I DISAGREE with the general content of Douglas Turner’s letter in Friday’s edition. He criticises Julia Pannell’s letter of the previous day, and her concern about asking for more borrowing powers. He points to other small countries raising such powers but fails to emphasise the point that they were independent and had a central bank.
I am in complete agreement with Julia Pannell. In my opinion the Economic Recovery Advisory Group report is “long on vision” but does not get down to the level of detailed action needed to achieve the “vision”, and there is too much reliance on following existing private business methods and relationships. The Growth Commission recommendations fall into the same approach.
Julia makes so many excellent points regarding debt created by borrowing powers while devolved, a complete rethink of the economy, and what the Common Weal is proposing. Well done Julia!
James Macintyre
Lesmahagow
DID Douglas Turner actually read Julia Pannell’s letter on Wednesday or did he just see it was from Julia and decide therefore he must be against it?
It is he who is showing his naivety in chastising her for saying it is not borrowing powers that we need, it is independence. The countries he applauds have the choice to borrow because they are independent.
But is this borrowing really sensible? Julia was quite right to say that taking on a whole load of debts via the banks just means we end up with the banks running our economy, as they do at present.
If a country has its own currency and the banks are not permitted to create money out of nothing then it decides how much money there is and what it should be used for. The only serious limit on this is it must not go daft and cause high inflation. If Douglas Turner does not believe this, or thinks it too “socialist”, I suggest he reads Stephanie Kelton’s The Deficit Myth and Richard Murphy’s The Joy of Tax, which will enlighten him on new ways of economic thinking and allow us to create the kind of Scotland which I suspect both he and I ultimately want.
Andrew M Fraser
Inverness
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