MMT & Private Debt Dialogue PART II

[Part I here]

A. So, last time you discussed how understanding how money really works leads to insights that can help make the real economy perform better, and increase the real material well-being of a country. And all this talk about problems with a “national debt” is just non-sense. It seems only to serve the rich who would like to impose “austerity” on the rest of us. You focused on the national debt and how the household analogy is false, but still haven’t explained the crash of 2008. You said it was and still is about private debt.

B. Yes.

A. How?

B. Well, we talked about how all the so called “national debt” is mirrored exactly by the net financial assets of the private sector. So what is usually called the national debt should really be thought of as a good number that reflects the amount of assets the private sector holds. Government spending is what allows that accumulation in the private sector.

A.  Yes

B.  However, not all money is created through government bonds.

A. What do you mean?

B. The vast majority of money is created by banks out of thin air. When banks make loans, someone walks away with money, an asset, a plus in their account. Yet the bank also records that loan as an asset, a plus in their account. This increases the effective money supply (more or less what is known as M2 in the US), which in turn increases effective demand in the economy. This effect is large, with the vast majority of money actually being private bank-credit money, not money based on US bonds. [Note this has nothing to do with reserve requirements, which under the modern banking system are an anachronism, but with the ability of banks to make loans and get reserves later, which the central bank has to accommodate (bc it targets interest rates) and record the loans as pluses.]

This seems fine when the economy is doing well. But it means the effective money supply is largely based on private debt. The debt ratchets up until a point where the non-financial private sector is deeply indebted to the finance private sector and cannot easily take on new debt. Eventually, with some slight downturn in the economy, there is a loss of creditworthy borrowers, so the system collapses and with it a great portion of the effective money supply.  Thus exactly when the economy needs a boost in demand, it instead suffers a sharp contraction. And the banks are the ones holding either the money or the ownership of assets that are defaulted on. The non-finance private sector loses greatly to the benefit of the finance private sector.

A. So what can be done about this?

B. Well, mainstream economists do not even recognize the factors that matter in this scenario. So they literally have nothing useful to say about fixing the economy in this situation. With their bad theory they are like monkeys with razor blades in an operating room – worse than useless.  Just one example:  they don’t understand the process where private bank-credit money is created only due to the demand for loans by the private sector. So they thought that essentially giving money to the banks, “quantitative easing”, would stimulate the economy. But with no creditworthy borrowers, that money just sits there. To really understand what is at the heart of this finance-based depression, you have to look to economists who understand the interactions of finance factors & the economy in the first place.

Among them there is one view that if both 1) the MMT policies we discussed in Part 1 were followed and 2) better banking practices followed, the economy would not fall into the trap just mentioned. Aggregate demand would be provided through intelligent fiscal policy, not widespread private debt. And the banking sector would be regulated in a way so as not to allow bad assets to back loans and to limit the many financial shenanigans the wealthy created to game the system. So the system would be more stable. Warren Mosler presents perhaps the best clear statement of the needed bank reforms, and regardless of any other changes discussed here, they should be implemented ASAP to stop much of the current harmful or downright corrupt practices in the current system.

A. Would this work?

B. Maybe. The worry is that the effective money supply is still created largely through private bank lending. This provides a huge incentive for the banks, which under this system are likely to be rich and influential, to always, little by little, manipulate regulations in their favor. This is known as “regulatory capture” and in turn leads to an unstable buildup of private debt and the finance sector gaining at the expense of everyone else. Remember, the banks gain no matter what under the current system – either they earn directly from their loans and dubious investment vehicles in the good times, or in a downturn, they earn from claiming the assets that the private sector used as collateral and by being propped up by the government because they are “too big to fail”. Privatized (finance sector) gains and socialized losses. The headlines in recent years that the 1% has done well by the crash of 2008 are sadly true.

A. Is there an alternative?

B. Possibly. It is possible to simply not allow banks to create private bank-credit money. Rather than banks being able to credit borrowers’ accounts with money out of thin air, they would have to lend already existing money, either that they already own, or that they have pooled from investors seeking interest on money they actually hold. A loan would not show as a plus on their balance sheets, but as a minus on someone’s balance sheet – real money that they or their investors have transferred to a borrower. And they would not be allowed to sell their loans, but would have to keep them on their own books. This incidentally would give them a large incentive to raise their scrutiny of borrowers, and thus increase the quality of loans in the first place.

A. Why is this important?

B. This would mean that banks would no longer in effect create new money. They would only be intermediaries, uniting willing investors actually transferring their existing money to borrowers, nothing more. Crucially, this means that the money supply would not collapse in an economic downturn, what is known as a “cascading liquidity crisis”. Lenders might lose money if borrowers did not pay them back, but the total amount of money in existence would remain the same, and so would effective demand. Also, banks would not be earning money through creating money out of thin air. The system would thus both be much simpler and tremendously more transparent, and additionally the banks would be less powerful to change rules in their favor. A crash like 2008 would simply not be possible under this system.

A. So are there any drawbacks to this system?

B. Well, some think that under this system the less wealthy would actually suffer.

A. Why?

B. Because under the current system, even the less wealthy, at least when the economy is good, are sometimes able to get loans and financing for projects. Under the new system, the less wealthy would depend on existing holders of money to finance them, argued by some to mean putting economic power even further into the hands of “the haves”.  And some seem to think that having a private system that can create money in response to private demand is good, a dynamic system that responds to the needs of the economy naturally.

A. What do you think?

B. We must balance the true, full cost of the proven inbuilt instability of the current system with the possible good and bad of an alternative system. The true costs of instability in the current bank-credit money system are seldom weighed as a whole, nor presented in a way the general public can understand. What is the true and total cost to the public of the crises of 1907, 1929, 2008, the many smaller crises such as S & L, the Japanese asset price bubble, LCTM, banking crises in Finland, Sweden, Asia, Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, and throughout Europe, the dot.com and housing bubbles, the bailouts of AIG, Northern Rock etc.? The true cost of the current system to the non-finance private sector are probably much much greater than is commonly thought, if proper accounting standards were used to measure it.

Also, there are other very real costs from the inherent instability and uncertainty of the current system. These costs arise from the uncountable suboptimal (due to high uncertainty regarding inflation, interest rates, and possible recessions and depressions) decisions on investment, insurance, and allocation of resources made by big business, government, and private households alike. The alternative system would be much more stable on every front, and there would be real gains in efficiency from this increased stability.

A. So that is the main downside some see to an alternative system where banks cannot create private credit money?

B. Yes, it seems the main concern by some seems to be that the little guys won’t easily be able to get loans and the system will not provide enough financing in general for the private sector.

But there seem to be good ways to finance worthy needs without banks creating money. There are lots of investors willing to risk their existing money to earn interest on loans. Additionally, there are many tried-and-true alternative finance options, such as tontine-type mutual funds, pari-mutuel mutual funds, and other banking arrangements that would provide plenty of access to funding for the private sector without allowing banks to create private bank-credit money.

Overall, the huge gain in stability would help everyone, from big business down to individual households.

A. So why isn’t the change tried?

B. The banks would fight it tooth and nail for a start.

Also, although directly using government bonds has worked well in the past, there has never been a pure system of this type – the banks always managed to force governments to allow them to create private bank-credit money.
Notable successful examples include US greenbacks, and the 700 years that the English/UK government used tally sticks. As we know, this period of British economic history was overall highly successful. But tally sticks and greenbacks were only part of their respective systems. The modern proposal for systemic change would essentially make the entire system run purely on what are in effect tally sticks or greenbacks.

A. So people would be afraid to try a system that has never been tried in full it seems.

B. Yes.

But there has never been a system like the current mostly bank credit-money one that has NOT suffered crashes like 2008. It may make sense to finally try something new.

At any rate, the take-home message is that the crash of 2008 was about private bank-credit money and private debt. Any full understanding of the real economy must take into account the long history of bank-credit money recessions and depressions and of ratcheting private debt causing real trouble in the real economy, and the close empirical correlations between changes in private debt, private credit money, effective demand, financial regulatory capture, and recessions/occasional massive depressions.

In Part 1 we discussed how MMT insights show ways to raise the productivity of the real economy to its natural limit, and thus the material well-being of a country. The theoretical debates concerning MMT have largely been worked out, and it is just a matter of time before the logic of it is accepted by the mainstream.

However, the debate on the full scope of the impact of the private credit-money system on the real economy has only begun to be worked on again in earnest.

Maybe implementing better fiscal policy and more logical banking regulations, as many MMTers propose, is enough to stop crashes like 2008 from occurring, and the ongoing regulatory capture of the finance system by the very rich.

But it may make sense to also change the finance system to a system where circulating Treasury notes alone forms the money supply, and banks can only serve as intermediaries of this money, and not create private bank-credit money through escalating private sector debt that alters effective demand, causes socialized losses and privatized gains (only for the finance sector), and ultimately leads to massive busts for the non-finance private sector.

A. Yes, that may make sense.

[PART I of this dialogue]

TOWARDS A PURE STATE THEORY OF MONEY

Knapp State Theory of Money cover, 1905[Prologue to this post]

MODERN MONETARY THEORY (MMT) notes correctly that money is a creature of the state, and that important macroeconomic and policy conclusions follow from this understanding, e.g., sovereign states are not revenue constrained and spending is primarily limited by inflation. Taxes give value to state money and maintain its value (i.e., inflation can be controlled through taxes).

One (among many) key policy insight is that a job guarantee is possible. A job guarantee not only achieves what many think should for myriad social reasons be a primary goal of macroeconomics but also further creates a buffer stock (the most useful one of any imaginable given the social reasons just mentioned) that achieves an additional primary macroeconomic policy goal – stability.

However, there is no state that operates under a pure state system of money. Most of what serves as money in most banking systems in the world is privately created credit money.

We can compare the current most common banking system with a pure state system of money:

PURE STATE SYSTEM OF MONEY

 

CURRENT SYSTEM

Money is a creature of law.

Money is a creature of law.

Money is valued because it can be used to extinguish debt to its issuer.

Money is valued because it can be used to extinguish debt to its issuer.

The issuer is the state.

The issuers are the state and private banks.

Taxes move resources into the public sector

Taxes move resources into the public sector.      Loan repayments move resources into the private (often finance) sector

This raises important questions. If the state is not a monopoly issuer of money, do other neo-chartalist/functional finance/MMT insights hold?

A sovereign currency issuer is still not revenue constrained. And it can still spend towards full employment and other public purposes.

One major worry, however, is whether, because the state does not have a monopoly on money creation, it can set prices in the ways MMT argues. Especially, trying to do so while not having a monopoly on money creation may be inflationary even with otherwise appropriate taxation.

So what are the possibilities? Let’s imagine a system where the state truly has a monopoly on money creation. The state creates money and a payment system. There can still be loans and borrowing, but borrowing will be from someone else giving up use of their money, just as if you loaned a friend a tenner from your pocket. The risks and rewards of this can be pooled for large capital projects.

Let’s ignore the sometimes heard first criticism of this: “deflation!”. Imagine moving to this system in a portfolio neutral way, so that essentially all M’s (M2 and beyond) are, through bookkeeping entries, changed to M1 in a one-off system change. (There are also worries that this “creation” of M1 would be inflationary by others; they seem not to understand what “portfolio neutral” means.)

The obvious advantage is that bank runs will be a thing of the past – assuming a few other obvious regulatory moves (on securities and such) and all bad loans will be losses to individual investors, never systemic (this incidentally puts the incentives for loan quality and underwriting in the right places, raising the quality of loans in the first place). If Joe doesn’t pay you back his tenner, you are the only loser and there is no amplification of this loss. Cascading liquidity crises simply are not possible under this system.

THERE ARE THEN TWO RELATED objections – first, that without continued private credit money creation, this new system would still be deflationary. The related objection is that the “dynamic” private credit money system is behind much innovation and growth, and this would be lost.

On the first – this is interesting as it highlights a major question on the purpose and effectiveness of government. If money is a creature of the state, and a sovereign government cannot be insolvent, then it cannot be that a pure state money system will be deflationary because there is not enough money. The state can create as much money as it needs to re-inflate an economy.

The worry, then, must be that somehow the state will not be able to get the money it can endlessly create into the right hands, while somehow the private credit money system does. This highlights the fact that the worries about abolishing private bank credit money creation cannot truly be about the quantity of money or credit but about how and by whom the money and credit needed to keep the economy from deflation is created and spent into the economy.

This gets to much of what is the core concern of a pure state money system by both advocates and detractors alike, although often they are not nearly as clear as they could be about it.

What serves the public purpose more- having only the state create and spend money and credit into the economy, or allowing the private sector to control part of this public utility?

We already saw that one concern is that private credit money may force a tradeoff between public spending and inflation. What are some other potential costs? What is the real value and real cost of funding borrowers’ needs by allowing credit money to be created privately?

Costs

We already mentioned policy space – the current system of substantially privatizing a public utility seems to move many resources into the private finance sphere, arguably reducing the policy space for public purpose (job guarantee, education, health care, etc.).

A major tenet of MMT/Functional Finance is that it is how we utilize real resources now that matters, not deficits, and that we cannot borrow from the future. Money creation through credit likewise does not magically transport future resources to the present, it can only redistribute existing resources. Ceteris paribus (on taxes, policies, and who is utilizing the money) there is X amount of money that can be spent into an economy without inflation. Credit money creation can only redistribute this X amount of money and the real resources it affords (or cause inflation), and it is not clear that the private system does this in an equitable, nor necessarily the most efficient, manner.

Where private money creation is combined with maturity transformation, as in the shadow banking system, money market and many bond funds, there is a distorted yield curve on interest rates. Some, especially Austrians, view this as leading to market inefficiencies in the long run, in addition to being severely unstable. This system allows narrow private benefits at the expense of widespread socialized costs and chronic instability (Maurice Allais’s non-Austrian work on this seldom receives the attention it merits, especially in the English speaking world.)

Instability – allowing credit money has time and again led to intense and highly damaging episodes of instability. Diamond & Dybvig formalized the multiple equilibrium nature of banks runs; there is no stable equilibrium of credit-money creating banks without a lender of last resort. The true costs of instability are seldom weighed as a whole, nor presented in a way the general public can understand. What is the true and total cost to the public of the crises of 1907, 1929, 2008, the many smaller crises such as S & L, the Japanese asset price bubble, LCTM, banking crises in Finland, Sweden, Asia, Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, and throughout Europe, the dot.com and housing bubbles, the bailouts of AIG, Northern Rock etc.? Is it truly, with proper accounting, worth the growth that some defend the current private system as promoting? On balance, a stable economy without socialized losses may be more dynamic and productive and allocate the real resources of the economy more efficiently than the current system, if judged with proper accounting standards.

This leads to another point: Reality. The government already funds the banking system, both with occasional trillion dollar bailouts and on a daily basis. “Private” systems have shown time and again to be backstopped by governments (e.g., the U.S.and U.K.bailouts). The US government has proven to de facto guarantee the entire U.S. financial system (and the UK government the British system and so on), and lenders know it, much to their advantage (and distortion of the real economy). As someone else has written* “When A guarantees B’s liabilities, B needs to be on A’s balance sheet. This is accounting 101, folks.”

MMT very correctly insists that an economic theory, to be worth considering at all, must at a minimum match real bookkeeping. To meet basic standards of accounting we would have to “[c]onsolidate the entire financial system onto USG’s balance sheet. While we’re at it, merge the Fed, Treasury, Social Security and Medicare into one financial entity. Clean up the whole mess of interlocking quasi-corporations. The US government is one operation. It should have one balance sheet.”* Again,  this is Accounting 101.

 IF IT IS INDEED THOUGHT that the benefits of credit money creation are worth the instability and other costs this system incurs on society, this raises another question:

Can a government duplicate credit money creation while distributing the gains and losses more equitably (i.e., socialized gains as well as socialized losses, instead of the current system that is mostly private gain and socialized loss)?

As we noted, in the current system, in addition to the money that people and businesses already have, they often want more money for productive and socially useful purposes. We further noted that there are two ways to get this money:

1. through other people loaning money that they already have or

2. through private credit money creation.

The first is not problematic, while the second is.

Would it be possible for the state to maintain something like the current system operationally, just making the parts of it that already are backstopped by the state actually state? This raises questions: Could this system be kept apolitical? (this potential political downside has to be weighed against the already existing downside: our private system has already experienced extensive regulatory capture). Could it be kept as competitive as it is now? Would it be as unstable as now with a truly “risk-neutral non-liquidity-constrained economic agent” (that is, the government) behind it?

This system could be thought of in this way:  Individuals and businesses that desire more money for productive purposes than they can get from other money holders are granted the privilege of additional state money created just for them; alongside this special privilege they voluntarily accept an additional tax burden to maintain the value of the money system. Let’s add that (in bold) into the comparison we made above between a pure state theory of money and the current state/private hybrid system:

PURE STATE SYSTEM OF MONEY

 

CURRENT SYSTEM

Money is a creature of law.

Money is a creature of law.

Money is valued because it can be used to extinguish debt to its issuer.

Money is valued because it can be used to extinguish debt to its issuer.

The issuer is the state.

The issuers are the state and private banks.

Taxes move resources into the public sector

Taxes move resources into the public sector.       Loan repayments move resources into the private finance sector

Some businesses or individuals want to borrow money. There are two ways to do so. One is for others to loan their existing money. This may be too restrictive and keep growth at suboptimal levels. The other is for new money to be created. 

 

Some businesses or individuals want to borrow money. There are two ways to do so. One is for others to loan their existing money. This may be too restrictive and keep growth at suboptimal levels. The other is for new money to be created.

The government creates this new money. The individual or business pays an additional tax for this privilege.

 Private banks create this new money. The individual or business pays the bank interest for this privilege.

The “lender of last resort” is the lender of first resort. There are both private and social gains and corresponding private and social losses.

 

Privately created money is inherently unstable without a lender of last resort. The government is the lender of last resort. There are private gains and socialized losses

 As a monopolist over its currency, the state has the power to set prices, including both the interest rate and how the currency exchanges for other goods and services. As a monopolist, the state can fund a job guarantee and other public goods without causing inflation.  In a system with “redundant currencies” (Innes 1914) the state may not be able to achieve macro policy goals and prevent inflation simultaneously
 The system is inherently stable. Stability leads to optimal investment, insurance, and allocation decisions and optimal long-term growth and welfare. Redistribution of private and social gains and losses is minimized.  The system is inherently unstable and uncertain. Chronic instability and uncertainty leads to suboptimal investment, insurance, and allocation decisions and suboptimal long-term growth. The system continuously transfers unearned wealth into the private (often finance) sector, furthering suboptimal economic performance and incentivizing rent-seeking and regulatory capture.

 

Currently, many of the most important neo-chartalist/MMT functional finance insights are not applied in the US, UK, and other countries, and they are clearly desperately needed. However, even if they were applied, the private credit money system would still interfere, possibly greatly, and would still lead to the same type of instability it always and everywhere has. The ongoing “crash” of 2008 seems to be fundamentally and deeply related to issues of private credit money creation, not the equally important issues of state money that MMT has so usefully brought to light. A true state theory of money must address the fundamental instability and inequitable nature of what Innes (1914) called a situation of “redundant currencies”, a system of both state and private money creation, and to be fully consistent, integrate it into its framework completely. It is not enough to “agree with the MCT folks” (or vice versa). The two must be a seamless whole.

~~~

* This wording is by an arch-Austrian good with pithy wording; I am not “Austrian” but on this issue, at least, he has interesting observations.

(Previous post: TOWARDS A PURE STATE THEORY OF MONEY, PROLOGUE: A NOTE ON KNAPP & INNES )

Modern Monetary Theory & Full Reserve Banking: Connected by Fiat

[The fourth of a series of posts on MMT, ‘The Chicago Plan Revisited’, and related issues; see also part 1, part 2, & part 3]

Summary: MMT understands the monetary system in depth, particularly a fiat monetary system. “Full Reservers”, because they have not always fully grasped the significance of the fact there is no money multiplier and that the loanable funds model is wrong, often have a misplaced emphasis on the reserve ratio and sight deposits. Nevertheless, they can be understood ultimately to be worried about endogenous money, and in effect are arguing for a pure fiat money system. Steve Keen shows the magnitude of the negative effects of endogenous money on the economy. If Keen is properly understood, and what are in effect the anti-endogenous money policies of Full Reserve plans implemented, the end point is a pure fiat money system. And the starting point of a true chartalist system, the natural home for neo-chartalism.

There are actually two concerns most advocates of Full Reserves have

1. Solvency – there are few solvency issues with full reserves; not surprisingly a major concern in the 1930s for Simons, Fisher, The Chicago Plan etc.

2. (Endogenous) money creation

The second is much the more important, but the two are often confusingly conflated.
Partly this is because the significance of the fact that the loanable funds model is wrong and there is no money multiplier is not always fully appreciated by Full Reservers.

Banks do not make loans based on reserves or loanable funds but based on demand, perceived profitability, and the capital they hold. The government covers reserve requirements later. Raising reserve requirements can raise costs but does not stop money creation. Even the focus on sight deposits (i.e., PositiveMoney) misses the point – not only do reserve requirements not stop money creation, neither does stopping lending based on sight deposits. Banks loans pull money from the central bank, with the limit being the ratio of capital to risk-weighted assets.

So, unless Full Reservers are only worried about bank solvency, which is doubtful, they are really addressing concerns that have their root in endogenous money.

Anti endogenous  money, pro- true chartalism proposals

The main benefits of plans such as AMI, PositiveMoney, Kotlikoff, the Chicago Plan, Werner etc are, or would be with any needed tweaking, that:

Issuing fiat would be rightfully reserved for the issuer of the fiat decree: the government. A monopoly on money (but not on banks; entities that invest people’s money and distribute the gains would exist much the same as now). As L. Randall Wray notes, “money is a social creation. The private credit system leverages state money, which in turn is supported by the state’s ability to impose social obligations mostly in the form of taxes.” (Wray, 35)*. As the system stands, a public good is leveraged for narrow private gain, in a process that entails public costs through intrinsic systemic instability.

Implementing restrictions on the type of lending that leads to endogenous money creation would be “no big deal” according to Warren Mosler. (The details of how this would work, and why credit, investment in capital, and instruments for earning interest would still exist are in the various plans; Mosler suggests they would only be allowed to invest their equity capital. Some details are here).

The effect of this, however, would be a very big deal indeed. It would be the creation of a true fiat system of money, instead of the mixed state-credit financial system (as Steve Keen calls it) we have now. All money would be outside, exogenous, vertical, HPM.

Endogenous money creation is a vestige left over from older systems, where either banks were powerful enough to challenge sovereigns, or rich enough to buy off lawmakers, or where commodities actually were leveraged with bank notes. And before digital accounts, weakening banking regulation and related developments completely untethered credit-money creation from reality.

Whatever the past utility of endogenous money, in the modern economy it serves no socially useful purpose that could not be retained under a true chartalist,  pure fiat money system. Worse, endogenous money is increasingly understood to be extremely socially costly (especially in the work of Steve Keen).

Pro Full Reserve advocates, if the goals of their proposals and root of their worries are reviewed carefully and in light of the fact that loanable fund and money multiplier models are incorrect, are most concerned with the same problems Keen has also so clearly shown, that endogenous money is destabilizing and harmful.

It is evident that (neo)chartalist policies would work better under (true) chartalism than under the mixed state-credit financial system we operate under now.

That is why I say that Modern Monetary Theory & Full Reserve Banking are Connected by Fiat.

_______________
*L. Randall Wray “The Credit Money, State Money, and Endogenous Money Approaches: A Survey and Attempted Integration” Link

Although the simplifying assumptions are not perfect, Endogenous Supply of Fiat Money highlights some incentive problems with bank credit-money creation.

P.S. This post was partly inspired by a perceived lack of interest on the part of MMTers in full reserves, and vice versa (and downright hostility to MMT from the AMI Full Reservers). Good discussion here.

I see MMT, the aims of Full Reservers, and followers of the enlightening work of Steve Keen as natural allies.

Bob Mitchell (MMT), and Ralph Musgrave (pro-Full Reserve), both explicitly disagree, stating that MMT and Full Reserve have little in common. I will consider Bill Mitchell’s objections  in another post. In a nutshell though, Mitchell’s proposals (besides his analysis needlessly wading into the bogs that are Austrian thought) for banking are all very good, needed under any system, and I very much agree with him. However, they are to a large extent trying to undo the damage caused by an inherently flawed pseudo-chartalist system that has all the incentives wrong, a system that creates bank-credit-money bubbles that are the fundamental enablers of much bad activity in the financial sector. You might say that endogenous money adds fuel to the “FIRE” that Mitchell wants to extinguish. Excising endogenous money creation from our fiat money is needed to truly effect the changes Mitchell wants.

Can Full Reserve Banking actually even stop credit-money creation? The Chicago Plan v. Positive Money

[This is a comment from a previous post on Post Keynesianism, MMT, & 100% Reserves Project, Post No. 2. It is in answer to the question “Do Full Reserves actually even stop credit-money creation?” Scott Fullwiler at one point said full reserves could not, as well as some other commenters.]

Andrew Jackson, December 25th, 2012

“Does full reserve stop banks being able to create money out of thin air.

Quick disclaimer, I work for Positive Money.

It’s interesting that you mentioned us alongside the Chicago plan in the first post. The Positive Money (PM) proposals do indeed have the same goal as the Chicago plan/full reserve/100% reserve proposals, that is to stop banks creating money in the process of making loans (or buying assets),. However, the method is different. In the case of Chicago plan they do it by forcing banks to hold reserves against their deposits. As some people have pointed out, this doesn’t necessarily stop banks creating money – that is it is quite possible for there to be money creation by the banking sector with 100% reserves (incidentally for exactly for the same reasons a 10% reserve ratio doesn’t constrain deposit creation, although it does require the central bank to play along).

The PM proposal, on the other hand, does not suffer from this problem. Instead of backing deposits with reserves, we give people access to the state created means of payment itself. Thus, unlike in the current system where two types of money circulate separately – central bank created reserves which are only used by the banking sector, and commercial bank created deposit money which is used by everyone else – in the PM system there is no longer a split circulation of money, just one integrated quantity of money circulating among banks and non-banks alike.

This is achieved by removing the sight [on call] deposits from banks balance sheets and placing them onto the central bank’s balance sheet (which will be called transaction accounts). The private banks then obtain a new liability of the same size to the central bank, and correspondingly the central bank an asset from the banks. This banks’ liability to the Central Bank is to be repaid as their assets mature, with the money repaid in this way to be recycled back into the economy by the central bank granting money to government to be spent into circulation.

In effect, the central bank has ‘extinguished’ the banks’ demand liabilities to their customers by creating new state-issued electronic currency and transferring ownership of that currency to the customers in question. In a sense everyone starts baking at the central bank (although we would hire the banks to administer our accounts for us).

Lending occurs in this system when people move their money from their transaction account (held at the central bank) to an ‘investment account’. This will be broadly similar to a time deposit today – there will be minimum notice periods, however, unlike today they will also carry some risk (i.e. if the underlying assets go bad they may lose some of their money). The money transferred to the banks will then be transferred to a borrower. So in this system lending by banks merely transfers money around the system, no new money or purchasing power is created when loans are made. Because in this system because all money is held on the central bank’s balance sheet any bank can be allowed to fail, without any effect on the money supply.

So with the PM system it is possible to achieve the aims of the Chicago plan, whilst retaining double entry bookkeeping. The question is then not if it is possible, but if it is desirable. Obviously you have covered the boom bust cycle, financial crisis etc. and the unemployment and high house prices that go along with it. However there are also other issues, such as higher taxes, the effects on individual debt levels, inequality (interest transfers money upwards), subsidies and the too big to fail problem etc.”

[Andrew Jackson works for PositiveMoney, their homepage is here]

Post Keynesianism, MMT, & 100% Reserves Project, Post No. 2

Bank of England

Taken from the comments on my last post on MMT/Chicago Plan/FRB & several similar pages the Questions below seem to be the central questions/objections between FullRB & MMT (or Post Keynesian, or MR).

QUESTIONS

  1. Would Post Keynesians and/or Modern Monetary Theorists favor the elimination of endogenous money (bank credit-money creation)?
  2. If so, by what means (FullRB or other)?
  3. If not, why not? What positive or necessary purpose does endogenous money serve?
  4. Do Full Reserves actually even stop credit-money creation? [Scott Fullwiler writes “(Aside from the fact that 100% reserves doesn’t eliminate banks’ abilities to create deposits out of thin air–but save that for another time after they’ve at least come to grips with accounting)”]
  5. Does stopping credit-money creation have serous negative effects which outweigh the positive effects Benes & Kumhof, positivemoney.org etc. claim? 

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON POST No. 1:

  •  Pro-Full Reserve people. You would do well to abandon trying to claim money is not debt. It is not a needed argument, and not a winnable one. (I’m looking at you, Zarlenga/AMI).
  • [Update-After a comment by Musgrave—I am not referring to FullRB criticism of endogenous money being debt, more or less the raison d’être of AMI etc.; I am referring to criticisms of AMI & similar groups that they seem to think the government can somehow issue {exogenous} money that is not debt]

“(STF) If they would just say “govt money only” or “pvt debt free money” they wouldnt sound like they have no clue what they are talking about.”  And “(“all they’d have to do is just have to stop saying “debt-free money.” What they want is a world of fiat money only and 100% reserves–is that so hard to just say?”

  • But MMT people, I think it is fair to recognize that under the system Full Reserve proposals call for, money would indeed act differently than what we usually think of as debt. Basically, the debt claim would hit a wall with the Government (or “the people”). In effect saying “we have created a common good by fiat and declare it to function not like debt” (and yes, this is do-able). Now, technically, ultimately it is a debt (and Zarlenga wrong), but that would only ever become evident if the (let’s say U.S.) Government became so weak (war, revolution, whatever) that it could no longer back up its claim that the circulating greenbacks had value simply “because-we-say-so-end-of-story” [& the power to tax of course, which amounts to the same thing]. As I pointed out before, Fullwiler likes the way the platinum coin resolution to the Fiscal Cliff highlights a basic MMT point about  money. But I also think it highlights a basic Full Reserve point – we can essentially have the last word on debt by the Gov/people bound up in a symbolic platinum coin (to be clear, I am not advocating a “platinum standard”. The platinum coin is a just a somewhat hilarious loophole Beowulf taught us all about that technically would work, but could be achieved more directly by just letting Treasury issue notes). “The Buck Debt Stops Here” in way, somewhat literally. Technically that platinum coin is a claim of trillions of dollars against the U.S. people, but in practice it represents the end of the line on debt claims for the greenbacks it would represent.

So on debt, I do think the two sides are talking past each other– yes money is always debt  but yes a system can be made where fiat money acts as if it is the end of the line on debt claims and acts as if it were a token and can function as a token in a banking system. Indeed, Full Reserve people are saying that is what we need to have a stable, fair system.

Beowulf writesIt would make life simpler if Tsy issued consols [consolidated stock]— the lack of a guarantee to repay principal would seem to put outside the debt ceiling– which is nothing more or less than a cap on total amount of principal guaranteed repayment.

However, aside from political framing, it doesn’t really make a difference whether you call outstanding Treasuries “equity”, “debt” or (as banks are wont to do) “deposits”.”

~~~

Overall, I still don’t see where the split is once the details are looked at between much MMT and the smarter Full Reserve People (unless it is political – yes, Full Reserve people do want to smash the power of the banks, to make that clear, and it seems that at least some MMT people do not).

On MMT and FRB getting along – Scott Fullwiler writes in a comment “AMI’s policy proposals–as Neil points out above–could only work as they want them to in the context of monetary operations that MMT’ers have actually been arguing in favor of for some time.” 

So what is the problem?

Every time I look closely at FullRB and MMT, it seems to me like they reinforce each other, not contradict each other. FullRB creates a simpler, more direct system to achieve MMT functioning; MMT principles fill-in the missing details of FullRB proposals.

A note on Post Keynesian/Steve Keen on FullRB

As far as Post Keynesian and/or Steve Keen’s position, I think it is worth emphasizing Keen’s position:

“There are many other proposals for reforming finance, most of which focus on changing the nature of the monetary system itself. The best of these focus on instituting a system that removes the capacity of the banking system to create money via “Full Reserve Banking”…

The former could be done by removing the capacity of the private banking system to create money.

Technically, [AMI and Positivemoney] proposals would work.”

Keen then goes on to list some objections that I think are pretty weak (that is for another post), I also agree with Ralph Musgrave on the weakness of those objections.

Post Keynesianism, MMT, & 100% Reserves Project: Question #1

I HAVE DISTILLED THE KEY POINTS IN THIS POST TO A SET OF QUESTIONS IN POST No. 2 HERE (Also the thread here is long; easier to comment there)

US Treasury

[This is part of an ongoing effort to understand and explain differences and points of agreement between Modern Monetary Theory, Full Reserve Banking, Post Keynesianism, Steve Keen’s work, and related approaches in as simple of terms as possible (difficult, as the debates hinge on complex and subtle concepts at times, but I will try). The goal is to create a resource for the general public to better understand these areas of study and why neoclassical economics fails, and to foster clearer communication between MMT, FullRB, and PK proponents.]

Ever since the Financial crisis of ~2008, there has been a real opening for improving economic theory & the financial system.

An ongoing project here is to better understand (for myself) and help put into clear language (to help effect change and to help the public better understand economics in general) important areas of economic advancement.

Two important strands of economic understanding have been waxing lately, which is a very good thing. These are Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and Full Reserve Banking (FRB).

A simple Google search will suffice to find numerous good MMT resources.

FullRB is a little more tricky.

There are innumerable monetary crackpots out there, especially in the blogosphere, and it can be difficult for the novice to judge the quality of discussions of our monetary system. This is of course true of the net in general. But it is especially a problem with any discussion of money.

Also, a significant number of informed people interested in economics have been dismissive of FullRB for a variety of reasons in the past.

However, there has been a marked trend towards more serious discussion of Full Reserve Banking. And recognition that FRB has long been highly regarded by very well-respected economists. It is important to note that these have spanned the ideological range of economics, from those with “progressive” views concerned with equitable distribution to arch- free-marketers (I think this is a hint that there is indeed something to FRB.) At any rate, the work associated with Laurence Kotlikoff (Boston U.), Richard Werner (Southampton), Jaromir Benes (IMF), Michael Kumhof (Modeling Division, IMF) and others, and recently the buzz-creating “The Chicago Plan Revisited” released under the auspices of the I.M.F. (almost shockingly to some, a “magic wand”), has helped put Full Reserve Banking back into respectable conversation.

In the future I will begin to outline this project from first principles for anyone to read. For the moment, however, I am going to jump right in.

QUESTION (for MMT & FRB proponents):

In a 2009 post by Scott Fullwiler (leading expert on the details of our banking system, something mainstream economists ignored at all of our peril, and one of the leading MMTists) is answering a number of questions about FRB (The main relevant previous comments are by “RebelEconomist” and “RSJ”)

Fullwiler,  in the comments section, writes:

“Sorry for the delay responding, RSJ (and I’ll get to the others as time allows . . . apologies).1. Regarding 100% reserves, like Ramanan, I’m very skeptical that they will be able to constrain anything. Certainly under current operating procedures, they wouldn’t have any effect aside from the usual “tax effect” of RR, as the Fed provides reserves at stated rates. A much more constrained regime that required banks to only hold Tsy’s on the asset side would be different, but then you’ve just moved the endogenous creation of loans and their corresponding liabilities outside the banking system. The question there becomes who provides these latter institutions with overdrafts as they settle payments daily. If either banks or the Fed do, then you haven’t changed much, aside from regulatory structure. If nobody does, then you’ve set yourself up for a payments crisis at some point in the near future”

Fullwiler’s first point, so extemporaneous, seems worrisome for any FRB proponent. Does he have some argument that FRB just wouldn’t achieve what most view as its primary purpose, stopping the creation of vast pools of credit-money (that lead to asset inflation and instability among other problems?)

He then discusses a “much more constrained regime”. I think this shows what many see as a problem with some MMTists. Its followers rightly criticize mainstream economists for ignoring how the banking system works. MMT focuses on the real-world details because 1. they know they matter, and 2. because mainstream economists have neglected this critical area in the extreme. But sometimes MMT seems to fall in love so much with how the system actually is, and MMTists so tired of mainstream economists’ imaginary (delusional?) world, that they view negatively any imagined economy, even when, unlike mainstream economics, these possible economies are being designed on sound principles for good purposes. There is a big difference between the strange imaginary world of mainstream economists and the desire to change the Rube Goldberg dysfunctional system we have now. Back to FullRB –  Of course the point is to make money creation no longer endogenous, i.e., to move the credit-money creating power out of the banking system  That is where the benefit is! Fullwiler seems reluctant to move to it, I guess for the reason I mentioned, but I can’t imagine what he thinks Full Reserve s about  if not that.

So, let us imagine we have changed to a system where banks are not creating their own (endogenous) money. An agency of the gov spends it into the economy, with the legal mandate to target inflation, which without endogenous money creation it can very effectively do. Taxes and spending work in MMT prescribed ways.

Fullwiler then writes “The question…becomes who provides these latter institutions with overdrafts as they settle payments daily. If either banks or the Fed do, then you haven’t changed much, aside from regulatory structure. If nobody does, then you’ve set yourself up for a payments crisis at some point in the near future”.

Now, I am pretty certain that The Chicago Plan (even the old versions like Fisher 1935 or  Milton Friedman’s work {?} or Werner or others by 2009) have addressed these issues.

I am not sure, but I think part of the answer is that the part of the banking system that would be allowed to loan would operate separately, and with money largely obtained by others foregoing its use, so no “credit-money” is created. There is enough “play” in such a system as long as there are multiple entities that daily settlement is possible with no net credit-money creation (I know, “money like” instruments are always a problem, more on that later). So you have indeed “changed much” – radically much, a vastly more stable system, less risk of asset bubbles, and greatly facilitating the government’s ability to carry out other MMT approaches and keep inflation as close to zero as desired (basically, Milton Friedman’s monetarism actually works under a Full Reserve system – here we have the progressives and the free marketers happily combined). So as far as I can see, MMT and FRB get along just fine here.

At any rate, the question is:

Can pro- Full Reserve Banking people explain this better than I?

And/or, can Fullwiler or other Modern Monetary Theory proponents explain where the 2012 Chicago Plan or similar plans by Werner etc. are in error as Fullwiler 2009 believes above?

Cheers,

Clint Ballinger

UPDATE I have to note that the MR paper Cullen Roche suggests (this is from comments below) concludes “The Chicago Plan and Mosler/MMT both prescribe massive reserve funding of the negative state equity position. The difference is that the Chicago Plan focuses on the negative equity that has been created by the debt jubilee. The MMT plan focuses on the more typical balance sheet component created by deficit spending. Those two pieces are complementary and additive…” 

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