Transcript Ben Dyson “AMI Chicago 2010 - American Monetary Institute

With Thanks...
• James Gibb Stuart Trust
• Best wishes from James Gibb Stuart
• Best wishes from Alistair McConnachie
• Alexandra Hardie and David Brown
Since Chicago 2009...
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Draft Legislation
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5 Minute Overview
20,000 Words of
Details
300 Comments
Proposed Bank of England Act
• 3,000 readers each month
• Pushing a solution to a problem no-one knows
exists
• Confused objections
• Focus on explaining the problem
• When they get the problem, they ask for solutions
• Need to make the problem clear
The Brand & Name
New Brand & Name
• No confrontation
• We’re not attacking banks or bankers - just the
business model that they’re using
• Positive, optimistic, constructive - we can do better
• Opens more doors
• Easier to get high-profile supporters (think tanks,
academic centres, MPs etc)
Core Message
Core Message
• Fractional reserve banking does not work
• Money and banking is at the root of most of our
social and economic problems, but it doesn’t have
to be
• Money and banking is the foundation of the
economy and society; we need to make sure its a
firm foundation
Core Message
• The current system is:
• Unfair - currently the banks are subsidised by
ordinary people, who have to pay interest on
every pound/dollar that exists. It throws people
into debt unnecessarily and lowers the ‘baseline’
of poverty from zero to negative x thousand.
• Unstable - the current system is inherently
unstable and causes recessions every few years.
It is designed in such a way that it is bound to
collapse.
Core Message
• The current system is:
• Unsustainable - ever rising debt and the necessity
for infinite and exponential GDP growth is not
sustainable.
• Unproductive - pumping money into housing,
while starving businesses of investment is not
productive. Throwing millions onto unemployment
benefit and bankrupting otherwise sound
businesses during a recession is not productive.
Core Message
• So let’s fix it.
• We’re not pushing one particular solution:
• Raising awareness of the problem
• Setting out criteria against which any solution can
be assessed
Criteria for a Positive
Money System
Core Message: Criteria for a Positive Money System
• Let’s make banking fair:
• banks should operate in the same market
constraints as apply to ordinary citizens and nonfinancial businesses
• banks should not benefit from state support, nor
from indirect and hidden subsidies
• the banking sector should be rewarded in line
with the real value that they contribute to society
and not benefit from ‘free lunches’ conferred upon
them through the structure of the money system.
Core Message: Criteria for a Postive Money System
• Let’s make banking fair:
• the process of creating money should not create
debt
• the system should not create unnaturally high
levels of debt
Core Message: Criteria for a Postive Money System
• Let’s make banking stable:
• the system will not be inherently unstable or procyclical, so that markets can operate effectively
without being destabilised by the financial sector
Core Message: Criteria for a Postive Money System
• Let’s make banking sustainable:
• the system will not contain fatal flaws that make
its eventual collapse inevitable
• the banking sector should not naturally grow to an
ever-larger percentage of GDP
• it will not act as a driver of environmental
breakdown
Core Message: Criteria for a Postive Money System
• Let’s make banking productive:
• the system will support the productive economy,
rather than distorting the economy towards nonproductive asset-price speculation
• the costs of providing a medium of exchange
(payments system) to the economy should be as
low as possible
• banking (the payments system and
saving/lending sector) should not be increasing
as a percentage of GDP.
Campaign Aims
Campaign Aims
• Promote a wide understanding of the problems
with fractional reserve banking, explaining why we
can’t keep it as a basis for the economy going
forwards.
Campaign Aims
• Build demand for fractional reserve banking to be
abolished, among our key audience:
• students
general public
academia
media
unions, MPs, charities & NGOs, industry &
business, faith groups,
the City
Campaign Aims
• Facilitate the finding and implementation of a
solution and a new model of banking that will
replace fractional reserve banking.
Strategy
STUDENT NETWORK
ACADEMIA
Student groups in 20-40 universities, educating the
wider student population and asking academics to
engage in this issue
Professors & researchers
University chancellors
pressure
pressure
supporting
NATIONAL MEDIA
Journalists, writers, commentators etc.
pressure
POSITIVE MONEY HQ
4-5 full time staff, providing the campaign
infrastructure to support the student
network and constituency groups
NATIONAL PARTNERS
pressure
GOVERNMENT
The Coalition, Treasury,
key Committees, key MPs
and advisors
Charities, unions, think tanks, nonbanking businesses, related campaigns
pressure
supporting
LOCAL MEDIA
CONSTITUENCY GROUPS
Campaign groups in each constituency, or a cluster
of constituencies (eg. Bristol, Sheffield). Educating
fellow constituents, the local media, and putting
pressure upon their MP.
Journalists, writers, commentators etc.
LOCAL GOVT. & MP
Raising support in the council and
lobbying the MP
pressure
Success So Far
Success So Far
• Think Tanks - working with:
• New Economics Foundation
• The Cobden Centre
• Developing relationships with:
• Compass (Labour Party)
• Other key organisations
Success So Far
• MPs - met:
• Stephen Williams (LD, Bristol West) - member
of Liberal Democrat treasury policy committee
• Steve Baker MP (Conservative, Wycombe)
• Introduced a bill with Douglas Carswell MP to
stop fractional reserve banking (10 minute
rule bill, 2nd reading 19th November)
• Working closely together on strategy viz
parliament.
Success So Far
• Secured funding from RH Southern Trust
• Second full-timer started Monday 13th November
• Responsible for student network, activists and local
campaigners
• 8 University groups about to be established (founding
members selected from 50 applicants)
• Trained 30 environmentalist activists on the relationship
between finance, money and environmental breakdown
Success So Far
• Attended round-table discussions with
• David Davis MP
• Robert Peston
• Professor Paul Wooley
• Tony Benn
• and more.
Success So Far
• Started an innovation group at The Finance Lab (a joint
initiative between WWF and the Institute of Chartered
Accounts for England and Wales (ICAEW)
Success So Far
• Network of high net-wealth business people who understand
the money issue and are looking for a business solution (new
models of banking that would circumvent the fractional
reserve banking system, for example)
• 2 regional radio shows
• Spoken at Lib Dem Autumn conference (fringe meeting)
• Spoken at an environmental fair in Brixton
• Media training
• 1,626 members signed up in total via word of mouth
Success So Far
• Worked with BBC to guide research for a Robert Peston
documentary
• Developed a social networking platform for our members to
coordinate and collaborate throughout the campaign,
organised around constituencies
Student Conference
100+ students
10 speakers
Training on activism
Activist Meetings
Danny Alexander MP
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
(Number 2 in the Treasury)
(Number 3 in the government in terms of influence
A Good Bank!
• New bank following our proposals
• Full-reserve model
• No fractional reserve banking
• Investment Accounts with notice periods
• New models of investment and equity investing
• Transaction Accounts backed 1:1 by central
bank reserves
• Initial funding > £100 million ($158million)
Priorities to end of 2010
Priorities to end of 2010
• Get 8 institutional sponsors
• Make PositiveMoney the resource for MPs,
academics and the public who want to understand
how things really work
• Develop a range of educational videos for the
website
Priorities to end of 2010
• Write up all our research into how the
current UK system really works
• With New Economics Foundation
& Prof Richard Werner
(Southampton)
• Fact-checking with the Bank of
England
Priorities to end of 2010
• Develop our search engine optimisation (Google)
strategy along with an expert in SEO
• Positive Money in the City
• Funding
• Large donors
• Small, regular donors via direct debit
Priorities to end of 2010
• Get media contacts discussing and understanding
fractional reserve banking and why that needs to
change
• Get student networks up and running
• Get key activist networks to promote Positive
Money
• Get local campaigners trained and with the tools
they need
www.PositiveMoney.org.uk
Ben Dyson
[email protected]