Exciting News for Money Reform Movement from Sweden

Sweden got a new government this week, and a new minister: “Minister for Strategy, Future and Nordic Cooperation” for which Kristina Persson was appointed on 3rd October 2014.

She was deputy governor of the central bank 2001-2007 and after that has worked with the think tank Global Utmaning, who have invited Adair Turner and Michael Kumhof on several occasions to talk about excessive credit creation by banks.

Here is a commentary she wrote in May, quote:

“We must start asking fundamental questions like ”should the banks be allowed to continue creating money?” Martin Wolf in the FT did this some weeks ago, and he answered “No, they shouldn’t!”

Another positive news:

Carl Schlyter, an ex Member of European Parliament and a member of the Swedish Green Party, has recently written a paper on monetary reform where he mentions Positive Money as well as our Swedish sister organisation Positiva Pengar.

It’s entitled “A sustainable financial system – about the roles of government and the banking sector when it comes to money and debt” and the page 17 is about Positive Money. Here’s the original in Swedish and here’s a short extract:

“Right now, 96-97 percent of all money is not central bank money but the big bank’s own money that they have created and are creating even more, and that we are all guaranteeing with tax money and government subsidies. This, the biggest “copyright infringement” in history, is rarely talked about.”

“The name Positive Money means that money that is created by the state or a central bank is not based on debt. The movement says that the current financial system has led to too high private debt, escalating house prices, increased inequality, high unemployment and banks being subsidised by tax payer money. All these problems have one common denominator: money. But even the solution can be found in money – if we allow the state to create debt-free money, it will have a positive effect on the economy and on society as a whole. The Swedish sister organisation Positiva Pengar puts it this way: “money should function as a positive driving force in society”.