am 71 years old, and have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I am not going to see an authentic social democratic government in my lifetime. This fills me with great sadness, because it means the advantages I had as a child born to working class parents in 1950, are gone.

Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s in social housing at the foot of Robinswood Hill in Gloucester was idyllic. Mum at home, dad always in work, money was never abundant but we were never hungry. New clothes bought with Provident cheques, the grocer in his mobile van paid on Friday

A washing machine “rented” from a guy with a lorry on Monday morning, and returned in the afternoon, the tally man a family friend, all journeys by bus. Passed for the grammar, trained as a teacher for free, never paid a penny for healthcare … it didn’t matter that I wasn’t

Read 6 tweets