News and Comment

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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Gold investors are debating whether “the bottom is in” for gold – the dollar price is already 19% percent above its seven year low of  $1050 reached in December. Many gold experts remain bearish on the view that the dollar will stay strong against other currencies. And market analysts cling to the view that the…
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  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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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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Central banks disown any responsibility for stock markets; yet we all know they take market conditions into account. How will they respond if the turmoil resumes? Apparently the banks want central banks to get interest rates back to “normal”. Axel Weber, head of UBS, former head of the Bundesbank and former council member of the…
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What to invest in? Investors are at their wits’ end. What should they do to protect their assets? Well, your choice of assets depends on what you think central banks will do – especially if the stock market rout goes on. Will they EITHER extend/revive QE, keep rates low and  print more money? OR will…
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To prevent a new eruption of the financial volcano we need deep monetary reform – much more radical change than anything discussed by governments or economists as yet. So any signs of such an interest are encouraging. On July 8 and 14 of this year, Gerald Braunberger, economics editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,  wrote two articles…
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The usual way to destroy the social value of money is through inflation, and that has indeed been the fate of most fiat currencies. Yet there are other ways to reduce the quality of money and thus its ability to support a civilisation. Money becomes less useful, for example, when the objects you can spend…
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According to Adair Turner, Britain’s former chief financial regulator, the global financial crisis had one big cause: bad ideas.  These are ideas that Turner disapproves of. The key proposition of his new book is simply stated: “banking systems left to themselves are bound to produce too much of the wrong sort of debt, instability and…
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The book argued that the crisis was the joint product of  inflation targeting, irresponsible banking and a weak international monetary system. The book tried to show how these were inter-related: First, inflation targeting, which had been a valuable tool in combatting 1970s inflation, had by the 2000s outlived its usefulness as a guide and discipline for…
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