The Changing Ownership Of Government Debt
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In 2004 around 75% of Uk government debt was owned by insurance and pension companies. The rest was almost entirely owned by overseas interests, Banks held almost none, and nor did the government.
Now the Bank of England is the biggest owner:
The trend will continue. By the end of 2021 the Bank of England is set to own £895 billion of UK debt.
For those who say that there has been no such thing as direct monetary funding, or that the government cannot fund itself, or that there is no magic money tree, the evidence to the contrary is very clear.
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Government Bonds Owned By The Bank Of England Are Not A Debt Burden, Even When They re Repaid
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I received this email very recently, and share it with the author’s permission:
Hi Richard,
Hope you re well. After reading some of your articles and watching one of your videos, I m left with a question that I hoped you could answer.
The Bank of England holds lots of government debt. What happens when the bonds they hold mature? Doesn t the treasury need to pay the bank?
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
UK should build foreig policy on aid, conflict resolution, not on reversing nuclear disarmament
Tax Research UK 16th March 2021. Billions will be wasted, nuclear waste will be created, a dangerous precedent of reversing disarmament will have been set, and the world will be more unsafe, all for no gain. If the UK was wise now (and but isn’t) it would be pursuing a very different foreign policy, based on that of
Norway.
That country does punch above its weight. It has a strong foreign policy based on aid. It uses that to build strong diplomatic links around the world. And in the process it works, quietly, on conflict resolution.