Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Taming the Vampire Squid

Comment on this article by Ruth Potts at the  New Economics Foundation  concerning the proposed changes to the Bank of England Act, though equally applicable in all countries.

Of course the banks wield a very big stick when it comes to the damage they could do to a nation or government that threatens their hegemony. It seems unlikely, but we may hope the government are playing a bluff with the banks in order to buy time to organise a "coup de grace" against the vampires, placing them under administration, reforming accounts strictly into safe storage accounts for those who seek a safe home for their money, investment accounts for those that can afford to take a risk in order to seek a return on their capital and to "mark to market value" those toxic "assets", derivatives etc that the bankers have invented to inflate the apparent worth of their business and so justify their huge bonuses. The banks are certain to be as obstructive as possible in this matter. The political elite must realise that the unfettered growth of the financial sector in the last thirty years or so at the expense of the real economy has made the economy highly unstable, and that the social trauma of the inevitable deflation that must follow as night follows day will send the world into chaos and tyrany. The big question is- who will be brave enough to take the quantum leap?