Ron Morrison had the following letter published in The Herald (Glasgow) on 13 June 2003.

Trying to make sense of the meaningless twaddle of the five economic tests, the waffle of monetary experts, and the gobbledegook of politicians, all pontificating about the euro, I am more than ever convinced that when we talk about money our brains turn into cabbage.

When one considers the fortunes spent employing all these folk and then consider the shambolic state of the country, why don’t we start asking them some really awkward questions?

One day we are all prospering and employed and the next we are all having to be even leaner and fitter, pay more than ever into what’s left of our pension funds, and join ever-longer queues for medical attention.

If we continue to allow our lives to be controlled by those in the "money business" then the downward spiral will continue whether we measure our declining wealth in euros, pounds, or gold bars.

Money used to be minted and spent into circulation by the government. Until 50 years ago half of all money came into circulation on demand, spent into existence by government as the national means of exchange. The other half

was bank credit — a much more volatile and ephemeral commodity lent into existence as a business opportunity by banks.

Today only three miserable pence in the pound is issued by the State, and all the rest is credit and interest. That is fact straight out of the UK Abstract of Official Statistics. It’s the same story elsewhere.

Now, Messrs Economist, Banker, and Politician, ponder that. Ask yourselves why public services have to be privatised and run like businesses and why is money so "unavailable" for all those priceless investments which are socially desirable and physically possible?

Money is not a commodity. It is a means of exchanging goods and services.

Clearly the present self-serving experts and their arrangements are failing us. The system needs an overhaul. Responsible government issued money in the form of cash for donkey’s years, why should it not issue credit?

Democracy will work better when government recovers control of the means of exchange.

Now all you academic economists and financial specialists, may we please hear some debate, on an objective and scientific basis, about how the means of exchange should work in a truly free society?

— from Prosperity, May 2003

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