Your views

FOR some months there has been a series of Tibetan men and women, monks and nuns and laypersons setting themselves alight to protest against Chinese repression in Tibet: disallowing Tibetan political, cultural and religious freedoms, even to the extent of severe penalties for anyone possessing photos of the Dalai Lama or particularly revering his name.

Most of these self-immolations have resulted in death or lifelong hideous burns. Our group has been advised that two more occurred on August 13 and one on the August 10, making the number almost 50.

I appeal to readers to do what they can to prevent this number reaching 50 by contacting your MP's, the Foreign Secretary and the Chinese Ambassador to urge the Chinese Government to announce conciliatory measures such as relaxing restrictions on Tibetan freedoms and re-starting talks with the Tibetan Government in exile.

GEORGE YEATS Chairman, Bath District Tibet Support Group www.bathdisttibet.blogspot.co.uk

We all own debts

AN enormous amount of us leave eduction with very little, if any understanding of how our financial system works and, more importantly, how money is created.

Many of us simply assume that money emerges from trade within the economy. This idea is essentially flawed, money is created very simply as debt. When you enter into a contract with your bank, perhaps for a mortgage or other type of loan, you would probably assume that the financial institution you are borrowing from is lending you their money, or the money of their customers. This is rarely the case. Generally the banks create this money, essentially from thin air. No funds are moved around and no coins are minted.

This process accounts for 97 per cent of money created in the British economy. The remaining 3 per cent is created by the Government in a process known as seigniorage. That word basically means the difference in value between the cost of producing a bank note and the value it represents. So if it costs 5p to produce a £10 note, the government will have made £9.95 profit when it sells that note to the banks. The profit made is in turn used to reduce our tax burden. In the grand scheme of things it really doesn't amount to a great deal.

So there you have it. A small amount of knowledge that you may not have had before. It’s critical that every person know this because our economy is completely dependent on the creation of debt. It is incredible how many people do not understand these very basic facts. Always remember that you are the creditor of your own debt.

Recent estimates indicate that at least 100 million people have been forced into poverty as a direct result of the financial crash. Every day we find out more about the enormity of fraud and money laundering that’s going on within our financial system. Yet we have not seen one arrest.

In the 1960s, even in postwar decline, an entire family could function on the wages of one parent and still own their home. Now it takes two parents, often working different shifts and being reduced to nothing more than ships passing in the night. Our family units are working harder than ever leaving us very little quality of life.

I am so angry about this situation. All our government needs to do is regulate. Take the power of fiscal creation away from banks and make them lend their own money. We should chose where investment is made and use it to benefit us and future generations.

The whole system is so utterly dependent on the creation of debt that without new debt we are in recession, it is as simple as that. So when you hear David Cameron saying “We need to become a nation of savers” it’s plain to see that he obviously has no clue about the monetary system of the country he leads. If everyone saved we would have mass disappearance of money and the economy would collapse.

I am a young parent who is dreadfully worried about the future my children face. There is so much national debt that mathematically it cannot be paid back and we are heading for an almost certain collapse unless we change things now. Everything the government has proposed amounts to nothing more than sticking plasters. Sooner or later we will die from the disease.

GARETH WIGMORE Trowbridge

Family sought

DO any Wiltshire Times readers know or remember Peter Purdue, real name Edwin but always known as Peter.

His parents were Charles and Cissie Purdue who ran The Polebarn Hotel, on Polebarn Road, Trowbridge with their daughter Anne, who with her husband Richard Berkley went to Spain to live.

Peter is a retired police officer with the Metropolitan Police at Millbank in London.

His cousin Kathleen (nee Purdue) is now living in Canada and is coming over here in September. She would dearly love to meet up with him but has lost contact with the family.

If anyone can help could they please contact me on 023 80 864474.

MRS PHYLLIS SMITH phylissmith198@btinternet.com