Vince Gomez

Grade F: Andy Burnham promised “the biggest changes in the last 40 years; a new political model and a new economic model.” Andy Haldane tells him to cut the state or lose “the dealing room”. You don’t build a new economic model with the architects of the old one.

Expect plenty more failing grade E/F commentary in the run up to the Budget like we have seen in the FT and The Times this week. 🧵

The Times quotes Bailey stating market "doubt" directly forces yields and "tightens monetary and financial conditions," implying markets dictate fiscal space. vincegomez.com/reality-chec...

Expect plenty more failing grade E/F commentary in the run up to the Budget like we have seen in the FT and The Times this week. 🧵

Before Healey's budget: my letter in the Guardian on the household myth. Parliament votes, the Treasury instructs the Bank, the Bank credits accounts. Taxes come after. And the "black hole"? Every pound the government "borrows" ends up as someone's savings. No hole required.

"There is no such thing as the nation's credit card." – Larry Elliott in the Guardian last week. Here's the mechanism behind that, from the Acts, the Treasury's accounts and the Bank of England, in a 12-minute film 🧵 vincegomez.com/how-money-wo...

Elliott ends on Keynes. So do the films: "Anything we can actually do we can afford." The question is never "can we afford it?" It's "do we have the people and resources to do it?"

"There is no such thing as the nation's credit card." – Larry Elliott in the Guardian last week. Here's the mechanism behind that, from the Acts, the Treasury's accounts and the Bank of England, in a 12-minute film 🧵 vincegomez.com/how-money-wo...

"Black holes" are measured against the fiscal rules. Since 1997 Britain has set itself ten sets of them and scrapped nine: a policy the Treasury writes and rewrites, not a law of nature. The second film reads the payment chain out of the Act: vincegomez.com/how-money-wo...

"There is no such thing as the nation's credit card." – Larry Elliott in the Guardian last week. Here's the mechanism behind that, from the Acts, the Treasury's accounts and the Bank of England, in a 12-minute film 🧵 vincegomez.com/how-money-wo...

In 1946 Britain's debt stood near 250% of GDP. Bread was still rationed. Within two years the government had opened the NHS and launched the largest house building programme in its history. Today, at just under 95%, ministers say that we cannot afford to do anything close to this. Why?

Three centuries of records point the same way: the binding constraint was never the debt ratio, it was labour, materials and political will. Post-war Britain had less of the first two than we do — and built anyway. #UKEconomy

Wynne Godley argued in 1992 that a currency union without a shared budget would end badly, and warned years ahead that US growth was resting on private borrowing that could not last. His main tool was a table. Here is what one is, and who he was: vincegomez.com/data/?tab=go...

And where the model cannot settle a question, it says so and points at someone who can: Berkeley, Ryan-Collins, Tye, Voldsgaard & Wilson, who traced the actual UK machinery.

Wynne Godley argued in 1992 that a currency union without a shared budget would end badly, and warned years ahead that US growth was resting on private borrowing that could not last. His main tool was a table. Here is what one is, and who he was: vincegomez.com/data/?tab=go...

The whole thing hangs on one number: the total money in the economy. Four transactions happen. Only two move it. Government spending creates money. Tax destroys it. Wages and shopping move the same pounds around and create nothing at all.

Wynne Godley argued in 1992 that a currency union without a shared budget would end badly, and warned years ahead that US growth was resting on private borrowing that could not last. His main tool was a table. Here is what one is, and who he was: vincegomez.com/data/?tab=go...

So I built a guided walkthrough where you watch one get built from nothing. Nine steps, three balance sheets, one transaction at a time. No sign-up, no maths past adding up, about five minutes. vincegomez.com/data/models/...

Wynne Godley argued in 1992 that a currency union without a shared budget would end badly, and warned years ahead that US growth was resting on private borrowing that could not last. His main tool was a table. Here is what one is, and who he was: vincegomez.com/data/?tab=go...

The FT's "Six foolish mistakes for the UK's new chancellor to avoid", out today, earns a Grade E: FAIL It rightly unmasks Carney's defence bank as borrowing in fancy dress, then builds its whole case on markets "punishing" a currency issuer that cannot be forced to default. #UKEconomy

The flawed claim: exploit a fiscal rule and "you will be punished", capped by "markets are watching... you have been warned". Gilt yields track Bank Rate and inflation expectations, not an external solvency verdict. Sentiment isn't a veto over democratic choice.

You can have any PM you want, just make sure you don't change the economics... The IMF's 2026 Article IV summary, out yesterday, earns a Grade D AMBER: solid on the mechanics, muddled (meddling?) in the politics.

The flaw sits in "debt stabilisation" framed as an appropriate necessity for a currency the Treasury issues at will. Add "policy stability that anchors confidence" — market-confidence mood-setting with no mechanism attached — and "difficult choices" that dress up allocation as scarcity.

For over 40 years Britain has told itself one economic story: markets know best, the state must shrink, and there is no alternative. That story has delivered stagnation. The claim that no other framework exists was always political, never economic.

Market Humanism argues markets are tools built to serve people, not ends in themselves. The takeaway: a stagnant economy isn't proof that policy has run out of options, but that it stopped looking for them. #UKEconomy #UKPolitics

Grade E — FAIL. The OBR's Fiscal Risks and Sustainability 2026, out yesterday, is sharp on the real constraints — ageing, labour supply, productivity — then quietly recasts debt-to-GDP and gilt yields as laws of nature rather than the policy conventions they are. #UKEconomy

Take the claim that "it is almost certain that future governments would have to take action" on debt. For a sterling issuer that's a choice, NOT solvency. The 300% projection by 2076 is a policy outcome, dressed up as a market verdict via "investor appetite for bonds." #MonetaryIlliteracy

Grade F: A piece in CityAM this week — "Andy Burnham will be 'in hock' to the bond markets whether he likes it or not" — earns a FAIL, roughly 16/100. The central muddle: treating bond-market sentiment as a force of nature binding a currency issuer, rather than a set of institutional choices.

The line "borrowing more may no longer be an option" is stated as operational fact, as if a sterling issuer could simply run out of its own currency. And inflation is pinned on "pay inflation" in services, with profit margins and supply-side drivers left unexamined. #UKEconomy #MonetaryIlliteracy