Steve Baker on Russia Today

A must-watch interview: RT’s Laura Smith talks with Steve Baker MP:

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13 replies on “Steve Baker on Russia Today”
  1. says: Paul Marks

    Yes the financial collapse is, now, inevitable.

    And my own view is “the sooner the better” – yes there will be terrible suffering (that can not, now, be avoided), but the CULTURAL damage that the credit-money bubble policies are doing means that, the longer the delay, the WORSE the collapse (and he suffering) will be.

  2. says: Captain Skin

    Great interview Steve.

    The socialists will never go for it, but they are no longer in control.

    Let the free market sort out the mistakes of central planning in the aftermath of the forthcoming crash

  3. says: Andrew Lees

    At last a politician who understands the situation. US innovation started to decline after the formation of the Fed, and has collapsed since the end of Bretton Woods. US M3 is up 24 fold since 1970 and GDP is up 3 fold. Given central bank policy, it has been far easier to “make money” than add to real GDP, hence the rocket scientists in banking rather than the real economy. Fiat money acts to tax productivity and undermine our standard of living. It is about time government were open and honest with the public about the changes that are required to get the buy in to restructurethe economy productively. http://www.amlmacro.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/living_a_lie.pdf

  4. says: Paul Hollister

    A wonderful change to hear a tory talk about the impending financial armageddon after all we will not progress until party politics are left behind. i was dissapointed not to hear you mention the great strides made by Positive Money and Ben Dyson, do you not feel unless all who demand a new start are working together that the sheer power of the internation cartel of banks will crush any start up group? Look forward to following more of your posts on this ,the only game in town.

  5. says: Peter Mcgee

    I can’t believe i’ve just heard a serving MP mentioning fiat money and fractional reserve banking.Once again Steve,well done.You’re a breath of fresh air.

  6. says: Gary

    The problem with positive money is that they will merely transfer the money printing monopoly from the bankers to the govt. That does nothing about solving inflation. It will probably make it worse. If your base assumption is the Austrian School notion of the Impossibility of Economic Calculation, then there is no way the govt can know at what rate to print money.

    Let money arise out of the market itself, where decisions will be made in millions of tiny increments on the amount and type of money that will be accepted, based on feedback information through unfettered interest rates. A vast , infinitely complex control system of incremental test and adjust.

    1. says: Captain Skin

      The market is already creating alternatives Gary. The rise of Bitcoin is just the beginning. It is definitely not perfect, but it has solved the problem of the double spend, is anonymous, and is so decentralized that goverments would have to shut down the internet to get rid of it. It is still not a commodity money yet. Shire silver however, have started embedding small pieces of precious metals in cards, and these are being traded as money at the moment. This bodes very well for competitive currencies in the future. Best of all, it is being embraced by the younger generation, well versed in use of the internet.

      It is easy to get depressed and pessimistic about the future, but the free market is ingenious, and as hard as governments and centralized power try, free markets always win out in the end.

      Once the banks and governments collapse, I beleive they will be rejected by the populace and we will eventually live in an anarcho-capitalist world.

      What those of us who understand what is coming need to do, is put forward the case for free market capitalism. We have already won the ideological war with the left, it is now a matter of educating the populace on what is in their best interests, i.e the free markets, which is why sites such as the Cobden Centre are so important.

      The internet will eventually win us the war…

      1. says: Gary

        I agree that we have much to look forward to, after we get through the Great Monetary Reckoning. No trivial matter. I have one quibble, I don’t think money has to be a commodity in that it does not have to have any intrinsic value outside of its role as money, it just has to have general acceptance as money due to the properties it possesses as money. eg portable, durable, fungible, divisible etc.

        PS : I think bitcoins is the most ingenious monetary system ever devised. It could be the invention of the century.

        1. says: Captain Skin

          I disagree Garry. If you consider that money spontaneously arose out of the market in order to cut out the hassle of the double co-incidence of wants (The problem inherent in Barter is that if you are selling chairs and I’m selling tables, we’ve both got to accept the exchange of a table or chair, even though you or I might want something different), that medium of exchange was a commodity. This commodity has an intrinsic value in and of itself. Because what in essence money is, is a way of storing the wealth you have exchanged with one, so that you can then exchange it for what you want today, tomorrow or far into the future with another.

          Gold and silver have been this money for the last 5,000 years and will continue to be so, long after this temporary blip of paper money madness is over.

          But given that money has to be a means of exchange and a store of wealth, I see us in the future using all manner of competing currencies to pay for goods or services from day to day, but that these currencies will be converted from our central store of wealth, stored with banks or other institutions, and being converted into different currencies as the need arises. This store of wealth in my opinion, will be gold and silver.

  7. says: Paul Marks

    Yes Gary.

    The idea of “crushing the banks” BUT still expanding the money supply, was tried out by General Peron.

    He forbad fractional reserve banking – but instead of having all lending being from REAL SAVINGS, General Peron had the government produce money.

    This policy did not turn out well.

    Indeed it helped turn Argentina from a nation on a par with Canada – to the dump Argentina is today.

  8. says: Mr Ed

    If you had suggested 25 years ago that a Conservative MP would be on Russian TV decrying central planning in his own country’s economy, you might well have been thought to have been a wild, impossible dreamer or a comedian.

    Similarly, if you had suggested that a French film star would go to Russia of all places where he’d have a flat 13% income tax, as opposed to punitive rates at home (no surprise 25 years ago).

    I can only hope that the next 10 years bring similar sea changes for the good in Western Europe and North America.

  9. says: Paul Marks

    I suspect that money does have to be a commodity – in order to be “durable” and so on (and also, I admit, because I trust bankers, after centuries of bankers and governments being so interconnected, no more than I trust governments).

    Britcoin – alas! I am too old to understand such things. But if it passes the test of the comming crises – well then, it will have proved to be a good thing.

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