Funding the Future

Mar 08 2025 250 ep. 8 mins 41
Funding the Future Podcast artwork

Richard Murphy and occasional friends talking about everything you need to know to understand the economy, tax, finance and how we fund our future.

  Education  Government  News
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The far-right is not the new normal

Mar 08 2025 7 mins  
The far-right might seem to be on the march, but in reality the majority of people in all countries cannot abide what the stand for. They are not the new normal.

Donald Trump is planning to starve the beast

Mar 07 2025 7 mins  
It’s long been a US Republican dream to get rid of the IRS – the US federal tax authority. Now the goal is within their sights – and they want to starve the US government of funds, whatever the consequences might be. A starved beast does, after all, tend to bite back.

We need some grown up economics.

Mar 06 2025 6 mins  
Economics is all about choices, but when most economic discussion is focused on almost irrelevant day-to-day minutiae and political tittle-tattle, who is there asking the questions that could really make a change right now?

The battle for the Fed is on

Mar 05 2025 6 mins  
Trump is trying to control all aspects of government in the US. The Federal Reserve is likely to be the last outpost of resistance. Who will win the battle to control it?

Trump is massively increasing US debt

Mar 03 2025 8 mins  
The Republicans in the USA always say they hate debt, except when it is massively increased by Donald Trump as a result of his tax cuts for the wealthy. Then it’s OK. But in a world increasingly hostile to the US they might have to think again.

Is green over?

Mar 02 2025 7 mins  
BP might be the most obvious company to have given up on green energy and its sustainability programme, but it is not alone. In Trump’s world being green is out of fashion. What price will we pay for that?

Are Putin and Trump really friends?

Mar 01 2025 7 mins  
There are precedents for dictators making friendships of convenience until they decide to fall out, when the human cost of that happening is horrendous. Is that possible in the case of Putin and Trump?

Where are the presidents?

Feb 28 2025 5 mins  
Trump is staging a coup in the USA and the last four living presidents are doing nothing to save the country they served. Why is that? When will they act to save their country?

Can US media survive being gagged by Trump?

Feb 27 2025 5 mins  
Trump’s turning on the mainstream media in the US. Much of it is to be banned from the White House. How can US democracy survive this attack, and those that are bound to follow?

Has Starmer lost the plot on defence?

Feb 26 2025 9 mins  
It takes some political incompetence to announce a defence spending plan that reduces our security, undermines our soft power, does not deliver for the UK economy, and puts the cost on the wrong people, but Starmer’s managed it.