This is what kills coal. Renewable energy with storage is now available at prices that make it impossible to turn the clock bask. And just in time,too.
However I’d also point out that
Is completely false. What he said was:
“If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well tried principles of Laissez Faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.”
This is a quote that has been disingenuously taken out of context ever since it was published.It’s actually a multi-layered idea, that gets a few points about economics across in a package of snark. He’s saying:
- Productive public works create value that the market would otherwise not have created, and are therefore a net benefit to society.
- In a depressed economy, it’s possible for even completely non-productive economic activity to re-start the flow of money around society. It’s better to do productive work, but at a push even non-productive work will do (see also- World War 2). This is essentially the Keynesian criticism of the response to the 2008 recession. The world should have spent money on the GND, but failing that , general public spending would have been OK, but politics was broken so fine, QE then.
- It’s also a subtle slam against the gold standard. If we were suddenly to discover a new gold deposit in the middle of the country, there would be a great deal of unproductive activity - digging of holes to unearth some lumps of yellow metal, that we would then refine and rebury in bank vaults. If a gold rush could stimulate the economy, then so could the “note bearing territory” plan.
