Return money power to state

IN the past two years, along the Edinburgh-Balerno artery, four banks have closed – in Balerno, Currie, Heriot-Watt campus and Juniper Green, and a fifth one in Colinton. In addition, cash (coins and notes) is disappearing and being replaced by plastic cards. Should we be concerned at this situation?

At present coin of the realm – legal tender – must be accepted by a vendor at no extra cost to the purchaser. But, once cash disappears, and we have no alternative but to use plastic cards (or some equivalent) owned by the few private companies, then we and our money, and indeed the whole financial system are completely in the hands of those few card-issuing private banks.

At this point we will all pay extra to those banks to pay for goods and services with their plastic cards. Right now they have the power, and the legal right, to refuse anybody a card, or revoke an existing card without giving a reason - indeed, it has already happened to some unfortunates. How would you function in society then? How would you access your salary, pension or savings to buy food, goods and services?

To see how close we are to this situation just consider the year 2014. That year the total money supply (termed M4) was £2.1 trillion – but 97 per cent of this had been created out of nothing by the banks as loans; only three per cent, £62 billion, had been issued as notes and coins by the Bank of England. We need the exclusive power to create money to be returned to the state as soon as possible.

Doug Clark,

6 Muir Wood Grove, Currie,

Midlothian.