Banking

The effective monopoly of the pillar banks in Ireland maintains economic stranglehold which benefits favoured clients to the detriment of the Nation.

The Public Banking Forum of Ireland has released a briefing on the current state of banking in Ireland alerting the reader to the parasitic nature of the current banking system and addressing some widespread misconceptions about how banking operates. PBFI demonstrate that the proven method of ensuring credit is created and allocated for productive purposes is in the introduction of not-for-profit Community-Public Banks that do not partake in speculation or securitisation.

The current system runs contrary to the Directive Principles of Social Policy of the Irish Constitution, Article 45.2.iv :
That in what pertains to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim shall be the welfare of the people as a whole.

Chris Menon interview with Prof Steve Keen

Q. Much of the reforms that you recommend are predicated on reform of the banking sector, cutting the banking sector down to size. How realistic is that given the nexus between the political class and the banks….?

A. “We have to break that political nexus, it’s false, because the reality is, finance is a cost of doing business; it’s not a profit centre. Finance of course has to make a profit in its own right to be viable; you need a financially successful profitable banking sector. But you don’t need one that’s 30 and 40% of the profits of the economy, because at that level it’s actually syphoning off money being generated in real production, of the industrial sector, the agricultural sector and the mineral sectors. Ultimately the financial sector should be the servant of the rest of the economy not the master. But at the moment it’s the master of not just the economy but of the politicians as well. So to break the nexus, we need a complete political shift…..“

Professor Steve Keen

The absence of Community Banking for the productive economy is stifling the indigenous economy

I propose the development of a Community Bank network based on the Sparkassen model as presented by the Public Banking Forum of Ireland.