How QE Delivered a Triple-Whammy of Profits to the Banks
5 July, 2011The global quantitative easing (QE) programme has fuelled a commodities boom that has delivered banks a triple-whammy of profit streams, according to leading industry consultants, according to Guardian, 29 June 2011 The banks' glorious profit-making circle begins with the historically low interest rates that have been sustained by the injection of trillions of dollars [...]
Greece – All Solutions Make it Worse?
29 June, 2011Most of the talk in the news these days is about Greece: "Greece gripped by general strike over austerity package; Greece could run out of money in weeks; Default of Greece;Possible return to Drachma..." For months there have been protests in Greece. Hardly a day has passed without strikes. However the “Greek” problem is not [...]
George Osborne to back 'ring-fencing' of retail banks
18 June, 2011According to The Telegraph, Friday 17th June 2011, the Chancellor will give his public support to proposals from the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) for UK-based banks to adopt a so-called "subsidiarised" model that will mean in the event of a future crisis the authorities will be able to seize the retail arm of a [...]
No Way Out? The British Economy Is in Very Deep Trouble
8 June, 2011It's not looking too good for the UK economy, according to Tullett Prebon Strategy Notes, 26th May 2011. They point to the huge debt burden which comes from a monetary system where all money is created as debt by commercial banks, and show how our economy is entirely dependent on borrowing. Now that the vast majority [...]
Debt-driven Growth
7 June, 2011The following is an extract from the highly recommended The Grip of Death by Michael Rowbotham. If you haven't read it already, you can get a copy from the Positive Money bookshop or from your local bookshop: "All around us, the gross failure of modern economics screams out to be addressed. The towering indifference [...]
'Forget Entrepreneurs, Only Banks Can Create Wealth'
7 June, 2011We must hope the banks become less sick and less mad, and realise that to save themselves they must save everyone, according to The Guardian, 2 June 2011 “Entrepreneurs don't create wealth. Banks create wealth, only banks. If you wonder why politicians seem so powerless to "rein them in", then wonder no more. It is [...]
Recovery Will Be the Slowest For 180 Years
3 June, 2011The UK economy is set to experience the slowest pick-up in consumer spending of any post-recession period since 1830, according to a Financial Times, 31 May 2011. A new analytic study suggests that Britain will experience its slowest recovery in consumer spending for any post-recession period over the last 180 years. “Families are expected to [...]
Another Financial Crisis ‘Around The Corner’
2 June, 2011Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management’s emerging markets group, said another financial crisis is inevitable because the causes of the previous one haven’t been resolved, according to Bloomberg, 30 May 2011 In 2006, Mobius was named one of the “Top 100 Most Powerful and Influential People,” by Asiamoney, which stated that he “boasts [...]
Podcast: The "Magic Box" of Money Creation
1 June, 2011In this podcast the filmmaker Mike Freedman talks to Positive Money's Ben Curtis and Ben Dyson about the way money is created, how it affects everything from politics to the environment, what's wrong with the current system and what we can do to fix it. Mike Freedman is producing a feature-length documentary "Critical Mass" about [...]