Author Archives: Deirdre

Financial Transaction tax needed to stop obscene bank profits

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Financial Transaction tax needed to stop obscene bank profits

 24 November 2011

“The ridiculously high profits announced by ANZ shows we are overdue in imposing a financial transaction tax”, according to Laurence Boomert, New Economics Party candidate for Wellington Central.

ANZ announced record profits recently despite difficult economic conditions.

“Every bank these days deals in derivatives and these trades are high volume and fast turnover. A small financial transaction tax should be imposed on every transaction,” said Boomert.

“ANZ’s website shows exotic financial instruments like spot minors and forward majors but few people understands their complications”, said Boomert.  “Banks are gamblers these days not innocent intermediaries between lender and borrower, especially since the removal of the firewalls that protected the savings and loans sides of their business from their rampant speculations.”

The Pacific Financial Derivatives page on Facebook tells you that retail Forex accounts can now be opened with a large or small deposit and leverage of 1 to 100 is allowed in most cases. “If this isn’t gambling then I don’t know what is”, said Boomert.

“The problem is that as banks indulge in reckless speculation and suck out their undeserved profits the real economy of production and labour is endangered”

For further comment phone Laurence Boomert 027 258 8807 E: laurenceboomert@xtra.co.nz

 

Growing Inequality Caused by the Money System

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Media Statement 23 November 2011

Growing Inequality Due to Money System

To narrow the gap between rich and poor we need to change the money system, according to the New Economics Party candidate for Wellington Central.

“If children are going hungry and poverty is increasing then it is time to consider that there might be something structurally wrong. There it is – it’s the way we create money.  It is created every time a bank makes a loan and they create the principle but not the interest. There isn’t enough money in the system for everyone to pay off their debts at the same time.”

“Each round someone loses. The ones that miss out have to go to the bank for another loan. There are always winners and losers. We won’t close the gap until we change the money system.”

“The system is dog eat dog and the poor end up net borrowers while the rich are net lenders,” he said.

For further comment phone Laurence Boomert 027 258 8807

 

Money system transfers wealth from poor to rich

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Here is a letter Laurence sent to the Dominion Post on 18 Nov, 2011

Dear Sir,

Congratulations on your initiative to research the gap between rich and poor in New Zealand. The fact that the richest 5% own more than double the bottom 50% comes as no surprise because we have a money system which systematically transfers wealth from the poor (who are net borrowers) to the rich (who are net lenders).

When credit is created by banks as interest-bearing debt one of the many horrible consequences is that the gap widens. The principle is created but the interest isn’t. So there is never enough money in the system at one time for everyone to pay off their debts, and the losers must borrow again. It’s like a game of musical chairs ­– with each new round there is a loser. And overall debt continually increases.

Equality will never arrive in the Age of Usury. Our party advocates benign multiple currencies, a means of exchange created interest-free as a public utility.

Laurence Boomert
Candidate for Wellington Central
New Economics Party
https://neweconomics.net.nz

Europeans should consult permaculturists not bankers

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Every educated and concerned individual on the planet appears to be puzzling over the web of debt problem in Europe.  Many instinctively know that because of our interconectedness the austerity package in Greece and the riots in Rome will be coming to a city near them soon unless this dilemma is solved. The grotesque web of debt graphic published on the BBC News website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15748696 is authoritative and clear. It shows that Greece owes to France, US, UK, Germany, Portugal and Italy and does this for each country.

We first need to understand that bailout packages aren’t bailouts really  – they are just further loans. But anyone will know you can’t solve debt with more debt.  Sooner or later the crisis is going to come back and each round it gets worse. And it is rather like the poor having to borrow from loan sharks to pay their interest on their complicated hire-purchase obligations – the further they get into debt the more interest they pay.

How come so many owe so much to so many? Companies, governments and individuals have been borrowing across borders for years. Why couldn’t they rely on their own country instead?  Are there no boundaries between countries any more? Is capital to roam free across the globe in search of the best returns? Oh yes, in the current system it is. Borders mean little these days when it comes to capital flow.

So what to do? Put bankers and economists in to run Italy and Greece?

Einstein said you won’t solve the problem with the same thinking that created it. I have just read an article by a permaculture teacher on energy flows between living organisms. Instead of inviting bankers to their conference to solve the Eurozone debt dilemma, European leaders should have invited permaculturists. They would have learnt that all living systems have semi-permeable borders to control the material and energy flowing in and out. If too much energy (money) flows in the system expands and implodes. If too much energy flows out the system winds down and collapses. This is the principle of reciprocity.

There are other principles but the only one I will touch on here is the idea of holarchies. This, in contrast to hierarchies, means that in Nature there are wholes within wholes within wholes. Each whole-part has its integrity and each is constantly in negotiation with other whole-parts in a dynamic dance to maintain system balance. You can read more about holarchies at http://www.jaredbhobbs.com/holarchy-the-nested-hierarchy-of-holons/  and about the principles of living systems  at http://www.lindaboothsweeney.net/thinking/principles

We will put aside the issue of the gigantic derivatives market for the moment.  Suffice to say Merkel and Sarkosy in their proposal for a financial transaction tax are on the right path.

Now if we apply the holarchical organisational structure to currencies, we need currencies for small areas, currencies for larger areas and currencies for the whole globe. In an ideal system (and private corporations are still I am afraid still in charge of the issuing and controlling a country’s money supply), to ensure there is always the right amount of money the public body issuing each currency will be in a constant state of negotiation with the others. It brings complexity and resilience to a system.

So all this talk of “leaving the Euro” or “joining the Euro” might have to be replaced by other thinking. If we were to imitate Nature we would have a holarchical system. We would have currencies within currencies within currencies. So the Euro would co-exist with the drachma and the mark and the franc. Now, that will take some thinking out, but it is Nature’s model and we are part of Nature aren’t we?

There are many other critical questions like the ridiculous and unfair system where the global currency is effectively still the US dollar and the as yet unquestioned usurious money creation system that allowed all this compounding interest to take place. But let’s leave that for another time.  Just get in the permaculturists!

PM should stop protecting Banks

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PM has to stop protecting Banks, says candidate

 Friday, 18 November 11

 

John Key should stop protecting Banks, according to the New Economics Party candidate, Laurence Boomert.

“More important than the teaparty scandal is the austerity measures that National will be implementing as our debt crisis lands next year. ACT of course, even if they don’t get into Parliament, will be prodding them for more heartless cuts to government spending.”

“Our country is going down the same path as Greece. There has been more borrowing under National than ever before and if nothing changes we will, like Greece, be reduced to being slaves of the banks.”

“Banks have benefited from a usury-based money system which can only increase debt exponentially. Banks create credit and then charge interest on the debt so the debt has to increase. And of course recently since the carry trade it has all escalated to grotesque proportions.

“Globally we are in a right pickle now. We have to realise the ‘Age of Usury’ is coming to an end. Attempts to rescue indebted country with more debt will only delay the day of reckoning”.

“The banks got us into all this mess and our Governments have been silent allies. When the people finally wake up to it all and start disbelieving experts like Don Brash and the IMF, we will finally get an economic system that doesn’t collapse. ”

 

For further comment phone Laurence Boomert 027 258 8807

https://neweconomics.net.nz

 

 

Change the Money System to combat climate change

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Tuesday, 15 November 11

The New Economics Party candidate for Wellington Central, Laurence Boomert, said that along with other policies, redesigning the money system would be a powerful way of combating climate change.

Reacting to a recent International Energy Agency report which said ‘on planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change’, he said that all international climate change conferences had broken up because governments were scared economic growth would falter.

“So we need an economic system which doesn’t require incessant growth on a finite planet. It is time we asked the right question. The force that requires us to gobble up more and more of the planet and turn it into goods is a structurally unsound money system and it needs to change”, he said.

“We design our money as interest bearing debt money. This type of money requires economic growth or the whole house of cards will collapse, as it is doing in Europe right now”, he said.

The IEA report said emissions globally jumped 5.3% in 2010 he said and on current path we are all committing mass suicide.

He said the New Economics Party would introduce a carbon tax on coal, oil and gas at source and not wait till it is burnt into the atmosphere. “The potential buyers of Solid Energy would have to be frightened if our party was in power.”

 “We would limit expansion of airports, impose an aviation fuel tax, and reduce our oil country’s imports by 4-6% a year. Motorway building would cease overnight and we would only focus on improving our current roads and the coal would remain in the hole.”

 

For further comment phone Laurence Boomert 027 258 8807