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Adam Buick

Z-Day 2012 - Adam Buick (WSM)

Edited talk from the Zeitgeist event in Cardiff, 'Z-Day 2012'.

See here for the video
 

Recorded: 
Sunday, 11 March 2012

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audio/mpeg iconZ-Day 2012 - Adam Buick.mp3

Bankers Bonus Bonanza

Pigs, fat cats or scapegoats?

Bankers are unpopular. Not the ordinary bank teller or the back-up IT staff, but the directors and top managers who award themselves huge salaries and big bonuses. They are so unpopular, in fact, that the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, Stephen Hester, has been forced to give up a bonus of nearly £1m while his predecessor, Sir Fred Goodwin, has been stripped of his knighthood.

Where Money Comes From: A Reply to the New Economics Foundation.

In a 140-page booklet entitled Where Does Money Come From? the New Economics Foundation (NEF), a greenish think-tank, set out to refute one theory of the nature of money and banking and replace it by another which they consider more accurate.

Money

“What is Money?” is not just a question of fact but of definition. “We disagree with the view of money as a commodity,” says the NEF, “and show instead that money is a relationship of credit and debt” (p. 9). More boldly, they declare “money has never been a commodity” (p. 51).

Banking Reform: is it Relevant?

Banking reforms are never going to stop capitalist crises.

Last month the Independent Commission on Banking, chaired by Sir John Vickers, published its final report. As expected, it recommended that banks should separate their ordinary High Street activities from their more risky (and more profitable) investment banking (their dealings in derivatives, securitised loans, etc). The aim is to avoid a future bail-out of the whole of a bank in the event of another banking crisis like that of 2007-8. If this happened again a bank’s investment arm would be allowed to sink or swim while the proposed requirement for extra capital reserves for the High Street arm should be enough to allow it to weather the storm.

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