Fortunes are being accumulated in the UK on a scale we haven’t seen for a hundred years. We’ve been told that the way the super-rich creates wealth makes all of us, well, a bit better off. But does it? This time around they’ve used new and different financial techniques to enrich themselves. Robert Peston, Super Rich: The Greed Game, BBC 2008
We are picking up the bill in a global greed game. ibid.
London is the capital of capital. ibid.
They’ve created ghettos of fabulously expensive property. ibid.
[Alan] Greenspan slashed rates to just 1%, and the supply of credit soared. ibid.
Since 1997 Labour has tried to make the United Kingdom as a land fit for the super-rich. ibid.
By the start of the twenty-first century these two factors – the power of leverage and low taxes for enterprise – gave birth to a new set of business superpowers; among them are the private equity money who borrow huge sums of money to buy whole companies. ibid.
Colossal funds have been accumulated by hedge fund managers. ibid.
The pay structure they devised: they wrote the rules of the greed game so they couldn’t lose. ibid.
Wall Street banks started by selling good quality loans to raise money and then looked at what else would be sold. ibid.
There was a torrent of cash for sub-prime loans thanks to a banking breakthrough called Structured Finance. ibid.
Most of the world’s big banks ... were stampeding to make profits by turning risky sub-prime loans into supposedly high quality investments. ibid.
More of the borrowers defaulted than they expected. ibid.
Northern Rock went to the brink of insolvency because its business was dependent on raising money by selling its mortgages to international lenders. ibid.
There are still plenty of opportunities for the new super-rich to increase their fortunes. ibid.
I investigate how globalisation went badly wrong. Robert Peston, The Party’s Over: How the West Went Bust I, BBC 2011
Our long boom was founded on a dangerous lie. ibid.
Big Bang allowed big international banks to buy up stock. ibid.
The gap between the very richest and the very poorest widened at a pace we hadn’t seen since the Victorian era. ibid.
The financial revolution spawned a debt revolution. ibid.
The Chinese consume half as much as we do relative to the size of their economy. They save much much more. ibid.
Western banks borrowed recklessly to lend to us. ibid.
The indebtedness of governments exploded. ibid.
The crash of 2008 began to topple an unbalanced global economic system. ibid.
Regulators failed to stem reckless lending by banks, and central bankers kept interest rates far too low. ibid.
There can be no return to debt-fuelled capitalism in the West. ibid.
How in Britain are we going to pay our way in this challenging new world? Robert Peston, The Party’s Over: How the West Went Bust II
Is twenty-first century austerity a journey back into our past? ibid.
Our personal debts remain dangerously large. ibid.
Has financial services become too big? ibid.
Tim Woodman ... joined the ranks of those unemployed in the depression of the 1890s, a victim of the unwillingness of the eastern gold bugs to countenance an increase in the stock of money through the addition of silver. Hugh Rockoff, The Wizard of Oz as a Monetary Allegory
Baum is following history in suggesting that the movement was started first by the western farmers, was joined ... by the working man, and then, once it was well under way, was joined by Bryan. The roaring lion is a good choice for one of the greatest American orators. ibid.
Coxey was a greenbacker, and his ideas were simple: the federal government should build public works and pay for them by printing money. ibid.
It is not surprising that the layout of the Emerald Palace should reflect the numbers seven and three. The Crime of ’73 was a crucial event in populist monetary history. ibid.
Every penny, every dollar, we have in circulation is created as an interest-bearing debt. Byron Dale, author Modern Money Secrets
We must go forward cautiously and consolidate each acquired position, because already the inferior social stratum of society is giving unceasing signs of agitation ... When through the law’s intervention the common people shall have lost their homes, they will be more easy to control and more easy to govern, and they shall not be able to resist the strong hand of the government acting in accordance with ... the control of the leaders of finance. United States Bankers Magazine 1892
Spending has been Britain’s national obsession. There’s nothing we like better than to splash a bit of cash … So have our politicians. Only now the party’s over. Nick Robinson, Your Money and How They Spend It I, BBC 2011
The biggest spending squeeze since the Second World War. ibid.
£692 billion: now there are seven big budgets which make up more than three-quarters of all government spending ... Transport, Law & Order, Defence, Debt Interest, Education, Health, Social Security £194 billion. ibid.
Politicians find it very hard to cut back on spending on the elderly ... Politicians are much more scared of their grannies. ibid.
But now he’s in government David Cameron has in the last few weeks approved the closure of A&E and maternity units not just at King George’s but at another London hospital. ibid.
Then there are all those extra little things that are nice to have: like money for culture or the arts. ibid.
Arts spending for the whole of England is $447 million. ibid.
Welcome to the fire control centre for the north-east of England ... The technology didn’t work; the building behind me is empty at a cost to you of $97,000 a month for the next 24 years. And there are eight others like it around the country. ibid.
They keep spending money they haven’t really got ... Today’s deficit is a whopper. ibid.
What looked like a downturn became a crash. ibid.
By the time of the last General Election Britain had the biggest deficit since the war: £160 billion. ibid.
Why if you live in some parts of Britain do you get more spent on you than other parts? ibid.
Infrastructure may be important but it doesn’t have a vote. ibid.
There’s nothing that politicians fear more than telling us our taxes are going up. ibid.
We put pressure on the Chancellor to spend more and more, and then we’re incredibly resistant to more tax to pay for it. Nick Robinson, Your Money and How They Spend It II
Taxes are for the very rich effectively voluntary. ibid.
We’re living way beyond our means. ibid.
By the end of the ’70s a new Tory government came to office promising lower income tax for all. The basic rate was cut to 30%, the top rate to 60%. ibid.
Gordon Brown had scrapped the lower level of income tax – the 10p band. ibid.
Tax and national insurance – they pay for exactly the same things. ibid.
We never seem to think we’re getting a bargain. ibid.
Takeaways used to be tax-free until back in 1984 the then Tory government decided to extend VAT to cover them. ibid.
In medieval times just like today people had problems with money. In those days gold and silver coins were the universally accepted form of money. Precious metals were used as money. The Essence of Money: A Medieval Tale, Youtube 2014
Hoarding worsened the problem of scarcity. ibid.
In 1792 Thomas Jefferson adopted the dollar as this country’s official monetary unit. Jefferson in particular spoke eloquently of the dangers of paper money. Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve, 2006
For more than twenty years the living standards of middle class Americans have steadily declined. ibid.
For most families one income no longer pays the bills. ibid.
The roots of our economic ills can be traced to central banking and our present monetary system. ibid.