news round-ups politics europe

news round-ups politics europe

news round-ups politics europe

news round-ups politics europe

1. Money is created by government spending and bank lending.
   
2. Money is destroyed by taxation.
   
3. The purpose of taxation is not to fund government, but to manage the money supply, and to penalize or support certain activities in the economy.
   
4. There is no special connection between government spending and inflation - government spending is an inflation driver only in the circumstances in which the same spending by private entities would be inflationary.
   
5. Maintaining a connection between government spending and taxation is completely pointless.

front-paged with minor edits by afew

news round-ups politics europe

news round-ups politics europe

Simon Jenkins at the Guardian lashes out at energy policies, particularly targeting the current British government goals. Of course he also lashes at nuclear and onshore wind. His stance, it seems, is one shared with George Monbiot's: haphazardly embracing nuclear while questioning the merits of onshore wind.

Yet that's exactly where I don't want to go. With all the caveats and personal preferences Jenkins bears set aside, I particularly can't disagree too much with his basic premise as it mirrors much of my own journey:

British energy policy is a dark underworld of fanatics | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

Do not read on if you want a conclusion on this subject. For years I have read papers, books, surveys and news stories, and am little wiser. I trust to science and am ready to believe there is some great mathematician, some Fermat's last theorem, who can write an equation showing where energy policy should turn. I have never met him.

The equation would start with the current market price of coal, gas, oil, nuclear and so-called "renewables". That would give simple primacy to coal and gas. The equation would then factor in such variables as security of supply, which – being imponderable – can be argued from commercial interest and prejudice. Then it would have to take account of global warming and the virtue of lower carbon emissions. At this point the demons enter.

We must consider CO2 reduction through substituting gas for coal, carbon capture, nuclear investment, biomass, wind, wave, solar and tidal generation. We must consider the application of fiscal policy to gas and petrol use, to energy efficiency and house insulation. Each has a quantity attached to it and each a fanatical lobby drooling for subsidies. As for achieving a remotely significant degree of global cooling, that requires world diplomacy – which has, as yet, proved wholly elusive.

There is more.

news round-ups politics europe

news round-ups politics europe

news round-ups politics europe