“There is no magic money tree.” — David Cameron, UK Prime Minister Regular readers of this website will be well aware that David Cameron is quite wrong here. In fact, creating money is as easy as the flick of a pen and the clattering of some computer keys. While the UK’s “magic money tree” is currently controlled by the private banking system, the UK government is quite capable of altering this situation. All it requires is the political will … Continue reading →

“Debts are subject to the laws of mathematics rather than physics. Unlike wealth, which is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, debts do not rot with old age and are not consumed in the process of living. On the contrary, they grow at so much per cent per annum, by the well-known mathematical laws of simple and compound interest … It is this underlying confusion between wealth and debt which has made such a tragedy of the scientific era.” –- … Continue reading →

When you create your money supply as interest-bearing debt, you basically have two options: A:- Have more money, but also more debt. B:- Have less debt, but also less money. To solve a debt crisis, we would like to have an option C:- more money and less debt. Unfortunately, in the absence of the sorts of reforms Positive Money is proposing to create debt-free digital money, option C is impossible. In a recent address to parliament, German Chancellor Angela Merkel … Continue reading →

  A lot of students like me (and a lot of people in general) are opposed to tuition fees and the coalition government’s decision to dramatically increase them next year. This is not merely for selfish reasons. In my view, tuition fees are bad news chiefly because they turn university from an education into an investment. We badly need individuals who can think in new ways to solve today’s diverse problems – many of which are being caused by “business … Continue reading →

Many people, upon first learning about ‘Fractional Reserve’ Banking, are drawn to the idea of the Gold Standard. They find out that ‘Fractional Reserve’ Banking leads to an inflating money supply, moreover one plagued by cycles of boom and bust due to its elasticity. They dislike this – they want money to work as a safe store of value by fixing its total supply. The Gold Standard is one way of doing this. Before we embark on a discussion of … Continue reading →