Jon,
I thinks its somewhat incorrect and misleading to say that globalism spreads the wealth around.

In truth it spreads the wealth around at the top of the financial food chain.

The people at the bottom are lucky if they get any benefit at all - maybe some employment.

And the multi national corporations ultimately take the peoples wealth out of the country.

They take the notes and leave us with the shrapnel!

The concept of spreading the wealth around needs to occur from the bottom, not the top.
- To empower and enrich individuals at the local level and then see that money work its way through the economy to the top.
(And to have that money put back to recirculate within the system when it reaches the top)

Not work from the top down as if we should all fight over a rich person who is throwing gold coins from a balcony and who takes the majority of his wealth with him when he gets on a plane.

I think Keynesian economics (The eternal battle between the spenders and savers) is stupid as well.

All that means is when the big boys mess up and ruin the economy they blame us who are now poor for not spending money during times of economic uncertainty.

Again the system is flawed.

They say its our fault for not stimulating the economy when it was their monetary and fiscal policy initiatives that put us in the position in the first place.

In any case (by saying globalism spreads the wealth around) you are trying to put a band-aid on a huge open wound.

The huge open wound was allowing private central banks to issue the public currency (paper and plastic) at a loan with interest in the first place.

Aiden,

No nation in debt to foreigners is sovereign.

I admit I'm not well versed on all things economic.
But I don't need to be intelligent to know that if its not in your wallet you cant afford it.

My problem isn't with ownership of the RBA.

Its with a system that creates currency from nothing and charges us interest for it.

What are we paying interest on?
What did they loan us?
Bits of plastic?

That money is worth no more than the contents of my recycle bin.

Why can't we print our own money and stop paying interest on the entire currency?

Why must we be funded on debt that's created from worthless bits of plastic?

Why must we be debt slaves for nothing?

Thats my point.

And heres another point about the RBA Aiden,
Even if you are right and we own the RBA, if I own a company that owes 700 billion then I don't actually own anything except a liability.

I share some of Richard'’s concerns, but he misses some important points. Greeks had every right to vote for an end to austerity, and could even have defaulted on their debts. But they would have to wear the consequences – an end to membership of the eurozone; a worthless credit rating with no-one willing to lend them more money; and, in the short term at least, a spectacular financial collapse.

In fact, the Greek vote probably contributed to the hard line take by Greece’s creditors. It was interpreted as voting themselves a share of someone else’s taxes; and it showed that, whatever reforms the Greek government agreed to, the population would not support them. Hence the need for a privatisation fund to try to protect against yet another failure to implement agreed changes.

I agree, though, that the Eurozone exemplifies some of the tensions between sovereignty and participating in transnational institutions.

For a single currency to work requires not just a single centralised monetary authority but also consistent and fairly conservative fiscal policy. To deliver the latter requires surrendering some sovereignty, which is one of the reasons the UK never joined. If people join the club but refuse to obey the rules, the club falls apart, which is why the other EZ members tried so hard to keep Greece in the tent.

The other thing that has become clear from the Greek debacle is that the rules are loaded and applied inconsistently. Many EZ members, including France and Germany, have at times run fiscal policies that bent the rules, but suffered no penalty. Countries that borrow stupidly suffer more than bankers who lend stupidly. The EU’s own rules on bailouts were breached. And the façade of independence of institutions such as the ECB was laid bare – it was politicians, not bankers, that negotiated the final deal.

But that is no reason to avoid international agreements that bind members. From tariffs to climate change, many issues can only be resolved through international agreements that bind signatories. Sometimes, the benefits make the loss of sovereignty worthwhile.

Armchair Critic says "If I print up a billion dollars on my home printer and lend it to you at face value with 1% interest, then you owe me 1 billion dollars + 10 million interest.
Even if you manage to gather up ever single piece of currency in the country and pay it all back, you still owe 10 million dollars.
That 10 million can never be paid."

This is a common misconception among many people, recited throughout the web. What people who blindly repeat this falsehood don't understand is that the interest on some loans cancel each other.

To demonstrate that it is wrong consider this following hypothetical situation:
Image that Alice has a $30,000 and a stand of trees while Ben has an axe but no money. Alice wants to sell the trees because they ready for harvesting. Ben wants to buy the trees so that he can make timber and firewood to sell. Alice wants some timber to build her house.
So, Ben borrows $30,000 from Alice to be repaid at the end of the month with 10% interest (secured against his house). Ben then buys the trees from Alice for $30,000. Ben chops the trees into timber and firewood. Alice wishes to buy $33,000 worth of timber so she pays Ben $30,000 cash and agreement to pay the extra $3,000 at the end of the month (effectively she is borrowing $3,000 from Ben). At the end of the month Ben pays Alice $30,000 and they agree that the two debts of $3,000 cancel each other and that everything has been made good, ie: there is no debt remaining to anyone at all.

-- continue below --

-- continued from above ---

We see in this example that the interest on the two loans cancel each other. Now, this was a very simple hypothetical situation with just two protagonists, whereas in the real world other entities are involved, eg: banks. However, the same thing happens, that is, interest from various loans cancels each other and is destroyed. This occurs because the banks maintain their capital reserves by borrowing from each other and when they settle these interbank loans they cancel the amounts that each owes to the other (these amounts include some interest) to determine who actually owes what to whom.
So in summary, contrary to what "Armchair Critic" and many other claim, money created by lending and interest is routinely destroyed by the banking system.