Make Money Creation Democratically Accountable, Financial Times

A letter on debt-free money creation was published in Financial Times, Wednesday 14th December 2011

Despite the Bank of England having created money and massively bought up government debt with it, the hope that the cash received would somehow translate into new bank lending has not happened. 

So when is the penny going to drop with the coalition government so that a public agency is set up to direct newly-created money to productive, non-inflationary purposes? The creation of such money used for new infrastructure in particular could be issued debt-free and interest-free.

Why on the one hand do we ask private banks to provide loan funds, at interest, for public investment, but we do not ask the government to direct some of the Bank of England’s new money, debt-free, directly into such investment?

Our current system benefits private banks, but burdens us with taxes. Surely we are missing two great opportunities: to make money creation democratically accountable and, when used for public investment, debt-free?

Read the whole letter here.