Ex bond trader. Writing on monetary systems, public finance, and why the gap between official economic narratives and lived reality keeps growing.
UK
Joined June 2011
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Andy Burnham promised "a new economic model" in July. John Healey's first Budget leaves the fiscal rules untouched and follows the pattern the OBR has flagged since 2010, with households footing the bill.
#UKEconomy #Budget2026
vincegomez.com/articles/new-…
Public money is a dull subject, and the dullness suits whoever gets to explain it.
Tomorrow every Budget measure will meet the same question: how will he pay for it?
Here is how the money moves through government. Not thrilling. Worth ten minutes.
vincegomez.com/articles/befo…
Grade F: Andy Burnham promised “the biggest changes in the last 40 years; a new political model and a new economic model.”
Andy Haldane tells him to cut the state or lose “the dealing room”.
You don’t build a new economic model with the architects of the old one.
Bank Rate has sat at 3.75% all year. The average two-year fix has gone from 4.85% to 6%.
The difference is the price of oil. Since the Middle East conflict began, expected Bank Rate has moved with oil and lenders price mortgages off those expectations.
vincegomez.com/articles/bank…
If the PM is serious about ending 40 years of neoliberalism, do you think there is any hope of a change of direction with this inquiry or will it be a rubber stamp for another 40 years?
committees.parliament.uk/wor…
Bank of England governor tells the UK chancellor to agree a budget that reassures financial markets.
Govt told to serve markets, speculators, corporations.
Healthcare, education, social justice, housing is secondary in neoliberalism.
Wither democracy.
theguardian.com/business/202…
Revolutionary thinking! A different world is possible.
How to Think About Macroeconomics:
1. Start with accounting identities and balance sheets, not theoretical assumptions.
2. View the economy as a system of interconnected sectors, not a collection of indicators.
3. Strictly distinguish between stocks and flows.
4. Explain economic phenomena through causal mechanisms, not mere correlations.
5. Distinguish between real resource constraints and nominal financial constraints.
6. Do not conflate accounting identities, theoretical hypotheses, and empirical regularities.
7. Analyze economic processes in historical time, accounting for fundamental uncertainty and path dependence.
Hole Watch #Budget2026
The Telegraph, citing the IFS: Healey needs £35bn for defence, care and housing. Nobody asks if Britain has the welders, care workers and bricklayers to deliver them. The “hole” is measured against fiscal rules the Treasury wrote.
vincegomez.com/reality-check…
Traders who did what they were told were convicted. The people who set the culture, gave the instructions, and leaned on banks to lowball rates in 2008 walked away scot-free.
Andy Verity has done the work the regulators didn’t.
This has been the most extraordinary financial and judicial scandal that I’ve covered in my career. For eighteen out of nineteen traders convicted, it turns out they were falsely tried. There are still so many questions to be asked. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqgk…
Expect plenty more failing grade E/F commentary in the run up to the Budget like we have seen in the FT and The Times this week. 🧵
The Times quotes Bailey stating market "doubt" directly forces yields and "tightens monetary and financial conditions," implying markets dictate fiscal space.
vincegomez.com/reality-check…
Before Healey's budget: my letter in the Guardian on the household myth.
Parliament votes, the Treasury instructs the Bank, the Bank credits accounts. Taxes come after.
And the "black hole"? Every pound the government "borrows" ends up as someone's savings. No hole required.
The letter: theguardian.com/business/202…
And if you'd rather watch than read, the whole cycle (the vote, the issue, the tax, the gilt) in one film:
vincegomez.com/how-money-wor…
"There is no such thing as the nation's credit card." – Larry Elliott in the Guardian last week.
I've made two short films that show the mechanism behind that, from the Acts of Parliament, the Treasury's accounts and the Bank of England. 🧵
Elliott ends on Keynes. So does film 1:
"Anything we can actually do we can afford."
The question is never "can we afford it?" It's "do we have the people and resources to do it?"
Elliott's column: theguardian.com/commentisfre…