The solution to the problem can't be as simple as putting a plus sign in front of that figure... or can it?
The conjuring trick is to replace our system of private bank-created money -- roughly 97pc of the money supply -- with state-created money. We return to the historical norm, before Charles II placed control of the money supply in private hands with the English Free Coinage Act of 1666.
Specifically, it means an assault on "fractional reserve banking". If lenders are forced to put up 100pc reserve backing for deposits, they lose the exorbitant privilege of creating money out of thin air.
The nation regains sovereign control over the money supply. There are no more banks runs, and fewer boom-bust credit cycles. Accounting legerdemain will do the rest. That at least is the argument.
Comment: This is a paramoralistic argument conjured by a mindset that has already created a global "Leviathan state" of "irksome" rule by a clique of powerful private banksters. Government-issued debt-free currency would rebalance the scales somewhat by bringing at least some semblance of public oversight to what is currently a shadow banking system that operates completely in the dark, and from where it pulls the strings on much if not all policy across much if not all of the planet.
In fact, what this paramoralism really speaks to is the psychopaths' fear that their game will be up. They will no longer enjoy the carte blanche of 'laissez-faire' through which they had awarded themselves the freedom to pillage with impunity while the serfs are tightly controlled with debt coming out of their ears.
This is very interesting research and a very interesting proposal, especially coming from within the IMF, whose unspoken shadow function is to in-debt nations to the international private banking cartel. For that reason if nothing else, it is very unlikely that it will come to pass while this institution remains in the hands of psychopathic elites.
However, what makes this report so valuable in the short-term is that it exposes in one fell swoop the myth that there 'is no other way' forward but that of austerity, long-term economic depression and suffering on a mass scale. The international debt/banking crisis is not some unfortunate act of nature, it is deliberately chosen policy because it suits the few at the expense of the many. Yes, it really would be that easy to unwind the private banking Leviathan, as described above, but it may take global upheaval to first unseat the psychopaths in power.