UNISONActive is an unofficial blog produced by UNISON activists for UNISON activists. Bringing news, briefings and events from a progressive left perspective.

Sunday 10 January 2010

The £40bn question - How Do You Stop Bankers Bonuses?‏

The world's biggest investment banks are expected to pay out more than $65bn (£40bn) in salaries and bonuses in the next two weeks, reinforcing the view that it is business as usual on Wall Street and in the City barely a year since our bailout of the banking system. Remember what the cuts in our living standards are for? Yes bailing out the bankers. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/08/bonus-time-city-banks

Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, described the size of the potential bonuses as "global greed by banks when global governance has failed". He added: "Britain's bonus tax only toys with the symptoms of the sickness, not its cause. These last few investment banks left standing have state-backed licences to print money so they must pay super tax on their super profits, not hold taxpayers to ransom."

Oakeshott is right they do have the right to print money - that is what banks do - they issue money into the economy through loans, mortgages and other credit products. Governments do not issue money, 97% of the world's money is created by banks, this power to create money was given to them by the English Crown some 400 years ago and has been copied all over the world since.

There are few who understand this system, those that do are interested in its profits or are so dependent upon its favours that there has been no opposition to it, in fact governments have borrowed vast amounts of money to maintain it! While on the other hand, the great body of people, unable to comprehend the tremendous advantage that the finance sector derives from the system, are forced to bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is hostile to our interests.

Here is a former head of the Bank of England explaining how it all works, "Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain.
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Josiah.Stamp.Quote.69BB

So if we want to answer 'how do you stop bankers bonuses?" it can't be found in super taxes, although they would help, it lies in reforming how money is supplied into our economy. There are many money reform web sites that will explain how to do this, to find out more about how this can be done and more about banking go here, http://www.bendyson.com/

Its time to end our slavery!