Yves here. While I wish I had some Easter programming, a mini tutorial will do. It would have been helpful for Richard Murphy to have also deployed the usual bookkeeping T accounts, since some find those visuals to clarify the money flows, but I trust this explanation of (fiat issuer) government bonds held by central banks works on a stand-alone basis.
By Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and a political economist. He has been described by the Guardian newspaper as an “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert”. He is Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London and Director of Tax Research UK. He is a non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics. He is a member of the Progressive Economy Forum. Originally published at Tax Research UK