Are The Greens the new Raving Loony Party!

FlicketyB

In 1991 there was the BCCI collapse and in 1995 there was the Barings Bank scandal, which I seem to recall caused great consternation at the time.

This presumably happened in response to the 2008 meltdown -

(from The European Commission site) "The Directive of March 2009 required member states to increase coverage of their Deposit Guarantee Scheme, first to at least Eur.50,000 and then to a uniform level of Eur.100,000 by the end of 2010", going on to say this was to "reassure depositors, maintain confidence and strengthen the safety net". It says that all deposits held by individuals and enterprises, whatever their size (but not including financial institutions), would be covered by this.

There are very noticeable rumblings that another financial crisis may be on its way. If Positive Money hasn't got the answer, who has? As you say, it is a very complicated subject. After the 2008 meltdown, I recall the so-called experts all arguing about what had caused the situation and looking completely nonplussed as to how it might be dealt with and how to prevent a recurrence. If they don't understand what's going on, it's hardly surprising that I don't - and maybe you don't either.

Eloathan. There have always been occasional bank, commercial and other collapses, that is how businesses run but one collapse isn't a major crisis in itself. Of course the BCCI and Barings collapses hit the headlines when they did, but neither of them was in retail banking on the High Street. Barings was a merchant bank with a long and honourable history and it was a shock when it broke, but there was no bale out and I seem to remember that most of the publicity centred around the rogue trader not the bank. BCCI was widely used by Indian nationals in this country to transfer money home and it was a disaster for those who had saved with it, which is why we need depositor protection. The Co-operative Bank has got into trouble in recent years - and that was uninvolved in the 2008 meltdown.

The two questions you avoid are that firstly,PM is monetarism, pure and simple, whether it is run via joint-stock banks or Central banks. You must remember the effect monetarism had on the British economy when it was applied, in all its rigours by Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s. Do you want to return to the economic conditions prevailing then?

Mrs Thatcher brought in monetarism booted and spurred with a bull whip in its hand. PM is monetarism is Red Riding Hood's wolf when dressed as
Grandma, warm, loving, cuddly on the surface, rather nasty underneath. Unfortunately while RRH had a happy ending, PM wouldn't.

Secondly would you care to address the social justice argument that depositor protection protects small savers and enables them to safely garner small savings and earn some interest without risk.

Who, or where, is the talk about financial rumblings?
I would like to read up about it.

I would add that most of the rise in personal debt was not the direct making of loans by banks but individual consumers running up there credit cards in the run up to Christmas.

There are ways of dealing with that, the government or the banks could increase the minimum sum credit card holders have to pay off each month. Unfortunately that is fiscal policy in the same way that depositor protection is and since the principle of monetarism is that you control the economy through controlling money supply not by fiscal policy that would not be possible.

I think I was agreeing with you up to that point FlicketyB.
Individuals and small businesses could not borrow if the banks didnt havethe wish or whatever it is called to lend.

I dont actually know what fiscal policy presicesly means. Off to google.

Monetarism is a set of views based on the belief that inflation depends on how much money the government prints. It is closely associated with Milton Friedman (Mrs Thatcher's economic guru).

Monetarism had its heyday in the early 1980s. In then fell out of favour as the link between different measures of money supply and inflation proved to be less clear than most monetarist theories had suggested. Many central banks today have stopped setting monetary targets and instead have adopted strict inflation targets.
Source:www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monetarism.asp

Fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection (mainly taxes) and expenditure (spending) to influence the economy.

Fiscal policy can be distinguished from monetary policy, in that fiscal policy deals with taxation and government spending and is administered by governments whereas monetary policy deals with the money supply, lending rates and interest rates and is often administered by a central bank.

Positive Money is monetarism rewrit. Moving responsibility for generating money supply from joint stock to central banks is the cosy lace cap and collar that misled red riding hood, Behind it the the wolf of monetarism is waiting to bite. That is why fiscal measures like depositor protection, instant access accounts and general savings schemes are ditched by PM.

Soure for definition of fiscal policy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_policy

Thank you for that FlicketyB.
It is a while since I studied economics.

You will all be relieved to know that I am leaving the country in the next few hours and will not be back on line for at least three days. By that time this thread will have moved on to more interesting topics in the Green Parties manifesto about which I know nothing.

I think you've covered the most interesting topic quite comprehensively FlicketyB and I'm grateful for your input
Enjoy your time away.

Yes, it's been a very informative exchange - most helpful to those of us with limited knowledge of economics. Thank you.

I am just relieved to have finally discovered that there are gransnetters who know a thing or two about economics.
I personally can cope with waiting for 3 days

I probably need to hunt down some old threads in say money problems?

"Already they are scrutinising our policies like never before, and wilfully twisting and misinterpreting them. So if you hear or read terrible things about the Green Party, note first the source of the information. The old saying "Don't believe what you read in the papers" has never truer with respect to stories about the Greens. Refer back to us before believing anything!

So, NO! We don’t have policies to put the Queen in a council house, or to support terrorist organisations like ISIS, or to enact an open door immigration policy over the next few years. Lies and smears like these will increasingly appear as they attempt to discredit and ridicule the Greens before the elections."

For those of you who think that the Green Party are useless at economics, they are not the only ones according to this professor of economics.

mainlymacro.blogspot.de/2015/01/to-all-uk-journalists.html

Apparently growth was better under the Labour Party than it has been under the coalition. So journalists are telling lies, and so are the Tories.

Did anyone watch Natalie Bennett on last weeks Sunday Politics.?

It is worth watching and hearing from the horses mouth their view on being part of terrorist organisations, immigration,defence and financial credibility.

No, but just heard Caroline Lucas talking to Sarah Montague on the Today programme.
When pressed about the detail of Green policy, she said a) that the manifesto wasn't coming out till next month and b) they wouldn't have an absolute majority, so the policies were really for the distant, rather than the immediate future.
So that's alright then

Sounds as if Caroline is distancing herself from Natalie

It's been an interesting day on Sky News. They are trying to 'engage' the youth voter in politics and has been a question and answer section with Natalie Bennett, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and David Cameron.

I think Natalie Bennett might regret telling them to vote Green or who they think best suits them if not write a rude word on the ballot paper.

I think she has learnt a lesson from the interview on Sunday Politics, don't get dragged into anything that requires proof of how to fund your ideology.

How many other manifestos are out yet, janea?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/treasury-blasted-for-not-clamping-down-on-billions-in-tax-relief-fraud-9873691.html

Three weeks to sign a 38 degrees petition to try and get this sorted.
Note, it's from the Independent, not the Guardian.

38 degrees petition, before the March budget.

www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/complain-to-hmrc

Whether the other parties' manifestos are out or not isn't really the point is it jen?
It was just a rather feeble answer, that's all.

Which one is right? Natalie Bennett or Caroline Lucas?

On Sunday Politics Natalie Bennett said it was a Green Party policy to have a 'Citizens Income Policy'. This would give everybody £72 a week whether they needed it or not. The cost would be £280 billion. She utterly floundered when asked how such an exorbitant sum could be found and made the idea look ridiculous by her answers, ending up by saying it will be ' fully costed in their manifesto'

Caroline Lucas now says something like it is a long-term ambition and not a policy!

As for terrorist organisations Natalie Bennett did say The Green Party would make it legal to be a member of groups such as ISIS , it would not be a crime! Her words were 'Don't punish for what they think but punish them for their actions'.

She summed up by saying ' You do not protect freedom by destroying it'.

This was not spin by the media, or right wing papers, it was and is available to see and hear her words for yourself, from the horses mouth on google ., possibly still on I Player.

I could mention other comments but all I can say is I am glad there will be scrutiny of all the parties before the election and the Greens, UKIP etc will have to take their share of scrutiny , quite rightly so.

Yes, POGS I heard and saw all this, the same as you did, so we are not imagining things [even though they do sound fantastic in the true sense of the word.]

Rose

I guess nobody knows.