Forum for Stable CurrenciesOpen Meeting, House of Lords, 21 November 2001Public Government Spending and Interest-Free Banking - Practical Solutions to Monetary ProblemsSpeaker: Richard DouthwaitePublic spending in excess of public revenue does NOT necessarily mean a public borrowing requirement. If the government spent money into circulation rather than leaving it to commercial banks to create, it would not only make more public capital projects possible but it would also make the economic system far more stable. This is because the money supply would not disappear when a worried public ceased to borrow for consumption and businesses ceased to borrow to invest. The looming global depression will be exacerbated by a sharp decline in the money stock, rather than moderated by there still being a lot of money about. Douthwaite will also discuss the role that money created on the basis of debt plays in generating the growth compulsion of the current economic system and the extent to which interest-free banking would reduce this.
Richard Douthwaite is an economist and writer who has published The Growth
Illusion, The Ecology of Money, Short Circuit. For more information: |
