If money is not scarce, and is created costlessly by banks, why are we paying so much for it? Is doing so completely contrary to our well-being? Lord Keynes certainly thought so.

The first-past-the-post electoral system is a massive obstacle to democracy in the UK, but corporate donations are almost as significant. The time when corporate donors can try to buy power in the UK should be over, for good.

Do we really need more iPhones? Or do we actually need more health and social care, education, and so much else that generates remarkably little carbon? Sometime soon, we are going to have to decide.

Wes Streeting thinks the NHS is riddled with obedient compliance that lets wrongdoing happen. He’s right, except that he’s wrong to say this is an NHS problem. It’s a problem of a class-ridden society where everyone is told they may not question their ‘elders and betters’. He won’t solve anything by trying to change the NHS. He needs to start by getting rid of the monarchy as the symbol of a hopelessly outdated class system.

Once upon a time, financial capitalism exploited slaves. Then, it exploited the planet. And now - in the absence of anything else - it is exploiting you. That's why the rich are getting richer and you probably never will. We need to be rid of this rotten system that cannot survive unless someone or something must lose for the benefit of a few.

Politics should be about ideas. Instead, it's become about brands. With both the Labour and Conservative Parties - and some others, come to that - wanting to offer almost identical core policy agendas at this election, the branding is what seems to count now. But as a result, big ideas - like the difference between parties representing people and wealth - have disappeared, and that is a massive loss to us all.

Labour is saying it cannot afford to end child poverty. That, however, is only because it is refusing to charge more tax on the wealthy. Worse, it is refusing to acknowledge that this is the choice that it is making. For example, if it simply equalised the tax rates on income and capital gains, it could raise the money needed to end child poverty six times over. No reasonable person could object to that. So why is Labour refusing to consider it?

Tax justice is about the creation of a fair tax system. The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 has this as its central aim. This podcast explains what that means.

The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 explains how by making up to 30 relatively simple changes to the UK tax system up to £92 billion of additional tax and more than £100 billion of funds for investment could be made available to fund public services in the UK - which is more than any politician could imagine that they need. The aim is threefold. First, the Report proves that the claim that 'there is no money left' is wrong. Second, it shows that the wealthy and well-off in the UK really are undertaxed. Third, it shows that solving the problem of funding the society that we need is not hard to achieve. The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 is available at https://taxingwealth.uk/

It is increasingly hard to determine what the truth in accounts and economic data might be. Finance directors do not recognise their own, supposedly true and fair, financial reports as representing the companies that they manage. The Office for National Statistics is putting out figures for the national debt that are 12.7% overstated and figures for GDP that are 10% overstated. It really is time that we stopped trying to manage the economy on the basis of bogus data.

After forty years as a chartered accountant what I have realised is that the vast majority of people really have very little understanding of what tax is,  despite the fact that almost all of us spend more on paying tax than we do on anything else in life. That fact alone makes it staggering to me that so few people understand what tax really is,  or what it does. In this short podcast, I offer an explanation.

One of the things that most young people do not appreciate, and perhaps most adults don't really much think about, is the fact that money worries are the thing that seem to define adulthood. Until you leave home or get a job then for most people money worries are something that can be left o someone else. Once you stand on your own two feet and are called an adult, then money worries are yours, and never go away. Understanding this is critical to coming to terms with the stress of living. This podcast discusses that fact and suggests that being willing to ask for help with regard to money issues is one of the most important things that anyone must come to terms with if they are to manage the stresses that we all face in life.

This podcast started life as a practice speech I recorded for a presentation I made to Cooperatives Wales on Saturday, 13 May 2023. I liked the practice version, so I thought I would share it more widely. In the presentation, which is longer than I usually plan for this podcast, I explain why the left of UK politics needs a new economic paradigm, what that paradigm might be and how the money might be found to fund it, all of it in fairly straightforward terms. I suggest £100 billion a year could be found to sound the society we want. I hope some politicians are listening.

Unless you understand what money really is, then almost nothing else in the economy makes sense. In this short podcast I explain what money is - and why it has nothing to do with notes, coins, gold and silver and everything to do with debt.

Introducing The Account - which is my new podcast in which I will discuss all things to do with economics, finance, accounting and tax that you need to know to understand how we build a sustainable future. And I promise to keep things simple.  Richard Murphy http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/