How to get the economy working for us | Letters

In his analysis article (The icebergs are outnumbering the lifeboats, 1 June) Larry Elliott rejects the lifeboat of helicopter money (the injection of new publicly created money into the economy) as likely to cause a flood of imports or hyperinflation. This is only the case if the money is released directly into the hands of consumers. Even then, while there may be increased imports, hyperinflation is very unlikely under the present deflationary conditions. However, as I point out in my forthcoming book Debt or Democracy, if the money is issued into the economy through public expenditure and matched by a subsequent tax take if there are any inflationary pressures, there is a double benefit. The money would provide public services free of debt and then feed through into the wider economy. At present nearly all the new money in the economy is accessed only through borrowing, which feeds boom and bust.

Recognition of the benefit of publicly created money free of debt will relieve the burden of debt on everyone. The illogicality of the current position is that the new public money created through quantitative easing has been used to buy back government debt, yet that debt has not been cancelled. People are still subject to austerity for debt that has been repaid. It needs to be recognised that new money creation and circulation should not only be used by "independent" central banks to periodically feed the faltering banking sector; it is a public resource and its creation and use should be a matter of democratic debate.
Mary Mellor
Emeritus professor, Northumbria University; author, The Future of Money

Hobbes was also right in arguing - against his own precepts - for greater equality of income