How You Pay for the City: R4 Podcasts

[Flay]

I have just finished listening to the four excellent podcasts from Radio 4's Moneybox. The final three are still available to download or listen to.

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/...0810-1230a.mp3 etc.

It is sobering and frustrating listening, showing how money is being made (robbed from us) at so many stages of the financial processes, including deals performed in microseconds by super-fast computers. It is out of control.

An example in the final episode estimated that about 20% of the price we pay from our petrol goes to speculators. And it illustrates how banks are currently making money in spite of trying to avoid lending and paying fair interest rates, thanks to Quantitative Easing.

I the words of Prof John Kay: "Everything that anyone in the City earns is ultimately money that is made by someone in the non-financial economy, either you and me as savers, or the companies that we work for, or that produce the goods and services we buy."

[zoomy]

I so agree flay. In addition to oil prices, much of the recent global rises in food prices is due to speculators.

[pastoralguy]

I so agree flay. In addition to oil prices, much of the recent global rises in food prices is due to speculators.

The
Problem is that there's very little that 'ordinary' people can do re. this situation.

[french frank]

The Problem is that there's very little that 'ordinary' people can do re. this situation.

Not if you have a job. If not, you can devote your time to getting as close as possible to self sufficiency (my French beans have failed but I'm going to have a glut of tomatoes).

But it's hard work.

[zoomy]

But it is interesting how this has had its effect on the world - the rise in food prices has been blamed for sparking the Arab revolutions but those revolutions, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria have revealed the tensions between the winners from these speculative gains - the farmers and the losers, urban wage workers.