3 Things You Can Do to Change the System…

Here’s 3 upcoming events that you can get involved in to help us change the banking system for the better:

THURSDAY 29th SEPTEMBER:

PROF RICHARD WERNER & NEF LAUNCH  ‘Where Does Money Come From?’ @ WINCHESTER

Get your free ticket to see Prof Richard Werner and Lord Adair Turner at the University of Southampton’s conference in Winchester (55 mins from London Waterloo).

This will be where the New Economics Foundation launches the new book ‘Where Does Money Come From?’ – the result of 6 months work and reading over 500 documents to get the facts on how the UK monetary system really works. The conference is a great sign that academics and economists are starting to realise that we should be questioning the power of banks to create money. This brief extract from the conference’s website has shown that this could be very different from your usual economics conference:

“The role of banks has come under increasing scrutiny. The ongoing financial crisis has thrown a spotlight on their role as creators of credit and how their investment decisions determine how economies develop.”

You need to register for the free public sessions here (click the link at the bottom of the page), including Lord Turner’s address, starting from 3.30pm. You can also attend the rest of the day for a fee (payable on the website).

I’m afraid I’ll be in Chicago on the day, but my colleague Drew Jackson will be attending.

2 WAYS TO AVOID FUNDING THE BIG BANKS

It’s going to take time to fundamentally reform the monetary system, so in the meantime we need to encourage alternatives to the biggest and most harmful banks. We’ll have more on how you can withdraw your funding from the banks shortly, but in the meantime we wanted to suggest a couple of projects you can support.

Firstly, Simon Dixon has shown over 5,000 students how banking and money really works whilst training them for careers in the City. He is now launching a new alternative bank that won’t create money as debt and will give you more control over who your money goes to and how it’s used.

Simon’s currently trying to get the opportunity to pitch this new bank to some highly successful entrepreneurs. Check out his pitch for this new alternative bank here (see the video lower down the page) and vote to get this alternative in front of some entrepreneurs who can make it big enough to take on the big banks (you’ll need a Twitter account to vote).

Secondly, if you’re like me, you’ll want to put your money somewhere where the big banks won’t be able to gamble with it for their own ends. ‘Not-a-bank’ Civilised Money are working flat out to make that a possibility. We’ve followed the progress of the Civilised team over the last 12 months and have been very impressed by their ethics and desire to develop models of banking that don’t harm society or the economy – unlike the big banks. They’ll have some big announcements in the next few weeks so we recommend signing up to follow their progress here.

POSITIVE MONEY CONFERENCE SAT 29th OCT: EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT RUNS OUT IN 10 DAYS

If you want to get a 35% discount on the Positive Money conference, then you’ll need to book for £20 before the end of this month. We’re nearly half way to being full with 6 weeks to go so we expect to fill up a couple of weeks before the deadline. This will be a brilliant event, with two MPs and numerous other speakers and even some comedy. Please also tell friends and family who might be interested, and help us make this the start of a huge campaign to fix banking for good.

Hope to see you on the 29th October!