New Money Review podcast Paul Amery

We need a new approach to building trust in economic and monetary systems, says Ian Grigg, my guest on the latest episode of the New Money Review podcast.Grigg, a computer scientist and cryptographer, is one of the pioneers of internet-based money. In the 1990s, he worked on digital cash systems, which applied strong cryptography systems to money transfers. Grigg also published articles (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian-Grigg) on shared ledgers, triple-entry accounting, proof-of-work systems, smart contracts and social reputation systems well before the emergence of bitcoin.In the podcast, Grigg talks about the ballooning problems of financial exclusion, money laundering and financial crime. He argues that the current US-driven approach to isolating bad actors and excluding them from the financial system is bound to fail.Instead, says Grigg, we need to focus on rebuilding identity and money systems from the ground up, using models found in countries where trust in governments and financial institutions is largely absent.To listen to the podcast, click here. In it, we cover:* How the cypherpunks became interested in digital money* Why Satoshi Nakamoto was a cryptographer, not a cypherpunk* Why strong cryptography caused a revolution in accounting* The prospects for triple-entry accounting* Why state identity systems cannot fulfil humans’ need for trust* How community money can fill the trust gap* The ballooning costs and falling returns of banks’ compliance efforts* Why anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) rules have failed* The problem of false positives in AML monitoring* Why governments cannot beat the money launderers—the OODA loop* Building virtuous circles of trust—in communities, countries and globally 

In the latest episode of the New Money Review podcast I’m joined by someone who says we’re in the middle of a historic battle between the public and private sector over money. And it’s one the state can’t afford to lose, he argues. Our future global money will be digital, cheap and mobile, says Richard Holden, professor of economics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, but it may be issued by a tech giant or an emerging economy rather than the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank or Bank of England. And that right to issue money will confer massive power on the winner of the digital currency race.In his new book, “Money In the 21st Century”, Holden makes a passionate defence of state money and says the US central bank should get its act together and start issuing its own digital money, which he calls Fedcoin.In the podcast, we cover:* Why should we go cashless?* What about those who rely on physical cash?* How should we go cashless?* Why is it a problem if a private currency wins the digital currency race?* Why should the US issue a “Fedcoin”?* Aren’t faster payment systems enough?* What did we learn from Facebook’s digital currency experiment?* China, the US and the geopolitics of digital money* The future role of the banking system

In the latest episode of the New Money Review podcast I’m delighted to welcome Satyajit Das, a former investment banker, derivatives expert and author.His book “Traders, Guns and Money”, published in 2006, remains one of the best books ever written about the world of high finance.It’s been called “a wickedly comic exposé of the culture, games and pure deceptions played out every day in trading rooms around the world. And played out with other people’s money.”Das went on to publish “Extreme Money” and “The Age of Stagnation”, in which a common theme is the high global levels of debt.In the podcast, Das talks in detail about debt and the complexities of measuring it. He says all financial markets are now at risk from excessive leverage. Japan, whose currency has recently undergone a big devaluation, may point the way ahead for all of us, he says.We discuss:* Why debt is like heroin* How the marginal productivity of debt has been falling* Reaching the “trust moment” in government bond markets* How vulnerable are US Treasuries to a liquidity crisis?* Why inflation may be higher for longer…* …and interest rates could overshoot expectations* Debt on debt and the challenge of understanding leverage* How tech entrepreneurs borrow against equity* Complexities in leverage chains—the example of Greensill* Why non-bank financing of debt is particularly risky* Why regulators struggle to monitor shadow banks* Cross-border exposures in the Evergrande bankruptcy* Why the “usual disinfectants”—better disclosure and more capital—no longer work* How Japan finally escaped its debt trap* Why sovereign wealth funds are buying up global infrastructure* The end of financial engineering

Excitement over the prospects for artificial intelligence (AI) has driven US stock market valuations to a historic high. Can AI technologies deliver on their promise? Or is this yet another case of irrational exuberance?In the latest New Money Review podcast I am joined by Eric Siegel, a former Columbia University professor who has taught computer science courses in machine learning and AI. Siegel, now a consultant, has just published a new book called “The AI Playbook—Mastering the Rare Art of Machine Learning Deployment”.In the podcast, we explore some of the paradoxes surrounding AI: why this tech tool with apparently unlimited greatest promise may be the hardest to use, and why computers promising us greater autonomy may in fact require more supervision.We cover:* What is artificial intelligence (AI) and what is machine learning (ML)?* What is generative AI?* What explains the current AI hype?* How predictive analytics can improve organisations’ performance* Examples of successful machine learning in practice: UPS and credit scoring* Why do so many ML projects fail to reach deployment?* Why artificial general intelligence (AGI) is “the most compelling ghost story ever”* Why computers that seem more human-like may give us less autonomy* What goals can ChatGPT reach and where does it fall short?* Why AI hype may be costly 

Against an uncertain economic backdrop, one industry is booming.Internet fraudsters are scamming more and more victims worldwide. Using increasingly sophisticated methods, they are now stealing even from the most prepared among us.But while the number of online frauds and the volumes of money involved are increasing, so are the efforts to stop scammers.In the latest New Money Review podcast, I’m joined by Simon Miller, director of policy and communications at Stop Scams UK.In the podcast, we discuss:* Why the volumes of scams and the money lost are significantly underreported* How scammers target our insecurities and vulnerabilities* Why scams have shot up governments’ policy agendas* Why cross-sector data sharing can help prevent scams* Should all scam victims get their money back?* Who should compensate scam victims—banks, tech firms or telecoms?* Why fraudsters like digital payments* Why fintechs face higher compliance costs* Why combating scams requires global coordination* Why artificial intelligence (AI) is both bad and good news* The trade-off between privacy and fraud prevention* How to reduce the chances of being scammed* Why the Israel-Gaza war will drive new charity scams

If you thought tax was boring, the latest New Money Review podcast will change your mind.Dan Neidle was a top corporate lawyer for 23 years—ending up as head of tax at London law firm Clifford Chance. But in 2022 he retired to set up a new think tank called Tax Policy Associates (https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/). Its aim is to improve UK tax policy and to improve the public understanding of the subject. This nerdish-sounding mission statement gave no indication of the political fireworks Neidle’s new venture was shortly to ignite. In July 2022, he accused then-Chancellor Nadim Zahawi of having avoided £4m in capital gains tax (https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2022/07/10/zahawi/) a few years earlier. It later emerged that Zahawi was under investigation by his own subordinates in His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), as well as being the subject of a separate inquiry the National Crime Agency (NCA).Other campaigners had tried to expose Zahawi in previous years (https://twitter.com/greennuneaton/status/1616477187082682390) but had been put off by threats of legal action—the UK’s infamous ‘strategic lawsuits against public participation’ (SLAPPs), which often silence investigative journalists.But when Neidle received similar threats from Zahawi’s lawyers he called the UK Chancellor’s bluff. He went ahead and published his investigations. Zahawi was forced to back down.In September 2022, incoming UK prime minister Liz Truss replaced Zahawi as Chancellor and gave him another ministerial position. But in January 2023, Rishi Sunak, who had replaced Truss in October, fired Zahawi from the UK government. Citing the tax investigation which Neidle had been instrumental in bringing to light, Sunak said Zahawi had committed ‘a serious breach of the Ministerial Code’.Tax Policy Associates’ more recent investigations touch on such sensitive topics as UK inheritance tax, the ‘carried interest’ tax exemption enjoyed by private equity firms and the alleged involvement of the family of another Conservative politician, Michelle Mone, in a cover-up relating to government contracts for personal protective equipment (PPE) during the coronavirus pandemic. In the half-hour podcast discussion, I quiz Dan Neidle on a number of tax-related topics, including:* Separating the goals of tax policy from the tax rules* Whether the complexity of tax codes aids illicit behaviour* Why the make-up of UK tax revenues has changed remarkably little over time* Why the Liz Truss tax-cutting experiment went wrong* Three ideas to improve UK tax policy (value-added tax, income tax and land tax)* PPE contract fraud* Failures in the UK’s system of corporate transparency* Why Companies House is a giant fraud robot* Why the UK remains a spectacularly successful venue for money laundering* Coordinating the taxation of multinationals* Why we should encourage the OECD’s ‘Pillar 2’ project