finance

Derivatives: Weapons of mass destruction

For Adam Smith, “Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.” Banks and financial traders have other ideas. They are now running a parallel economy in which money makes money out of money. The volume of this trade is ten times the volume of trade in goods and services, and traders extract money that other mortals can’t possibly aspire to. No wonder it causes havoc.

The Parallel Punt

Feasta has been exploring the potential for parallel currencies for some time, largely through the Liquidity Network project which is aimed at boosting local economies at a time when euros are scarce. Now a related idea is gaining traction at a national level in the form of a Parallel Punt. This surprisingly conservative option was discussed at Feasta's Autumn Conference held in Dublin on 22nd/ 23rd September. In this preview Graham Barnes set the scene for what could be a gamechanging development.

Finance for future communities: equity partnerships and investment unions

This week we are featuring two articles from Fleeing Vesuvius which explore ethical, equitable approaches to finance. Tim Helweg-Larsen describes his recent attempt to establish an equity partnership in North Wales and Oscar Kjellberg draws on the example of Mondragon in order to examine the role which community bankers could perform as intermediaries between local stakeholders in the future.

Blaming the bankers? Understanding mass perceptions and mass emotions

This article is not primarily about economics. It is meant to be more philosophical, but philosophical in a sense that has political and economic implications for action. As the markets plunge and economic turmoil engulfs the global economy I've noticed that amid the many interpretations, there are quite different attitudes to what is going on in regard to the propensity to explain or to blame. I have described these two attitudes perhaps in an exaggerated form to bring out their differences.