DEBT or CREDIT?

Taxing or Borrowing?
There are ‘Other Ways’ to Creating Money than Interest

NEXT MEETINGS

Jan 21st:             Debt on Our Doorstep

Early Day Motions for 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 was signed by 24 MPs. 

Tonight we will be joined by Niall Cooper, the National Coordinator of the Church Action on Poverty programme in Manchester http://www.church-poverty.org.uk/ who raises awareness amongst MPs with EDM 257 entitled Low Income Debtors and Poverty and tabled by John Battle MP and signed by 114 MPs. It is the ‘other side’ of EDM 1515 and says: That this House notes

§         the extent of debt amongst those on a low income with over three million people entering into debt on their doorstep through extortionate lending;

§          believes tackling debt and financial exclusion must be given priority in the Government's anti-poverty strategy;

§         and calls for coordination of the current fragmentary approach setting departmental policies and actions within complementary strategies to tackle financial exclusion and eradicate poverty,

§         focusing on reforming the Social Fund, tackling extortionate lending and promoting affordable credit through credit unions.

We will hear about 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.  

Meanwhile, Titus Alexander has reworded EDM 1515 as basis for a new concerted effort among members of the Forum for Stable Currencies:

"That this House, concerned at the rising burden of private debt, public borrowing and public-private finance initiatives;

§         notes that the proportion of debt-free money in circulation has fallen from 20% of the money stock in 1964 to 3% today;

§         believes that increasing the proportion of debt-free money may provide a viable alternative to both public borrowing and the Private Finance Initiative;

§         further notes that the government could issue interest-free money, repayable over twenty five years, thereby both cutting the cost of such public investment by at least one half of what it would otherwise be while acting in a non-inflationary way;

§         and therefore urges the Treasury to commission independent reviews on procedures for increasing the proportion of debt free money in the economy and on the benefits of so doing and report them to this House."