Green new deal BS.

Large numbers of well meaning numpties in recent years have advocated the idea that we should print money and spend it on the sort of stuff popular with left of centre environmentally concerned folk. I.e. the green new dealers advocate that the money be spent on windfarms, solar energy, insulating homes and so on.

Richard Murphy seems to advocate the idea: title of his article is "Time for a Green New Deal."

The flaw in the idea is that it confuses two entirely separate issues. That is, (and first), we don’t need to print money in order to devote a larger proportion  of GDP to green stuff: we’re free to do that ANYWAY. In case you’re not clear on how to do it, this is how: raise taxes and spend more on green stuff! There: that wasn’t difficult was it?

An alternative is to spend less on existing forms of public spending (health, education, law enforcement, etc) and spend more on green stuff. That wasn’t a big intellectual challenge was it?

Second, printing money is a form of STIMULUS, and that’s necessary when the economy is operating at less than capacity, i.e. when unemployment could be lowered without exacerbating inflation too much.

But that has precisely and exactly nothing to do with the decision as to whether to spend more on green stuff!

Hope that’s cleared that up. Probably not.