Taking all tHE credit Last month people may have noticed that the old Co-op Bank on Walthamstow’s Hoe Street was for a few weeks rebranded as ‘The Bank Job’. Intrigued Paul Lindt asks one of the instigators Dan Edelstyn what’s going on? Photographs by Simon Goodwin.
Photography © www.goodwinphotography.co.uk
Hi Dan, so tell us about The Bank Job. Great name by the way. It’s a community heist, where we get together to do a number against the banks – and pull off a job highlighting the unjust consequences of the current debt-based money system. It’s just the start of a bigger idea, the HSCB (Hoe Street Community Bank). What’s your aim. We aim to raise £25,000 for local causes affected by the fall out of the financial system as it is now and also to raise a further £25,000 to buy up and abolish £1 million of local payday debt.
Sounds ambitious. How did this all come about? We believe that the banking system is a dangerous runaway train, effectively creating money as interest-bearing debt on an unprecedented scale. More and more people are being indebted in order to access basic social goods, such as housing and education. We will never repay these debts – and the extraction will never cease. But it’s not good for anyone – without a balanced economy politics will become increasingly bitter and our small businesses will fail. We still have free healthcare at point of access, but the Health Trusts are indebted
to PFI – as are our schools and many other public services. Credit surrounds us, the financial elites are wrapping it around almost everything, but their tentacles are quite invisible. We are trying to shine a spotlight on this and encourage a public conversation so things can begin to change. So you are counteracting this by printing money! Yes - my partner in crime Hilary Powell and I came up with this idea of a local form of money which would work as a way of raising enough capital to destroy a drop in the ocean of the most predatory debt in our community. The story of how
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