This was a subthread ( http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4468978#r8755364 ), maybe it can be a thread (maybe not)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_monetary_theory
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/28/2008-crash-government-economic-growth-budgetary-surplus
http://www.thomaspalley.com/docs/articles/macro_theory/mmt.pdf
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/06/modern-money-theory-basics.html
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/

Nutshell: governments create money by spending it, taxes are needed to give money value (people accept a particular currency because they need to pay taxes in that currency). So governments don't need to (/can't) borrow more or tax more in order to spend more, they can just make more money?

This all seems to imply that the government bank and the government are the same thing, but the Bank of England is somewhat independent isn't it? Does the government really get to decide to create money when they want to spend it? How much does George Osborne agree with/understand this?

I don't get it.

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