NoNonsense The Money Crisis. Peter Stalker

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       About the author

      Peter Stalker is a writer and editor based in Oxford in the United Kingdom. His most recent books are the No-Nonsense Guide to International Migration (New Internationalist, 2008), the Oxford Guide to Countries of the World (Oxford University Press, 2007) and the First Parliament of Asia: A history of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok, ESCAP 2007).

      He is a former co-editor of New Internationalist magazine and the editor of the initial series of Human Development Reports produced in the 1990s in New York by the United Nations Development Programme. He has a special interest in international migration on which he has worked as a consultant to the International Labour Organization, written three books, and maintains the online Stalker’s Guide to International Migration. This and other sites are available from his website pstalker.com.

      Although his early experience in development issues was in Latin America, most of his work in developing countries in recent years has been in Asia. In Bangkok, for example, he has worked with the United Nations in assessing the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals across Asia and the Pacific, and in Jakarta he has written a series of national human development reports for Indonesia. He has also worked on numerous reports on economic and social development for other international organizations.

       About the New Internationalist

      New Internationalist is an award-winning, independent media co-operative. Our aim is to inform, inspire and empower people to build a fairer, more sustainable planet.

      We publish a global justice magazine and a range of books, both distributed worldwide. We have a vibrant online presence and run ethical online shops for our customers and other organizations.

      – Independent media: we’re free to tell it like it is – our only obligation is to our readers and the subjects we cover.

      – Fresh perspectives: our in-depth reporting and analysis provide keen insights, alternative perspectives and positive solutions for today’s critical global justice issues.

      – Global grassroots voices: we actively seek out and work with grassroots writers, bloggers and activists across the globe, enabling unreported (and under-reported) stories to be heard.

      NONONSENSE

       The Money Crisis:

      How bankers grabbed our money – and how we can get it back

      Published in 2015 by

      New Internationalist Publications Ltd

      The Old Music Hall

      106-108 Cowley Road

      Oxford OX4 1JE, UK

       newint.org

      Adapted from No-Nonsense Guide to Global Finance (2009).

      © Peter Stalker

      The right of Peter Stalker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the Publisher.

      Cover design: Andrew Smith, asmithcompany.co.uk

      Series editor: Chris Brazier

      Series design by Juha Sorsa

      Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow who hold environmantal accreditation ISO 14001.

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

      A catalogue for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

      (ISBN ebook 978-1-78026-242-0)

       Contents

Foreword by Walden Bello

Introduction

       1 What is money?

       The creation of cash

       A brief history of money

       From barter and tally sticks to the introduction of coins

       Pounds to pesos to dollars

       Peculiar kinds of currency

       2 The creation of banks

       The making of modern banking

       The first banknotes

       Central banks, interest rates and inflation

       Assets, solvency and liquidity

       Who polices the banks?

       3 Banks of all shapes and sizes

       Local mutuals and global behemoths

       Why investment banks are different beasts

       Offshore operations and tax havens

       The special qualities of Islamic finance

       Lending to the poor – microfinance

       4 Stocks, bonds and dodgy deals

       How stock markets work

       Government bonds and national debt

       From derivatives to credit default swaps

       Hedge funds and private-equity firms

       What exactly are sovereign wealth funds?

       5 Dollars without borders

       The value of currencies

       Enter the speculators

       How to manage a currency crisis

       Monetary unions and dollarization

       Foreign-exchange reserves shift to Asia

       6 The 2008 crash: debt-driven disaster

       Financial bubbles and crazy loans

       The credit crunch and how it arose

       Meltdown and the world’s response

       How quantitative easing works

       Public debt and the eurozone crisis

       7 How to get our money back

       Taking back control of money creation

       How 100-per-cent reserve banking would work

       The idea of sovereign money

       Why we should tax transactions