with thanks... james gibb stuart trust best wishes from james gibb stuart best wishes from alistair...
TRANSCRIPT
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...
Title Goes Here
Title Goes Here
Draft LegislationDraft Legislation
Title Goes Here
5 Minute Overview5 Minute Overview
20,000 Words of Details
20,000 Words of Details
300 Comments300 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 non-financial 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 pro-cyclical, 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 non-productive 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.
1.
Campaign Aims
Build demand for fractional reserve banking to be abolished, among our key audience:
•studentsgeneral publicacademiamediaunions, MPs, charities & NGOs, industry & business, faith groups, the City
2.
Campaign Aims
Facilitate the finding and implementation of a solution and a new model of banking that will replace fractional reserve banking.
3.
Strategy
STUDENT NETWORK
Student groups in 20-40 universities, educating the wider student population and asking academics to engage in this issue
STUDENT NETWORK
Student groups in 20-40 universities, educating the wider student population and asking academics to engage in this issue
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.
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.
POSITIVE MONEY HQ
4-5 full time staff, providing the campaign infrastructure to support the student network and constituency groups
POSITIVE MONEY HQ
4-5 full time staff, providing the campaign infrastructure to support the student network and constituency groups
supporting
supporting
ACADEMIA
Professors & researchersUniversity chancellors
ACADEMIA
Professors & researchersUniversity chancellors
GOVERNMENT
The Coalition, Treasury, key Committees, key MPs and advisors
GOVERNMENT
The Coalition, Treasury, key Committees, key MPs and advisors
pressure
pressureLOCAL MEDIAJournalists, writers, commentators etc.LOCAL MEDIAJournalists, writers, commentators etc.
LOCAL GOVT. & MPRaising support in the council and lobbying the MP
LOCAL GOVT. & MPRaising support in the council and lobbying the MP
NATIONAL MEDIAJournalists, writers, commentators etc.NATIONAL MEDIAJournalists, writers, commentators etc.
NATIONAL PARTNERSCharities, unions, think tanks, non-banking businesses, related campaigns
NATIONAL PARTNERSCharities, unions, think tanks, non-banking businesses, related campaigns
pressure
pressure
pressure
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+ students10 speakers
Training on activism
100+ students10 speakers
Training on activism
Activist Meetings
Danny Alexander MPChief 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
