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NOTE Honest Banking in the UK

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Toby Baxendel, it's a pleasure to have you here with us today.

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Great pleasure to be here.

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You are an entrepreneur in the UK, you miraculously survived the meltdown of 2008 and thrived

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ever since.

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You're proving yourself, I think, many times over.

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Well, it's very kind of you to say so.

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I wouldn't wish to put that experience upon anyone, though.

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It's extremely tough to get your costs into line

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and to turn the things around and remain profitable in that environment.

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But you have several lives.

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You're not just an entrepreneur, you're an intellectual

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and somebody of a political activist

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and you're very much involved in the Cobden Centre.

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I'd like to talk about just a little bit about each of these things.

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Let's start with the issue that is most interesting, I think, to us, which concerns this bill that

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was introduced as a piece of legislation in the parliament about banking.

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Can you give us some background on what this is about?

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There are a handful of truly inspirational backbenchers and members of parliament who

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have not succumbed to the party whips.

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The nearest example you have over here is obviously Ron Paul, and he has a great following.

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These guys, Douglas Carswell, for example, and Steve Baker, are men of principle, and

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they're there to represent their constituents, and they're there to represent free market

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ideas as well. That's their mission.

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So Douglas Carswell got in touch with me when he got a slot for a 10-minute rule bill, which

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is a rare privilege that independent parliamentarians can introduce legislation. 65 acts have come

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into fruition and onto the statute books since the Second World War as 10-minute rule bills,

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The Theory of Money and Credit

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To give honest labeling for bank accounts because there's this huge tremendous confusion

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in the UK and I'm sure it's here as to what you're actually doing when you're depositing

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with most people thinking they're depositing for safekeeping and most people are actually

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quite horrified when they find out what their bank is doing with their money and in fact

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actually it's not actually their money because when they deposit as we know it's a lending

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arrangement with the bank and so the bill was constructed and Stefan Kinsella played

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his role in helping draft the legalese of the bill and Douglas presented it to his parliamentary

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colleagues with a very simple reform that going forward into the future, so it wasn't

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Retrospective is prescriptive going forward into the future to require all banks to offer

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either a safe custodial account, clearly labeled, everyone knowing what they're getting involved

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in and just lending traditional lending and intermediary services.

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So you're not asking anything of banks that's not asked of anybody else in the free market

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If I sell this computer and the hard drive doesn't work or the screen doesn't work,

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I would have to, I would disclose this and if I failed to do so, then they would return

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it back and say, well, you didn't, or if you sell a house and the foundation is cracked,

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you need to explain that.

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So you're asking, the bill just simply asks banks to disclose what kind of, what kind

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of reserves are available or what's happening to that, to the money that is being deposited

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into the account.

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And to give the customer a very explicit choice, your choice is depositing for safekeeping,

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so the bank is a custodian to you, or your choice is for lending. Lending, obviously,

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you're bearing some of the risk implied, you do it over a time-based period and in return

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you get interest.

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And this is nothing but the codification of a distinction that existed before the state

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gave banks special privileges to treat a semi-warehouse contract as a lending contract, right?

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That's right.

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So all we're requiring is clarity in this first bill, clarity in contract law.

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And that's it.

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And I think people at that point in time, once they're empowered with a bit more knowledge

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Research and Information, then they can make very sensible choices about their finances.

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And hopefully, reintroduce the concept of a bank being a fiduciary. Well, it should

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be a fiduciary relationship between banker and client, which seems to have completely

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gone by the wayside.

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Right. And there's no expectation that you have precisely what the customer would choose

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The Federal Reserve, fiat money, fractional reserve banking, Human Action, Man Economy and State, The Theory of Money and Credit

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It's a brilliant solution, Toby. Was this your idea? Was it just something that came

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together after a result of consultations with many different people?

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Well, I suppose I've made those ideas aware to the parliamentarians, and the parliamentarians

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have actually been brave enough and inspirational enough to want to grasp that idea. And they've

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have then come back and seized the opportunity.

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There's an irony to this as well in the House of Lords, unbeknownst to us, the Earl of Caithness,

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who was a minister during Margaret Thatcher's period of office, he actually did the same

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Banking Bill a year before. So we now have a little contingent of lords and a little

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contingent in the House of Commons who are genuinely interested in banking reform. And

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I think really if we can't advance the debate at all in this environment, then we are never

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ever going to advance the debate.

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would pose a special challenge to Austrians who have been thinking about these topics.

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How do you make these ideas real?

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I mean, of course, we all would dream of a gold standard or the end of fiat money, but

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given the existing structure, how do you rein in the capacity of the banking system to create

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unlimited amounts of credit and money, contrary to the depositors' wishes, and this is a great

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way to do it.

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It strikes me.

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It's a wonderful thing.

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And it wouldn't, in such a simple, I think it was a two-page bill, that's how legislation should be,

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you can effectively stabilise the banking system going forward.

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Because people face with choices and will settle down into a pattern that's sustainable,

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between depositing for safekeeping and lending.

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That's the same as we look at our stock portfolio and we divide it up between very safe things

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and medium safe things and risky things and we want a diversity.

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So that may be the effects, but there's no way to know in advance.

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No.

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Right.

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Now there are important macroeconomic implications for this because it does put certain limits

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on the ability of central banks to inspire the creation of massive new amounts of money.

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Yes. Well, we can either be explicit about this, or we can just hope that won't get noticed.

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It does remove a certain power, and I suppose there are people who do understand this point.

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Yes, I mean, my greatest objective in the Cobden Center will be to, you know, go for

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the jugular of the state to cut the oxygen and to cut the blood supply off, to force

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it to be honest, because I don't have a problem with politicians coming to the electorate

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and saying, I'm going to take X from you and I'm going to give it to Y, because I feel

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that such and such a cause that it's going to is deserving and so on and so forth, politician

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can say that to me and you can vote for that or you can vote against that. But what the

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politicians say is they say, I'm not going to take from X, but I'm going to give a lot

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What Do I? So they create this kind of whole new existence for themselves, almost like

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they're a third party, a benevolent third party offering you free goods if you vote

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for them. So it would force honest politics. So the politicians can only go on spending

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Planning Plans based on what they can raise off the public.

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It's very interesting.

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A friend of mine is the Euro MEP, Dan Hannon, and he was telling me when he went to Switzerland

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on a fact-finding mission, he was much encouraged with the robustness of the electorates there

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in the Cantons, because when a politician comes to them, they always just ask how much

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and from who, yeah? And then they make their decisions accordingly. Now, when he was speaking

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to all the politicians, trying to learn from the Swiss and the Cantonal systems, they're

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all saying to him, no, no, no, no, you definitely, definitely don't want to do, you definitely

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don't want to do what we do here. You can never do anything, yeah? And he was saying,

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Well, that's precisely why I'm here.

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So I think if you can enforce honest government at the same time, as honest as it possibly

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can be, so a politician can only come to you and say, I'm going to take X from you to give

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to Y, then you can vote on that.

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That's right.

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And it's a brilliant reform because you're talking about a profound monetary reform ultimately

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and Fiscal Reform and a really dramatic change in the way governments are financed and public

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policies financed through just two pages and a bill that does nothing other than ask for

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honesty.

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For honesty, yeah.

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Well, Jeff, that's correct.

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And in our fellow free market orientated think tanks and do tanks around the world and people

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I've got to say, I'm staggered that people don't focus on this really.

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You need to go...

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We can talk about reform of free trade here and an abolition of this law here and that

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law there.

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We're tinkering at the end of the day.

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We just need to focus our firepower and go for the absolute jugular.

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Go for the blood and the oxygen supply and just hit it there with a very simple reform

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And you could transform.

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And there's a strategic brilliance to this too, because if you oppose this bill, you

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have to, the burden is on you to explain why you're in favor of dishonesty.

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Exactly.

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Why you're against disclosure.

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Yeah.

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Well, true, Jeff.

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I agree with that.

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But we've got to, in a 10-minute rule bill, if you don't get the support of a governing

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The Federal Reserve, Mises Institute, Austrian School, Praxeology, Man Economy and State, The Theory of Money and Credit

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and come hell or high water you know we'll reproduce the bill and you know

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slowly but surely one or two more politicians come on side and especially

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as crisis still continues and you know we will persevere yeah what are the

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prospects the prospects at the moment are extremely low yeah because we

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haven't got a governing party who will give us the legislative time but

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And, you know, you look at the success of Ron Paul, he's been at the Fed for honest

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disclosure for, I don't know, how many years, two decades or something, and maybe longer,

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but eventually, perseverance, the arguments clear, consistent, you know, challenge the

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argument by all means, tell us why we're wrong, you know, or don't, and slowly, slowly, slowly,

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people get behind you.

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In some extent, I would say that this argument seems to be inspired well, of course, by Rothbard's

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mystery of banking, but more directly and more immediately by Juan Teresoto's book,

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right?

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Money, bank...

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And credit cycles, yeah.

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Well, I mean, you published the book here.

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I mean, the mission of the Mises Institute is just sensational and tremendous and well

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done for you translating that from Spanish.

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That's been a great influence on me.

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and now, and I noticed from our website, I think nearly 4,000 people have downloaded the book in full.

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Think of all the money you're losing.

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Teasing about that.

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Yeah, which we're absolutely delighted about.

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But he sets out the case for honest banking very, very clearly.

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And he relates the microeconomics to the macroeconomics in such a beautiful way.

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The institutional banking to its effects on business cycles more broadly.

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That's right. He's a true inspiration. He's one of the greats and, you know, his books

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will be enduring. That book will be an enduring book for many, many, many, many years and

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many generations. I thoroughly recommend it, yes, but Rothbard's book is always the great

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entry-level eye-opener. He took no prisoners and spared no punches.

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Just speaking of, what has government done to our money?

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Tony, yeah, just absolutely...

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1963, of all things.

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A great, great eye-opener, and I'd recommend that to anyone to read who's got a passing

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interest in banking, but actually, it's one of the most critical books in all of pro-liberty

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books because if you get that money reform right, you really do put the handcuffs on

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from the politicians and enforce honest government.

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Unplug the money machine.

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Now, over the last year, or maybe it's been the last 18 months, we've seen amazing growth

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in the work of the Cobden Center.

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Tell me a little bit about this.

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You were involved in its founding?

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Yes, that's right.

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Well, the inspiration is the back page of Hayek's denationalization of money,

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where he calls for a sound money movement to rival the Cornelor Reform movement of the 1830s, 1840s.

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And that piqued my interest when I was, I think 16 or 17, when I first read that.

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and I just thought well you know that's speaking to me if no one's done that by the time I have time to to do that then I will aim to set that up and I've had there's been tremendous help and support I did attempt to get it set up three or four years ago we did and we had Jan Lester involved a great English libertarian thinker but it didn't really get any traction Steve Baker came to see me

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was put in touch by Lew, actually, Lew Rockwell, and he then did the technology to get the

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site up and running. He's then become the MP for Wickham, so we've got a great Cobdenite

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in Parliament, and Dr. Tim Evans, who was president of the Libertarian Alliance, he was

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is an old university chum from LSE and he's run the Center for New Europe and some various

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other things and he is now our full-time CEO so we're starting to get traction and at the

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moment I've funded it principally along with another donor who donates at the same level

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to me but following very much in the Mises Institute's tradition I want to be a

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I'm a tiny donor going forward. I want to have no financial influence and I want the

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thing to have no dependence upon me whatsoever. I want a multiplicity of little donors so

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we can always have true independence.

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But things are going well. Andrew Duncan is writing. He's a wonderful writer. He's doing

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these great reviews. I mean, these reviews have helped me understand better the books

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that we are publishing. Do you know what I mean? He's a man of great insight.

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Yeah, he's a very uniquely talented individual. We hope he writes more. He has a tremendous output, and I think he's going to be our David Gordon, I hope, as well.

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His enthusiasm is one of his passions, his knowledge is really something. I enjoy reading the website, and traffic is up, I suppose, is it?

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Yes, we're getting traction about a thousand unique readers a day.

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Good.

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So it's, you know, starting, we've only been going for a year and a bit and, you know,

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we intend to this year spend a lot of time on fundraising and really building the basis

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of the independence, of financial independence and to keep on running these campaigns in

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in Parliament, and to try and also influence our other fellow people in the think tank world

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in the United Kingdom that actually, you know, what we're saying is tremendously important.

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Well, I think you have had this influence. I mean, if you look at the work of IEA, it's

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been just stellar over the last two years, three years. I mean, we've co-published three

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books, four books with IEA, and Adam Smith Institute, I think, recently came out, even

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Eugen Butler has his new primer on... Why do you say primer? I thought Americans said primer, and the British say primer. So I said primer, you say primer. How did this happen? Anyway, he wrote this wonderful primer on Austrian economics, which we have for sale now, Stuart.

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Eamonn, I'll tell you a little story about him. The sole reason why I'm aware of Hayek

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is because he wrote Primer on Hayek. And that was when I was 16 years old, and I read it.

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I was introduced to it by an old Polish war veteran who said, if you're an anti-communist,

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you must read this man Hayek. And he gave me Eamonn Butler's book.

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So he's gotten better and better and better over the years. So your influence is spreading.

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It's a marvelous thing, and I should also note that the Cobden Center has adopted this open-source policy on publication.

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You're not enforcing old-fashioned copyright. No, you're encouraging the ideas to get out there.

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This is a radical step. This is, of course, a step that we've taken ourselves, and it's helping.

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Well, Jeff, we're copying you. You're leading the way. We want those ideas spread, full-stop, end of story.

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So, that's the mission. So, no copyright, no anything. Take as much information as you want from there.

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I hope that will always be the case.

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Well, the model actually was established by, of all people, Leonard Reed in the United States,

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because back in the 1950s when they would print their little journal, The Freeman,

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that had very limited circulation. And he knew that the most difficult thing was to find readers.

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Find Readers. So why not let the readers themselves find more readers and they encourage this open reprint policy. And that was 60 years ago, a very radical step, a visionary step. And nowadays, with copyright laws and intellectual property laws getting ever more strict and shut down, we have an opportunity, really, to open up our work and out-compete everybody else, just because we're open sourcing everything.

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Fantastic, and then we can get, certainly young people who are more receptive to new ideas, more exposed, lower entry point, lower cost.

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Yes.

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You know, in the due course of time, maybe we will publish, or maybe we'll just carry on recommending your publications.

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There's no point in us, if we can't do anything better than you, we'll certainly only ever be plugging your stuff.

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Where we differ is, obviously, we're doing a very British and European theme, whereas you're doing a very American theme.

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Yeah, but ever more, you know, I was telling somebody at this conference, sometime in the last six months, I've begun to look at a clock and see

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at Shanghai time and at Berlin time and, you know, and West Coast time in the United States.

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So, just because these are the people I work with now, it's a global world and more and more.

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Well, we'd certainly, you know, cooperate on a global basis, but I think it's because the UK is so under-represented at the moment

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in these type of Austrian ideas, we'll try and give it a flavor for that particular marketplace.

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Should be, as it should be.

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And also then link together with some of the European Institutes such as Alberto Mingane's

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Institute Bruno Leone and the Juan de Mariana people and Cécile Phillips Institute in France.

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So, you know, we're trying to link... Molinari. Molinari, yeah. We're trying to link everyone together.

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Well, we've got Misesians all over the world now. And at last, finally, in the UK.

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Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we are Misesians, but we're also in that...

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We're very much in that Manchester liberal tradition as well, which is very particular

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are very peculiar to the English political scene.

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Well, Mises loved Cobden and, of course, in Cobden you've got the whole thing.

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You've got the free trade, free enterprise, peace, civil liberties, you've got the whole agenda there.

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So, it's a wonderful name and a wonderful model to follow.

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Well, the peace thing, I feel a little bit guilty that we haven't concentrated so much on peace.

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And I was talking to Lew about seeing if we can network about some authors, anti-war authors, up and down the country here to see if they want to write on any UK things, because there is definitely a warmongering agenda in our parliament, which I think is very, very dangerous.

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I'm all for defending ourselves, but I don't necessarily think going on a war footing is in our best defensive interest.

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An uncritical embrace of the American Empire is a problem, right?

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That's right, yeah.

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The only empire you favor is the Misesian Empire, right?

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Yeah, that's right, the empire of free ID.

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Yeah, there we go. Thank you so much, Toby Baxendel, for joining me here.

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That's a great pleasure, Geoff. Thank you.

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It's great to have you on Auburn, and we look forward to your next visit.

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The Theory of Money and Credit