It’s Our Money! Conference 29th October 2011

The conference is now completely sold out. If you didn't get tickets, we will be filming the event and making part of it available online and on DVD.

Ever wondered why there's so much debt? Or why the experts and authorities seem completely unable to solve the current debt crisis?

Well the reason they can't solve it is because they're trying to fix and repair the existing banking system. But the existing banking system is completely flawed. It's the existing system that has buried all of us under a massive mountain of debt.

This short video explains the key problem that the "It's Our Money!" conference will tackle:

While those in power focus on patching up the banks and letting them get back to business as usual, ordinary people are being made to pay for the crisis - through job losses, bank bailouts, higher taxes, cuts in public services, and interest on a mountain of debt that can never be repaid.

This one-day conference will show you:

• How banks really work; how they are able to create money out of nothing when they make loans, and how the money used to repay loans is lost forever.
• Why letting banks create money will leave the vast majority of us buried under a mountain of unpayable debt
• Why the current banking system is at the root of poverty, debt and inequality, and how it accelerates the breakdown of the environment
• How power has shifted from our democracy to the big banks in the City of London

But this will be a day full of solutions, so we'll also cover:

• What we need to do to stop the big banks causing so much harm to society and the economy
• How regaining power over money can reduce poverty, debt and inequality, and unlock the funding for a transition to green and sustainable energy
• How fixing the banks could reduce taxes or fund better public services
• How the debt-crisis can end within 12 months, once the right steps are taken.

And it's time for action, so we'll look at how the public, activists and other campaigns can help secure a banking system that works for society, and not just for the banks.

Agenda for the Day:

Here's what we'll cover on the day:

• The situation today: massive debts, no jobs, shrinking pensions, rising taxes, slashing public services, bailing out the banks and passing the costs onto ordinary people.
• Where we're headed if we simply let the banks go back to business as usual
• How we got into this mess (You won't have heard this account of the crisis in the papers)
• Why it's so improtant that we regain control over money
• How banks are able to create money, and why it's illegal for criminal gangs to print £10 notes, but perfectly legal for banks to create over £100 billion of electronic money in a year
• How banks acquired the power to create money and abused it over the last 40 years to enrich themselves
• Why speculators find it easy to get funding whilst small local businesses struggle to stay afloat
• How the banks pushed house prices out of reach of almost everybody
• Who should be responsible for creating money? Would politicians be better, or just as bad?
• How we can pay down the national debt without slashing public services - and why paying down the national debt is actually the last thing we should do.
• How we fix the banks so that they can fail without running to us for bailouts, and so that they can't destroy the economy again
• What fixing the system will mean for:
  • Poverty, debt and inequality
  • The environmental and energy crisis
  • Regaining our power and democracy
  • The cost of housing, and getting a place to live
  • Public services
  • Jobs
• What we need to do to make this happen, and how we get organised to counter the lobbying power of the big banks
• How we can pressure the right people and authorities into making the right changes
• What you - and all of us - can do.

What They Said About Last Year's Positive Money Conference:

"It's vital and urgent that more people understand the truth about how our money is created, and the inherently unjust and unsustainable nature of our financial system. Positive Money is a really useful introduction."

"Informative, inspiring and humanly refreshing. Great to meet like-minded people with social concerns."

"…Will open your eyes on how our money is being used."

"Money makes the world go round, and if we continue with our current system our globe is going to spin off it's axis! Time for a change, time for justice!"

"Presented in engaging and entertaining ways that left me informed and inspired..."

"It's not only about the economy - it's about freedom!"

"I greatly appreciated the way that ideology could be separated from the indentification of the problems with the banking system. Intelligent. Proactive. Inspiring."