Clarkson's Hammer

Many years ago, the popular BBC television show Top Gear used to feature a trio of loveable rogues -- Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May (listed in alphabetical order because, of course, in any sensible list, James May should be first).

A long-running joke was that Clarkson would attempt to fix any fault, whether mechanical, electronic, gaseous, philosophical or entomological, with a very large hammer.

Laugh at the silly man, viewers! He thinks he can hit a delicate mechanical part with a hammer to get it working! Go on! Laugh!

Except --- thanks to the magic of television, in the next scene, he is back on the road! It worked! (But don't try it at home.)

Behind The Curtain

We all knew, of course, that a proper team of mechanics, lurking behind the camera (or behind the curtain if you prefer Wizard of Oz analogies), was actually fixing the car. That's not the point. It's not an Open University course in car maintenance, it's an entertainment programme. And goodness me, wasn't it entertaining? (I say again, don't try this at home.)

Except someone is trying this at home, aren't they? They're trying it in your home. And yours. And that guy over there. Etc.

Bank Of England

Step forward and take a bow, Andrew Bailey. The governor of the Bank of England has got out his big hammer and is going to fix the economy! Thanks Andrew!

Except there is no team of mechanics out of sight. He's really going to do this because he really does only have a big hammer and he thinks he's right. Is there anything more dangerous than someone with a large hammer who thinks he's right?

Because Andrew is going to put up interest rates to fix inflation. And we know what that means, don't we?

Give The Banks More Money

Putting up interests means that the Bank of England is ordering people to give more money to banks. 

The cost of your loan will go up, the cost of your mortgage will go up, the cost of that business's loans will go up, the cost of your landlord's mortgage will go up, so rents will go up and prices in shops will go up and everything will get much more expensive.

And where does this extra money go? This extra money that we're all being ordered to pay by Andrew Bailey?

Yes, it's going to the banks. They are going to collect more money in interest payments -- that's where all the increases lead if you just follow the money.

How much extra work are the banks doing to justify being handed a vast extra slab of income from across the population? I'm going to call it zero extra work (okay, maybe a bit of typing to change the interest rates on their leaflets and website).

Follow More Money

So Andrew Bailey is going to save the economy by driving people and businesses into bankrupcty and handing vast amounts of unearned money to banks.

You can see the banks rubbing their hands in glee right now. (With banks, that presents itself as the share prices going up.)

But wait! That's not all!

Because of the magic way the economy works, the Bank of England has given vast amounts of money to the banks, which they hold as a credit balance at (you guessed it) the Bank of England. And for the tremendous inconvenience of holding onto this money for the Bank of England (at the Bank of England), the banks get paid interest.

Can you see where this is going? The interest the banks are paid for holding on to a credit balance (which isn't theirs) will similarly go up -- because Andrew Bailey has put up interest rates.

So even more money will be paid to these banks as interest on money which isn't really theirs because the interest rate has gone up in order to save the economy.

Going On Tour

Andrew Bailey explained in an interview that he goes around the country talking to business leaders so he can be fully informed and respond to the needs of the nation. We must avoid appearing envious of his life on the road staying, one assumes, in comfortable hotels and eating in excellent restaurants on expenses.

No! Put away your envy.

Instead, wonder about these local business leaders. Are they really telling him that they'd like their loans to be more expensive, that they'd like many of their customers to go bankrupt or cut back their spending, and that they'd like all the banks to get richer?

Because if they're not telling him that, it would seem to me that maybe he's not listening so much while going on his trips. Because that's what he's serving up for them.

If I'm So Clever, What Would I Do?

Not put interest rates up.

Since I don't believe that low interest rates have caused inflation, I also don't believe for a moment that high interest rates will solve the problem.

('What do I think caused inflation?' I hear you ask... I'd suggest looking at other factors, e.g. war in Ukraine, insane speculator-driven gas price spikes, corporate profiteering, etc, etc.)

I think high interest rates will make banks richer, will cause them to hand out bonuses to their staff (for the wonderful performance of doing absolutely nothing to cause rising profits), and that will be about it.

(Oh, and the bonuses given to bank staff will cause a bit of inflation in the luxury end of the market as they all rush out to buy watches and yachts and Bentleys, etc.)

If inflation falls over the next year or so it will have nothing whatsoever to do with interest rates, in much the same way that if I go outside and do a little dance and it rains tomorrow, my dance did not cause it.

Put your hammer away, Andrew. You're not making an entertainment programme here, you're destroying the economy of a nation and the hopes and dreams of its population.

Update, 31 August 2022

Apparently one of the big investment banks reckons that inflation could hit 22% early next year.

This must mean one of two things:

• Interest rates need to go up again in order to really show inflation who's the boss.
• The interest rate rise hasn't helped against inflation and it never will because it's the wrong approach.

Surely it's only a matter of time before Andrew Bailey announces that his intervention has stopped inflation going up to 23%. But 22% is still too high and so interest rates must now rise to (checks notes -- see below) 153%.

Yep, that'll definitely do it.

(As any maths student knows, you should always show your working:

• Number of weeks in year = 52. Subtract 1 for no reason gives 51.
• Target inflation rate = 2%. Add 1 (to balance out subtracting one above) gives 3
• 51 x 3 = 153
• You're welcome.

And that's how you get to be the governor of the Bank of England.)

Bow Down To The Market (But Do It The Right Way)

Markets must be free of all interference to make sure that the correct price is always agreed between seller and buyer.

That definitely always happens -- as long as the profits flow rapidly to the rich.

Gas Prices

The price of something can only be known when someone buys it. Until the purchase has happened, the price is just a suggestion, a hope, an offer.

If the market rate for gas has gone up catastrophically, that can only mean that it is being purchased at that terrible rate.

Well, terrible for the purchaser, not for the seller.

But as the seller in this case is a wealthy multinational corporation, this extreme situation is not questioned.

It is the will of the market, or some such claptrap.

This is disaster capitalism at its most savage, pouring money at an astonishing rate from nations into the accounts of fossil fuel companies.

It is a product of group-think, it is delusional, the financial emperor showing off his new clothes.

Because it is avoidable. The purchasers could simply get together and offer a lower price, reject the 'market' rate, and stand firm. Then the price will drop.

And if there is a shortage -- would it not be better for the purchasers to divide up the available gas for themselves? Rather than bidding up the price in a frenzy so that only the rich can afford it and distribution is decided by which nation wishes to impoverish itself most?

Just say no. Nearly everyone on earth would benefit.

Nurses

There is a national shortage of nurses and a desperate difficulty in recruiting them. They are essential. It would be dangerous to allow the shortage to continue.

Wouldn't free market theory insist that employers should offer higher rates in order to attract more 'providers' to enter the 'market'? Isn't this the correct way for the market to fix the problem?

If the 'price' were to triple, as with gas prices, that would be fine, wouldn't it?

No, obviously not. Because this situation would not result in large sums of money going to rich people. So, for some unclear reason, free market economics is not used and, instead, hospitals are short-staffed.

Explanations welcome...

Money -- it's a gas. And vice versa.

Why is the price of gas so high? Where is the money going? And how can it be brought back down, preferably permanently.

What follows is simplistic -- deliberately so. But any and all complexities that I have ignored -- they are artificial constructs which exist mainly to prop up the current system. They can and should be changed.

Follow The Money

The price of gas has risen, apparently, because supply can't match demand. This is because of the difficulties in bringing Russian gas to market. The result is that, globally, more gas is wanted than can be supplied.

So it becomes a bidding war. Those who can pay more will be sold the gas and those who can't will have to go without. Or buy less of it because they can't afford as much as they want.

But where does the money go?

The cost of extraction and distribution of gas has not changed. The wages paid to those drilling and transporting gas have not changed.

Once the gas is available on the 'market', the speculators and traders will attempt to maximise their own profits, and those of the fossil fuel companies, by suggesting that a bidding process is the best way to handle the thorny issue of who gets what.

Which means that the richer customers can afford it.

Which means the price goes up.

Which means that the speculators and traders, and the gas extracting companies make far higher profits than last year, despite the fact that their work has not changed in the slightest. And the real 'raw' cost of obtaining gas has not changed.

Also bear in mind that the (non-Russian) fossil fuel companies are still extracting and selling as much gas as they possibly can. The amount they themselves are selling has not been affected. No wonder their profits are suddenly huge. And unearned. As close to 'ill-gotten gains' as you can get without being illegal.

The whole process is geared towards maximising the profits of the fossil fuel corporations and the market traders. It is sucking huge sums of money out of other companies, nations and the public. And no one is asking why it has to be this way.

The way in which gas is extracted, marketed, traded and sold is not unchangeable, like the law of gravity. It is a man-made system which is now working to rapidly shift vast amounts of wealth from a wide variety of people, companies and nations into the hands of a very small number of people.

Why are we tolerating this?

Just Say No

The UK government is attempting to find intricate ways to help people with the cost of energy. For example:

• Handouts of money to help (i.e. transferring public funds to fossil fuel companies via people's energy bills).
• State-backed loans (i.e. forcing people to take a loan to help with their payments which will lead to the population paying interest charges to banks).

But no one has suggested simply refusing to buy gas at this price.

The retort to that suggestion would be: "But then others will buy it instead of us. Won't they?"

Will they? Why should they?

What is stopping an international consortium calculating a fair price, probably not that far off what gas cost last year, and simply refusing to pay any more than that?

It would be unrealistic to expect a global agreement. But if enough large nations gathered together to stop this rampant profiteering, what would happen?

Would the 'rest of the world' simply buy all the gas at the inflated price? Or would significantly less be sold?

And, unless the fossil fuel companies can store whatever is left, what would they do next? Turn off the taps? Or accept that the profits they made last year weren't actually that bad and maybe there is a deal to be made?

It would be in the interests of nearly everyone on the planet to do this. Even richer countries, who could afford the 'new' prices, would presumably prefer to pay lower prices.

But Free Markets!

As things stand, the gas providers are ensuring that prices are always pegged at the highest rate possible. By operating through a trading system, they are not literally a cartel, but might as well be.

The supply/demand free market theory runs that, at times of shortage, the price will go up in order to encourage more providers to come to the market. How is that working out at the moment? Where are these new providers? Will they be along soon? How long are we supposed to wait?

Some might deride the idea of massive international cooperation as inappropriate, too much state control, too much interference in the rights of corporations to trade freely. But if the fossil fuel companies can gather together behind a system that inflates their profits, how is it wrong for their customers to similarly gather together and state the price they are prepared to pay?

A bit of robust negotiation will be required to determine how the shortage is spread around -- probably not as simple as every customer getting a fixed percentage of their normal requirement, but probably not far off either.

And, with the excess money that will no longer be paid to fossil fuel companies, everyone can buy warmer clothes, insulate their homes, put up wind turbines, cook themselves a hot meal -- the possibilities are endless.

An Aside -- Bruce Springsteen Tickets

Some tickets for Bruce Springsteen's shows are being sold using a very similar supply/demand market-based approach.

Let the fans decide how much they're prepared to pay. Put the price up further, and further. And then further. Hey, if they're still selling then why not keep going and see how high they can go? Five thousand dollars in some cases (per ticket).

The fans are annoyed.

The solution is simple -- if people stop paying these prices, these prices will drop. If people boycott the tour completely, the system would be scrapped. It's only the willingness to roll over and pay that keeps this practice alive.

Customers need to stop thinking of themselves as individuals trying to outsmart (or outbid) each other. Gather together, have strength in numbers and don't accept price gouging. Admittedly it's easier when dealing with entertainment rather than everyday essentials.

Winter Is Coming

So we'd better get on with it.

Don't enter into any long-term contracts. Get down to the United Nations and have some urgent discussions. Preferably before northern-hemisphere countries need to start heating their homes.

None of this pain is necessary.

Wealth-extracting turbo-capitalism is a man-made structure, not an unchangeable law of nature.

It is not working for us any more. Another way is possible.

Institute For Economic Common Sense - Third Lesson

When The Fun Stops, Stop – Helpful advice appended to gambling company advertisements in UK, 2022

Let’s start with an analogy. Everyone likes analogies. Imagine a farmer and family. They run a smallholding. It provides them with food and a little left over which they sell to buy fripperies like horse-shoes and beads and so on. They produce a diverse crop so, if one of their vegetables has a bad year, they’ll probably be okay because another vegetable can pick up the slack. (It’s just an analogy – don’t get too hung up on the details.)

One year, the weather is wrong in some analogy-type non-specific way. Maybe there are floods. Yeah, that’ll do. But our farmer is fine because the smallholding is at the top of the hill so the crops are looking peachy.

But overall there’s a shortage in the county. The rich folk from the city are keen to have their usual amount of potatoes/grain/wheat so they’re offering more money than the locals can afford. Our farmer looks at his crop, looks at the big number that’s on the piece of paper with the order on it and decides he’s going to go for it. He sells the lot. He is an entrepreneur.

Our farmer now has a lot of money. But he has no food. That’s okay though because (a) he’s got loads of money and (b) he has a bit of slightly stale food left over in his larder. That’ll tide him over. And maybe his family too.

Next year it all goes wrong again but this time our farmer’s crops have failed too. (Drought? Yeah, that’ll do.) The price has gone even higher so even with the profit from last year, he can’t afford to buy enough food. He has got plenty of gold pieces to look at though, so it’s not all bad.

In a desperate attempt to avoid starvation, he sells the smallholding to an investor who then employs him (at a very low wage) to work the farm. Good news is that he keeps his home and his job. Bad news is that he doesn’t own any of the food he grows and can only buy it at full market rate like everyone else. He divides the amount of money he has by the estimated annual cost of buying enough food to stay alive and decides that it won’t see him through his working life and retirement. So he turns to crime. The end.

So, yeah, that’s basically what’s happening with electricity in the UK at the moment. We’re all the farmer except that we didn’t decide to sell all our food one year or to sell the farm. No – someone else decided that for us. (We also haven’t decided to turn to crime. Yet.)

Electricity From The Before Times

Once upon a time, the UK produced its own electricity by digging up coal and burning it, or digging up oil and burning it, or digging up gas and burning it. The National Coal Board, British Petroleum and the Central Electricity Generation Board were all state-owned, operating for the good of the country and set up to ensure energy was fuelled, produced, distributed and sold.

Was it perfect? Obviously not – what is? Did it pay vast dividends to shareholders? No. Did it invest in national infrastructure? Yes. Could it have been more efficient? Probably.

Was the price of energy dependent on the whims of the international market or on the cost of fuel, generation and distribution (which were presumably relatively stable)? I’m going to go with the latter.

If the theoretical price of a therm of natural gas spiked on the international market, did it decide to charge itself a much higher rate and then have to pass that cost on to the customer?

Electricity Recently

And this is when the magic of the casino enters proceedings. And what is the one rule that always, always, ALWAYS applies when discussing casinos?

The house always wins. (No, not your house.)

Sure, there’s always a guy over there who’s sitting by the slot machine when it starts pouring out an unending (and, frankly, inconvenient) river of coins. But, overall, the people who run casinos never have to worry about paying to keep the lights on because of all the other suckers, the sad-faced ones, the desperate mugs, the tragically drunk and the heart-rendingly sober. Did their fun start? If not, how will then know when it stops?

After the dismemberment of the electricity system in the UK, the public were left with a bewildering array of options for buying electricity, all priced in subtly different ways, difficult to compare and full of financially punitive little traps. Newly privatised fragments of the companies found accountants and lawyers who could help them squirrel as much money away in hiding places as possible (because that’s always good for running an efficient utilities company) and settled in for some hard graft.

And, as with casinos, there’s always the guy in the spotlight who has found a genuinely good value tariff and is happy with his time in the casino. But he’s the exception and, all around him, are the others who don’t know how to play the game, or don’t realise it’s a game, or don’t think there’s any difference between staying put and entering the hall of mirrors in order to move their custom elsewhere. (Which, of course, means receiving a bill printed in a different colour, with a different logo on the top and a different pricing structure that may, or may not, end up cheaper than before.)

Do we fix our prices in case prices go up? Do we stay on a variable tariff in case prices go down? Do we take a slightly worse rate in order to use a company less likely to get the bill wrong, leading to overcharging and six-to-six hundred months of never-ending phone calls to try to get it corrected?

Roll up, roll up. When the fun stops… Oh? Hasn’t it started yet? But that guy over there is having fun – look, he’s just saved ten pounds per year by spending three hours arguing about standing charges.

Just imagine the national productivity figures! Here we are wasting hours of our time fiddling around with utility bills and the utility companies themselves are wasting millions of pounds paying people to create these fiddly bills, explain these fiddly bills, correct these fiddly bills, deal with angry, sad, confused or desperate people who don’t understand their fiddly bills. And so it goes. Does this help GDP?

Electricity Now

About 40% of the UK’s electricity is generated by burning gas. And gas is bought on the international market at whichever rate has been agreed by your supplier – either a bulk advance purchase at a pre-agreed price (gambling that the price will go up), or on a day-to-day basis based on current market rate (gambling that the price will go down).

But bear in mind that the price has absolutely nothing to do with extraction and distribution cost. Go back to our farmer. It didn’t cost more to grow the crops in years when the price was high – no, the scarcity meant that those with more money could outbid others, hence the sale price was elevated.

This is the world of the casino. Never mind what something costs (which is fairly predictable) – instead you must gamble on whether someone else, for a variety of reasons, might hike the price or even (surely not?) reduce it.

And the theory goes that, when extracting natural gas from our own territory, we must sell it (to ourselves?) at the international market rate because, if we don’t, like the farmer above, we’ll sell it all to a higher bidder and be left with none for ourselves.

Of course this is also complicated by the fact that the people actually extracting the gas are not working on behalf of the UK. They are employees of a few vast multinational enterprises that are most interested in profit and therefore the highest bidder. The fact that they also receive fairly hefty tax breaks from the UK in order to… (er, not sure), counts for nothing. If they can get more elsewhere, they will. So – pay up, Britain! Remind me why we don’t have a state-owned business doing this on behalf of the population?

It Gets Worse

So if the cost of a bit of gas goes up by a factor of three (for example), that should mean the market cost of a unit of electricity goes up by about 1.2 (because gas is only 40% of the fuel used when generating electricity). Right?

Wrong. It goes up by a factor of about three.

And why is that? Because if we don’t pay the maximum rate to the electricity generator who uses, say, nuclear power (whose running costs are, I suspect, more or less unchanged) – then they will simply sell their electricity to someone else who will.

Or at least that’s the theory. Can a nuclear power station in north-west England really sell electricity to a neighbouring country?

(Technically it could but, given that the UK’s electricity is already expensive (compared to nations in the EU) and, given that the UK is not in the EU (which probably just makes the contracts messy and unhelpful), it’s not clear why anyone would. On top of which, the UK imports electricity from France – let’s hope that’s because the price is lower.)

But why doesn’t the free market help the customer here? Why doesn’t this nuclear power station undercut the gas power station with its super-cheap electricity units in order to deliver value to the customer and keep prices down? Could it be because the free market theory is actually bunkum and is only working to keep all prices as high as possible? Could it be that the free market here actually only serves to push the price upwards whenever possible?

It Gets Even Worse

Consider another means of electricity generation – solar (or wind, or tidal). The sun is definitely not any more expensive and the panels (turbines, etc) don’t need to be renewed more than every decade or so.

For (many) years, when solar was an expensive option, it was supported by an extra levy on everyone’s electricity bills. Some people chose to have all of their electricity nominally generated sustainably and, for them, the levy was even higher. This was supposed to be a good thing, to get a young industry on its feet so it could dodge and duck and weave with the big boys.

And, having propped up this sector for (many) years, now that its power is actually cheaper than other options, we get to reap a harvest, right?

Wrong. They’ve hiked their prices up to the maximum (i.e. to match the price of gas-sourced electricity) because, a unit of electricity is a unit of electricity is a unit of electricity (etc) and it wouldn’t be fair if the gas boys got paid more than the sun boys.

Fixing The Problem

Get a state-owned enterprise to run extraction and generation – then the prices will be based on the cost of doing business, not based on the cost of outbidding other nations.

(Imagine if the farmer had resisted selling off all his food at the top of this chapter. Because selling off a vital resource in order to obtain money that may or may not enable you to buy what you needed in the first place is not always the right answer.)

Then set consumer prices based on the actual cost of generation, i.e. let it move dynamically depending on the mix of sources on a day-by-day basis. Given that we currently only pay the highest possible rate, this can only lead to lower bills. On sunny, windy, tidey days, the price will slump and this will be a good thing.

Finally, make the purchase of oil/gas on the international market the option of last resort. And, even then, make them an offer below the so-called market rate. It hasn’t cost them any more to extract – so why are we feeding their greed? Is it because they’d sell it to someone else at the higher price if we don’t? If so, why not set up an alliance with other countries to set a price cap. Not a tightly fitting cap that gives the poor company a migraine – no, a price cap that gives them a fairly thick and tasty profit margin but not an obscenely yawningly wide profit margin that impoverishes all before it.

That international alliance could be given a catchy name. Just spitballing here but if it were, say, a group of European countries that decided to unite around some basic principle, you could call it the European Union.

Interest rate increases are as helpful to the economy as leeches were to Victorian patients

Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, has inflicted an awful attempted cure on the British economy which will cause death, hardship, unemployment and recession while doing nothing to help. Unless you work for a bank, in which case it’s all good.

The Bank of England makes money out of thin air – that is its most impressive conjuring trick. It then deposits that money in accounts in the names of banks. It then pays credit interest on that money to those banks.

So the first beneficiaries of interest rate rises are those banks who are receiving unearned money on cash balances they did nothing to produce. Where is this money going to go? Why is it being paid? And why is it helpful to pay more than was paid last week?

The government could state that interest will no longer be paid on these balances – and yet it hasn’t. So it has effectively chosen to pass huge amounts of money to banks for them to do with as they wish. How is this helpful to anyone other than the recipients of this year’s bonuses?

Another effect of interest rate rises is to provide cover for mortgage lenders to hike their interest rates, which will generate more revenue for banks in return for literally no extra effort or productivity on their part. It is simply a money transfer from borrowers to banks.

So far what do we have? The Bank of England is paying banks extra money for no obvious reason. And it is giving banks an excuse to charge their customers more money, similarly in return for those banks doing absolutely nothing.

The knock-on effect of this is that people will be poorer. They will simply have less money. And we haven’t even considered rising prices for energy and food yet. Why are food and energy more expensive? It’s certainly not because people have had massive pay increases because they haven’t. So it’s insulting even to suggest that wage increases are necessary for inflation – we have the inflation and we haven’t had the pay rises.

Inflation is caused by price rises, not pay rises. And price rises are, predominantly, caused by profiteering, price gouging, greed – call it what you like.

Most energy in the UK is not generated from burning Russian gas and oil. Quite a substantial proportion is generated by solar, wind, tidal and nuclear means. None of those have become more expensive. However, the price of electricity and gas is pegged to the international price of gas which has the sole purpose of inflating the price for customers while giving vast unearned profits to the energy wholesalers.

This is a regulatory choice. There is no need for solar energy to be sold at the same rate as gas. However, there is a background whinge from energy company apologists (sorry, lobbyists) who are very keen to collect this money while the going is good. Perhaps the going should stop being good.

And food prices are going up because transportation costs are going up (see energy prices) and because a handful of large multinationals produce a huge proportion of the food in this country and they have discovered that people are tolerating their inflation busting/causing price increases. Look at the profits these companies are making and then tell me that they are simply passing on their increased costs. Because, if they were, their profits would be the same as last year’s. Are they?

The overall effect will be a transfer of money from some of the poorest in society into shareholder dividends, together with some free money from the government going into that pot too. Interest rate rises suck the lifeblood out of the economy, just as leeches used to suck the blood out of afflicted patients. Painful, weakening, pointless and ugly to watch. But it is a choice. And Mr Bailey should stop choosing it.

***

An obvious rejoinder would be to ask me what I would do.

Firstly, I do not need to offer a better idea to suggest not using a bad idea. Literally doing nothing would be better than causing harm.

Secondly, how about no longer paying interest to banks for holding onto money that the Bank of England gave them?

Thirdly, how about pegging energy prices to the actual price of generating the energy rather than the theoretical price that energy could be sold at on the open market? If a household has barely enough food to eat, it would be foolhardy to sell it to the neighbours just because they could get a good price. Similarly, the UK should not be selling its energy on the international market instead of using it domestically at cost, or pricing it as though it could/would/should sell it internationally. This might disadvantage the shareholders of the energy companies but, then again, given the desperately low level of investment they are making, I’m not convinced that would damage the nation.

Fourthly, an investigation into food price fixing might stir up the so-called free-market a little. Not everything that is going up in price is doing so because of raised costs.

Fifthly, the government could invest in environmentally useful enterprises, e.g. windfarms, solar farms, home insulation, etc, etc. As a nation we’re going to have to do this sooner or later so why not start it now? It will bring down energy prices and usage and will support skilled employment in growth areas that won’t destroy the planet. Where will the government get the money? They could start by using the money that the Bank of England will no longer be paying other banks for holding onto money.