MONEY FOR SOMETHING 29-11-2007 Paying back the money the government has committed to PFI schemes was estimated this week at £170 Billion over the next 25 years - cash that will tie the hands of future administrations. Barbara Panvel suggests an ingenious alternative to forever being in hock to the banks. “Surprisingly few politicians, public officials, economists, sociologists, political scientists and other professionals have been interested in making the money system work better as a whole. Perhaps it is even more surprising that few campaigners for good causes - social justice, ending poverty, dealing with climate change, a more peaceful and fairer international order, human rights and so on - seem to realise that the money system is one of the prime causes of the ills they oppose." This was written by James Robertson, a man with ‘inside’ experience - setting up and heading an Inter-Bank Research Organisation for the big British banks for five years and leading a team reporting on the future of London as a financial centre. As questions about the working of the Bank of England and the monetary system are not welcomed - or answered - in the Commons, MP Austin Mitchell has posted a number of early day motions relating to the issuing of money by the government. EDM 327 was prompted by the findings of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) that PFI is an expensive way of financing and delivering public services. The EDM urged the Chancellor to use publicly created money rather than accumulating even more debt or enriching the private finance initiative and public private partnership contractors. The latest was issued a few days ago: That this House is concerned that the costs of dealing with the recent floods is only a foretaste of the much larger sums that will be necessary to cope with climate change and to deal with extreme weather conditions . . . [and] believes that instead of raising the money by taxing or borrowing, the Government should now increase the proportion of publicly-created money in the economy by issuing interest-free green credit to finance both these problems. The powerful banking lobby would obviously be opposed to the PFI-eliminating proposal and would fear further loss of opportunity should the public realise the potential of returning to the pre-1960s ratio of government money creation, which enabled the NHS to come into being. At a recent meeting near Bromsgrove people from several countries and many parts of the UK gathered to discuss the dysfunctional monetary system. I heard Stephen Zarlenga, director of the American Monetary Institute, who believes that governments must reclaim their sovereign power to issue money and spend it into circulation to promote the general welfare through the creation and repair of infrastructure, including human infrastructure - health and education.
I also spoke to American lawyer Ellen Brown [above] who details the national debts of several countries in her recently published book The Web of Debt, and describes a ‘cruel hoax’: "these governments are in debt to private banks for money created on a computer screen: money they could have created themselves." I asked her to express her ideas simply and after some thought – and a deep breath - she said that the government should start by issuing enough money to do three things:
In November 2006, the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank estimated the debt more highly because the official figure excludes the cost of public sector pensions liabilities, the hidden costs of Labour's flagship Private Finance Initiative contracts and debts incurred by Network Rail. Their figure is £1300bn, or £53,000 for every household in the UK.
Should we encourage our own MPs to consider the proposals of Austin Mitchell and join the 60+ MPs from all parties – and the Independent member for Kidderminster, Dr Richard Taylor - who have already signed? I’ll make a start with Lorely Burt! |
©2007 The Stirrer
