• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Go to Positive Money Europe

Positive Money

Making money and banking work for society

  • About us
    • Our vision
    • Who we are
    • History & highlights
    • Contact us
    • There are currently no vacancies available
    • In the media
    • Funding & Annual Reports
  • What we do
    • Educate & empower
    • Research and Policy
    • Campaign & local groups
    • Influence decision makers
    • In the media
    • International Movement
    • Events
  • Resources
    • Videos
    • Publications
    • Local group resources
    • Lobby your MP
    • Organise an Event
    • Policy resources
    • Shop
  • Press
  • Blog
  • Donate
  • Positive Money Europe

Vince Cable: Disingenuous Bankers Are Trying to Derail Reforms

by Mira Tekelova

Vince Cable has accused bankers of using the economic turmoil in Europe to try to derail reform of the financial sector, according to Guardian, 31st August 2011 

The business secretary said that “louder and louder voices” were being raised among some of the big British banks giving warning that regulatory change in Britain would put the recovery at risk.

The Independent Commission on Banking is expected to recommend separating banks’ retail operations from their investment arms when it reports on 12 September.

There have been attacks on the proposals from the director general of the CBI, John Cridland, and British Bankers’ Association’s chief executive, Angela Knight. Cridland has said taking action to reform the banks now would be “barking mad”, while Knight warned imposing the measures on lenders risked denting confidence and cutting the supply of credit.

The reality is that even ring-fencing or a full Glass-Steagal style separation of retail and ‘casino’ banking is still just tinkering with the current financial system. It might make the system marginally more safe, but it does nothing to address the fundamental problems.

Until we realise that the crucial issue is money  – who gets to create it and how they use it – then we’ll be missing the point. Speculating about what minor impact various regulations will have isn’t going to change the fact that the underlying structure of banking is fundamentally unsafe. The only real, long term solution is to reform the “money creation process” – implement clear, fair rules without special privileges for everybody, and then we will be able to calculate how the economy is going to be.

 

In the News

Mira Tekelova

Primary Sidebar

Get our latest campaign updates

Recent Posts

  • Quantitative easing “turbocharges” inequality: our evidence to the House of Lords
  • Surprise for Sunak: 60,000 demand climate action on frontpage of his local paper
  • QE or not to QE? Soaring inequality shows it’s time for a new macroeconomic approach
  • Update from Chair of the Board on Interim Leadership
  • Why GameStop reveals the flaws of big finance

Footer

Follow us on social media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions


Positive Money is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales. Registered number 07253015.
Registered office: 307 Davina House, 137-149 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7ET.


Positive Money Europe