Derek French is the Director of the Campaign for Community Banking Services and a former bank manager.

October 29th:             Using the Public Credit

EDM 1515 as a Tool towards Economic Democracy?

Austin Mitchell MP has been a long standing campaigner for a monetary policy that helps people rather than banks.  

On June 26^th 2002 he tabled Early Day Motion 1515 entitled Using the Public Credit which by October 12^th was signed by 24 MPs. Its text when unpacked for ‘normal understanding’ reads:

That this House,

1)       recognising that the huge expansion of bank lending and the decline of the note issue as a proportion of available money have meant that the seignorage return to government and the proportion of debt free money issued have both fallen heavily as proportions of GDP, so that

2)       credit has effectively been privatised, to the enormous benefit of the banks

3)       with an increase in the debt burden on every individual and company; therefore urges the Government to redress the balance back to the people by

4)       instructing the Bank of England to create credit on an experimental basis

5)       to be used exclusively to finance specific public investment in projects, schools, hospitals or transport, so that

6)       the public can assess the benefit of using the People's Credit for the People's Purposes as an alternative approach to partnerships with the private sector (like PPP and PFI)

7)        to see whether this method of financing is better and does not impose the heavy extra costs of public finance initiative or public private partnerships and also

8)       to enable more public sector investment which will stimulate employment and economic growth; and further

9)       urges the Treasury to review and report on the benefits and procedures for using the public credit to achieve higher economic growth and full employment

10)   in an economy where both have suffered as the burden of debt, private and public, have increased.

Austin Mitchell MP has invited all MPs who have signed the EDM to debate with us Where do we go from here?

We will also be joined by Niall Cooper, the National Coordinator of the Church Action on Poverty programme in Manchester http://www.church-poverty.org.uk/ He will be reporting on Debt on our Doorstep www.debt-on-our-doorstep.com an alliance of activists and organisations who have come together to relieve the burden of debt, and to promote solutions to financial exclusion.  Among the campaigning areas are: to promote credit unions and other community finance initiatives; to promote socially responsible service provision by high street banks; to campaign for methods of debt recovery to become more equitable, just and effective by ensuring that adequate protection is available to people unable to repay their debts.  

OUR CONTEXT

¨      “The Parliamentary Process needs to make certain that the Money Supply
ensures its Value”   The Rt Hon Lord Caithness

¨      Money should be the servant not the master of humanity.

¨      Banks’ abilities to create money out of nothing must be curtailed.

¨      Personal responsibility needs to be maximised.

OUR ISSUE: DEBT- and INTEREST-FREE CURRENCIES

EURO perpetuates the money supply as interest-bearing debt.

Land, Labour and Capital
Tax, Barter and Basic Income

Monetary Reform groups pop up everywhere.  The range of interests is wide and the issues vary from ethical investment and social credit to green taxes and barter for the third sector.  http://www.themoneymasters.com/            http://www.openmoney.org  

http://QuayLargo.com/cybercredits/

http://www.douglassocialcredit.com             http://www.prosperityuk.com 

http://www.developmentgap.org             http://www.londonrebuilding.com

http://www.timedollar.org                      http://www.letslinkuk.org/  

http://www.basicincome.org                   http://www.tobintax.org.uk

http://www.transaction.net/money              

http://www.neweconomics.org                http://www.dropthedebt.org/

The Executive Summary from our Submission of Evidence to the Select Committee’s Inquiry in the Global Economy states:

"Open Money is required for an ‘open and integrated economy’.  Globalisation should be called dollarisation or economic imperialism.  It is the world-wide creation of the ‘need’ for dollars through debt.  It is also the territorial proliferation of international banking practices to supply national currency to finance national governments and trans-national corporations to employ people."