Nigel Hargreaves
Jul 30, 2017 · 1 min read

Oh dear, Ralph, I thought you understood how the monetary system works. Or maybe your response is written tongue-in-cheek — I’ll give you the benefit of that doubt.

Not a penny of taxpayers’ money is used for anything. Tax merely removes a proprotion of money from the expenditure system in order to control the temperature. Higher taxes if the economy is too hot, lower if too cold. They also act as a deterrent, for example alcohol and cigarettes. Nothing to do with funding government expenditure.

So if you want to deter young people from going to university and helping the economy of the future to thrive, simple — put a tax on education. Student “loan” repayments are no more than that — a graduate tax.

    Nigel Hargreaves

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