On April 24th, Martin Wolf of The Financial Times threw his support behind the proposed reforms of a UK-based group called Positive Money. In so doing, he was joining a growing number of financial experts who have identified fractional reserve banking as the reason why our economy experiences so much instability. As Wolf observed, it is illegal for private citizens to print their own money (it’s called counterfeiting) and yet it is entirely legal for banks to print money. Most people just don’t realize that they’re doing it. As Positive Money explains on their website "Currently only 3% of all the money in circulation is created by the Bank of England, the remaining 97% is created by commercial banks, when they make loans.” The numbers are comparable for the US or most of the world’s economies. Banks, unlike private citizens, have the right to create almost as much money as they want out of thin air. This monopoly (which other parts of the financial industry don’t get) is why banks become too big to fail. In short, it’s the root of the instability in our economy…and that’s just the beginning of the problems it creates. In this episode, Ben Dyson talks us through why this problem exists and what we have to do to fix it. It’s a truly mind-blowing episode. For more information, check out positivemoney.org or the book Ben co-wrote Modernising Money: Why Our Current Monetary System is Broken and How it Can Be Fixed. You can find the group on twitter @positivemoneyuk or like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/PositiveMoney. Be sure to rate and comment in iTunes.