⚡ BREAKING ⚡

Our latest research finds more than £30 billion for public spending each year could come from a very unexpected place:

A central bank-issued digital pound!

That’s enough to fund a certain green investment pledge 🙃

Let us explain…🧵 Making money is a profitable business, because it never costs as much to make as it’s worth.

When cash was king, the @bankofengland used to make huge profits from issuing this money.

And because the Bank of England is publicly-owned…

🧵NEW: Over 50 economists and experts have written to the governor of the @bankofengland calling for urgent action to align the financial sector with climate goals, and reverse cuts to climate work.

Read the full thing 👉 positivemoney.org/2024/03/over-5…
4 years ago, over 100 experts wrote to Andrew Bailey when he became governor, calling for decisive steps to redirect finance towards the green transition.

positivemoney.org/2020/03/positi…

🧵A story told in numbers...

£28,930,000,000 is how much the Big Four UK banks have raked in for just the first six months of 2023.

That's up 80% on last the same time last year,

and it's 723% higher than 2020, when the combined profits of HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Barclays and... NatWest were just £4 billion (in comparison to this year's £28 billion).

That's because the Bank of England hadn't started raising interest rates yet in 2020.

Retail bank's generally aren't mega profitable when interest rates are low, but since the end of 2021 when...

1/5

"In London... around 23% of new builds go to buyers overseas, while 29% are purchased as second homes."

Excellent piece from @Adam_Peggs in @tribunemagazine on the true cause of the housing affordability crisis: homes being used as financial assets.
tribunemag.co.uk/2023/05/how-ho… 2/5

New evidence of this emerges almost daily.

Just yesterday, analysis from @MayorofLondon's office found that £20 billion-worth of residential property could be sitting empty in London.

standard.co.uk/homesandproper…

The Government and the Bank of England are exploring the introduction of a digital pound 🪙

This could be one of the biggest shake-ups of our money system in 200 years.

So, what is a digital pound and why do we need it?
🧵... [1] Right now the only form of public money available is physical cash 💷

With cash use declining, we’re forced to rely on private banks & card companies to make our electronic payments.

In reality, our money & payment system has been privatised under our very noses...

⚡️1/ We're live in Parliament launching "The Power of Big Finance" exposing the lobbying power of big banks and their lobbyists.

Watch live on Facebook: facebook.com/10224470074195…

Follow our live tweets & join the conversation with #StopTheBankingLobby. 2/ @franboait introduces the event: at Positive Money, we've spent 10 years showing how the financial sector doesn’t serve communities across the UK.

But the strong ties between big finance and policymaking entrench the status quo.

Our new research exposes how bank lobbyists are hijacking our democracy, ensuring:

💷Tax cuts for banks, tax hikes for workers
🌎Weak rules on fossil fuel lending
⚖️Wealth sucked from communities to the City of London

It's time to change the rules. Share to #StopTheBankingLobby 2/ Our new report shows the financial sector spent £17.6m on influencing politics in 2020 & 2021.

Of the MPs who recorded work in exchange for payments, the average hourly wage was £2,738 an hour.

⚡️LIVE⚡️

We're launching 'Banking on Property' now at a live event featuring @TulipSiddiq @kevinhollinrake @isha_zen @L__Macfarlane and @franboait.

We'll be live tweeting. Join the conversation using #HomesNotAssets. @TulipSiddiq @kevinhollinrake @isha_zen @L__Macfarlane @franboait 1/ @franboait opens the panel discussion: today we’ve heard that this month UK house prices grew at the fastest annual pace since 2004.

Right here in London we’ve seen property acting like a bank account for oligarchs.

⚡️ NEW ⚡️

We all know the UK housing system is broken and prices are too high. Which must mean there aren’t enough homes to go round, right?

Wrong. Here’s what’s really going on.

Share the video & read on (1/10). 👇

#HomesNotAssets

positivemoney.org/housing-report 2/ Today, you can earn more money by owning a house than by working.

That’s because for decades, policies by governments and central banks have turned our homes into vehicles for accumulating wealth, by making house prices go up much faster than wages.

It's #InternationalWomensDay2022 #IWD2022 ✨

Women and non-binary people are still systematically excluded from economic thinking and decision making.

A thread🧵. 1/ Students

Worryingly, the number of women studying economics is backsliding.

The proportion of UK economics undergraduates who are women was only 27% in 2019 - down from 31% in 2002.

res.org.uk/resources-page….