Update 24th August 2011

A lot is happening these days on the field of banking reform, here is to inform you about the most important things:

1)      UPCOMING EVENTS & MEETUPS:

a)      first Edinburgh Meetup  – 31st August

b)      second London Meetup – 15th September

c)       second Belfast Meetup – 15th September

d)      Moving Planet Day – Money power behind climate change, London – 24th September

e)      CONFERENCE “Banking – Seeking a New Paradigm”, Winchester – 29th September

f)       Monetary Reform Conference, Chicago – 29th September

g)      CONFERENCE “How to Save the Country from the Banks”, London – 29th October

2)      New videos

3)      HELP wanted – translators!

4)      In the News

5)      Others

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1)      UPCOMING EVENTS & MEETUPS:

a)      31st August – Edinburgh Meetup

b)      15th September – second London Meetup

Save the date in your calendar, further details to follow.

c)       15th September – second Belfast Meetup

d)      24th September – Moving Planet Day – Money power behind climate change, London

e)      29th September – CONFERENCE “Banking – Seeking a New Paradigm”, Winchester

If you can make it, we strongly recommend taking part in this conference.

Professor Richard Werner will present the results of research on “Where Money Comes From” (the result of collaborative work of Positive Money team, the New Economics Foundation and Professor Richard Werner based on the facts – information that was spread across more than 500 documents, guides, manuals and papers from central banks, regulators and other authorities.)

This conference is organized by the University of Southampton. It discusses radical reforms to the fractional reserve banking system. Keynote speakers are Adair Turner, Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, and Charles Goodhart, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the LSE, along with Professor Richard Werner and the New Economics Foundation. The conference is both academic and public, with the public session opening at 3pm for which there is free entry. Register here

f)       CHICAGO 29th September – 2nd October – Ben Dyson of Positive Money will be speaking at the American Monetary Institute annual conference.

g)      POSITIVE MONEY CONFERENCE “How to Save the Country from the Banks”, London, 29th October

This is the conference organized by Positive Money. We’ll be showing how our banking system is at the root of most of the problems we face today, and exactly what we need to do to change it – both in terms of the reforms we need to implement, and the campaigning that we need to do before the authorities will make these changes. We’ll leave the academic discussion aside and focus on the real human impact of this banking system.

If you didn’t yet, you can get on the priority list for reserving a space by replying to this email. We’ll then make sure you get advanced notice when booking opens (later this week).

If you don’t see any upcoming event near to you, you can start and organize a local meetup in your area.

2)      New videos

We have a new video “A Simple Solution to the Debt Crisis”!

It explains in 4 minutes how the design of the banking system guarantees that the vast majority of people will end up in debt, and why allowing the banks to go back to business as usual would be the worst thing for the economy and for society as a whole. And also why the experts and authorities seem completely unable to solve the current debt crisis.

Please show this video to friends and family as a quick way to get them to understand the issue.

And the video “Why do banks make so much money?”

has now Spanish, Portugese, Italian, German and Dutch subtitles thanks to our volunteers!

So, if you have friends speaking these languages, go ahead and share!

3)      HELP wanted – translators!

Anyone wanting to help with the translation of subtitles for our videos, please reply to this email. (The money system is pretty similar in every country so why not spread the awareness in the world?)

4)      In the News

An article about Positive Money was published in the Ecologist, 17th August 2011 bringing the problem with the money system near to the “Green audience” showing  that banking reform isn’t a departure from the green agenda at all.

There were several articles published in the news during last weeks about the British banks investing in arms industry. If you want to withdraw your financial support and move your money to a bank that has a better business model or ethics, here is some info on better banks.

…There is much more happening – read our latest blogs here.

5)      Others

Our 5 volunteers are continuously working hard on the big research project, collecting the evidence to show the impact of the current debt-based monetary system on poverty, debt, inequality and the destruction of the environment and to show the benefits our proposed reform would bring. A huge thank you to everyone who sponsored a volunteer’s expenses for the duration of this project – it has allowed us to do far more in the last 2 months than we’ve ever done before.

One of the best ways to make sure we can continue campaigning for a real solution to the debt crisis is by making a monthly donation (£5, £10 or £20 a month, or any other amount ).

It’s taking time to get the big anti-poverty and environmental funders to understand the relevance of money and banking to the problems that they’re trying to tackle, so at the moment, we really rely on monthly donations to keep Positive Money going. We’re running the campaign on a shoestring – our whole budget last year was less than one charity spent on its website alone!  So every donation really makes a difference:

THANKS to everyone who is already making a donation – this wouldn’t be possible without you.

Help the campaign grow faster – now more than ever we need to raise awareness about our flawed debt-based system, show that there is a solution that doesn’t involve passing the costs back on to ordinary people and to generate pressure on the government and politicians demanding a real change.

• Tell or email your friends, family and colleagues, show them the videos, send link to our website, ask them to join the campaign

• Join us on Facebook and share with your friends

• Follow us on Twitter and mention, retweet us

• Spread the word and videos on Youtube

• Spread the word commentating on current events in some of the prominent news (Guardian, Telegraph, BBC…) – if possible post link to our website or mention “Positive Money”

• If you have your own website, post the link

• If you write blogs, mention Positive Money

• Organize a local meetup  …and possibly set up a local campaign group

• Educate your MP