For economics nerds like me the last week has been riveting. Paul Krugman, a Nobel-prizewinning member of the economics establishment, has been debating with Steve Keen, a radical who’s long argued that the conventional economics taught in universities is woefully unrealistic because it ignores important features of the real world like uncertainty, the role of banks, debt and how money is created.

The Exchanghibition Bank’s 2012 banknote is not just about financial exchange: In order to acquire a 2012 banknote money alone won’t be enough, our customers will also need to provide us with their Idea for Change.

I first published this short series of essays in 1992/93. They were a response to the catastrophic application of the tenets of Monetarism to the British economy, the resultant unemployment and social dislocation, the consequences of which persist even now. Much of their content is a criticism on Monetarism, the economic theory postulated by its architect and chief advocate, Milton Friedman.

The modern financial economy is based upon thinking that amounts to little more than the delusions of the medieval alchemists.

Last week the European Central Bank (ECB) injected another €530bn into the banking system through something that is called LTRO (Long Term Refinancing Operation).

Last month the Bank of England announced another £50 billion of Quantitative Easing (QE), taking the total since the start of QE in March 2009 to £325 billion. The reason for more QE cited by the Bank of England is to stimulate the economy. However when we look into how QE works we will come to the conclusion that this is not the case at all.

Since starting to look into the nature of our monetary system, there is one particular argument I have heard played out time and time again: On one side we have: “Banks can create money out of nothing. They do not need to have somebody’s savings in hand in order to make a loan”. On the other side we have: “Banking regulations dictate that banks are only allowed to lend out a fraction of their depositors money”.

Central Banks and their rounds of quantitative easing is something which is garnering more and more attention at the moment. The Central Banks defend their actions by arguing it will boost the economy, but we ask what it will do for the savers?

Central banking, its intellectual foundations and its most powerful agents today... what does it all mean? We take a good look at the Bernanke Fed and the cartel of central banks, and wonder whether we are being well lead by our financial captains. Read on to learn more and see how these issues are linked to the gold price.

Last night on the 10 o’clock news, the BBC’s respected and influential economics editor, Stephanie Flanders, revealed how little she knows about the true workings of the economy.