Tag Archives: money

Money should represent work.

Posted on by
Reply

The new government will need to make changes to the whole meaning of money. Money should be a devise to facillitate work and commerce, and avoid the need for barter. That way you do work, get money and use it to buy goods and services, which are provided as the result of someone elses work. Untill the first world war, the money in use was worth something, it was made of silver, and larger sums of money were gold or paper backed by gold. For 200 years from about 1700, England controlled a large part of the words economy, with its Empire, and as a result of the Industrial revolution. It more or less managed to keep money stable througout that time. A shilling would buy around the same amount througout that period. There were problems of course, but they were not caused by money itself. Now most people only have a figure on a bank’s computer screen.

Is the pound safe?

Posted on by
Reply

Are any currencies safe? Well of course not, no currency is fully backed on anything real certainly not on gold. Most counties could not pay their debts if they couldn’t reborrow or simply print more money. Printing money devalues it. Raising taxes doesn’t pay off a country’s debt because it tends to shrink the real economy and put people out of work.

Banks can’t pay their debts that’s why they need continuing taxpayer support. They make lots of money from gambling type activities and so they can afford to pay high wages and bonuses, and pensions. That’s why they deserve taxpayers support. ? !

They also give swap loans to small businesses. They are basically a hedge fund. Interest rate goes up you win, but the bank can cancel, interest rate goes down you loose. Interest rates have artificially been reduced by the bank of England to help the banks lend more to small business. No sorry, that should say, to help banks extract more money from small business. The FSA says these swaps are useful and appropriate products in some cases.

I was a financial advisor at the time of the big bang in the city of London and the formation of the FSA, in the mid 1980’s It has all been  a disaster. The revolutionary government will scrap the FSA, and hand bank regulation back to the Bank of England. At least they might not be so rude to anyone with less than 50 million pounds who wants to set up a bank as the FSA seem to be. The banks will be restricted in how they can use depositors money. The city of London will be regulated, so that it’s word will again be its bond.

Credit, debt

Posted on by
Reply

The right to be poor.

Untill fairly recently, being poor meant, not earning much money, so not being able to buy much. I remember a young man on the dole in Wales in the 1980’s buying a bottle of Southern Comfort. I must have questioned the wisdom of this, and he said, when the money’s gone, I just can’t buy anything till dole day. Now the lesson from this is, he might have a couple of days of misery, but come dole day all the money was his to spend.

This was before the great relaxing of regulation in the City of London, and of Banking. Now how many people can say, on pay day, this money is mine to spend as I wish. No debt to pay, no direct debits. What I’m really asking is, if you got paid in cash, would you have to run and put some, or most of it into the bank to avoid a disaster of some kind.; charges penalties repossessions electric phone cut off etc. The freedom to be poor, would mean, can’t pay, don’t have. It sounds harsh, but it is a great improvement on the present situation. One example, don’t put money in the bank to pay your insurance debit and the bank and insurance company will charge, and then there won’t be enough money in the bank to pay the electric bill, so they’ll charge and then cut you off, and then your oil central heating pump won’t work so you’ll freeze, because you can’t even light a fire, because you don’t have a chimney or it’s a smokeless zone. New sytem, don’t pay your insurance bill, you won’t be insured, that’s it.