Frontier Tech Radio

At the close of the Bank of England's consultation on the Digital Pound Barry interviews Danny Kruger MP, of the UK Parliament's Treasury Select Committee, who oversee the project, discussed the deep implications of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) on financial stability and liberty.

While Danny expressed concerns about the potential negative effects, he acknowledged that he and his colleagues on the Treasury Select Committee were not experts on the topic and that there was a general perception that CBDCs were a natural evolution of the digital revolution.

Barry and Danny discussed the need for serious consideration at the legislative level regarding the introduction of a digital pound, as it could have implications for financial and economic stability. They also expressed concern about the lack of public engagement from the Bank of England's consultation and emphasized the importance of government and parliament's role in making decisions about the use of a digital pound.

Danny and Barry discussed the potential risks and dangers of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). They also discussed the need for greater attention and a new institution to ensure transparency and accountability in the use of CBDCs - the potential benefits of a digital money commissioner, with Danny saying "Yes, I do. I think that is a good suggestion, a digital commissioner of some sort"

Danny congratulated Barry on raising the debate and they talked about working together to continue raising the debate towards creating the needed structures and safeguards for the future.

Quotes include:

"China is going full ahead. That in itself should cause us to pause and think about what we're doing."

Q. James: "This seems to me something akin to rewriting part of a constitution, in the sense that it will live with us for generations to come. Do you feel that the Treasury Select Committee is… replete [with all it needs]? Kruger: No, not to approach the topic in that sense. No, definitely not. Nor should it be. I mean, if it's a constitutional question, that's not for the Treasury Select Committee. They're particularly focused on the Treasury's remit, which is to grow the economy, and to maintain stability and so on."

"We need to remain at the cutting edge of financial technology and market developments [but…] "The UK should not adopt a digital currency simply because other nations are doing so." "The case for a retail CBDC, in answer to your question, I don't think has yet been made. It does have the sense of a solution looking for a problem."

"There's a financial stability question. And then the other [that's] more obvious and pertinent is liberty. What does it mean for you and me if we are being encouraged, or at what points does it become required, to hold our wealth in this new form? And what powers does government have to oversee these transactions? "Obviously they [governments] make a strong case that they wouldn't assume that power. But once the technology exists you can see the way that a crisis comes along, as it did for the Canadian government when they were besieged in Ottawa by a lot of angry anti-COVID truckers, they reach for the levers that are available to them." These technical, technological, innovations are not neutral… By creating the thing, you put the country on a path to making use of it… But fundamentally it'll be for Parliament, not even government, [to decide] because Parliament would have to pass legislation for this… and I worry that we don't have the political culture and that we're not asking the right questions at the moment to ensure that that's what happens. "You also need distribution and individual liberty. And it might be that, as you suggest, some sort of statutory commissioner who has some meaningful sort of agency in the world of information and financial information could be the necessary stabilising influence [providing] the sense of security that the system needs so we can have a more genuinely distributed arrangement whereby people might well be holding their wealth in these innovative different forms"

They said to us the introduction of a digital pound will not, in itself, increase the reduction in the use of cash when, of course, it will. It's unthinkable that it wouldn't. This will further squeeze cash out of the system. "It's unthinkable that it wouldn't. This will further squeeze cash out of the system." -

Summary

• Jasmine and Barry discussed the Bank of England's consultation on creating a digital pound. Jasmine expressed her concerns about central bank digital currencies, stating that they allow for too much control and monitoring by the government.
• Barry and Jasmine discussed the differences between cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies, with Jasmine expressing concerns about the centralized nature of CBDCs and the potential for government control over people's finances. They also talked about the impact of taxation on small businesses and the extractive nature of the economy.
• Jasmine and Barry discussed the potential risks and benefits of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and how they have been implemented in different countries. They also talked about the possibility of abuse of power and loss of control for individuals once CBDCs become the only form of currency.
• Barry and Jasmine discussed the lack of media coverage on the restriction of access to cash in Nigeria and the potential dangers of CBDCs in terms of data privacy and inequality. They also expressed concern about the mainstream media's reluctance to report on alternative views and the need for more protests to protect individual freedoms.
• Barry and Jasmine discussed the potential implementation of CBDCs and the impact it could have on society. Jasmine suggested using cash, investing in gold and cryptocurrencies, and not keeping too much money in bank accounts.
• Barry and Jasmine discussed various alternative options to traditional banking and currency, including Tally Money, a gold-backed bank account and payment card. They also talked about potential collaborations in the future.

Join us at the event: The Great Digital Pound Debate: Do We Need It, Is it Safe or Is It Great?Thu, Jun 1, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM BST

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7066732162867154946/

Barry talks to David Palmer, Blockchain Lead at Vodaphone and Jamiel Sheikh, Founder & CEO of Chainhaus - a leading advisory, education, events and app studio about the rapid rise of DeFi and the advent of 'Central Bank Digital Currencies' in the week that the Bank of England announced its digital Pound project - closely following the digital Euro. Jamiel Sheikh reveals the activities of central banks around the world and talks about the coming digital battles he sees to establish DeFi - decentralised finance.

In this fascinating conversation with David Palmer, a visionary, who is also the blockchain lead for Vodafone, we range widely across digital transformation, including the fact that we're all increasingly cyborgs living in a digital, as well as physical environment.

The potential to increase human joy and human creativity through digital transformation, based on blockchain and DeFi, and the future at not just government level, but at every level, including the future of democracy, and of finance.

So, today we interview. Finexos, the winners of the fair finance hackathon about their solution to the mountain of stress and distress already at a peak before the pandemic and the mental health crisis it is driving. And what can be done.

President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Dr Adrian James has predicted: "there is going to be a big surge – we refer to it as a tsunami – of mental illness as a result of the pandemic".

Meanwhile according to the FCA 26 million people in the UK showing signs of difficulty in terms of their finances - via an an analysis of bank accounts.

"So this is a massive problem. There's £450 billion of unsecured debt out there, where individuals in the UK are reliant on high interest revolving credit, just to meet day to day finances. So our challenge is to disrupt that circle of high interest, low disposable income - and so stress on the individual mental health." Says Steven Bone, chair of Finexos.

As he points out this situation fundamentally bad for society - as UK poverty and the poverty trap is growing driving poverty, financial stress and anxiety.

Pre pandemic over 20% of the UK population was in Poverty with 14.9 million consumers now behind on their bills and 5.7 million people in receipt of Universal Credit - many using food banks due to the cost of repaying debt. So our 'safety net' has been so shredded that many have no choice other than the high cost lenders.

We talk about the five years of development to create an innovative fintech platform that can help people not just by ensuring their finances become more controllable and intuitive, but that they have support and better alternatives too. And the new solutions coming in the first half of 2021 - not a moment too soon!

Watch the video interview at https://youtu.be/XTHrpDoGUko

See HumaneEconomics.co for more and to join the linear-conference and network.

What has gone wrong with capitalism?

It seems it has taken a wrong turn. But how? Staring at the scenes of the redundant workers leaving Lehman Brothers in 2008 – followed by all the subsequent carnage - started, for me, a decade of thinking and research and that's yet to complete -seeking Humane Economics.

Like millions of other people I knew then, in my gut, that something had gone wrong. That we're working harder and longer – yet increasingly ordinary people have trouble making ends meet, and many more live in fear that their jobs could disappear at any moment. The anger over the bank bailouts was palpable. And it's not going away.

My guest today is Les Leopold, his book Runaway Inequality was, for me, something of a revelation not only putting flesh onto the bones I have been discovering but giving scale to the enormity of the situation we find ourselves in post COVID.

Because he not only documents, from public sources, how this inequality has been growing since the 1980s, but how that it continues to accelerate to this day – and why. He also lays bare the mechanisms that explain why the assumption that market forces will reassert balance has proved to be wrong.

The mechanisms behind the accelerating inequalities that means that in that time the average CEO has moved from being able to own the equivalent of 45 homes, and his workers 1, to being able to own the equivalent of 829 – while his workers increasingly have little or no chance of own one.

That last statistic – the 'Generation Rent' one – is the most crucial one of course! Condemning a generation to a lifetime of housing and financial insecurity, given that, due to this process of financialisaton, rents continue to level-up consuming all available income, making saving near impossible.

The book explains not only why capitalism is out of balance but also will continue to accelerate inequality. Until we do something about it!

You can find his book at https://runawayinequality.org/buy-the-book/

Watch the video interview at https://youtu.be/HyVUqi1sFwA

See HumaneEconomics.co for more and to join the linear-conference and network.

In this episode we will be talking to another big-thinker: Andy Wilkins, founder of Vision4Health about the future of health and health services post Covid.

Working with leaders in the field his vision is of a revitalised service that, turned on its head, wraps itself around us as people (rather than patients) rather than, as now, the other way around.

That becomes a part of our day to day environment rather than something we visit when unwell – and can detect the warning signs before that happens.

The convergence of machine learning and AI, genomics, big data analytics and the internet of things are creating a new context enabling personalised medicine - as a service.

Andy's research is looking forward 10 to 15 years and using systems thinking to create a new vision.

"There're huge opportunities to sort of hack disease [with] the net result of a population able to spend more time living well... more active and productive, and creative at work. So this will feed through to the economy. And also it has the potential to reduce the demand on a current health and care service, which is inexorably moving higher in terms of costs than the economy can afford.

Because at the moment, we're not very effective at looking after people. This really turns everything upside down... a really exciting vision for the future."

We also touch on what might happen if we do not grab the myriad opportunities – such as the disintermediation of public healthcare by silicon valley tech companies.

We touch on 'Valuism' (a subject for a later interview with its founder, Paul Barnett) in a world where money dominates the Neo-liberal era, where maximising shareholder value has become "not only a culture but a fiduciary duty" and the economy and society is measured primarily by GDP – the economy comes first and everything comes second. Thus financialising almost every aspect of life.

But that way of thinking creates externalities, whether it's polluting the environment damaging the ozone layer or global warming - things which historically been 'off balance sheet' - not accounted for in our economics... We are now seeing these 'externalities' coming back to haunt us because we live in a finite world with finite resources, which we can't exploit forever....

Watch the video interview at https://youtu.be/y1V1LgvGiRk

See HumaneEconomics.co for more and to join the linear-conference and network.

Professor Ronald MacDonald is a Research Professor in Macroeconomics and International Finance in the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow. His previous positions at the University were Bonar Macfie Chair of Economics (2005-2006), and the Adam Smith Chair of Political Economy (2006-2015). He has consistently ranked in the top 1% of the IDEAS/RePec ranking of economists, and was awarded an OBE in 2015 for services to Economic Policy.

We discuss his report: 'The Post Pandemic New Normal' and it's follow-up calling for a rethink about the UK economy post-covid and discuss his insights and prescription for the #CovidSpring that show some marked similarities to some of the conclusions of humane economics.

Including the need to "move away from the shareholder capitalism model" based on "short-termism and value extraction" to a "stakeholder model based on value creation" and discover that while there are string signs that some business leaders are moving in this direction that this is not being reflected in university teaching.

Other key points include:

• We need to reboot the banking sector so it helps industry and business create jobs
• Recalibrating the economy so it's fairer for ordinary workers.
• GDP - why it's bad for us and what are the alternatives?
• The need for "a new form of social contract " as we move out of the pandemic.
• The government should "instigate a wellbeing fiscal stimulus… that has a major focus on greening the economy". That also means "no return to austerity policies"
• Let's... spare the economy from mass unemployment and guide it on a path to a New Normal
• What might the #NewNormal look like?
• What are the alternatives / what happens if we carry on as we are?

Prof. McDonald explains the asset management has made the economy very much focused on value extraction and rent seeking rather than value creation and that this has been hugely detrimental to the UK economy, having led to short-termism in investment and failure in the UK economy including in the banking sector and finance. Where policymakers have previously thought that the shift to finance, as the basis of the economy was a good thing. It's now clearly evident that this is a dead end and we're seeing a movement away from shareholder capitalism and towards stakeholder capitalism – but without this being reflected in university teaching.

Meanwhile the pandemic is opening minds and allowing people to reprioritize and think about what kind of society we want.

More on Prof. MacDonald's work is here: https://policyscotland.gla.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PSPostPandemicNewNormalRonaldMacDonald.pdf & https://policyscotland.gla.ac.uk/this-time-it-has-to-be-different/ and a useful summary here: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18531122.revolutionary-new-vision-post-covid-scottish-economy/

Watch the video interview at https://youtu.be/QgHqZJLzqqE

See HumaneEconomics.co for more and to join the linear-conference and network.

Before we get fully into gear to explore the #CovidSpring and so the future let's take a glance at the past and the present Covid Winter with a look at the effects of predatory capitalism unleashed via the ongoing story of the Mortgage Prisoners.

This is an extraordinary story of the toxic economics we have in action involving the FCA, the British government selling British citizens into a form of modern slavery, trapped with their abusers, who behave without balance or restraint threatening financial ruin and visiting ill heath, mental and physical, on their 'customers' via an as yet unclosed loophole in the law.

Despite censure over years culminating in a recent report from the London School of Economics the government continues to evade its clear responsibility to the 250,000 plus mortgage holders (according to the FCA and LSE - more according to many other) - plus family members, with no sign of relief or redress in sight.

You can read more about the experience of the Mortgage Prisoners at UKMortgagePrisoners.com

Worse still the 'loophole' that allows mortgage holders to be effectively stripped of their rights for profit has, astonishingly, yet to be closed or even assurances forthcoming in the face of credible reports that the very same predators are on the prowl again with millions more British bank customers in their sights.

Watch the video at https://youtu.be/8GXN7xvN1u0

See HumaneEconomics.co for more and to join the linear-conference and network.

Welcome to the #CovidSpring series in which we look through the Covid winter, which we are now enduring, to the coming spring beyond the crisis and harness some of the world's finest minds to together think about what kind of world we want to create. What kind of world we want and need - in search of humane economics.

We'll be asking the question: Why is how did our economy become so toxic?

Why do we have a plague of crises ranging from climate change and diversity loss through runaway inequality and insecurity that has impoverished millions of people - adding millions more people year on year?

To the pandemic itself, and why we failed to take the measures we knew were necessary? Looking to what all these crises have in common - the roots. The mechanisms that have brought this about - around the world.

We'll be asking what we need to do to create a more Humane Economics. In the #CovidSpring.

Before we dive into that, right at the start, we'll look be taking a look at the reality of international predatory capitalism right now. An aspect of the current emergency that threatens to throw hundreds of thousands of Brits into the arms of the most predatory of Wall Street capitalists.

Watch the video at https://youtu.be/ZDUbQCwNf4Y

See HumaneEconomics.co for more and to join the linear-conference and network.