The uncomfortable truth …
Tony Weekes and Sue Holden believe Quakers should be more ‘economically literate’ and support monetary reform
Many of us think of ‘money’ in terms of ‘cash’: the tangible notes and coins used for making everyday payments in retail stores. These notes – and all other denominations – originated in, and were distributed from, the Bank of England printing works. But a modern economy could not function with cash as the only available means of exchange. Payments between businesses, and between businesses and government, are done electronically. Accounts are debited and credited by electronic messages. Even at a smaller scale, our incomes typically come to us in this way, and we pay for much of what we need by credit and debit cards. Generally, we accept this without much thought: ‘money’ is more than the cash in our hands. It’s our bank balance – or what the bank is prepared to make available to us as credit.
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