I Dream of Utopia

Bristol Festival of the Future City Tuesday 17 th November 2015 at the Wills Memorial Building Great Hall, Bristol Notes by William Gaskell Ebenezer Howard, founder of the UK garden city movement, suggested we can shape our future with the Garden City concept to create and environment we want to live in - which is healthy. Technology is now changing the world, this is the dominant effect on the changes in our lives now. In the past industry was the dominant force over our lives and how we lived in cities. Quality of life is one of the government’s concerns, achieved through economic reform.

Bristol Festival of Economics with Vince Cable @Bristol 12 th November 2015 George Osborne may be a Euro sympathiser as his policy could lead to the collapse of the British Pound currency. UK is 2% of world economy but a shrinking proportion, with just 1% of world population. Macroeconomic policy: As chief economist of Shell, Vince marshalled the attempts to shape the world economy with 20 year plans to build up infrastructure  for when the markets around the world matured in order to profit. In government the situation was much shallower, with 24 hour news emergencies changing the situation all the time but still needed to think 20-30 years ahead. The long term plans are realised through short-term successes in the financial markets. Sir John Willets was #2 in BIS under Vince Cable. Vince Cable is blaming China’s cash reserves for the low interest rates around the world. Andrew Holdane, #2 at the Bank of England, says in his latest research paper that i...

Adair Turner at the Bristol Festival of Ideas 2015 Wednesday 11th November 2015 SSL lecture theatre, Bristol University Notes by William Gaskell Helicopter Money: Printing money to get out of an economic deflation Either use government money Or Use private credit markets to stimulate growth £375 bn of QE in the UK, this is still continuing in Japan and US today. Deferred tax was removed for the accounts by BASEL 3 protocols from leverage ratio to increase the proportion of equity/paid in capital that financial institutions needed as collateral against borrowing. Policy of permanent monetization by the Bank of Japan can reduce Japanese debt by converting the debt into 0% interest government bonds which are liquid and therefore the same as money.