If you’re a Brit, all of a sudden a few mid-afternoon keggers at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office during the depths of COVID doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing.And so what if Boris Johnson lied about it? Lies are the currency of the ugly new world we’re living in, who cares? And if you’re busy partying, that gives you less time to drive your nation’s economy off a cliff.Which is what Britain’s new Prime Minister did just three weeks after taking office. In her first budget, Truss jettisoned the 45% tax rate on those making more than $163,000, announced an expensive program for helping homeowners pay for heat and counted on the bond market to finance it all. The bond market, how do we say, did not respond well to this fiscal course, all but kicking the pilings out from under the market for government bonds and forcing the Bank of England to step in and buy government paper when no one else would.Borrowing money to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, while continuing to spend lavishly, once went by the name of Reaganomics. Instead of home heating bills, the government in the 1980s spent heavily on the military, but that was the only material difference.The myth is that the wealthy, relieved of heavy tax burdens, will invest in research and development, machines, and technology, giving birth to great new industries that provide jobs for the little guy.The reality is that the wealthy invest the extra money in exotic instruments like the credit default swaps that led …
COVID, inflation and supply-side economics: What’s going to happen? – Herald-Mail Media
