Activism / Petition
Positive Money

We are concerned that recent monetary policy has worsened wealth inequality.

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

We are concerned that recent monetary policy has worsened wealth inequality.

The Bank of England's own research found that the richest 10% of households in Britain had seen the value of their assets increase by up to £322,000.

The Bank is deliberately boosting the price of assets such as stocks and bonds, which are disproportionately owned by the most well-off.

As citizens, we expect monetary policy to benefit the whole population, not just a wealthy few.

The unfair effects of low interest rates and quantitative easing undermine our confidence in monetary policy decision-making.

We call on the Treasury Select Committee to acknowledge monetary policy’s unfair impacts and recommend a change of course.

Since 2009, the government has let the Bank of England pump billions of pounds to the very wealthiest - the people who own most of the financial assets - whilst cutting spending for the rest of us. It’s grown the already-huge inequality gap. It’s time this stopped, isn’t it?

Opportunities like this don’t come round often. When we met one of the MPs on this Committee a couple of weeks ago, he told us this was a “once-in-a-decade” opportunity to change the direction of the UK’s monetary policy.

And whilst two or three MPs on the Committee are already sympathetic to what we’ve got to say, there are a few more who could be convinced. The Committee is inviting the public and specialist organisations for their views and evidence. And we’ve got our arguments ready and the facts stacked up to back them up.

It’s not every day thousands of people demand a change to policies as specific (but so important!) as monetary policy. So let’s show these MPs we mean business. Please add your name to the statement today, so we can deliver it before the 5th March deadline:

sign the statement button

As Positive Money supporters, we each do what we can to spread our message for a fairer, more democratic and sustainable money system. Today I’m asking you to add your voice, so together we can make most of this rare chance to prove to the government it’s time for fairness.

Thanks for being involved,

Rachel, David, Fran and the rest of the Positive Money team PS: In the last few weeks, over 2500 supporters of Positive Money have filled in a survey to help shape our campaign plan for the year. Together we voted on where to focus our campaign, which tactics to use, and what we want to do as individuals. You can see the results here! http://act.positivemoney.org/supporter-survey-2017-results NOTES: [1] http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/treasury-committee/news-parliament-2015/post-2008-uk-monetary-policy-launch-16-17/