Tim Worstall v. PositiveMoney I note an interesting little discussion between Tim Worstall and Ralph Musgrave on money creation in the context of the Northern Rock bank crisis of 2007. Essentially Tim was claiming, against the PositiveMoney view, that the failure of the bank was evidence that it was not possible for banks to create […]
Tag: money
Banking as Fraud I’ve got involved with one or two on-line debates recently in which the issue of money in commercial banking is seen as a fraudulent process by which value is stolen from citizens. Usually the central bank is seen as the government’s enabler in this process, and so to blame for the resultant […]
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have been having some interesting discussions on the Chris Martenson Crash Course website. Chris wasn’t very pleased with me because I (presumably quite effectively) challenged one of his core tenets – that the monetary system is intrinsically doomed. In his post asking me never to darken his […]
I ruffled a few feathers at www.chrismartenson.com (more info here) – so much so that the eponymous Chris eventually asked me to cease and desist! You can view the ‘naughty thread‘ here! He accused me of not addressing his points. I don’t accept that, but I do intend to respond in detail to his last […]
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The Role of a Central Bank
This is a revised extract from my PhD thesis. Correction and minor edit 10/8/2012. Introduction In a modern state, the government has a monopoly on physical force and so it is natural that the government should provide the final backing to contracts through the legal system. Moreover, the government can use physical force on its […]
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My PhD Thesis on-line!
Should anyone really be interested – my doctoral thesis ‘Money and Production – A Pluralist Analysis’ is now available from the University of Stirling document repository at https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/dspace/handle/1893/1141 It examines various theories of money’s origin and sustainability, both ‘orthodox’ and ‘heterodox’, and analyses the link between money and real economic outcomes. Most of it is […]
I note a considerable amount of interest in some ideas by Chris Martenson – who has a website and offers tutorials entitled ‘The Crash Course’. He suggests that the current way we are living is unsustainable and we’d better start preparing for when it all goes pear-shaped (which will be pretty soon according to him). […]
I posted this short piece on the Scotland Quo Vadis discussion site yesterday, in response to a piece by Gordon Morgan suggesting the ‘printing of money’ would be a better option than government spending cuts. It’s important to take a step back and consider the nature of money in the modern economy. It’s taken me […]
I’ve just posted a paper I produced in 1998, which seems rather prescient. I made the point that the hidden growth of money was leading to fairly predictable changes (not for the better) in our economy and society. Here’s some excerpts from the introduction: Although income inequality appears to be a fact of life there […]
Is ‘economic activity’ always a good thing? The banks hit by the bonus tax have raised the spectre of lost incomes and tax revenue if they choose to relocate away from the UK. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has recently sought to justify the licence-fee by calculating the revenues its commissioning generates for independent production […]