Tag Archives: the Ikon
How we got into the money trap – and how to get out
The world took time to get into the money trap. But with one bound it can be free. Since the 1970s governments have tried various approaches to the challenges of managing money. In the 1970s, they put full employment top. They used monetary policies to expand demand, taking risks with inflation. The results included high…
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The Ikon: the best world money
States cannot create good money. They are interested parties. A good monetary system should discipline states – i.e. hold them to account. A state-run money cannot do that. That is the flaw in proposals such as those made by Positive Money and The International Movement for Monetary Reform. (Let me add, however, that I go…
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The Money Trap revisited
What is the money trap? How can we get out of it? Let me try to reformulate the thesis of my book in the light of recent developments. Since the 1970s we have been in a period of transition to a new paradigm of monetary policy. Governments have tried various approaches to the challenges of…
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Mistreating money
Money is a social construct that enables price comparisons, calculations of profits and loss, budgeting and financial planning from individual to enterprise to national and international levels. Its primary function is as a unit of account, and a given monetary unit has greatest benefit when used by the largest possible number of people and…
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Status quo or needed reforms?
Interests barring change Powerful interests benefit from the existence of the money trap. These interests include the state and the monied elite. They benefit, at least in the short to medium term, from official manipulation of money under the present (IT plus CBI) regime – the state from cheap finance, the monied elite from the…
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Stop activist monetary policies now
Central banks confront the kind of scenario outlined in The Money Trap. In the book, I anticipated a world of generalised deflation, with zero nominal rates on risk-free assets. At the time of publication, in 2012, this seemed unlikely, to say the least. But it is materialising. The challenge now is to seize the…
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Recycling the rewards of equity finance
There is an urgent need to reintegrate society with its productive side through broadening share ownership. This is the theme of a new book, “Debtonator”. (Elliott and Thompson, £9.99), by Andrew McNally, an experienced institutional investor. In a lively account, McNally shows how equity finance benefits society, companies and individuals. Equity should form the basis…
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Why real investment is so sluggish
Low real interest rates would normally be expected to stimulate capital investment by lowering the cost of finance for companies – large and small. Yet real investment remains sluggish in nearly all developed economies. Some blame austerity measures taken to control fiscal deficits. Others blame the rise in precautionary savings by the private sector…
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What major monetary and banking reforms are needed?
The global financial crisis should be seen as a symptom of the lack of fit between three pieces of the jigsaw of modern finance – national or regional monies, innovative financial markets and a globalized financial system. It provided both an encouragement and a warning – an encouragement to search for alternatives…
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Geoffrey Ingham on Money
As the debate about the future of finance has yet to yield consensus on the way forward for policy, so more radical solutions are being openly discussed and advocated. This has stimulated a spreading debate on the very nature of money and banking. Geoffrey Ingham, a Life Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, has brought the…
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