Fran Boait
Regulation to the rescue? 5 problems with ring-fencing, Basel III, and competition in the banking sector
10 July, 2018Length: 6 minutes Technical Read On Wednesday 4th July, I was invited to speak at the Westminster Business Forum as part of the event ‘Building a resilient UK financial sector - next steps for prudential regulation, structural reform and mitigating risks’. The panel I was asked to join was Preparing for the impact of the [...]
Why the Bank of England’s tools are broken
15 June, 2017The Bank of England has voted to keep interest rates at 0.25% today. Currently, the policies of low rates and quantitative easing are designed to keep households and businesses borrowing. But as the weak pound makes imports more expensive, inflation has risen sharply. This prompted a split in the Bank’s monetary policy committee, with three [...]
The truth behind the “magic money tree”
3 June, 2017Amber Rudd, who stood in for Theresa May on the BBC debate on 31st May had a new line of attack for Jeremy Corbyn, accusing him of believing in a ‘magic money tree.’ She told the audience, ‘there is no magic money tree’. The Prime Minister Theresa May then used the same phrase in response [...]
Review of “The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of Bankers”
14 April, 2017Summary Ann Pettifor’s new book, The Production of Money, is an excellent contribution to the growing body of thought exposing mainstream, neoclassical economics’ poor understanding of money, banking, and finance, and how its thinking has led to a financial system that we serve, rather than one that serves us. Drawing extensively on Keynes’ thinking and [...]
The autumn statement falls far short of what the UK economy requires
23 November, 2016When the Chancellor took office, he pledged to “reset” economic policy. And the Prime Minister, recognising the effects of the Bank of England’s policies on inequality, promised to bring about a “change”. Today’s autumn statement falls far short of what the UK economy requires. Despite expectations earlier in the year that the government would announce [...]
RIP Michael
21 October, 2015The Positive Money team are very sad to have lost a friend and ally in Michael Meacher. Michael was one of the Commons' foremost champions for money reform. He worked with colleagues from across the house in calling for greater parliamentary scrutiny of our monetary system. Most recently, in November last year, he co-sponsored a [...]
People’s QE goes mainstream
18 August, 2015Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn has sparked a major debate about monetary and economic policy by calling for what he calls a ‘People’s QE’. He argues that ‘The Bank of England must be given a new mandate to upgrade our economy to invest in new large scale housing, energy, transport’. People’s QE is similar to [...]
Greece, Sovereign Money, and what happens on Sunday
4 July, 2015I wanted to write something after being lucky enough to spend time in Greece over the last 10 days. Several people have got in touch to suggest that Positive Money should be “telling the Greek government about creating a sovereign money system” as the solution to their problems. I would compare that to telling someone [...]
A new era for monetary policy – Event with Adair Turner (Video)
17 February, 2015On October 7th 2014, we hosted thirty economic thinkers from civil society, trade unions, business, academia, politics, and policy attended a roundtable at the RSA to think about how monetary policy can help to build a sustainable economy. The main speaker was Lord Adair Turner, former Chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Lord Turner [...]