8 May 2013

The French "Positive Money" has been launched. It's called "Monnaie Honnête"

I've been saying for some time that we really need a Europe wide movement to press for monetary reform. Positive Money are doing a great job in the UK, and there are other movements that have been springing up in other countries.
But, so far,  I haven't been able to find a real francophone equivalent.

But that is now on its way to being fixed.

With Claire Boine and my cousin Chris, we have just taken the first steps to creating a movement called "Monnaire Honnête" (Honest Money) which shares the six main proposals made by Positive Money:

1. Remove the banks' power to create money
2. Return that power to a transparent and democratically accountable process
3. Create money free of debt
4. Create money in line with a democratically mandated target (such as a flexible inflation target, as is the case today)
5. Make sure that new money enters first into the real economy instead of through financial markets
6. Give individuals control and transparency over how their money is invested

Our French versions come out as
  1. Retirer aux banques le pouvoir de créer de l'argent
  2. Donner ce pouvoir à une instance  au fonctionnement transparent et démocratique 
  3. Créer de l'argent sans dette
  4. Assujettir la création monétaire à des objectifs décidés démocratiquement
  5. S'assurer que l'argent créé soit directement injecté dans l'économie réelle sans transiter par les marchés financiers 
  6. Assurer aux individus la transparence et le contrôle de la façon dont leur argent est investi
We'll no doubt be adding some other suggestions to make the ideas work well in the Eurozone, as well as other reforms that make sense.

So far, we've colonised the websites 'monnaiehonnete.org' and "monnaiehonnete.fr", and there is now a welcome message that I did with a new blog that I set up.

But, hopefully, soon we will have a much more impressive website up and running (and if anyone has webdesign skills, we would love to hear from you).

The aim is to provide solid arguments for the changes that we think are vital. But we will be very careful to avoid areas that can be regarded as politically driven. 

For me, the ideas that are being proposed are neither left wing or right wing. They are just good sense. And they will benefit absolutely everyone, except maybe for a few people working in the banking system. But, frankly, I think even those people will be better off morally if they didn't have to try to pretend that the current insanity can be justified. 

Stay tuned!

4 comments:

  1. Good luck Simon and friends!

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  2. Les Francais just don’t excel at economics, do they? Though doubtless they’re more cultured and educated that we “nation of shop-keeping” rosbifs.

    I mean they’re the last country in Europe to have a Positive Money type organisation. Plus they seriously believed Hollande when he said he’d deliver them from austerity.

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  3. People there are too busy paying taxes, that's the problem. With the fiscal pressure people in France are all too aware that there's a problem and they've just been shy to speak out about it.

    I was in Paris when the election results were announced. Huge masses of young people hoping that Hollande would bring about change as politicians have promised elsewhere. He obviously failed to deliver and that will leave the public bewildered at neither left or right wing being able to do something.

    Beyond that it remains to be seen where this ponzi system is going to take the world before some proper reforms kick in.

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  4. Also Ralph, coming from the UK myself I was very dismayed to read this article. If this reflects the truth it will be difficult to not be upset with policy makers and the financial "alchemists".

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/psssst-france-here-why-you-may-want-cool-it-britain-bashing-uks-950-debt-gdp

    "Because as the chart below shows, if there is anything the global financial system needs, is for the rating agencies, bond vigilantes, and lastly, general public itself, to realize that the UK's consolidated debt (non-financial, financial, government and household) to GDP is... just under 1000%. That's right: the UK debt, when one adds to its more tenable sovereign debt tranche all the other debt carried on UK books (and thus making the transfer of private debt to the public balance sheet impossible), is nearly ten times greater than the country's GDP."

    With all these alternative figures floating you don't know what to believe. However, what Simon has been explaining on this blog does seem to fit every visible aspect. This system is an absolute disgrace and has obviously degraded into a global ponzi-like get-rich-quick scheme.

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