John's Home Page

About Me

I am a research scientist with an interest in sustainable development. Over the last few years I have come to recognise that a major impediment to stabilising and reversing the world's environmental problems, and to correcting its deteriorating physical and social infrastructures, is its unsustainable financial system. The problem in a nutshell is that we have a debt-driven economy which can only avoid crashing in the short term by maintaining a rate of growth which necessarily wrecks any prospects for sustainable development or a sustainable environment.

The prevailing economic system operates with growth and consumption imperatives which are ultimately self-defeating.

My three principal objections to the current debt-money system are
(a) that there is a monetary (and therefore economic) growth imperative - money generally grows faster than the real economy and faster than one would experience in an alternative system where new money is issued debt free and interest free;
(b) that in consequence there is an upwards socio-economic redistribution of wealth and income; and
(c) that the operation of the current economic system is then marred by the necessity to endure periodic recessions, along with the concomitant social disruption.

Modern society labours under a collection of mistaken beliefs, and its healthy development has been hindered by the gullibility of those who take seriously the pronouncements of neoclassical economists. Most economic commentary appearing in the media is unmitigated blather.

Three of the fallacies commonly accepted as gospel are:

that interest fights inflation (over the longer term it is actually a major cause of inflation),

that banks onlend their depositors' funds (banks do not need to on-lend deposits because they have the power to create new deposits, that is, new credit money - a very profitable activity fir them),

that debt doesn't really matter since inflation will take care of it in the longer term (whereas official statistics reveal that the secular trend is for debt to grow faster than does inflation).

For these and other reasons I undertook (with like-minded colleagues) to set up an organisation called Economic Reform Australia (ERA).

John

Some Relevant Links
Chariot	My ISP's Homepage
ERA	Economic Reform Australia
COMER	The Committee on Monetary & Economic Reform

You can contact me by email at hermann@picknowl.com.au

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