AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

We spend a lot of time thinking about money, one way or another. We think about how to get our hands on it, how to keep it safe and how to spend it. When we aren't asleep, there's a good chance that we're paying attention to money. But while money is never far from our thoughts, there is something curious about our relationship with it. For all that we use it to get through the day, most of us don't know what it is.

Nearly £13 billion worth of bank notes were destroyed by the Bank of England last year, either by being burned or turned into compost.

a graphical representation of banking consolidation in the US since 1990

The Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) was created to broaden and accelerate the development of new economic thinking that can lead to solutions for the great challenges of the 21st century.

The havoc wrought by our recent global financial crisis has vividly demonstrated the deficiencies in our outdated current economic theories, and shown the need for new economic thinking – right now.

INET is supporting this fundamental shift in economic thinking through research funding, community building, and spreading the word about the need for change. We already are a global community of thousands of new economic thinkers, ranging from Nobel Prize winning economists to teachers and students who have emerged out from the shadows of prevailing economic thought, attracted by the promise of a free and open economic discourse.

Britain is not alone; almost all the world’s major economies have dabbled in QE since the financial crisis struck in 2008. This year the European Central Bank (ECB) sheepishly joined Britain, the US and Japan. In the spring, it was widely assumed that QE programmes had run their course, having pumped the targeted amount into their economies. But now policymakers in big western economies are considering “QE2”: another burst of monetary mysticism.

Yet as the world’s central bankers reach for their magic cash machines again, odd, unintended consequences of QE with social, political and even diplomatic repercussions are coming to light. For a start, the world’s leading economists seem unable to agree whether it has worked or not. The IMF’s verdict in August 2009 was that QE is “not a panacea… does not have to be a curse… and is not a non-event.” So at least we know what it is not. But what it is remains a mystery.

David G.W. Birch is a Director of Consult Hyperion, the IT management consultancy that specialises in electronic transactions, where he provides specialist consultancy support to clients around the world. Before helping to found Consult Hyperion in 1986, he spent several years working as a consultant in Europe, the Far East and North America. He graduated from the University of Southampton with a B.Sc (Hons.) in Physics.
Described by The Independent newspaper in 2004 as a “grade-A geek”, by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation in 2005 as “one of the most user-friendly of the UK’s uber-techies” and by Financial World in 2006 as “mad”, Dave is a member of the editorial board of the E-Finance & Payments Law and Policy Journal and of the advisory board for European Business Review, a columnist for SPEED and UK correspondent to the Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce.

The staff were quickly rounded up in the lobby. Chandeliers hung from a high ceiling, illuminating stunned faces. One woman sobbed quietly and several covered their faces with their hands. Members of the squad moved among the shaken employees, each sporting a prominent badge emblazoned “FDIC”. This was no ordinary bank heist. The intruders were from the government and they were here to close down the failing bank and replace it with a profitable one in the course of a single night.

A few simple changes to the banking system can stop the banks from blowing up the economy again in the future, and mean that we’ll never have to bail out another toxic bank. We can also remove banks' power to create money, and use that privilege responsibly for the benefit of society and the economy as a whole.

UBS fashions the rules for banking chicFlesh-coloured underwear, dry-cleaned shirts, no cartoon socks… the Swiss bank insists it's all common sense

Amid the blizzard of economic data that the government puts out every week, last Tuesday’s report analyzing G.D.P. industry by industry got little notice. But it contained one very interesting piece of data: in 2008, for the first time in sixteen years, the finance and insurance industry shrank. Since 1980, this sector’s share of the economy has grown by almost half. Now, apparently, the worm has turned.

well written. but seems a little embedded in guilt and blame.

the fundamental difficult is associating a positive moral judgement with saving. saving provides the funds with which banks, and other financial institutions make amoral investment decisions based upon 1. the return, 2. the security, 3. the law. Saving removes our money from our control - it is a payment to 'feel' secure.

our mission:

to widen the scope of financial, economic and political information available to the professional investing public.
to skeptically examine and, where necessary, attack the flaccid institution that financial journalism has become.
to liberate oppressed knowledge.
to provide analysis uninhibited by political constraint.
to facilitate information's unending quest for freedom.

nef (the new economics foundation) is an independent think-and-do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being.

We aim to improve quality of life by promoting innovative solutions that challenge mainstream thinking on economic, environment and social issues. We work in partnership and put people and the planet first.

nef was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) which forced issues such as international debt onto the agenda of the G7 and G8 summits.

We are unique in combining rigorous analysis and policy debate with practical solutions on the ground, often run and designed with the help of local people. We also create new ways of measuring progress towards increased well-being and environmental sustainability.

nef works with all sections of society in the UK and internationally - civil society, government, individuals, businesses and academia - to create more understanding and strategies for change.

At the time of the last Pacific Rim Banknote Printers' Conference we had just started to introduce the polymer $50 note in circulation - this was the fourth note in a five note series to have its substrate switched from paper to polymer. In May 1996 the polymer $100 note was introduced, completing the changeover of all of Australia's notes from paper to polymer substrate. The vast majority of notes now circulating are polymer and have been for some time and so we are now able to confidently assess the impact of the change on counterfeiting.

Here's the Economist rocking some hardcore 20th century thinking.

So what happens when every credit card company is exploiting every cognitive bias across markets? Simple: another credit meltdown, as nonpayment correlations spike.

Sound familiar? It should: it's the same systemic flaw in organization that is causing today's crisis.

The point is this. We cannot organize tomorrow's businesses - or economy - like yesterday's. What do I mean? Simple. How should we organize and manage how firms interact with consumers? The Economist thinks it's "creepy" but cool to trick consumers, because it's profitable.

Is it?