Let us focus our efforts on attaining complete monetary freedom: The denationalization of money in a free banking system.
Santander has staged an about-turn and will no longer withdraw its "free banking forever" account from 230, 000 small business customers.
Mike O'Connor, of watchdog Consumer Focus, said that the current perception of free banking was not good for competition, or for customers.
Meanwhile, Lord Turner, chairman of the FSA, questioned the practice of free banking in a recent speech, saying it discouraged competition between banks.
More damaging, however, is the fact that it places him outside of the mainstream in free banking circles and squanders his remaining quasi-libertarian credibility as a champion of markets.
In the era of free banking between 1837 and 1863, for instance, more than 700 banks could issue their own notes, and as many as one-third of all bills were fake.
Andrew Bailey, a director of the Bank of England who will soon become the City's top regulator, has said that free banking is dangerous and needs to be reformed by the government.
This is probably why the Ayn Rand Institute, that flagship of right moral political philosophy, migrated its support from the gold standard to a system of free banking with private currencies.
With the blessings of the government of Laos and help from international investors, he plans to build more hotels and casinos, housing estates, a motor-racing stadium, tea plantations, an airport and a tax-free banking zone.
Bailey says that free banking both misleads customers about how they are really paying for banking services, and also means that banks themselves may not properly understand the costs of the products and services they supply.
The issue of "free" banking was addressed in the Independent Commission on Banking - the Vickers report.
Interestingly, the paper cites several papers by the prominent free-banking advocate George Selgin.
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It was such a disaster that the Founding Fathers decided to move to a distributed, free-banking model for the new United States.
Banks had better start doing it now, because customers are pushing for things like online and offline channel integration and free mobile banking that drive up complexity rather than reducing it.
Since Japan is struggling to free itself from a banking crisis caused partly by widespread connected lending (thanks to the system of corporate groups known as keiretsu, today's variant on the zaibatsu), Mr Ochi's preferences seem most peculiar.
Paradigm shifts like the rise of the corporation in the late Middle Ages, paper money, free labor and central banking, among many others, all came about as a response to particular political, social and technological pressures, needs, and problems.
Instead, they are better able to utilize existing holdings of clients to free up liquidity in the banking system.
He was even more scathing of the argument that overdraft charges were fees paid for receiving a whole package of services, in which banking services were free for those who stay in credit.
What supply-side measures Mr. King had in mind he refused to say, although it is notable that the Treasury last year rejected his advice to underwrite a further recapitalization of the banking system to free up the supply of credit.
Shopping around online for better banking options can make free checking easier to reach.
He shook himself free from the cares of state banking and the wiles of improvident countries and entered private industry.
Chase may give away free Internet software to its 32m banking customers.
Even when free of political meddling, central banking is fraught with uncertainty.
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Last year, Allison telegraphed his message in The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: How Destructive Banking Reform is Killing the Economy.
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While the investment is not risk free, a recovery in the banking sector could lead to a healthy profit for the government and in turn the taxpayer.
Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), chairman of the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, has even argued for a return to the gold standard and ultimately the end of central banking in favor of free-market money.
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He said that free current accounts provided a barrier to entry into the UK retail banking sector because this core product "is usually given away for free", prompting banks to try to make profits by pushing other products.
But it is unlikely to allow a free float until it has reformed its banking sector, which is laden with bad loans (see article).
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As countries around the region begin to restructure and recapitalise their banking industries, they will free the banks to write off non-performing loans or trade them for equity without going into liquidation themselves.
Modern banking arose in the then relatively free cities of northern Italy.
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