You're watching News Made Easy, I'm Anindya Chakravarty, 2022 is almost here and at least the first months are likely to be about Omicron variant of the coronavirus. But is it going to be only like any other flu virus that hangs about in the air around this time in winters and in some other seasons as well and causes what we call viral fever or a little bit of cough and cold or is it going to be like the Delta virus where we saw the entire medical system collapse, oxygen shortage, many people dying and many cases of severe illness which lingered on for very very long. We still don't know enough about that but we do know that Omicron is spreading very quickly but whatever we have in terms of early evidence from South Africa, USA, UK and even from India suggests that it is a much milder version of COVID than we've seen both in Alpha and especially in the case of Delta. And also evidence from South Africa where it was first discovered suggests that the peak arrives very quickly and the wave itself is short-lived, it goes up and then comes down very quickly but one doesn't know how it works out in other countries. Early evidence also suggests from India suggests that it is mild data from Delhi for instance from LNJP hospital for instance suggests that more than 80% of patients have a very mild disease many are asymptomatic have no symptoms at all some have mild cough very low-grade fever feeling of malaise and almost no one till now has required ICU or has required to oxygen support right extensive oxygen support. Even in the UK we know that the cases that we are seeing hospitalization has increased but not at the same rate as it took place during Delta many of the cases of hospitalization right now is with COVID which means that they were in hospital already but they've now acquired COVID which is the Omicron variant but that does not mean that they are feeling ill right now because of Omicron. So one of the reasons Omicron spreads so quickly is that it spreads very fast in the upper respiratory tract with in the human bronchus which is essentially what the connectors between your windpipe and your lungs right and the lung tissue itself. Some studies suggest that the rate at which the Omicron virus replicates in the bronchus is almost 70 times as fast as what we saw with the alpha variant the first SARS-CoV-2 virus and the delta variant so it replicates very fast and spreads very quickly because it's it's staying right here and will come out with your breath while you're talking while you're coughing and it's spreads very quickly because of that but it is less likely to affect your lungs why because the study shows that when it enters the lung tissue Omicron is very inefficient it doesn't enter the lung tissue that easily and also it replicates a 10 times slower rate than even the original SARS-CoV-2 so we know that the delta replicated very quickly in the lungs it affected the lungs much faster but Omicron is 10 times slower when it enters the lung tissue. Another thing that we're seeing is that Omicron is slow at causing cell fusion now what does that mean that means that and we saw that in the case of severe COVID cases that cells in the lungs stuck together which allowed the virus to move from one cell to the other replicate in it and move across very quickly that is slow when it comes to Omicron and delta on the other hand was very successful in causing cell fusion which made it a much more dangerous variant as of now health warning this is all based on early evidence it's all based on whatever we're getting from various countries as of now including evidence that's coming from India so this lower impact on lungs could be the cause for the milder disease that we're seeing when it comes to Omicron but one has to also understand that a disease which is mild actually propagates much faster virus that is causes milder effects propagates much faster why because when a virus or anything a bacteria enters your body sits there and if it kills you very quickly then it also dies right so it is unable to pass itself on to the next person but if it weakens your immune system enters there replicates you don't die then it is much easier for it to move on to other ones so when mutations like these occur they replicate much faster and they tend to wipe out competitors like delta or alpha variant and this has happened across the world as viruses evolve right and Omicron seems to be going that path as well and that is something that lot of experts say is a good sign because this means that the coronavirus or covid is just going to be another one of those flu type of diseases that exist in the air but it's not going to be lethal or very dangerous now but here's the thing Omicron's super fast spread is worrying why because let's say that there's a population of 100 people right and let's say that a virus which moves slowly relatively slowly like let's say it affects 20 people but it is very lethal it kills let's say 25 percent of people it infects and so 20 people infected out of 100 five will die but let's assume that there's another one which only kills 5 percent of people it infects and it infects all hundred it will still kill five people so that's the problem that when the spread is so quick even if it is less likely to kill people given that it will infect many more people maybe the number of fatalities number of serious cases might still be more or less the same and that is what is worrying about Omicron and as a recent report in the Mint newspaper suggests that covid as this new covid virus and we don't know whether that is just Omicron or maybe Delta is coming back in Mumbai already wards are filling up in Mumbai so there is a cause for concern because hospitalization has increased sharply and in a country like India where medical systems are very weak that is definitely a cause for concern and also as we know Omicron evades the current vaccines that we have the vaccine induced immunity it reduces sharply but there is evidence that if you get a booster then you're likely to likely to regain the immunity that you developed by getting a booster you'll get that against Omicron as well and the evidence as of now suggests that those who have been vaccinated they might get breakthrough infections but it's very unlikely that they will get a severe disease or be hospitalized or die of it so that itself is an important source of protection now what can you do it's spreading it's going to be there and we have to learn to live with the coronavirus various variants of it as we live with influenza which actually kills a lot of people mind you across the world well the number one thing as of now till we all develop immunity against various kinds of variants of the coronavirus masking is absolutely important and wearing your mask properly because remember if it is moving so quickly and it's aerosolized and it can be exhaled by people into the air very easily because it's sitting and replicating in the upper respiratory tract then you need to mask very carefully you have to ensure that your nose mouth and chin is completely covered use n95 masks increasingly doctors are saying that a double mask blow out to see whether your air is leaking because if it's leaking then as chances are there that when you inhale you will also inhale particles so try and reduce as much as possible try and create a tight fit around your nose and mouth area so that you do not breathe in from the sides because that kind of defeats the purpose of masking very important to be in ventilated air the areas because studies have shown that the coronavirus actually spreads social distancing actually does not help if you're in a closed room you could be very far away but if you're in a closed room and in the direction of the draft for instance in air conditioned room then there is a chance you could get it even if you're six feet apart so ventilation and masking these are the two most important things to control this and of course the standard hygiene protocols that exist yes people might say why how long are we going to continue wearing masks well we might have to for as long as these variants continue to threaten our populations that's the show today keep watching news clay keep watching these shows like us share our videos and i'll see you again in the new year


So the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 are not longer way at all. To many people it's kind of a big deal how such will perform, especially when current gen games are loaded up within these new next gen consoles. What will the differences be like? Well today guys we check out a side by side comparison of the Xbox Series X vs the Xbox One X and while the guinea pig is nothing other than Destiny 2. How's it going guys my name's DPJ and if you enjoyed the video leave a like who helps out and if you like what you see and want to see more be sure to subscribe. So firstly many thanks to Tom Warren and The Verge for allowing me to use this footage of Destiny 2 running on the Xbox Series X. Links to Tom's Twitter and Twitch and YouTube channel as well as The Verge can be found below. So Destiny 2 isn't one on console at least to load up quick and so it's interesting to see how this performs on that next gen console being the Xbox Series X. Now the footage I was given showcases Destiny 2's load up from the dashboard on the Series X and while at first it doesn't seem that quick when you put it side by side with the Xbox One X it gets interesting. Now let it be known the Xbox One X footage I recorded via Destiny 2 is stored to my Samsung T7 3.2 1TB external SSD one of if not the best you can get for speed and loading times for the Xbox One X which I will add to a point of if I'm playing with friends who have Destiny 2 stored to the internal standard hard drive of the Xbox One X. I'm loading into places like the Tower of Strikes sometimes 10, 15 or 20 seconds quicker that's how good my external SSD is that I'm using on my One X. Now it's probably important to know also that no patches have been put out on Brunch's behalf for Destiny 2 which will enhance performance on next gen consoles as of yet. What you are seeing here on the Xbox Series X is straight up backwards compatibility gameplay performance and while looking at them side by side on the screen now the difference is truly staggering. Now like I said after watching the initial load uptime on the Xbox Series X I wasn't that impressed but when they are side by side how much quicker it is is unreal. To a point I have on the Series X he lands within the Tower, runs around a bit, checks his postmaster, goes into his inventory and then almost makes it too tight before I even get to the Tower. So yeah compared to current gen the load times are utterly crazy and well it reflects within the inventory visits and of instances too and I mean within Destiny 2 on the Xbox One X trying to switch out gear in the middle of a raid a PvP match or even a strike can sometimes feel like a lifetime. On the next gen that's taken away you are in and out in seconds which is remarkable and well it's something only seen right now on decent PCs. What else is noticeable when we see gameplay is the fact of how much smoother it feels and looks. Again this is still 30 frames per second no patches being added to improve that frames per second but even still on the Xbox One X which is the most powerful current gen console you still within many instances see those frames dropping below 30 but it's said no matter the pressure you are pointing on the stuff away within the Series X those frame drops will not happen in the slightest. Now when beyond a lot of drops and we go on next gen with Destiny 2 it's said the Xbox One X can easily handle 4k with 60 frames per second. This is going to be really interesting people I mean hearing about said performance of next gen is one thing but when you actually see and experience it it's definitely another thing. It's actually a game changer and I feel how next gen will handle Destiny 2 will make the game a ton more enjoyable but yeah guys just a quick video demonstration of the power of the Xbox Series X in comparison to the Xbox One X. The difference between loading times with Destiny 2 is truly staggering but tell me your thoughts down below but on that note guys the end of the video has arrived. If you enjoyed it leaving a like truly helps out and remember subscribe and turn notifications on if you liked what you see and want to see more. But again thanks as always for stopping by and hopefully I will see you on that next one.


Abstract bacterial vaginosis, BV, is the most common cause of vaginal discharge and is often associated with other health consequences mainly in pregnant women. It is characterized by an imbalance in the vaginal microbiota, where strict and facultative anaerobes outgrow the lactic acid and hydrogen peroxide-producing lactobacillus species. These species are capable of growing and forming a polymicrobial biofilm in the vaginal epithelium. Treatment of BV is typically done with broad-spectrum antibiotics such as metronidazole and clindamycin, but these can be associated with high recurrence rates. The polymicrobial biofilm may play an important role in treatment outcome and is considered one of the factors for treatment failure. Other possible causes for treatment failure include the presence of species resistant to antibiotics, or the chance of reinfection after treatment. Novel strategies to increase the rates of treatment have been studied, including the use of probiotics and prebiotics, acidifying agents, antiseptics, plant-based products, vag. This article was authored by Lucia G. V. Caesar, Sophia A. Pereira, and Nino Saca. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Welcome folks, this is Jacob Schup with the 4pm stock market update. Let's take a look at where we ended up today with the ESMiniya 0.54%, including about 4,818, the Russell about 1983, that's sideways right now, and Q about 16,948 Dow futures almost back up at 38,000. Let's see if we can crack that tomorrow. I think even higher highs with it, gold contract ready at 2028 down modestly right now, silver at 2305, copper still about that $3.78 area, okay, Tesla and so on. What I really want to talk about since we just have a little bit here is there is some interesting news. We were talking about the SEC getting hacked, saying that the spot ETFs for Bitcoin had been passed, and now I am seeing information in the den that had been passed, so I went to go look it up, and let me just show you what it has here. This is from sec.gov, it's going to be one second. It said that they had passed it, but when you click the link on SEC, there we go, there it is. Okay, it was 404 for a second, but that's from the sec.gov, and this is for saying they're good to go, which is pretty phenomenal. I will link that in the den, very interesting to read. That's cool. I think it's probably 404 now that I think about it because of traffic. Yeah, we're all good to go. That's pretty interesting for all of the people who are hoping to see the approval of those Bitcoin ETFs. Let me see what Bitcoin is trading at right now. Still down a little bit. Well, we're at 46,000 right now, okay? We're at 45,000, like 600 something when the show began at 3 p.m. So that's pretty fascinating, Tesla trading at 23396, still dynamics. We are down at 112.84 trying to find its footing as it comes off. It's all time high right here of 128.52. The DXY just sideways at 102.39, seems like we have a consolidation going at least since the beginning of that year. Let's hope for a crack down in it and yeah. Not a bad day. Folks, thank you so much for joining me. Tomorrow, we have Tommy O'Brien on at 9 a.m. for the morning market kickoff. We have Basil at 10 Eastern time and we have Steve Rhodes, Larry Pesavento and we will see what happens at 3 o'clock. Thank you so much.


Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Dell EMC World 2017, brought to you by Dell EMC. Welcome back to Las Vegas. We are here at Dell EMC World. I am your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, Paul Gillan. This is going to be a great segment. I'm so excited to have you both on the program. We're here welcoming Carolyn Rods. She is the founder of Circular Board, and Elizabeth Gore, who is an entrepreneur in residence here at Dell. Welcome both to the program. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So this week, you unveiled Alice. This is the first AI-based virtual advisor for women entrepreneurs. I want to get to talking about Alice, meeting Alice, but first I want to just ask you, Elizabeth, you're an entrepreneur in residence at Dell. Explain to us how that program works. Sure, so it's my great pleasure to have worked the last almost three years now with Dell and now Dell Technologies. Every couple of years, Michael Dell and his leadership team choose an individual who have a very specific focus to support ecosystems for entrepreneurs. So we use all the muscle we have across Dell Technologies to support policy for entrepreneurs in the 180 countries that we live and work. Also, one of the best ecosystems and platforms that help entrepreneurs scale. And one of them is the Circular Board, and we've been really proud to partner with them for the last two years because they use a digital platform that is very scalable and women are only getting 3% of venture capital in the US. So access to capital, mentorship, networks is really critical. And so we're really excited to partner with what you'll hear about Alice to help solve that problem. So Carolyn, Elizabeth just laid out the problem that women are just not getting a lot of VC dollars. There's not a lot of support, not a lot of encouragement. There's just a lack of community. So talk about Alice and how she fills this gap. Yeah, so we hear a lot about the problem and realize it was time to find a solution. And that's what Alice is all about. So Alice was started as really the answer to what I wish I would have had when I started my first company years ago and what we saw over and over again with women everywhere. And that was integration into the existing startup ecosystem and connectivity to resources like events, experts, content and tools to help their companies grow. And that's exactly what Alice does is connect them based on their unique company profile and their real-time needs. I do go to HelloAlice.com and you can start using it right away. So what does it do? I mean, how does it work? Yeah, so a founder enters in their profile based on their industry, stage of growth and their location, Alice curates needs based on what they're looking for today. So if they're looking for a technology solution to a problem that they're having, it will connect her to the right resources for her company to grow. If she needs an attorney to help her, who is the right attorney based on where she is and the industry that she's in? So for every person, the answers are different. And as Alice populates, she gets smarter and smarter about a founder's needs and starts to use predictive learning to make smarter responses for her. How do you ensure that Alice will be used only by women? I mean, can't anybody access this resource? Yeah, she's open to everybody. She was really coated with gender in mind. And so from the start, we looked at what were the unique needs of women? How did they learn and absorb information best? And that was where we started to create the platform. But certainly she's open to everybody, the more the merrier. So give us some use cases.  But talk about how you see an entrepreneur in say a small town somewhere in America using Alice and finding success. Well, when you look at what's happening today, it's a very fragmented ecosystem. And so there are great events, there are wonderful accelerators and programs around the world happening. But if you're in a place that doesn't have these resources, you're certainly removed from the ecosystem. And even if you are in a city that has great resources, lots of times when you're starting a company, you aren't familiar with what exists. And so it's learning, it's a huge learning curve to just start to navigate that space. And that's where Alice comes in, is how to help founders navigate the ecosystem and also connect with expertise that may not be in their own location. So if you're in, you know, New York and working on a technology platform, there are great resources available in Silicon Valley that you're missing out on. And our goal is to bridge that gap. You mentioned Carolyn, that Alice is something you wish you had when you were starting your business. As entrepreneurs, can you talk about some of the biggest challenges that you've faced? Sure, you know, one of the things that when you're launching a company is there are, as Carolyn said, a lot of resources out there, but your time for is an entrepreneur. Your heads are down, you're just trying to get profitable, make sure your product is correct. So what is really critical is that this is curated exactly for that moment in the life cycle of a business. So am I just getting started? Am I raising my Series A? Or am I pre-IPO entrepreneur? I want the resources in that moment that are right for me. And what has not worked, Dell has really focused on a lot of platforms, but you can't just take an existing platform and turn it pink for women. That just doesn't work. So we actually were really proud that Pivotal, one of our family of companies within Dell, did thousands of hours of user testing with the circular board team and actually looked at how do women access information? How do they access capital? Why aren't so many of them integrating into existing systems? So all the way down to the code, they've been really thinking about how to integrate women into these existing systems. So they will raise that capital, get the mentorship, tap into supply diversity programs, and that's why we think helloallice.com is going to be a huge change agent. I think we can agree the venture capital world, particularly in Silicon Valley, is very male dominated. There's an old boys network there. Have you sense that there is a willingness to change, that that attitude is changing at last? Yeah, I think so. I mean, there's certainly some unconscious bias, but women are starting companies now twice as fast as their male counterparts. So anyone who's really into. Where did that number come from? So the Chamber of Commerce announced that last year. Now unfortunately their fail rates are still unusually high and only 2% are making over a million dollars. However, for an enterprise company like Dell or for a venture capital firm, I want to see those companies that are coming out rapidly and have the best products. So yes, they're starting to really understand and look at how do we interact with women and their companies. However, what Alice will do is provide a great pipeline for the best companies to those venture firms. And you've already thought about that a lot. Yeah, we've also seen, you know, there's a huge desire from all of these resources to get more women involved in their programs. I mean, there's a huge desire from the women to get more involved. And what we're trying to do is filter down to who are the right women for the right programs at the right time and make those connections. So tell me more, when you look ahead and at what Alice could possibly do for a generation and future generations of female entrepreneurs, what's your greatest hope? What's your greatest wish? Rewriting the statistics around women entrepreneurs, ultimately, in boosting economies, creating jobs and solving the big problems of the world. What's exciting is, you know, you think about the process right now where you turn to experts for advice and imagine being able to scale that expertise not only to the people who know that person or where those personal relationships exist, but being able to provide access to every entrepreneur, whether they reside in a rural community in Africa or in the middle of Silicon Valley. Where does the data come from? What are you plugging in on the back end, plugging into on the back end? We relied heavily on partnerships and experts to find the best of the best. We're not, it isn't a numbers game in terms of quantity of content, but really looking for the very best answers to specific problems that founders have. So we've partnered with organizations like the Kauffman Foundation and Case Foundation and Small Business Administration and Department of Commerce and companies like Dell who have been really supportive in terms of getting us really quality content to help solve these problems. Dell, as you started talking about how Michael Dell, this is a big believer in this and obviously he's an entrepreneur himself, but can you tell us a little bit more about what Dell has, what skin Dell has in this game? Sure, absolutely. So we both, we look at this as a business case for us, a business imperative, as well as a social and economic comparative. So it is important to us to be the end to end solutions provider now that we have a suite of companies that can do that from the day I buy my first laptop and try to launch my company all the way up to commercial and enterprise solutions. So if we are really going to be that, we have to be in front of these entrepreneurs. So Alice is a way for us to get in front of fast growth entrepreneurs, provide the technology, the resources, and the knowledge we have to be in front of them. So for us, that's a really important business. For the social and economic case, women put 90% of their income back into their communities and families. And so for us, Michael and I have always believed that entrepreneurs are the ones solving the major social problems out there with solutions that are even more sustainable sometimes in government, or most time, frankly. So for us, it's also a social imperative and women just happen to be the ones that are getting stuff done, both for their communities, their family, and their business. So there's the doing good element to this all about. Sure, absolutely. Yes, great. You both talked to a lot of entrepreneurs. And there's so much startup activity. Everybody's an entrepreneur these days. What are the characteristics of the successful ones? What do you look for, Elizabeth? So I'm a very founder-first person. I see a lot of great ideas, but that founder has to have the drive, the know-how, and the make-it-happen attitude. I also think that founders, it's really important that they understand technology. Every company is a technology company now. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. So first, do they have that drive? Do they have that how-to attitude? Do they surround themselves with people that are going to help their company scale because every founder has weaknesses? Do they understand the technology ecosystem? So those are part of the things that I look for. I'm sure you might have different. Yeah, those certainly, and I think the persistence, it is really hard to be heard among a very cluttered ecosystem. And where we see the greatest success of those founders that continue to plug forward and keep asking the questions and keep enlisting the help that they need to find the solutions that they're looking for.  What's your best advice for her? Build the right team. Find a co-founder and list the right investors to help provide the capital that you need.  And I would say it's really important to put purpose into profit. So really understand while you're going after that profitability, why did you start in the first place? What is the purpose that your company is going after? On those hard days, put that back into your focus. So put purpose into profit. Let's be sure to tell people how they get in touch, how they find Hello Alice, Twitter, a website and all. Visit helloalice.com to register and participate in Alice and want to welcome everybody, not just entrepreneurs but also experts and investors and advisors as well. And then online you can follow us at Alice Connects on Twitter and Facebook. Caroline, Elizabeth, thanks so much. Pleasure, thank you all. Thank you. I'm Rebecca Knight for Paul Gillan. We will have more from Dell EMC World just after this.


I got some serious questions about video games. Some honest questions. Can some of you out there help me? Hey there, njroot22.com here with another general interest vlog and this time it's about video games. I guess my main honest question is, are they worth it? Is it a complete or is it a complete waste of time for every kid or an adult that plays them extensively? Now a little background here. I grew up with video games. I played them a lot when I was younger. We had the Atari 2600. We even had, believe it or not, we had the Sears version of it. It was a Sears branded Atari 2600 because I believe it was cheaper and my family liked to save money. But, and I had, you know, I played PlayStation. I had all sorts of video games growing up and I wasted a lot of my time and money on them when I was in my youth. And in the last 10 years, I don't play games anymore. I just stopped. I think the last game I played was on the PC and it was called Crisis 2. I think I played that in 2012 and I didn't really play many games before that. Either, I think I played Stalker and I think I played Halo on the computer and or Xbox. But I never really became a crazy gamer and in the last decade or so, online gaming has become sort of the norm. Like multiplayer gaming environments has really taken off and so many people play these games. And just a little reference here. You know, a week ago, I bought, used online was a game called Crisis 3. So I'm like, let me try this again. I remember that being fun and challenging and so on. But I realized after trying this game for an hour so that games like in general, these online games, whether it's a PlayStation or Xbox or Nintendo, so many people just spend like insane amounts of time playing them. And there's a lot of, I guess, this is where the word gamification came from. You just want to get to the next level or get more kills or what have you. And kids, I can spend hundreds, if not thousands of hours a year playing video games in their basement or whatever. And I think there was one video circulating online where a mom, I think it was in Thailand somewhere, she had to bring food to her son that was sort of pretty much feed him. He was attached to the game so much he could not separate himself from this experience that he was having. And what I guess what I'm wondering is, is, you know, I hear some people justify, oh well, you can make money playing it. And that is true. The same way you can make money playing, you know, Texas Hold'em Poker in the World Series of Poker Tournament. Or the same way you can make money playing professional basketball or baseball. But I think the same applies to all these kind of media or popular entertainment kind of events is that only like the .0001 top and a percent of the top players really ever score. I think one person was playing some sort of online tournament in World of Warcraft. I have no idea what game it was, but I think the kid won three million bucks and it probably is the exception to this. And I just really wonder if the games are just, you know, addictive and they kind of keep you hopeful that you can make some money. And I know a lot of people also make money of filming themselves playing video games online, which is insane. I guess it's entertaining if you like playing the video games to watch other people play games.  You know, like all these multiplayer games, I think there was, I forget what game it was recently that it ended and everybody was, it was like this big dramatic worldwide emotional event. And it's just a game that profits the people that made it. And I just don't, I just, I wonder if people would benefit more individually if they did things, other things, that's the word. So I'm just wondering like what's the big justification for playing video games other than personal entertainment? And if someone says I just like to entertain myself and waste my time, that's an honest answer and I respect that. But is there, it just seems like that people are claiming it's something else. When you're done with these games or the next big game system comes out, you forgot about that game. It didn't really add anything to your life. What are you gonna say like at your 50 year high school reunion or whatever? Oh yeah, seven years ago, I really had a good time playing this game. And people are gonna look at you like really?  I don't know, it seems to me to be shallow and empty. So does anybody have any real reasons like why? Like why play video games? All right, see you next video. Hit the like and subscribe. It was just philosophical questions for today. See you next time.


And as Nigerian Christians faithful joined their counterparts across the globe to celebrate Christmas, which is a birth of our savior to the world, Christians have been admonished to emulate and reflect other teachings of Jesus Christ, which is the virtues of love, peace and unity with one another in the country. The senior pastor of the Church Rev. James Moore says, Christmas is for sober reflection for Christians to imbibe the good leadership style of Jesus and reflect it on humanity stressing the need to be ambassadors of peace to all, irrespective of religion and ethnicity. He asked the government to put on people's counter-oriented programs to elevate the plight of the masses. Christians all over the world is that we should serve as peace ambassadors because Jesus Christ came as the prince of peace and therefore because he came and we are his own followers, we also need to imitate him by being peacekeepers. Let us reflect the grace of God upon our lives and also let us reflect the peace that Jesus has brought unto us so that we live at peace with one another, that through us as Christians, the world will experience peace. Country is that God will help our leaders, that they would show human feelings upon the people and in terms of formating their policies, they should be considerate. They should have the masses at the back of their minds so that in form and making their own policies, their policies will go about helping the people to enjoy the dividend of democracy. And some of the worshipers express their light at seeing a great day like this and adding that unity and peace is what Nigeria needs and makes difficult challenges. Jesus came to give us life and life in abundance. Today Jesus we are celebrating the peace that Jesus came and brought to the world. So my prayer for Nigeria is for the peace that Jesus brought to the world to go all over the country. I pray for peace for the country and joy that Christ brought during His birth. Day of joy, so we have to celebrate it joyfully in Nigeria in order to live peacefully with one another is to show love that you have shared with other people that will bring people closer to God. And that will make people to know that yes, really Christ is born today. I feel happy, the expression, the joy, affection from everyone who will bring from the houses in order to bring it to the children and then share that is the sign of love. But that is what I feel that love and affection. See it in Nigeria is God. The issue of religious clashes, religious fanascism and tribalism are all some kind of belief to be stopped and let's come together and join us as one and come together and then let's bring that love inside of us. So I believe that with us bringing that love inside of us will make us more stronger and the bond between us will be more stronger than any other thing.


Introducing Chinta and the S-Litter Pups. This is Chinta. She's here for her pups, which we'll do next week. Chinta gave birth to three puppies, coloured blond, gold and black. Puppy sleep an awful lot of the time at one week of age, probably 22 hours and of the 24-hour day. Here you can see Chinta being the great mum she is in keeping them clean, nuzzling them. So these pups are just over three weeks of age, so they're out of the welt box. So their world from what was just a welt box has increased. It gives the pup more exploring space. So these little guys now are six weeks old. They're fully weaned off their mum Chinta. Stanley just then offered me a nice sit position. Their brains are like little sponges. They learn so, so quickly in this early development period. For more exclusive experiences like these, and for the chance to meet and suggest names for our pups, sign up and become a puppy pal today.


National Planning Senator Atiku Bagudu says there is need for effective collaboration between the federal government and the 36 state governors in the country, in different sectors, to ensure rapid socio-economic growth and development. The minister was speaking at the closing of the 22nd edition of the Joint Planning Board and National Council on Development planning meetings hosted by the Ocean State Government. He said, though the federal government's revenue generation has improved, inflation is still an issue to be addressed to fast-track national development. The Acting Comptroller General of Customs says all service chiefs in the country have keyed into the federal government's programme. Also speaking, the Ocean State Governor Ademola Delike said the outcome of the meeting will drive the state development agenda. The team of the 22nd National Council on Development Planning meeting is imperative for restoring Nigeria on the path of sustainable growth and development. This team was carefully crafted to restore and stabilize the macroeconomy for sustainable economic growth and development. It has been a rallying point for our discussions, and I am confident that the insights shared and the resolutions reached during these meetings will significantly impact our nation's developmental trajectory. As you all said, Oshu is proud to showcase its development initiatives and investment opportunities to the nation. I'd like to assure you all that the customs will remain steadfast in our commitments to supporting and aligning with national development agenda, and we look forward to forging partnerships and collaborations that will further our collective goals. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Mc關fer, Arf độ Caerdydd ar ddigon ni yn ddâniaid. Y r Luciwn icyfnu wahanol i'r ysgolach oddi, mae unigodwch bugslu mewn cawer yn cafeidlu irthynnu i'r gloups. A bod vierol�no'i gwiselltu, nad y ydyn yn cael ei chyfrdd sorr wedi'i rhad maidenbu mewn syniadau o d Clearstone, ergynydd persunio ni weithio i Henry Ford. He said, it's well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. Well, let's hope we don't have a revolution, Mr Speaker, because I feel sure we're all Conservatives on this side. How's it done? Well, the process is so simple. The mind is repelled. Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower's bank account thereby creating new money. Many times I've been told that this is ridiculous even by one employee who'd previously worked for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the United States. The explanation is actually taken from the Bank of England article Money Creation in the Modern Economy. It seems to me rather hard to dismiss. Today, while the state maintains a monopoly on the creation of notes and coins in central bank reserves, that monopoly has been diluted to give us a hybrid system because private banks can create claims on money and those claims are precisely equivalent to notes and coins in their economic function. It is a criminal offence to counterfeit bank notes or coins, but a banking licence is formal permission from the government to create equivalent money at interest. Now there are a wide range of perspectives on whether this is legitimate. The economist, the Spanish economist, Jesus Huerta de Soto explains in his book Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles that it is positively a fraud, a fraud which causes the business cycle. Positive money of British campaign group are campaigning for the complete nationalisation of money production. On the other hand, free banking scholars George Selgin, Kevin Dowd, others would argue that what should happen is that perhaps the state might define money in terms of commodity like gold, but then banking should be conducted under the ordinary commercial law without legal privileges of any kind. They would allow the issue of claims on money proper backed by other assets provided that the issuer bore all of the risk. Now some want the complete denationalisation of money. Cryptocurrencies are now performing the task of showing us that that is possible. This argument that banks should not be allowed to create money has a honourable history. The 1844 Bank Charter Act was enacted because banks issue of notes in excess of gold was causing economic chaos, particularly through reckless lending and imprudent speculation. Once again, I'm minded that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. Absolutely right. I think it would be a wonderful thing if the history curriculum covered the 1844 Bank Charter Act in particular. It would be a delight. I'd be full of joy, but of course we would need to cover economics too in order for people to really understand it. One of the problems with the Bank Charter Act was that it failed to recognise that bank deposits were functionally equivalent to notes, so it didn't succeed in its aims. There was a massive controversy at the time between the so-called currency school and the banking school. It appeared the currency school had won. In fact, in practice, the banks went on to create deposits drawn by check, and the ideas of the banking school went forward. But the idea that one school or the other won really ought to be rejected. The truth is we've ended up with something of a mess. We're in a debt crisis of historic proportions because for far too long profit maximising banks have been lending money into existence as debt with too few effective restraints on their conduct and all the risks of doing so forced upon the taxpayer by the power of the state. A blend of legal privilege, private interest and political necessity has created over the centuries a system which today lawfully promotes the excesses which capitalism is so frequently condemned for. It is undermining faith in the market economy on which we rely not merely for our prosperity, but for our lives. Thankfully, the institution of money is a human social institution and it can be changed. It has been changed and I believe it should be changed further. Even before QE began, we lived in an era of chronic monetary inflation unprecedented in the industrial age. Between 91 and 2009, the money supply increased fourfold. It tripled between 97 and 2010 from £700 billion to £2.2 trillion accelerating into the crisis. You just cannot increase the money supply at this rate without profound consequences. They are the consequences which are with us today. Just to return to where I wanted to go, where did all this money that was created as debt go? When I look at the sectoral lending figures, I see that some went into commercial property, some went into personal loans, credit cards and so on. Actually the rise of lending into real productive businesses excluding the financial sector was relatively moderate. Overwhelmingly, where this new debt went was into mortgages and into the financial sector. Now, exchange and the distribution of wealth are part of the same social process. If you buy an apple, then the distribution of apples and money changes. If money is used to buy houses then we would be at all surprised that if you increase the supply of money into houses you boost the price of those homes. It's a great debate. When you talk about ordinary people and their labour, because that's money as well, their labour. To them it's like looking for the end of the universe when you're talking about money and capitalism and how it works. To them it's just a matter of I need money to survive and anything else is the end of the universe. I welcome the spirit in which he's asked the question. The vast majority of us live upon our labour. It's absolutely true of all sides of the house. The vast majority of us live upon our labour. What do we do? We work in order to obtain money, in order to obtain the things we need on which to survive. He's preempted another remark I wanted to make, which is that there's a categorical difference between earning your money through the sweat of your brow and making money by just creating it when you lend it to somebody in exchange for a claim on the deeds to their house. It's fundamentally categorically different and it goes to the heart of how capitalism works. I appreciate very little of this he's going on an election leaflet, but I think it nevertheless matters very much indeed. Perhaps I'll have to ask my opponent if he's followed the debate. But the point I'm making is this. If a great fountain of new money gushes up into the financial sector, we should not be surprised that we find that the banking system is far wealthier than anybody else. We shouldn't be surprised if financings, housing, London and the south-east are far wealthier than anywhere else. Indeed, I remember when QE began, when QE began, house prices started rising in Chiswick and Islington. The point is this, Mr Speaker, that money is not neutral. It redistributes real income from later to earlier owners, that is, from the poor to the rich on the whole. Now this distribution effect is key to understanding the effect of new money on society. I think it's the primary cause of almost all conflicts revolving around the production of money, the relations between creditors and debtors. Having lived through this era where the money supply tripled through new lending, of course the whole system blows up. The real world catches up with this fiction of a monetary policy and so QE was engaged in. Now a paper from the Bank of England on the distributional effects of monetary policy explains that people would have been worse off if the bank had not engaged in it. It was of course an emergency measure. But one of the things the paper says is that asset purchases by the bank have pushed up the price of equities, at least as much as they've pushed up the price of gilts. The bank's Andy Haldane said, I paraphrase, we've deliberately inflated the biggest bond market bubble in history. I wonder what the Honourable Gentleman's view is about quantitative easing. How does he see that fit into the great scheme of finance? I think it's quantitative easing. As I'm explaining, quantitative easing is a great evil. It's a substitute for proper reform of the banking system. But this is the point. If the greatest bubble has been blown in the bond markets and gilts and equities have been pushed up by the broadly the same amount, then that is a terrible risk to the financial system. I will. Surely there's a difference in where the quantitative easing goes to. In an economy that has a demand deficit and is needing demand stimulated, surely if quantitative easing is going to the pockets of those who are going to spend the money, quantitative easing can actually create some more emotion in the economy. But if quantitative easing is going into already deep pockets and making them bigger and larger and deeper, that's a very different thing. He again touches on a very interesting issue. Once the bank legitimises the idea of money creation and giving it to people in order to get the economy going, the question then arises why not give it to other people if you're going to create it and give it away? Well, this goes to what is money? Well, I think money is the basis of a moral existence because we should be in our lives, we should in our lives be exchanging value for value. One of the problems with the current system is we're not exchanging value for value. Something's being created in vast quantities out of nothing and given away. Now the bank explains that 40% of the assets bought, the assets that have been inflated are held by 5% of households. 80% by people over 45%. It seems then very clear to me, if you'll allow me, seems to me very clear then that QE, a policy of the state to deeply intervene in money is a deliberate policy of increasing the wealth of people who are older and wealthier. Give away. In short, after prices have been up through, been bid up by a credit expansion they're bound to fall when later the real world catches up with it. It's why economies now are suffering this wrecking ball of inflation followed by deflation and here is the rub because throughout most of my life the way that the monetary policy authorities have responded to these corrections has been to pump more new money. Previously it's been through ever cheaper credit, now it's been through QE. This raises the question of where this all goes. Back to the point my Uncle friend for Stone provoked in me, I might actually be pointing towards an end of this monetary order. Now that is not necessarily something to be feared because the monetary order changed several times in the 20th century. I'll finish by saying, well what's to be done? A range of remedies are being proposed. They range from positive monies proposal to completely nationalise the production of money. Some want variations on a return to gold perhaps with free banking and some want this spontaneous emergence of alternative monies like Bitcoin. Order. The question is that this house has considered money, creation and society. Mr Michael Meacher. I too very strongly congratulate the Honourable Member for Wickham on securing this debate which I think everyone recognises is vitally important and which has not been debated in this house I believe for 170 years since the Robert Peels Bankcharta Act of 1844. I remember the Honourable Member drawing my attention to that when we were both last speaking in a similar debate. That act prohibited the private banks from printing paper money and in the light of the financial crash of 2008-9 and the colossal expansion of money supply that underpinned it no less than an increase of 22 fold in the 30 neoliberal years between 1980 and 2010. I think the issue today is whether that prohibition should be extended now to include electronic money. It is unfortunate as the Honourable Gentleman referred to that it is so little understood by the public that money is created every time by the banks that they make loans. In effect they have a virtual monopoly, something like 97% over domestic credit creation and it is the banks therefore, the banks which determine how money is allocated across the economy. That has led to the vast majority of money being channeled into property markets and into the financial sector. According to Bank of England figures for the decade to 2007, 31% of additional money created by bank lending went towards mortgage lending, 20% towards commercial property and 32% to the financial sector including mergers and acquisitions and trading and financial markets. Those are really extraordinary figures. On the basis of what he has just said, does he not think there is an argument for the Bank of England to intervene in that particular situation where you've got unlimited credit from banks? My Honourable Friend anticipates really the main line of my argument so if you could be patient I think I will satisfy him very fully. This is a crucial point. It means that only 8% went to businesses outside the financial sector with a further 8% funding, credit cards and personal loans. It is only this last six, the two 8%, lending to businesses and consumer credit that has a real impact on GDP and economic growth. Only that 16%. The conclusion I think is unavoidable. We cannot continue with a system where so little of the money created by banks is used for the purposes of economic growth and value creation and instead, I'm picking up the point that the Honourable Gentleman made a moment ago, the overwhelming majority of the money created has the effect of inflating property prices and therefore pushing up the cost of living. In a nutshell, the banks have too much power and they have greatly abused it. Firstly, they have been granted enormous privileges since they can create wealth simply by writing an accounting entry on a register and they decide who uses that wealth and for what purpose and they have used their power of credit creation to hugely favour property and consumption lending over business investment because the returns are higher and more secure and thus the banks maximise their own interests but not the national interest. Secondly, if they fail to meet their liabilities, they are not penalised. Someone else pays up for them. The first £85,000 of deposits are covered by a guarantee underwritten by the state and in the event of a major financial crash they are bailed out by the implicit taxpayer guarantee. Just let me finish and I'll of course give way. They've been encouraged by this into much more risky even reckless investment, especially in the case of exotic financial derivatives. It's beginning to queue up but just let me finish. Even to the point where after the financial crash of 2008-9 the state was obliged to undertake direct bail-out costs of nearly £70 billion to provide a further near £1 trillion in support for loan guarantees, liquidity schemes and asset protection arrangements. Of course I give way. I wholly agree with what he's just said. The moral hazard problem here is absolutely enormous and one of the most fundamental problems. I just would share with him that the British Bankers Association picked me up when I said it was a state-funded deposit insurance scheme. They told me it was industry funded. I think the issue now is that nobody really believes at the moment that this scheme will not be backstopped by the taxpayer. As always, very grateful for the intervention. I was going to say with my honourable friend that on this I think he probably is. Given that I think it raises the question at the heart of this debate, who should create the money? I just asked this question. Would Parliament ever have voted to delegate power to create money to those same banks that cause the horrendous financial crisis on which the world is still suffering? I think the answer to that is unambiguously no. So the question then that needs to be put is how should we achieve the switch from unbridled consumerism to a framework of productive investment capable of generating a successful and sustainable manufacturing and industrial base which can securely underpin UK living standards. Now the two models which have been hitherto used to operate such a system. One was the centralised direction of finance used and I have to say extremely successfully by several Asian countries, especially the south-east Asian so-called tiger economies after the Second World War to achieve take-off. But I'm not suggesting that that method is appropriate for us today. It's not suited to advanced industrial democracies. The other was to bring about through official guidance guidance in inverted commas the rationing of bank credit in accordance with national targets which were necessary through quantitative direct controls. This was a policy which did work well for a quarter of a century in the UK in the post-world period until the 1970s when it was steadily replaced by the purely market system of competition and credit control based exclusively on interest rates which has in our experience of the last 30, 40 years proved deeply unstable, dysfunctional and profoundly costly. I'll give one moment. Since then there have been sporadic attempts to create a safer banking system but these have been deeply flawed. Either regulation under the dictates of the neoliberal ideology has been ever so light touch and I have to say by new labour just as much as by the other government that it has been entirely ineffective. All the regulation is so detailed. Basel 3, I would remind the House has more than 400 pages and the US Dodds Franks Bill has a staggering 8,000 pages or more that it is impossibly bureaucratic impossibly bureaucratic and almost certainly full of loopholes. All the regulation was so cautious like the Vickers commission proposal of Chinese walls between the investment and retail arms of a bank that in my view frankly really missed the main point. Or whatever route was tried and this is actually significant it faced the regulatory arbitrage at the hands of the phalanx of lawyers and accountants in the city earning their ill-gotten bonuses by unpicking or circumventing whatever regulatory safeguards the authorities put in place. Against that background there are solid grounds I think for examining and this is where I do come to my proposal the creation of a sovereign monetary system as recommended by several expert commentators recently Martin Wolff who is everyone in this House will know is an influential chief economics commentator of the FT wrote an article a few months ago on the 24th of April to be precise entitled strip private banks of their power to create money this is a Martin Wolff recommending switching from bank-created debt to a nationalised money supply also Lord Adair Turner who was the former chair of the financial services authority delivered a speech about 18 months ago in February 2013 discussing an alternative to quantitative easing which he turned overt money finance which is also known as a form of sovereign money now such a system and here I will describe its main outline such a system would restrict the power to create all money to the state via the central bank changes to the rules governing how banks operate would still permit them to make loans but would make it impossible for them to create new money in the process the central bank would continue to follow the remit set by the Chancellor of the Exchequer which is currently to deliver price stability which is defined at the present time as inflation target of 2% the central bank would be exclusively responsible for creating as much new money as was necessary to support non-inflationary growth decisions on money creation will be taken independently of government by a newly formed monetary creation committee or by the existing monetary policy committee either of which would be accountable to the Treasury Select Committee and I think that accountability to the House is crucial to this whole process Yes, I give way to my little friend again Coming back to the original question I asked them earlier on what role would the Bank of England have in this? The Bank of England has an absolutely crucial role if he listens to the last bit of my speech he will get a full answer to that question A sovereign money system thus offers if I may say this a clear thermostat to balance the economy which is notoriously lacking at present in times when the economy is in recession or growth is slow the money creation committee will be able to increase the rate of money creation to boost aggregate demand If growth is very high and inflationary pressures are increasing they can slow down the rate of money creation Now that is a crucial improvement over the present system whereby the banks will either produce too much mortgage credit in a boom because of the high profit prospects which produces a housing bubble and raises house prices or they produce too little credit in a recession which exacerbates the lack of demand Now, as to lending to businesses which I think is essential to this whole debate Will you open the window to the good work? Yes I'm sorry, I just want to second back just a few moments because he mentioned accountability to Parliament and I think he said the select committee I just wonder whether without just really enlarging that a little bit and say when he says accountable what powers would Parliament have to ensure that this was followed through in a proper way in which the reals that's been made down? The purpose of accountability to the Treasury Select Committee is to enable Parliament fully to explore the manner in which the money creation committee or the monetary policy committee is working and I would anticipate a full three hours discussion with the leading officials of those committees before the Treasury Select Committee and if necessary they could be given a hard time Certainly, these persons who I would see as the most competent persons in this house to deal with the matter would make clear what their priorities were would make clear where they thought the money creation committee was not giving sufficient attention to the way in which it was operating and would suggest changes they wouldn't have the power formally to compel the money creation committee to change but I think the whole point about Select committees which I'll televised and discuss within the media would have a very big effect but it's a major change compared to what we have in the present time it's like all systems if it is inadequate it can be modified, changed and increasingly enforced Now if I could really get on to this question of lending to businesses which after the experience we've had in the last decade or war, last half decade has been very very unsatisfactory the central bank under a sovereign monetary system would be empowered to create money for the express purpose of that funding role the money would be lent to banks with the requirement that the funds are used for productive purposes whilst lending for speculative purposes for example to purchase pre-existing assets either financial or property would not be allowed the central bank could also create and lend funds to other intermediaries and the Honourable Gentleman for Wickham referred to this such as regional or publicly owned business banks which would ensure that a floor could be placed under the level of lending to businesses which would be a great relief to British business today guaranteeing support for the real economy and I should add that within the limits imposed and this is again I say this to avoid misunderstanding within the limits imposed by the central bank on the broad purposes for which money may be lent lending decisions would be entirely at the discretion of the lending institutions not of the government or the central bank now I conclude that I believe a sovereign monetary system offers a very considerable advantage over the present system it would create a better and safer banking system because banks would have an incentive to take lower levels of risk since there would be no option of a bailout or rescue from taxpayers and thus moral hazard would be reduced second it would increase economic stability because money creation by banks tends to be pro cyclical as I've explained whereas money creation by the central bank would be counter cyclical thirdly, sovereign money crucially supports the real economy when under the current system 83% of lending does not at the moment go into productive investment I underline that three times the fourth point and I've only got five in case members are wearying the fourth point under the current system house price bubbles transfer wealth as we all know from the young to the old and from those who can't get on the property ladder to existing house owners which increases wealth inequality whilst removing the ability of banks to create money should dampen house price rises and thus reduce the rate of wealth inequality my fifth and last point which I think is a very important one sovereign money redresses a major democratic deficit under the present system around just 80 board members across the largest five banks make decisions that shape the entire UK economy even though these individuals have no obligation or mandate to consider the needs of society all the economy as a whole and are not accountable in any way to the public it is for the maximisation of their own interests and not to those of the national interest under sovereign money the money creation committee will be highly transparent we've discussed this already and accountable to parliament so for all of these reasons I believe that the examination of the merits of a sovereign monetary system is now urgently needed and I would call on the government to set up a commission on money and credit with particular reference to the potential benefits of sovereign money which offers a way out of the continuing and worsening financial crises that have blighted this country and indeed the whole international economy for decades the third distinctive feature of banks is that which was highlighted by my honourable friend that banks create money the vast majority of money consists of bank deposits if your bank lends your company £10 million it does not need to go and borrow that money from a saver it simply creates an extra £10 million by electronically crediting your bank account or the company's bank account with £10 million it creates £10 million out of thin air by contrast when you repay an existing bank loan that extinguishes money it disappears into thin air so the total money supply increases when banks create new loans faster than old loans are being repaid and that's where growth in the money supply comes from normally it's the normal situation in a growing economy ideally credit should expand so that supply of money grows sufficiently rapidly to finance the growth in economic activity but when a bank or banks collapse they will call in loans which will reduce the money supply which in turn will cause a contraction of activity throughout the economy so that respect banks are totally different from other companies even companies which also lend things if a car rental company collapses it doesn't lead to reduction in the number of cars available in the economy its stock of cars can be sold off to other rental companies or to individuals nor does the collapse of one rental company weaken the position of other car rental companies on the contrary they then face less competition which should strengthen their margins Austin Mitchell I welcome this debate and congratulate my honourable friends on securing it because it is time that we debated this issue we haven't done so for well over 100 years so it's nice to be able to do so this house and the government are obsessed with money and the economy but we never debate the creation of money creation of credit and we shouldn't do because that's what it comes to our present economic situation and the way the banks are run and the way the economy is run the elephant in the room it's time to think outside not the box outside the banks and to think about credit creation and money Martin Wolfen interesting article cited by my honourable friend has argued that credit the central bank should create new money and it should be regulated by a public credit authority rather like the monetary policy committee I think that would be a solution and a possible approach why shouldn't we regulate the issue of credit in this kind of fashion it brings us back to the old argument about monetarism whether money is credit creation is exogenous or endogenous the monetarist thought it was exogenous so all you have to do is cut off the supply of money or cut the supply of money into the economy and you bring inflation under control well of course that was a myth because you can't actually control the supply of money it's endogenous and the economy like a plant sucks in the money it needs but that can be regulated by a public credit authority so that the supply matches the needs of the economy rather than being excessive as it has been over the last few years so I think that kind of credit authority needs to be created to regulate the flow of credit if we create money, quantity of easing go on and create more money channel it through a national investment bank into productive investment into contracts for house building new town generation infrastructure massive infrastructure work I won't include HS2 in that let's say massive infrastructure work then we can stimulate the economy stimulate growth and achieve useful purposes which we haven't been able to achieve this is a here's a solution to a lot of the problems that's bedeviled the Labour Party how do we get investment without private financial initiative and the heavy burden that imposes on the health service, on schools on all kinds of activities well why not through quantitative easing contracts for housing or infrastructure work which have a payoff point and which produce an investment which produce an asset for the state so that's my proposal allocated by the monetary policy creation policy sorry committee which I advocated earlier under the article from Martin Wolf that's the way we should approach it that's why I welcome today's debate because it has to be the beginning of a debate in which we open our minds to the possibilities of managing credit more effectively for the better building of the strength of the British economy that goes and I'll speak very briefly I want to record my gratitude I suppose to the honourable member for Wickham for having initiated this debate and his co-sponsors from the various parties and I must say I'm having heard his speech or most of his speech I apologise for being late even more satisfied that when I cast my vote for him to join the Treasury Select Committee it was the right thing to do because he's introduced an incredibly important debate and as has been mentioned already this is an issue that has not been debated for a century and I think we wouldn't be having this debate if it wasn't for the fact that we are still in the midst of tumultuous times we had the banking crash we had the corresponding crash in confidence in the banking system and in the wider economy and now we have a problem of underlending partly as a consequence particularly to small and medium-sized business so this could not be more important and the member for I'm going to say my honourable friend that this is an issue that is not well understood by members of the public and I think he could mention later on his speech but if he didn't I'm going to add that this is an issue which is also not well understood by members of this House by members of Parliament and I would include myself in that and I suspect most people here would be humble enough to recognise that this is such a complex issue this banking wizardry we're discussing today that very few people really properly understand it and if, yeah please I thank the honourable gentleman and I totally associate his comments about ignorance and I include myself in that but it seems to me that the system is really broken the system is broken because the banks won't lend money because the government has told them they've got to keep reserves we don't like quantitative easing because that means the banks aren't lending therefore quantitative easing has to be so there's something very wrong with the system it is not if the system isn't broke don't fix it the system is broke and someone's got to fix it he makes a valuable point and in my very brief remarks I'm going to come to that but the point I was just about to make that if members of Parliament don't really understand how money is created and I really believe that is the majority position and discussions I have been having how on earth can we be confident that the reforms we brought in over the course of the last few years are going to work, are going to prevent repeat-repeat collapse of the sort which we saw before the last election and my view is that we can't be confident that it's the impulsive position of ignorant members and again I'm not intending to be rude to be I include myself in that bracket but the impulse of ignorant people has been to simply call for more regulation as if that's going to magic away these problems but as my own noble friend mentioned there were 8,000 pages of guidance in relation to one aspect of banking that he discussed in his speech the problem is not lack of regulation it's the fact that the regulations that exist miss the goal in so many respects and the problem has become so complex so complex, so convoluted that we need an entirely different approach and I would say the majority of people outside of Parliament when you talk to them about banking have a fairly simple view that the bank takes deposits and then lends and that's the way it's always been and of course there is an element of that but it's so far removed from where we are today that it's only a very tiny element and many people at least understand factional reserve banking but even factional reserve banking is just the start of the story because as we've heard and I'm not going to repeat in detail but banks themselves create money they do so by making advances and with every advance they make a deposit and this is something which I think is so poorly understood by people outside and inside of this house and this has conferred extraordinary power on the banks and necessarily and naturally and understandably banks will use that power and have used that power in the interests of banks but it's created extraordinary risk and the risk unfortunately because of the size of the banks and because of the interconnectedness of the banks the risk is on us which is why I'm so excited by the challenges that my friend has just described but as I said this is fringe this is right on the edge I mean it's an extraordinary thing to imagine that at the height of the collapse that for every £1.20 that the banks held just £1.25 for every £100 they had lent out so we are in a very precarious situation I remember when I was very very much younger and I was listening to a discussion and not understanding most of it between my father and various people who were asking his advice he had a pretty good track record in terms of anticipating turbulence in the world's economy and he was asked when is the next crash going to happen he said the last person you ask is an economist or a businessman you need to ask a psychiatrist because so much of it is around confidence and I think the point was proven just a few years ago is that we have become extraordinarily unhinged, detached from reality and I think in a debate at another time I'd like to elaborate on this extraordinary situation where it is possible to imagine economic growth even as the last of the world's great ecosystems, the last of the great forests are come down the economy is no longer linked to the reality of the natural world which is a world on which all goods eventually derive is probably a debate for another time and I'm not going to dwell on that but we did have, yes please I think the honourable gentleman makes a point there that we should remind ourselves of and it was one that was brought to me by an Icelandic publisher Bjorn Ionis and appointed it that we're not in a situation where any volcanoes have blown up, we're not in a situation of huge natural disasters of famine sort of catastrophe brought on by war it is as was alluded to by a couple of his honourable colleagues it is worth keeping that in mind and in some ways while we have much gloomer on the banking system that in itself should give us some hope at the same time The honourable member is right but there are a growing number of commentators and voices out there who are anticipating a much larger crash than anything we've seen in the last few years and I'm not going to add or detract from the credence of those statements but it's possible to imagine how that might happen so we were talking about the banking system here and the two are not entirely separate but we did have a wake up call just a few years ago just before the election my concern is that we haven't actually woken up that it seems to me that we haven't introduced any significant meaningful reforms which go to the heart of the problems we're discussing today it seems to me that we've been tinkering on the edges and I don't believe Parliament has been as closely involved in that process as Parliament should be partly because of the ignorance that I've described at the beginning of my remarks so I just want to put on the record my support for a meaningful monetary commission of some sort to be established or an equivalent of where we are able to actually examine the pros and cons of shifting from a factional to something closer to a full reserve banking system as a number of members have discussed today this is something we need to understand what are the pros and cons of such a move how possible is that, who wins, who loses we fully understand the answers and I think we need to look at quantitative easing it's been accepted I think by everyone on all sides of the house that quantitative easing is not objective there are those who believe it's a good and those who believe it's a bad but no one believes it's objective and if there is a majority view that quantitative easing is necessary then we need to ask the question why not use those funds inject those funds into the real economy into housing into energy projects using the mechanism in such a way that clearly only benefits very few people within a financial banking wizardry world that we're discussing today so I think these issues need to be explored and I think it is time for a monetary commission to be established and for parliament then to become much more engaged than we have been this is a very small step in that direction I'm very grateful to the sponsors of today's debate I wish there were more people here today I was intending to listen, not speak but there aren't that many speakers unfortunately at the beginning and I hope we'll have many more such debates The Honourable Member for Oldham West had made the point that the whole approach to quantitative easing which many members have have questioned at a number of levels but one thing that it does prove is that in many ways the underlying logic of the concept of sovereign money creation is actually feasible and workable so those who dispute that it is strange that some of those who would dispute and refute the case that is made around sovereign money creation sometimes are people who then defend quantitative easing in the form and with the features that it has actually had and in many ways what quantitative easing has shown is that if we are going to use the facility of the state and this situation obviously is the Bank of England to alter the money supply to prime the money supply in a particular way then we could have chosen much better way of doing it than the form that was chosen by quantitative easing because in a sense while it is meant to have achieved increases in the money supply where have people felt that in terms of business credit in terms of wages in terms of consumer power and the stimulus that that is able to provide and so we basically look back on the financial crash and its aftermath and we see evidence and it's not just in the UK it's in Ireland and it's in other places as well where a lot of what we were being told up until the crash was the worth and the wealth of particular sectors in the economy has turned out to be a vacuous but the poverty that lays in its trail is actually vicious so the wealth and the worth hasn't been real but the poverty is and so people then rightly question people like positive money UK or sensible money in Ireland are saying well maybe how we treat the creation of money and how politics and those of us who are charged with meant to be overseeing public policy as it affects the economy need to have a more basic look at how we're treating the banking system and the very nature of money creation. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker I wanted to start very much by congratulating the honourable member for Wickham on his very thoughtful and thorough opening speech but also the honourable member for Oldham Weston Brighton my honourable friend for his speech from this side of the house also but also now in the absence the honourable member for Brighton Pavilion and Clacton for securing today's very important debate it has been this debate comes following a significant campaign by positive money who have been raising some extremely important issues about how we ensure financial stability or how we as parliamentarians and indeed how members of the public can gain a far greater understanding of the way in which our economy works and in particular how money is supplied. Not just in this country but around the world as well. We've seen from today's debate that some very important questions have been highlighted and I think not all have been answered in this debate. Questions about how our money is created how that money or credit is used by banks and others how our financial system can be more transparent and accountable but particularly how it can actually benefit the country as a whole and it's on that later point in particular that I know particularly this side of the house have been acutely focused on how we rework our economy whether it's in the field of banking whether it's in relation to jobs whether it's in relation to wages so that it does actually work for the country as a whole. I think though it would be worth reflecting just for a moment on the system that we currently have in this country and what it means for money creation because as the Honourable Member for Wickham sat out very eloquently in his opening speech we know that currency is created in the conventional sense of being printed by the Bank of England but commercial banks can create money by ways of account holders depositing money into their accounts or by issuing loans to borrowers which obviously increases the amount of money that's available to borrowers and within the wider economy and as the Bank of England made clear in an article accompanying their first quarterly bulletin in 2014 this year when a bank makes a loan to one of its customers it simply credits the customer's account with a higher deposit balance so that instant new money is created so bank loans and deposits are essentially IO used from the banks and therefore a form of money creation however we know that commercial banks do not have unlimited abilities to create money monetary policy, financial stability and regulation all influence the amount of money that commercial banks can create in that sense they're regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority part of the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority and these regulators some of which are quite rightly independent are the stewards of safety and soundness in financial institutions especially regarding banks money creating practices and it remains our view that the central issue here the instability of money supply within the banking system is less to do with the powers that hold and the way in which they create money effectively but more to do with the way the banks conduct themselves and whether they actually act in the public interest in other ways as well so we believe that the issues here are about the incentives that are in place for banks to ensure that loans and debts are repaid that they're only granted when there is a strong likelihood of repayment when the money supply increases rapidly with no certainty of repayment then that is when real risks emerge in the economy Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker and I would like to also add my congratulations this has been a really fascinating debate and one that is very long overdue and that is to actually consider not just what more we can do to improve what we have but whether in fact we should be throwing it away and starting again and I do genuinely welcome the debate and I do hope that there will be many more to follow and I'd also like to pay tribute to the Honourable Member for Oldham for his good explanation of the positive money agenda which is certainly an idea worthy of thought and I will come on to that so I want to start by saying money creation is a very important and complex aspect of our economy that I do agree with members is very often misunderstood so I'd like to very quickly set out how bank deposit works at present the money held by households and companies takes two forms currency which is bank notes and coins and bank deposits the vast majority, as my Honourable Friend for Wickham pointed out, is in the form of bank deposits a my Honourable Friend is right to say that bank deposits are primarily created by commercial banks themselves each time they make a loan whenever a bank makes a loan it credits the borrower's bank account that creates new money however there are limits to how much new money is created at any point in time when a bank makes a loan it obviously does so under the expectation that this loan will be repaid in the future households repay their mortgages out of their salaries businesses repay their loans out of income from their investments in other words, banks will not create new money unless they think at the time that new value will also in due course be created enabling that loan to be paid back so ultimately, money creation depends on the policies of the Bank of England changes to the bank rate affect market interest rates and in turn the saving and borrowing decisions of households and businesses and the idea is that prudential regulation is used if excessive risk taking or asset price bubbles are creating excessive lending but first, I just want to briefly set out why we don't believe that the right solution is the wholesale replacement of the current system by something else such as a sovereign monetary system under a sovereign monetary system it would be the state not banks creating new money the central bank via a committee would decide how much money is created and this money would mostly be transferred to the government lending would come from the pool of customers investment account deposits held by commercial banks such a system would raise a number of very important questions how would that committee assess how much money should be created to meet the inflation target and support the economy if the central bank had the power to finance government's policies what would the implications be for the credibility of the fiscal framework and the government's ability to borrow from the market if it needed to what would be the impact on the availability of credit for businesses and households wouldn't credit become very procyclical wouldn't we incentivise financing households over businesses because in the case of businesses banks would presumably expect the state to step in wouldn't we be encouraging the emergence of an unregulated set of new shadow banks and wouldn't the introduction of a totally new system untested across modern advanced economies create unnecessary risk at a time when what people need is stability I will give way so I don't actually support positive money's proposals as they know I'm glad to work with them because I support their diagnosis of the problem but in 1844 of course they could have advanced this argument and they didn't but the final point really is to say that I of course haven't proposed throwing away the system and doing something radically new I've proposed getting rid of all of the obstacles to the free market creating alternative currencies I'm grateful to my honourable friend for pointing that out and I must confess before this debate I was rather puzzled by the fact that such an intelligent and extremely sensible person as he should be making the case for what I would see in a sovereign monetary system for an extraordinarily state interventionist new proposal so I'm very glad to hear that that's not what he's proposing and of course bearing in mind our current set of regulators we would presumably then be looking at a committee of middle aged white men making the decision on what the economy needs and that also would be a significant concern to me were that to happen so my own position which I will of course give way to before the Minister leaves the whole question of sovereign monetary system which obviously he's totally opposed to and raised several objections which I cannot in an intervention answer but does she not believe at the present time that the system of bank money creation is highly post cyclical and has enormously benefited property and financial sectors to the disadvantage of the vast range of industry outside the financial sector as I said at the beginning I sincerely congratulate the honourable member for raising this issue it is certainly one that's worthy of discussion I look forward to him coming back on some of the arguments that I've raised but very specifically yes I also agree with him that where we were in the run up to the financial crisis was entirely inappropriate and I will come on to some of the steps that we've taken to improve not throw away the baby with the bathwater but to improve what we have now rather than throw it away and start again so I know that in addition some of my honourable friends and members opposite have a particular concern about quantitative easing as I'm on the record as having made clear that I do too and specifically how you might unwind it but they should surely agree that at least quantitative easing can be unwound unlike the proposal of helicopter money which seems to me to be a giant step beyond quantitative easing a step where money would be created by the state with no obvious way then to rein it back if necessary so Madam Deputy Speaker if the tap in my bathroom breaks rather than wrenching the sink off the wall I would prefer to fix the tap I think as Martin Wolff said last week nobody can say with confidence how a monetary system should be structured and what laws and regulations it should have given that and also the tumult going on economically across the world we should be devoting our energies to fixing the system we have mending the problems but keeping what works so in conclusion this government's belief is that the current system modified and improved with far greater competition is the one that will serve the economy best reform is vital again as Andy Haldane puts it historically flexing policy frameworks has often been taken as a sign of regime failure quite the opposite ought to be the case we need banks to lend to young families wanting to buy houses and repay them out of future labour income rather than relying on the bank of mum and dad or for businesses wanting to seize opportunities gain new markets and create jobs and growth our existing system offers a forward looking and dynamic framework in which tomorrow's opportunities are not wholly reliant on yesterday's savings and it builds on the expertise of banks in assessing risks and making the lending decisions that we badly need in 25 years myself in the heart of the financial sector I saw it at its best and sadly sometimes also at its worst we are trying to remedy the worst but Madam Deputy Speaker let's also keep the best thank you