I have long argued that the current crisis will not be solved, nor a future similar one prevented, by doing "more of the same" - tinkering with regulation and so on is fiddling around the edges of a money system that is fundamentally corrupted. A few weeks ago I wrote that we had until 2nd April to persuade leaders to change the system rather than shore up the old one.

There is now one of those petitions at the Number 10 site which asks that monetary reform be included in the options for the G20 when they meet. Now, I don't agree with the nature of the reform the petition writers wish to see (although I used to). But I do agree that "something must be done" and all the petition actually asks for is greater reform to go on the agenda.

So if you agree that the G20 needs to take a more fundamental look at what money is and how it works, rather than just altering the regulatory regime of the current flawed system, maybe you'd like to sign the petition too.

Drowning Brown: How much longer is he going to wriggle?

I've long been of the opinion that Gordon Brown, for all sorts of reasons, would wait until the last possible moment in 2010 to go to the country.

I've now changed my mind. I don't think he can last another couple of months. I do not see how Darling can get a budget through that is not either going to have to be full of more lies to cover up the seriousness of the position or be honest and open and expose the farce that the various rescue attempts have been and the true cost of them.

We already have the police worried about a "summer of rage", and one way, perhaps, to prevent that rage boiling over may be to give the middle class a say in how this economic drama plays out and who they  want the main actors to be from here on in.

My only real quandary is over whether Gordon Brown's government can now last as long as the European Parliament elections on 4th June. Though since there's no way of having another G20 summit hamstrung by a reasonably major player in the middle of a power transfer I don't suppose he can go to the country before April 2nd, unless of course his hand is forced this weekend.

So, a snap election with a three week campaign starting more or less now, polling day of March 26th, or dissolution after April 2nd but before the budget on 22nd April with polling day on Euro-day. 

Personally, I don't think Brown is capable of being honest enough to see that it would be better to have a new government in place for both G20 and the Budget, so my guess is that he'll go either between the two and shelve the budget but have his moment strutting about at the global blathering, or perhaps after the budget in a sort of "dare you do better" sort of move.  I also think there's a good chance he'll get lynched by someone before 22nd April!

Just a note for those of an historical bent - 22nd April 2009 will be exactly one week before the centenary of Lloyd-George's People's Budget in 1909. Whoever delivers this year's budget could still do a lot worse than look to that 1909 budget for ideas!

Remember that day, in February 2003 when there were supposedly 1 million plus people marching in demonstration against the Iraq war through the centre of London. Well, on a population pro rata equivalence, Dublin has just seen more than that protesting the credit crunch and their government's handling of the economic crisis:

Huge protest over Irish economy Protesters said they wanted to make their voices heard but avoid strike action Up to 100,000 people have gathered in Dublin city centre to protest at the Irish government's handling of the country's recession. Many are angry at plans to impose a pension levy on public sector workers. [From BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Huge protest over Irish economy]

(100,000 of a population of 4.4 million is like having 1.3 million of us Brits out on the street). Now, okay, we're not quite as close up to the nostrils deep in merde as Ireland is...yet, but why aren't we more angry? It must be time we hit the streets in protest - although quite what we would be protesting for is quite another thing; the government may have got us into this thing by its economic policy, but the last thing we therefore want is for our government actually to do something about it, maybe that's what we should be protesting for.

As we speak, the Bank of England is waiting with the equivalent of the on switch on the money press: every page of theoretical shiny new notes it prints is stealing directly from us, from the value of our existing money. Is that not enough to protest about? The government, the economists, he money markets; they do not know what is really going on at the moment nor how to fix it. They have been staring into an abyss for months now not knowing how deep it is or what's going to be waiting for us at the bottom. They have been "doing something" because the did not want to be accused of "doing nothing" - the thing that is often blamed for turning the Wall St Crash events into the start of the Depression; and they don't want to be responsible like that.

A well known news anchor told me a few months back that even with just an economics A Level forty-ish years ago this was literally the first time he had ever felt to be on a par in terms of understanding what was going on with his expert interviewees. However eminent, learned, wealthy or powerful in the field of economics and banking they might be, they were themselves fishing for ideas, points of reference and relevant examples of what was going on and what they might do to achieve some difference in outcome.

So it is high time that we, the people whose only apparent interest in this is that our financial futures are being taken from us daily, stood up and expressed our real concern. In forty days or thereabout the leaders of the twenty most powerful and influential countries on the planet will be here in Britain to talk about a way through this mess and we're going to be there represented by the loonies from Downing Street who are responsible for the mess in the first place.

For real man.

Nick Clegg has a piece in the Independent this morning repeating his suggestion of last week that we should consider joining the Euro. Not, it has to be said, now and in a hurry - he does not see it as a way out of the mess the financial markets are in - but in recognition that the world after this crisis will be a different economic landscape in which ganging up together with Europe may outweigh the loss of credibility the City of London will have wrought on itself. He concludes:

But given the gravity of the economic crisis in Britain, and our unique exposure to international financial markets, silence about the euro must end. The future has never been more uncertain. People are increasingly desperate for stability in our economic affairs. We must be ready to think anew. [From Nick Clegg: We should consider joining the euro - Commentators, Opinion - The Independent]

Indeed, we must think anew, but alas the Euro is still part of the old world not the new. It is the system itself that is broken. It is true that one could argue that the Euro is slightly different from the rest of the system in that its central bank is not controlled by a single government with spending plans it would like to get that central bank to finance. At the moment that is; and God forbid that it ever should - we don't want these people to have any control over our lives, as liberals, do we?

If the Euro is able to survive the current crisis, with the pressures of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland at least threatening to break all the rules, it will be a stronger currency I am sure if it emerges out the other side, but how long would it take for it to be ready to absorb an economy the size of the UK's?

Then also I notice talk that the BRIC countries, and at least China and India, as global creditor nations, will hold a lot of sway when the G20 meets in a few weeks time, are resurrecting something similar to Keynes' idea of the Bancor as a sort of a supra-national reserve currency. I doubt that they will readily accept a switch from one "national" reserve currency to another. The very notion of a reserve currency linked to one particular geopolitical grouping skews the system against all the other nations by effectively ensuring they have to buy that reserve currency in order to trade. In the new world where these economies are nipping at our heels it is economic imperialism, and protectionist, to believe we have a right to be some global super-currency.

I really think we have to begin to look beyond the era of "central banking" - it's not like it's been around that long - less than a century in reality. It has proven time and again to be a hostage of markets owing to the moral hazard inherent in the private banking system knowing they will be baled out in a crisis and has been a constant source of inflation. Not even our most monetarist governments have been able to control the money supply. It is one of the great monopolies that our liberal predecessors knew were a great cause of inequity.

As well as establishing this group to look at the electoral use of technology, the party needs to establish a group of, if you like, futurologists, to look at how the technological advances, especially in communications, over the past couple of decades can facilitate even more wide ranging changes right down to the institutions we have accepted till now as the very life-blood of the economy. The genie is out of the bottle, we are in a new epoch, and it seems to me that the opportunity this financial crisis affords us to do away with some of the old and facilitate the new is unmissable.