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Jon Cunliffe makes no mention (no surprise) of the elephant in the room: debt. Private bank money is borrowed/loaned into existence, produced out of thin air merely by making an entry in a database. The bank does essentially nothing but the unsuspecting borrower puts himself into debt peonage. But most importantly, the bank demands an extra payment of interest which piles on the debt without a corresponding increase in the money supply. This distorts the economy and is the main driver of the growth imperative. I can't believe Cunliffe is unaware of this. If he was on our side, he'd assert that HM's government should be the only issuer of the national currency, debt-free and in the public interest.

An NZ Herald article from 2016 said the debt in NZ had grown to ~$500b. I went to the RBNZ website and looked up the total money supply and it was ~$300b. So 1.6 times more debt than money to pay it, and every private bank loan exacerbates the situation. Here's the article: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/nation-of-debt-new-zealand-sitting-on-half-trillion-dollar-debt-bomb/AT25D65ULY6I2FWLA5N2UITPJ4/

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Hi Bernard - another elephant in the room not discussed is the currency rates. Any sort of tightening (actual or signalled) not aligned with the rest of the world will of course push up the exchange rate which is probably too high already (around 71c - 72c USD.) Just a really easy way to take heat out of the market by making NZ goods uncompetitive.

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