Report of Co-op Bank Crisis: Ways Forward for the Co-operative Movement‏

On 17 January 2014 a conference was held in Manchester to explore predominantly the impact of the coop bank crisis on the future of a (truly) cooperative bank as well as the wider crossroads for the cooperative movement. Delegates came from a range of backgrounds including trade unions, retail coops, credit unions, and 'coop consultants'.

Co-op Bank – from ‘supermutual’ to carcass for vulture funds

Many in the labour movement were dismayed by the recent news that the Co-op Group had lost control of the Co-operative Bank – the bank of choice for generations of trade unionists and the joint owner with a consortium of trade unions (including UNISON) of the Unity Trust Bank. A disturbing report in today’s Sunday Telegraph claims that 70% of the bank’s equity will be controlled by a group of private equity funds (including so called vulture funds) and 1,000 redundancies are in the pipeline - 10% of the bank’s workforce. How and why has this happened? Daniel Tischer writing in Red Pepper unlocks the background to this salutary tale of the vulnerability of the mutual model in the capitalist market place:
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/co-op-bank-the-david-that-wanted-to-be-a-goliath/

Do not be deceived by the statement – we’ve run out of money – there is an alternative to austerity

The current economic debate amongst most politicians is there is a need for austerity because we’ve run out of money. Cameron recently said ‘there is no magic money tree’, he lied the Bank of England is an organisation with money creation powers. Now both the Eds, Miliband and Balls, have said that a future Labour government will have 'less money to spend' and as a consequence will have to continue the Coalition's austerity programme.

TUC final verdict on Thatcher – ‘Good at Destruction'

‘Demonising unions and stripping the great mass of private-sector workers of a voice and power in the workplace is still the root of the great living standards crisis that saw the share of wealth going to wages slide long before Lehman Brothers failed,’ says TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady in a Guardian article on the legacy of arch neo-conservative ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
    Frances goes on to point out that the ‘financial crash of 2008 was a direct result of the policies Thatcher championed. The dominance of finance in the economy and the failure of bank regulation flowed from her belief that markets should always be left to themselves’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/09/clearing-up-margaret-thatchers-mess

Cyprus banking a domino for all of Europe?

Democracy for the moment has prevailed over the Bankers friends within the European Union. The politicians of Cyprus backed by the people may have rejected the bank account tax, but the truth is that the financial crisis in Cyprus is just getting started.
   Right now, the two largest banks in Cyprus are dangerously close to a meltdown. If they fail, depositors could end up losing virtually all of their money. That's because, the banking system of Cyprus absolutely dwarfs the GDP of that small island nation.

Modernising Money - The Way Out of Austerity

The current monetary system still continues to fuel a social and economic crisis, and although the media coverage doesn't give us much hope, there is a way out of it!
  The government claims its run out of money, it has too many debts so it has to cut spending. Is this right? Is it true? No is the answer.

Negative interest rates - more madness?

Another day another mad idea to get banks lending (but wasn't lending the cause of the crisis?)
  The basic idea is that the Bank of England (BoE) starts charging for any surpluses held by banks who have accounts at the BoE. Currently the BoE has to pay interest to the Banks.
  All of banks and building socities have to hold accounts at the BoE - to make sure that all transactions in the economy are balanced up at the end of a day and so that as the lender of last resort they can inject money into a failing bank (electronically).

Banking on safety?

Retail banks aren’t safe: Politicians fool themselves and us to think otherwise.
Day after day more and more scandals erupt from our banks, RBS the state owned bank, has been fined £390m for involvement in interest rate manipulation. In the face of scandals like these, the political debate about structural banking reform has intensified. Last week, George Osborne committed to forcibly breaking up banks if they do not ring fence “risky” investment arms from their “safe” retail divisions.

Lift the burden: Jobs not debt

On 9 February, 'the people of Ireland will be on the streets in their tens of thousands' against crippling debt repayments that will cost 30,000 jobs, ICTU General Secretary David Begg tells Union Post. Demonstrations have been called in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Sligo.
“We have been saddled with a €64 billion bank debt burden that eliminates any possibility of economic recovery and guarantees years of continued stagnation", added David.
   UNION Post also runs a tribute to Inez McCormack who died last month.
http://www.ictu.ie/publications/fulllist/union-post-february-2013/

Lessons of historic Skye PFI victory

The 2004 victory against the Skye Bridge tolls was “a genuine victory and if we are to profit from it we need to learn the lessons. The fight was part of our historic movement", writes Malcolm Burns in the Morning Star. But the unjust PFI system still saw a £20m PFI bridge cost the public up to four times that including polls, subsidies and buy out. Burns reviews the story as told in ‘An Drochaid’ (The Bridge Rising) on BBC Alba at 8.05pm tomorrow or on iplayer until Saturday. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/12775

UBS corrupt payments exposed as bank pays £940m to settle Libor claims

From drug money laundering to fixing interest rates - crashing the economy and causing mass unemployment... yet NO ONE goes to prison. The fabric of our society is completely corrupted by banks, bankers and debt based money.

An early Christmas present for the big 4 banks

Not content with robbing us blind, laundering drug money for the world's most dangerous drug gangs and fixing interest rates for their own trading and bonuses - now we learn that the UK's biggest "too big to fail" banks are to receive a big fat Christmas present in the form of £34bn subsidy from us! http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2012/12/early-christmas-present-britains-biggest-banks-%C2%A334bn-taxpayers

Icelandic Parliament investigating stopping banks creating money!

Is Iceland – the island with just 300.000 citizens – going to be the first country seriously questioning the privatised money creation and considering Full Reserve Banking proposals (the requirement to hold £1 on account for every £1 lent out)? It seems that it might well be the case:
http://www.positivemoney.org/2012/12/icelandic-parliament-investigating-full-reserve-banking/

Osborne's Austerity Exposed As Lies - Treasury Stops Paying Interest on QE bonds

In a move of enormous cheek and deceit the Treasury has changed its accounting rules so it does not have to pay the Bank of England £35bn in interest payments on the government bonds the Bank bought, by creating electronic money, for its Quantitative Easing (QE) programme.

Why is there so much debt?

Positive Money blog has uploaded a video which explains that there is so much debt because almost every pound in the economy has to be created by a bank and lent to us. There has to be as much debt as there is money, and the more we borrow, the more money there will be. It’s actually impossible for the public to reduce their total debt as long as banks are allowed to create money as debt. Watch here:
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/consequences/debt/

5 years on - Rogues Gallery of the economic crash

The Guardian marks the 5th anniversary of the onset of the 'credit crunch' by reviewing the bankers, economists and politicians whose reckless commitment to neo liberal policies of deregulation, cheap credit and market manipualtion has caused and continues to cause untold misery for millions of working people worldwide:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/aug/06/financial-crisis-25-people-heart-meltdown?CMP=twt_gu

Dont believe the lie that we've run out of money

How can you run out of money when its created by using a computer? For far too long we've been conned by the idea there is a finite amount of money and that if we borrow more the 'markets' will bring a government down. This is a total pack of lies. Here we link to an article by Ann Pettifor of the New Economics Foundation which supports UNISONActive's assertions that money creation should be used by our government to support the economy, public services, jobs and infrastructure and without paying interest to the bankers: http://www.classonline.org.uk/blog/item/the-chicanery-of-this-weeks-economics

Analysis - We can bring the recession to an end without more debt, no cuts and no new taxes

For all the nation's economic woes, the debate seems stuck on tax hikes for the rich or more borrowing from the bankers - we need a new and permanent solution. Just like the one being debated on MSN money, yes that's right Microsoft News Money - http://money.msn.com/investing/no-debt-no-cuts-no-new-taxes we should be debating these issues at the TUC congress this week!

Privately-Owned Banks Create and Destroy Money at Will

John Waters, writing in the Irish Times, has been discussing the power of the banking sector. Pertinent for a country bought to its knees by bankers who created the country's greatest property speculation bubble on the back of their money creation powers, destroying pensions and public services when the banks failed: ‘When you extend to bankers the power to create money ex nihilo, you can hardly be surprised if they start to believe themselves superhuman’ http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0727/1224320884392.html

IMF Releases A Discussion Paper On Banking and Monetary Reform - A Revolutionary Act!

We’ve been in a state of mild shock since last Saturday. We discovered one of the strongest advocates of monetary reform and full reserve banking in the institution where we would least expect it. The international Monetary Fund (IMF)has released a discussion paper “The Chicago Plan Revisited” that supports the proposals of US economist Irving Fisher – using state of the art economic modelling.