Administrative announcements

My blog is on holiday today

Its that time of the year … I have a long flight today with a long drive from where I have been working this week to get to the airport and at the end of the various journeys will be a birthday cake (cue LC). The travel is to get me to where the cake will be. But the real reason I am not writing anything today is because I have too too many work commitments on the way to deal on top of the travel. So a birthday just seemed like a good excuse to send my blog on a little holiday for a day.

birthday_cake_small_1

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Lower British fiscal deficit gives the central government no more or no less capacity to net spend to reduce unemployment

It’s Wednesday and I am bound for London later today. We will see how that turns out having not travelled there since the beginning of the pandemic. I will take plenty of precautions to avoid Covid. But it will be good to catch up with friends in between several engagements, including my teaching responsibilities at the University of Helsinki, which I have been acquiting for the last few years via Zoom. Today, I reflect on the latest public finance data released by the British Office of National Statistics which shows the fiscal deficit is smaller than expected. Even progressive journalists have written this up as providing more scope for pre-election largesse to be provided. The fact that the fiscal balance is lower provides no more or no less scope for the government to net spend. The relevant questions that should be answered before such an assessment can be made are ignored by the journalists, including the fact that the unemployment rate is rising and the supply-driven inflation is falling fast. After some announcements of events in London and Europe, we have some violin music to end today’s post. There will be no blog post tomorrow as I will be in transit.

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Welcome to 2024 – the 20th year of my blog

Welcome to 2024. This marks the 20th year that my blog has been operating although there were a few years early on when I was experimenting with the technology etc and nothing much emerged. In continuous terms, the blog has been going for 15 uninterrupted years this year. Over that time, it has evolved from a 7-day a week commitment to a reduced offering. Here are my latest thoughts on how I will use the medium in the coming year.

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GIMMS London Event – Friday, January 26, 2024

As I previously indicated I am returning to Europe and the UK in a few weeks for the first time since the Covid pandemic began. I will provide further details in due course, but for now, here is a link to the first event I will be speaking at in London on Friday, January 26, 2024 that is organised by the wonderful women from GIMMS. See over for details and how you can get tickets to the event.

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My blog is flying today

My time in Japan this year has come to an end (sob). It is back home for me and I will have to wait until next year before I return. At any rate, today I have no time to write a post so you will have to be content listening to the music I have ready for the flight.

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Off to Japan I go – again

Today, I am heading to the airport for travel to Japan. For the next several months I will once again be working as a professor at Kyoto University as part of the research team concerned with integrating the macroeconomic principles in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) principles into a broader framework to build national resilience in the face of climate change, demographic challenges, transport and housing challenges and more. So from tomorrow I will be in Kyoto and depending on commitments my blog posts might be a little less regular although I think I will be able to continue the usual output. I will have more to say about what we are working on, including the release of a book we have been completing from last year’s collaborations. There is also a major event planned for later in November in Tokyo to launch our latest work. I will provide details later when I know them. We are also talking about hosting an Modern Monetary Theory symposium in Kyoto next April to welcome in the Spring and the cherry blossoms. When I know more I will relate the details here. I am also working on my next book which will traverse the topics of degrowth, the sustainability of capitalism and more. Japan’s shrinking population presents an opportunity to lead the world in reducing the society’s reliance on economic growth and exploring more substantial aspects of human existence. I mapped out that argument in this blog post – Degrowth, deep adaptation, and skills shortages – Part 4 (October 31, 2022). Anyway, until I resurface tomorrow beside the Kamo River, we can listen to some music.

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