What's Going On...
Phil is currently working to complete his first solo album, but is also committed to several other projects in the pipeline with other artists.
The songs currently uploaded here are demos and are not currently planned to be on the album. Feel free to download the tracks and, should the desire to do so grab you, share them with your friends.
Phil can currently be found playing live throughout South Wales with The Journeymen, a group of extremely talented musicians specialising in classic rock and blues based rock covers, with a strong element of Led Zeppelin covers in their sets.
For booking enquiries, or to be kept updated on any new tracks etc. please e-mail pr@phil-rowe.net, or find Phil on Facebook
So, what is this 'money' you speak of?
It seems to dominate most of our lives, yet very few of us actually understand the concept behind money. I thought that this month we'd illustrate it quite simply. You may find the truth shocking, but it is the truth.
Many of us believe that we save our money in banks, and banks make money by lending or investing this money out for profit. While there is a scant element of truth in this, it is not how banks make their profits, or how they maintain their hold over our societies.
The origins of money begin back when gold coins were used to exchange for goods and services. The early goldsmiths used to store gold for customers, and began to issue notes as 'promise' that the bearer of that note had the equivalent value in gold stored in the vaults. People began to prefer carrying these notes rather than heavy purses of gold, and their popularity soared. Soon, the goldsmiths began to lend money based on the amount they had in their vaults, in exchange for a rate of interest. Then some clever-clogs realised that nobody actually knew how much gold was actually in his vault, so he could lend out notes far beyond the actual value of the gold in his vault. He was, in fact, creating the money out of thin air, and getting paid back interest in return. THIS CONCEPT HAS NOT CHANGED!
In fact, it has only gotten worse. In more modern terms, this is a simplified version of how it works:
You go to your bank and borrow £10,000 to buy a new car. Your bank agrees and credits £10,000 to your account. You go to the garage and give them a cheque for £10,000, which the garage pays into their own account. Here's the rub; your bank did not put £10,000 into your account, it simply put the numbers there. In fact, now that you 'owe' your bank £10,000 + interest, it has that much more in assets than it had before you signed the form. The second bank, having received your £10,000 cheque, now marks that as 'new' money in its own coffers. The £10,000 is, quite literally, created out of thin air. Not only that, but now that the 2nd bank has this £10,000, it can use it as its 'fractional reserve' to lend up to 30 times it's value in more imaginary money!!
Now imagine that it's going to cost you £12,000 to pay back your loan with interest. That extra £2000 that you pay back is taken from wherever you manage to earn it and given to the bankers, swelling their assets and allowing them to skim off the profit. Their swollen assets now allow them to lend up to 30 times the value of your repaid interest too – and don't forget, the 2nd bank is also busying itself lending and multiplying everything it receives. This is referred to as 'private money creation'. In the UK only the Bank of England can actually create proper money. What the private banks do is actually more like what you'd think of as forgery if the money they 'created' was made into notes and coins. These private companies are allowed to flood our economies with this imaginary money, giving rise to inflation and countless other side effects. In fact 97% of our economy is now made up of privately created money!
The still-nastier side of it is this – EVERY SINGLE PENNY OF IT IS MADE OUT OF AND INTO DEBT. If you pay off your debt, it always means that somebody else is going into debt by that amount. I know… it's actually quite difficult to get your head around this, but IT'S TRUE!
In a nutshell, the banks CANNOT LOSE MONEY, because they invented the money that they're owed in the first place. The banks can only make LESS PROFIT. In fact, the only real concern to a bank, is that all of its customers suddenly request to withdraw all of their real money – this is called a 'run' or a 'rush' on the bank (a la Northern Rock).
When you took out your mortgage, your bank put up PRECISELY ZERO for their end of the agreement, yet stand to own your house until you have paid them the stated sum. Sick, eh?
There are people who are trying to achieve change. They deserve a brief moment of your time, attention and support. When enough names subscribe to their campaign, our MPs and AMs will have to listen. Go to www.positivemoney.org.uk and, at the very least, allow yourself to say that you tried to help change it. If you can't do it yourself, get someone to do it for you.
What's with the new site?
I have finally come to the conclusion that, instead of having everything I do as separate entities (at least, as far as the web is concerned), that I should integrate the whole thing onto a single site - this gives me the opportunity to brush up on my web design skills as much as anything else. So, as time goes on, I'm hoping that this site will contain ALL of my public output whether it's music, pictures (still or moving) or blogs. This page will eventually be replaced with a chronological snapshot of whatever's been uploaded. Hope you find it interesting enough.
I have only just uploaded this site... which is why some of the links don't work yet and why there is not too much content, but I will keep updating it over the coming weeks, so please keep checking back.