Serious[1] efforts are currently underway in England to keep our savings separate from so-called 'investment banks'. The two main Swiss banks are also flirting with the idea.[2] Finally, one thing we all seem to agree on: banks need (better) boundaries!
However, the apparent change of conscience does not prevent continued con-science:
- It leaves untouched the mechanism by which money is created.
- Keeping savings separate still doesn't change the fact that your savings become the bank's property, and that it is required to keep a fraction of it safe. Thus, even the simplest savings account is an 'investment'! The debate on separation ignores this.
From our petition: "The first step is to separate commercial and investment banks."
A year after first publication of this text, the sobering outcome of those efforts: pitiful!
See Positive Money, Reforming the structure of the EU banking sector
Last updated November 2013.
- Visit our blog page to see how "serious" those efforts really were.
- It wasn't much of a flirt, more lip service. While politics (left and right) are pushing for separation, the banks seem understandably tired of all the new regulation. Let's help them: fixing money creation would render so much regulation obsolete!
Money creation should be topic number one. Reimann (right-wing People's Party) and Müller (Green) approached the Federal Council with this in 2012. Response: defensive and erroneous, but it's a start. See MoMo's comments in German.
