The British government, like most other governments, has delegated money-creation to the central bank. Money is therefore loaned at interest to the government by the central bank, instead of being issued debt-free by the government. Increasing amounts of tax revenue are therefore being used to repay the debt to the Bank of England. Since there is no mechanism for writing off any government debt, present day tax money is being used to pay interest on the accumulated debt of the past 300 years. High interest rates only aggravate the situation.
The banks should pay governments for a licence to create money. Governments should not pay interest.
As each year goes by, an increased percentage of tax revenue is swallowed up by the Bank of England, and social services are withdrawn as there is not enough money left to fund them.
Debt is like a cancer in society. It causes the ills of unemployment, bankruptcy, poverty and destitution, which lead, in turn, to crime and ill health. At some point in the future, at least in some countries, the rate of money-creation, increasing at an exponential rate, will be overtaken by the size of the government debt, increasing at an even faster exponential rate.
At that point, all wealth will go to pay an unrepayable loan, and there will be no social services. This is already the case in Third World countries, where the real wealth of those countries is exported to pay an unrepayable debt, and where every newborn baby is already in debt to foreign banks.
In the Channel Islands it is different. There, the government has not delegated the money-creating powers to the banks. There, the government creates debt-free money and spends it into the economy, rather than lending it into the economy, so that the government has no debt to the banks. Partly as a result, Jersey and Guernsey experience prosperity unknown in many countries. Income tax is only 20%. There is no VAT, inheritance tax or capital gains tax.
Governments everywhere should take back their power to create interest-free money, and nations would thus reach a new level of prosperity. An essential first step would be to make all loans unenforceable, like gambling debts are now, and then money lenders would become more responsible in their lending. Equity finance, where the investor shares in either profit or loss, rather than loans on fixed interest, would become the approved method of finance.
Patricia Knox, Pen Llywenan, Bodedern, Holyhead, Gwynedd, Wales LL65 4TS (tel 01407 740767).
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