Public Finance Initiatives
Just, Interest-free Finance for Top-quality Public Services
Money lending for profit (usury, or, in Islam, Riba) is
the most insidious, if not the most evil of the five ways in which wealth
flows from poor, and working people, to (already) rich.
Of the other four, theft – in this case, the covert privatisation
of money creation - has been added to usury by the modern banking system,
in the form of something called ‘Fractional Reserve Banking’.
Many of us no doubt believe that the For-Profit banks lend depositors’
savings to those in need. Surprisingly, this is not, in any real, full
sense, the case.
Using Fractional Reserve Banking, the Commercial Banks multiply up tiny
actual money deposits, in order to make interest-bearing ‘Lines
of Credit’. This book keeping scam – now largely a computer
recorded scam - creates interest-bearing debt, quite literally, out
of nothing (for some recent book references to this modern, but legal,
malpractice: see the end of this article). For this reason, all attempts
to pay off the ocean of debt in which poor and working people are drowning
are futile.
Since about 97% of all ‘money’ now in circulation is this
so-called ‘Debt-money’ (ie computer-generated, interest-bearing,
for profit ‘credit’), some people, somewhere – be they
individuals, families, communities, companies, countries – always
have to be in debt (and interest-bearing, grinding, immiserating debt).
Thus, for capitalist economics to ‘function’, the misery of
debt always has to exist. Put simply, some people, somewhere have to
be in debt for the whole unbelievable capitalist nonsense to exist.
That said, this insidious, immoral (though legal) system of ‘Debt
money as interest-bearing credit’ has built into it, the mechanism
for its own destruction, and it is this – the Achilles Heel of
capitalism – that social action is now working upon.
Firstly, the scam is now becoming well documented and well discussed.
Secondly, The Forum for Stable Currencies (a Parliamentary activity,
co-created by The Campaign for Interest-free Money, in co-operation
with a host of concerned people, organisations, and Parliamentarians)
introduced an Early Day Motion in the last Parliamentary session (EDM
1515: http://edm.ais.co.uk/weblink/html/motion.html/ref=1515),
and another in the session just closed (EDM 854: http://edm.ais.co.uk/weblink/html/motion.html/ref=854.)
These actions, both, raise the nature of this scam, call for its eventual
abolition, and, also, show how an infinitely more moral, ecologically
sustainable, and socially beneficial system can be put in its place.
The suggestion in both of these EDMs is that The Bank of England –
our Bank of England – be required to de-privatise this money creating
activity and remove its debt and interest aspects, so that it can be
used (within its, already established, low-inflation targets) as a means
of providing interest-free credits for socially beneficial purposes
(public, non-debt, interest-free financing) for things like good housing,
hospitals, schools, transport, green energy schemes, and so on, as an
end to the PFI,/PPP scams, and their like.
Moreover, since interest charging both trashes the planet, and transfers
money from poor to rich, financial inequality (a profound curse in any
society) will start to be sustainably closed. As a consequence, we call
to all social activists, trade unionists, democratic socialists, co-operators,
and all such people of good will, to support these moves – and
encourage their MPs to do likewise. Can we get rid of PFI and debt?
Of course we can!
A Short Booklist
Sir Harry Page ‘In Restraint of Usury:
The Lending of Money at Interest’ Chartered
Institute for Public Finances and Accounts (CIPFA), London, 1985. ISBN
0-85299-2858: Written by a former President of CIPFA and past Treasurer
of the City of Manchester, this small book tells what most other historians
leave out - the first legalisation of usury by Henry VIII in 1545. Sadly
now out of print, this book points out the disastrous effect that usury
has on providing quality public services and the resulting misery caused.
Margrit Kennedy ‘Interest and Inflation-Free Money’
New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, USA, 1995 USA
ISBN 0-86571-319-7: A good - almost unique book
- explaining the effects of interest on daily life and the way it stops
civilised life developing.
Joseph Huber and James Robertson ‘Creating New Money’
New Economic Foundation, London 2002 ISBN 1 899407 29
4: Lays out the case for returning the right
of creation of all new money to The Bank of England
Also: Michael Rowbotham's 'The Grip of Death' and
'Goodbye America' both published by Jon Carpenter,
Charlbury, Oxfordshire (1998 and 2000 respectively) are
good on Fractional Reserve Banking.
1st August 2003
Published in "Voice of the Unions":
John Courtneidge & David Soori
Both Labour Party Members, co-active in The Campaign for Interest-free
Money.
Contacts: The Campaign for Interest-free Money: John Courtneidge
<courtj@myphone.coop>