26 Apr 2012

Solving the Debt Crisis : My latest Youtube presentation!

Do you have about 14 minutes to spare?

Can I suggest that you take a look at my latest YouTube presentation?

The presentation essentially takes up the arguments that I developed in some of my earlier posts such as my "Eureka!"  post on the 5th of January, and my "Eureka 2 : The UK solution" post on the 10th of January.

In the video,  I argue that there is a simple way out of the debt crisis facing governments. Central banks such as the European Central Bank and the Bank of England should be forced to lend governments enough money to pay off the entire debt to the banking system. I argue that the standard arguments for preventing central banks helping government directly are bogus.

First, the argument that it would risk causing inflation is plain wrong. When Central bank money is used to pay off debt, and specifically loans that were made using money that the banks didn't have to lend, there is no inflation.

Second, the argument that lending to governments is prevented by the Lisbon Treaty is also wrong. Central banks are specifically allowed to lend to "publicly owned credit insitutions" which can in turn, lend governments the money needed to cancel debt.

The only reason why the idea is not being considered is that it would kill the goose that has been laying golden eggs for the bankers for centuries. So we can fully expect massive resistance from the bankers, who have used the current insane system to extract a massive €5.6 trillion in interest charges from Europe's taxpayers since 1995. They will fight like wildcats to keep this gravy train on the rails.

But, for me, the arguments are simply devastating. I don't believe it is possible for the bankers to justify a system in which they can create money out of thin air, lend it to governments at (virtually) zero risk, and then sit back and collect the interest. It just cannot make sense.

For those of you in the UK, I thoroughly recommend signing up for the Positive Money group who have some excellent arguments for taking money creation out of the hands of commercial banks But, I've not seen them arguing that the whole debt crisis could be fixed with the stroke of a pen.

Are there people reading this who would like to join me in calling for these ideas to be taken seriously? If so, please forward the link to the video.

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