BRING BACK the Bradbury Pound – interest-free – backed by Public Credit – issued by The Treasury rather than Banks

Green Credit for Green Purposes was our proposal to the Treasury Select Committee in 2008 – ‘to do it electronically’.

But on 7 Aug 1914 the Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer did it on paper: John Bradbury signed the Bradbury Pound – instead of borrowing money from private investors for the Government.

Justin R G Walker talks about it to Brian Gerrish of UK Column on this video and mentions the ‘credit of the Nation’.

Austin Mitchell MP has been tabling Early Day Motions along the Public Credit since 2002.   It sounds so simple and yet is so profound:

Repudiate This Lie of a Debt!

This is an excellent article that brings together a few important strands of thought:

1. references to Congressman Ron Paul‘s positive and negative inititatives and limited understanding of the monetary system
2. a superb quotation from Thomas Edison about the fact that the Nation should print ALL its money; his original article can be found here
3. a most positive critique of Abraham Lincoln‘s greenbacks in the London Times
4. a three-point action list for national governments:

• repudiate this lie of a national or public debt
• quit selling interest bearing government bonds on the people’s credit
• print bills on the credit and spend or give them into circulation in the proper amount “to move trade enough to prevent stagnation but not enough to permit speculation”. (Thomas Edison)

See our Early Day Motion “Using the Public Credit”: the first of our list of Early Day Motions since 2002.

And see Green Credit for Green Purposes – our submission to the Treasury Select Committee in 2007.

Enforcement of Bank of England Act 1694

This Early Day Motion was tabled by our Chairman Austin Mitchell MP on April 20, 2009:

That this House, observing that the intention of the founding Act of the Bank of England in 1694 was `that their Majesties’ subjects may not be oppressed by the said corporation’, notes that those subjects have been seriously oppressed by the Bank’s failure to control the greed, risk-taking and speculation of the banking system over which it presides; and therefore suggests that this oppression should be dealt with as the Act provides by fines three times the value of the abusive trading.

Today the first three MPs have signed. Will you get your MP to sign via WriteToThem

In our observation, oppressions through banks are due to:

1. There is now only a limited number of qualified staff in every branch. In fact, what used to be professional training for a professional body, ACIB, has become a “School of Finance“.
2. The training in “banking” is limited. It consists only of “sales”.
3. There is now little responsibility in local branches.
4. Instead, all decision making has been centralised. This results in the decision makers having little personal knowledge of the client or a perspective about a business.
5. There is little comprehension of day-to-day business issues.
6. There is no realisation of the criticality of time or expediency.
7. There is limited knowledge of supposed Government support. As an example, the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme (SFLGS) was reducing before the crisis.
8. Instead of joined-up thinking, staff are only box tickers and have no room for initiative.
9. MPs have very limited knowledge of the depth of the problems, even before the crisis.
10. Day-to-day business borrowing for “normal” clients has never been excessive. In fact, it was already very restrictive to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and often even obstructive.