{"id":96269,"date":"2026-10-11T07:14:56","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T06:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=96269"},"modified":"2026-10-11T07:14:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T06:14:56","slug":"banks-controlling-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/10\/11\/banks-controlling-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Banks controlling society"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent part of yesterday at a poetry workshop run by Alice Willetts<\/a> as part of the Cambridge Poetry Festival. She was discussing writing for the future.<\/p>\n

Whilst there, I met Veronica Scmalz, who describes herself as La jaune Schreibmaschine. That means The Yellow Typewriter, but it mixes French and German.<\/p>\n

She writes poems for people, on the spot. She asked what concerns me. We had a brief conversation, and she wrote this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The translation is this, and I admit I had to use AI to achieve it:<\/p>\n

Banks controlling society<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Banks controlling society
\nmake people
\nspiral down into
\na vicious circle
\nbetween needing money and
\nhaving none.<\/p>\n

It is astonishing how far
\nwe have become
\nunimpressed by
\nthe birds and the sky.<\/p>\n

But for me,
\nthat is what keeps me
\nawake at night,
\neating away at my soul.<\/p>\n

This comes from writing in seven languages:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. English<\/b><\/span> \u2013 \u201cspiral down into\u201d, \u201chow far\u201d, \u201cthe birds\u201d, \u201cawake at night\u201d.<\/li>\n
  2. Spanish<\/b><\/span> \u2013 \u201cBanks controlando la sociedad\u201d (Banks controlling society).<\/li>\n
  3. Dutch<\/b><\/span> \u2013 \u201cmensen\u201d (people), \u201ctussen\u201d (between), \u201cgeen\u201d (none), \u201cmijn\u201d (my), \u201cdat\u201d (that).<\/li>\n
  4. German<\/b><\/span> \u2013 \u201cGeld\u201d (money), \u201cund\u201d (and), \u201cf\u00fcr\u201d (for), \u201cSchreibmaschine\u201d (typewriter).<\/li>\n
  5. Italian<\/b><\/span> \u2013 \u201cun circolo vizioso\u201d (a vicious circle), \u201ces impresionante\u201d is Spanish rather than Italian.<\/li>\n
  6. French<\/b><\/span> \u2013 \u201cmais pour moi\u201d (but for me), \u201cla jaune\u201d (the yellow).<\/li>\n
  7. Portuguese<\/b><\/span> \u2013 \u201cimpressionante\u201d (impressive or astonishing).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Some deliberate linguistic ambiguity arises because several words are shared between languages.<\/p>\n

    I am a little in awe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I spent part of yesterday at a poetry workshop run by Alice Willetts as part of the Cambridge Poetry Festival. She was discussing writing for
     Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,47,46,136,14,204,35,16,147,224,106,223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-banking","category-bonds-2","category-bonds","category-city-of-london","category-corruption","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-ethics","category-inequality","category-neoliberalism","category-politics","category-politics-of-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96269"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96275,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96269\/revisions\/96275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}