Funding the Future

We’re told that government debt is spiralling out of control. Commentators scream “fiscal crisis!” and “record borrowing!” But the truth is very different. High government debt is not a sign of collapse—it’s a sign of trust. People and institutions are desperate for the safety that only the government can provide. Debt is not a danger—it’s a deposit facility. Let’s cut through the panic and face the facts.

Financial markets are at record highs. Politicians, economists, and financiers tell us everything is fine. But it isn’t. In this video, I explain eight major risks to markets that are being ignored:

Banking collapse

Deregulation

Authoritarianism

Artificial intelligence

Climate change

Demographic change

Geopolitical fragmentation

Rising inequality

These threats are obvious, exist in plain sight, and yet are wilfully ignored. If we don’t act, collapse is inevitable.

Loanable funds? The money multiplier? Steve Keen and Richard Murphy dismantle the myths. Double-entry accounting shows what really happens when banks create money and governments run deficits. If economics taught reality instead of dogma, austerity would be unthinkable.

The UK suffers from a finance curse. Far from being our economic jewel, the City of London has drained trillions from the economy. That’s lost jobs, lost investment, and a weaker democracy. In this video, I explain why finance is making Britain poorer — and what must change.

Something called country-by-country reporting, which I created, changed the tax world forever. It forced multinationals to reveal how much profit they were shifting into tax havens. In this video, I tell the story of how I created this idea, how it became law in more than 70 countries, and how it is still reshaping global tax justice today.

A massive banking collapse is coming — and the cause isn’t speculation this time. It’s climate change.

Uninsurable homes mean worthless mortgages, and worthless mortgages mean broken banks. Unless governments act now with public banking and sustainable cost accounting, society itself is at risk.

Every action has a reaction. That’s true in life – and in economics. Every pound the government spends becomes someone’s income, which creates tax, confidence and prosperity. Yet politicians and journalists still talk about spending as if it’s waste. In this video, I explain why that’s wrong – and why we need to ask the right question: what possibilities does government spending create?

Welcome to a new series on this channel: the history of economic thought.

I’m Richard Murphy, political economist and professor. In this series, I’ll explore how economics has always been shaped by hope and fear, and how different schools of thought—from the classical economists like Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Marx, through to Keynes, Hayek, Friedman, and today’s heterodox thinkers like MMT—have tried to explain (and shape) the world they lived in.

Economics is never neutral. It reflects power, politics, and society. Understanding that helps us make sense of our present crises, and why renewal is always needed.

This is not a dry academic history. It’s a journey through ideas that still shape law, politics, and justice today. Join me to understand why economics matters—and why its stories are always stories of power.

Politicians and economists pretend forecasts are facts. But they’re not. They’re guesses – and running the economy on guesses guarantees failure. In this video, I explain why fiscal rules based on forecasts are absurd, why Rachel Reeves is already using them to justify austerity, and why we must plan on the basis of present needs, not imagined futures.

Capitalism is not driven by rational homo economicus, but by power, greed and vested interests. Neoclassical economists' tidy models still shape policy, but other insights into conspicuous consumption, monopoly and political capture better explain today’s world—and remind us economics must face reality, not fantasy, if it is to serve society.