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Library Communiveristy Open Learning Course The Economy and Us: week 3 Overview

Library Communiveristy Open Learning Course The Economy and Us: week 3 Overview Money, banking … and finance The elephants in the room This is a complex set of issues and some aspects can only be dealt with in bare outline Some suggestions for follow-up are available.

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Library Communiveristy Open Learning Course The Economy and Us: week 3 Overview

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  1. Library Communiveristy Open Learning Course The Economy and Us: week 3 Overview Money, banking … and finance The elephants in the room This is a complex set of issues and some aspects can only be dealt with in bare outline Some suggestions for follow-up are available

  2. Some issues for this session • Money: • What is ‘money’? • Where does it come from? • What are the consequences of this? • Can it/should it be reformed? • Banking: • What do banks do? • Do we need banks? • Could there be a ‘good’ bank? • Debt and interest: these issues raise moral questions – I can only suggest some ways of thinking about them.

  3. How does a bank account work? • When we ‘put money’ into a bank account, does the bank: • Put it into a box marked with our name (so we can get it later)? • Simply note that we have this amount of money to draw on?

  4. What else do banks do – some answers! • Provide means to make payments • Provide overdrafts, loans and mortgages • Provide savings services

  5. What else do banks do? Could we manage without banks?

  6. Some questions … • What is ‘money’? • What (in banking terms) is ‘liquidity’? [These questions are related]

  7. Some more questions • What are a bank’s (financial) assets? • What are its liabilities? • Does a bank ‘lend’ the money which its depositors have placed with it? • Should banks charge interest on a loan?

  8. Here’s Ben Dyson of the (British) Positive Money CampaignThis is based on UK experience, but the Euro system is (with some changes) the same https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc6kKOGp560

  9. OK – let’s reflect on this • Can we put this in (other) simple terms? • What are the consequences? • Should it be reformed?

  10. Could there be (is there?) such a thing as a ‘good’ bank? • What principles would guide its work?

  11. Here’s an example of a ‘good’ bankDo you agree? The videos which follows describes the work of the German GLS bank http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kElRGPg7BA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dhb7KzUieI

  12. There are other examples • Triodos Bank • Operations in Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and the UK • The ASN Bank (‘General Savings Bank of the Netherlands) • ‘For the world of tomorrow’ • Will only finance work in the area of renewable energy, ‘good work’, recycling, …

  13. The Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV) Take a look at the website: http://www.gabv.org/

  14. Debt and interest: some moral issues • Are we always required to repay debts? • Is ‘interest’ on loans inevitable? • If so … where does the ‘money’ to pay the interest come from? • What are its other consequences? I am not offering answers to these questions – only pointing out some issues of economic justice

  15. Debt – some things on which to reflect • A contract – whether for trade or finance needs to have a reasonable balance, with neither side having undue power over the other. • There are assumptions: • that both sides have entered into the contract with good intentions; • that both sides understand and accept the risk and uncertainty. • that some measure of economic (and political) stability will remain.

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