China Falls into the Same Trap
7 December, 2010For a while there was an impression that China had avoided the financial problems that are hitting western countries right now. Not so, says the Telegraph. It seems they were just a couple of years behind, and now they're catching up. Consider some of these quotes from the article: "Officially, inflation was 4.4pc in October, [...]
Ireland, Welcome to the Death Spiral
30 November, 2010(George Osborne Take Heed) Ireland may now be in the 'death spiral' that is a natural end result of fractional reserve banking. Here's the death spiral in visual form (click on the image to enlarge): Like the UK and nearly every other country, Ireland has given the power to create money to commercial banks and [...]
Banking Reform Debate in Parliament – Monday 29th November
30 November, 2010Yesterday saw a bankbencher's banking debate in Parliament. Much of the debate concerned the typical superficial analysis and focused on the symptoms of the problem rather than addressing the root of the problem. But Steve Baker and Douglas Carswell both made very relevant points. Whether other MPs understood them or not is another question! Extracts [...]
Monday 29th Nov – Parliamentary Debate on Banking Reform
24 November, 2010There will be a 3 hour backbench debate on Banking Reform this coming Monday, 29th November 2010. Steve Baker MP and Douglas Carswell MP, who jointly introduced a Private Members Bill to end fractional reserve banking, will both be contributing. Michael Meacher appears to have prompted the debate - here is his motion: "That this [...]
Positive Money’s Submission to the Independent Banking Commission
17 November, 2010Positive Money, nef (the new economics foundation), and Professor Richard Werner of the University of Southampton, have just made a joint submission to the Independent Commission on Banking. The Commission will be reporting back in September 2011, and the government should - in the absence of lobbyists - be prepared to accept and implement their [...]
Martin Wolf: Money out of Nothing
15 November, 2010A couple of weeks ago, I took issue with Martin Wolf's claim in the Financial Times that fractional reserve banking is a product of market forces. But Martin's now firmly back in my good books, following this beauty of a quote: “The essence of the contemporary monetary system is creation of money, out of nothing, [...]
LSE Lecture on Fractional Reserve Banking
16 October, 2010Date: Thursday 28 October 2010 Time: 6.30-8pm Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building Speaker: Professor Jesús Huerta de Soto A growing number of people are realising that our current money system, which gives commercial banks a monopoly on the supply of money to the economy and throws much of the population into unnecessary debt, [...]
Positive Money Student Conference – November 13th & 14th
12 October, 2010Few people, even in the City, realise that the economy's money supply depends entirely on bank lending - all those numbers in the bank accounts of businesses and the general public were created by the commercial banks when they made loans (by 'extending credit'). In effect, commercial banks have a monopoly on the supply of [...]
Douglas Carswell MP Introduces Bill to Stop Fractional Reserve Banking
15 September, 2010A significant point in history happened at about 1.30pm this afternoon. Douglas Carswell MP announced a bill that would end fractional reserve banking. It's produced below in full (directly from Hansard), but I've added some explanatory comments in [brackets]. The bolding is mine. The bill passed to a second reading, which will be held on [...]