Tag Archives: full reserve banking

The Banking System We Need

Posted on by under Circuitism / MCT / Keen / Bank Reform / Credit Money, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

As the crisis of 2007 demonstrated, the banking system in its current form does not optimally serve the public interest. To make the system work in the best interest of the nation as a whole, I would make the following changes:

Banks

  • Banks that are allowed to grant loans that create deposits would operate under the Mosler/Mitchell/Wilson proposals including:
  • Be allowed direct access to government funds  (details below)
  • All bank levies, liquidity ratios, and reserve requirements would be eliminated.
  • Banks must operate on a single balance sheet, and with no subsidiaries of any kind.
  • Banks should not be allowed to engage in profit making ventures beyond basic lending; banks should profit through high quality credit analysis.
  • Banks would be allowed to lend only directly to borrowers, and only for capital development purposes (i.e. business credit lines and household loans)
  • Loans must be kept on their books until cleared.
  • Banks cannot accept collateral.
  • Banks cannot buy (or sell) credit default insurance.
  • There would be a narrow banking option.

Treasury & Federal Reserve

All Federal Reserve functions would be absorbed by the Treasury. No public purpose is served by the Federal Reserve that cannot not be more democratically, efficiently, and transparently carried out by the Treasury.

Converting U.S. Government securities into federal reserves via open market operations serves no public purpose. The Treasury would fund the monetary system and public expenditure by spending zero interest perpetual bonds directly into the economy (electronically in the same manner currently used for transferring demand deposits and federal reserve accounts).

The same effect as above could be achieved by having the Federal Reserve keep the discount rate and fed funds rate target at zero and allow zero rate overdrafts by the Treasury on its deposit account. However, maintaining and allowing a Federal Reserve/Primary Dealer(s) middleman to do this serves no public purpose.

Having the Treasury spend zero interest perpetual bonds directly into the economy allows for funding full resource utilization (including mobilization/training for all idle labor). The public purpose is hindered by obfuscation from complex and needless Open Market/Primary Dealer operations. The national government maintains productivity and stable price levels through fiscal spending and taxation respectively and this should be done both directly and openly.

The fundamental structure/goals of the current FOMC will be maintained within the Treasury, with a primary mandate to maintain full productivity and a stable price level. As now, appointments to the body will outlast/overlap political and administrative terms of office, allowing the price stability mandate to remain apolitical in the manner of the current FOMC.

The role of banks and credit

The role of banks is to provide for a payments system and to fund loans based on credit analysis.

The payments system will be an open clearing system created by the state available to all on an open license. The public purpose is best served by a single public payment system.

A primary area of concern with a non-endogenous monetary system based on treasuries is that if banks are only allowed to loan funds they actually possess (in the way building societies/credit unions traditionally functioned) lending will not be sufficiently responsive to the needs of the economy. Credit is thought to be overly restricted and bank balance sheet expansion/contraction not able to nimbly adapt to prevailing economic conditions.

Crucially, the above concern over restricted credit demonstrates a failure to follow through with the full implications of a direct treasury funded system. Zero interest perpetual bonds, unlike current bank credit, will not be extinguished by loans being repaid. This is not trivial. Under this system the incentives and availability of funds for building society/S& L/credit union type institutions is vastly greater than the current system due to the way in which repayment does not extinguish money in the way it does in the current system.

The current system relies on distracting Federal Reserve/ Primary Dealer operations that maintains the destructive public belief in the “household analogy.” This is also perpetuated by the demand deposit money system. Neither of these processes serve the public and are easily bypassed.

“Endogenous” bank balance sheet expansion
In addition to building society/credit union type institutions, special banks will be allowed to grant loans that create treasury deposits, with the loaned treasuries extinguished on repayment.

These public/private partnerships are licensed to create and extinguish (as loans are repaid) zero interest perpetual Treasury bonds. They serve as intermediaries between the Treasury and businesses/individuals who are willing to take on what is in effect a special tax burden for a special privilege (treasury funding).

This process is the same as the current private endogenous demand deposit creation process which is able to nimbly expand and contract to meet changing economic conditions. However, crucially, it beneficially keeps the process on one national balance sheet. The creation of private demand-deposit money serves no public purpose that cannot be duplicated with direct-issued treasury money.

These transactions are carried out in the same way as bank credit money is created now, with the asset restrictions outlined in the “banks” section above (the Mosler/Mitchell/Wilson rules).

These special funding/taxation agreements are one more policy choice for spending into the economy, along with fiscal, tax reduction, and citizen dividend options. Crucially, the amount of spending via this channel can, unlike the current system, be easily made highly countercyclical via changes to capital requirements, loan quality assessment, and interest rates and is a policy decision like any other.

Summary: Stability, Equity, Innovation 

A monetary system is made by creating and expanding a balance sheet and the public operating within the asset side of it.
Taxes (or the bank equivalent, loans) represent a debt. This debt obligation is traded around as currency. This is why taxes (or bank debt repayment) give value to a currency.

  • It can be national, with government spending creating deposits and taxes destroying deposits. That is, the public swaps the government’s deposits (treasuries) around as money.
  • It can be endogenous, with bank loans creating deposits and repayment destroying deposits. The public swaps banks’ demand deposits around as money.
  • In the latter case when businesses/individuals choose to take out a loan beyond what the building society/credit union/mutual funds banks might provide, they in effect choose to take on greater spending and in return take on an additional tax burden (thus helping to maintain the value of the currency; taxes give value to a currency). For the good of the public and for innovation, individuals voluntarily asume a possible gain and asume a liability.
  • Both systems can exist at same time with same denomination, as in modern economies.
  • Both their combined total size and the balance between them is important…

Optimal total size and optimal balance 

  • Optimal level of total money creation = enough to keep the economy at full productivity, through both fiscal policy and through individuals having money created for them (loans) for spending on productive purposes.
  • Optimum balance is enough national spending to create public goods that otherwise wouldn’t be done – i.e., infrastructure, education, full use of idle resources including idle labor, military, and health care.
  • Additional spending into the economy for innovative, productive economic activity is by the special banks (endogenous) sector. This private borrowing/repaying allows private venture-type investment by individuals who agree to what is in effect voluntary taxation. This is also equitable because, unlike normal taxation, individuals ask for the additional opportunity (and accept voluntary “taxation” in return).  If credit analysis is administered in the right way, this means goods created by individuals who are willing to take on rewards but also take on an additional tax.
  • Both systems net to zero. This is crucial to emphasize in both systems, albeit for different reasons. In the government balance sheet expansion monetary system, it is important to realize that as a whole the system is debt free (assets and liabilities net to zero) as this highlights the fact that the government can expand the balance sheet as much as they want in order to bring all idle resources into productive use. Being clear on the equity, debt free nature of the national balance sheet crucially highlights the fact that the nation is not a household and is key to getting the public to realize that the government balance-sheet monetary system does not remotely function like a household.
  • On the endogenous side, although the private endogenous system nets to zero the total size of its balance sheet relative to the monetary system matters. If the endogenous balance sheet expands greatly due to unproductive debt creation for the FIRE sector (as now), although it nets to zero it nevertheless unfairly allows real claims on real resources.
  • The system balanced so that there is easy availability of the “endogenous” system to those who want to borrow/repay, but it is far more stable than the current system.
  • One national balance sheet reflects the reality of our intertwined monetary-financial system and allows easier optimization of public spending and productive investment.

[I am traveling at the moment & this is a rough draft that needs editing – comments greatly appreciated]

~~~

March 28, 2019  UPDATE: The Intro to Economics textbook is finished! Live on Amazon here –

1000 Castaways: Fundamentals of Economics

MMT & Private Debt Dialogue PART II

Posted on by under Circuitism / MCT / Keen / Bank Reform / Credit Money, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

[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]

Why lately I write more on sane economics (MMT, MCT) than good urbanism & the social sciences

Posted on by under Circuitism / MCT / Keen / Bank Reform / Credit Money, Full Reserve Banking, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), The social & human sciences, Urbanism

I have mainly focused in recent months on MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) & MCT (Monetary Circuit Theory, also see here, esp. credit-money & stability), not the other things mentioned in this blog’s tagline.

The reason is fairly simple: It is where I see the most good can come about now.

In this blog I am most interested in addressing what I see as three main problems in the social sciences and their use for the real world:

(1) The highly destructive impact on society brought about by high-modernist architecture/planning on our cities (later aided & abetted by postmodernism; Kunstler is good on this point)

(2) The undermining of the social sciences by postmodernism (Sokal & Bricmont is still a classic on this) diverting attention from real problems. This has served to turn many away from the social sciences, which is particularly destructive in the political realm, when those responsible for funding looked at the results and content of (often postmodern dominated) social science, and understandably rejected it.

(3) Neoclassical “economics”. Economics is the most expensive discipline by far. That is, its undercurrents of thought influence the trillion dollar decisions, actions and policies of governments probably more than any other social science. Whole societies and generations end up essentially as lab rats for the theories of an earlier generation’s “academic scribblers” as Keynes so rightly stated. Incidentally – I see the refuge of neoclassical economics in meaningless equilibrium formulas as the same response as postmodern babble in other social sciences: giving up on understanding in the face of the incredible complexity of the social realm.

 Of these three, I think at the moment it is economics that is most important. Fortunately the tide has changed significantly with the first two. “New urbanism”, which is nothing more than a return to common sense and the normal urbanism of the last 11,000+ years, has pushed the absurd notions of high-modernism (and its subsequent nihilistic, postmodern apologists) more and more out of the picture. It will take generations to undo the damage done by the imbecilic building methods of modernism, but we are on the right path.

More or less the same can be said of postmodernism in academia, although mercifully with a much quicker time-frame for how quickly the puerile, self-serving prattle of the postmodernists and their ilk is being left to gather the dust it deserves: contentless, unreadable, and unread.

THE CASE WITH ECONOMICS is different for several reasons. The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) continues, so the time for change is as urgent as ever, and the political possibility greater. The bad economics of recent decades remains as entrenched as ever, dismayingly illustrated by the policies of most Western governments in response to the GFC.

Additionally, it is not as if the answers aren’t there. This is not an attack on something with nothing constructive to replace it with. There are true descriptions of the economy (e.g., MMT, MCT, Post-Keynesianism in general, The Other Canon), and with them, functional policies that empower the citizenry to optimize its well-being.

So it seems that of the three scourges on intelligent discussion of society mentioned, that somewhat or completely arose from academia – high-modernism in planning and building, postmodernism in the social sciences and humanities, and neoclassical economics – that it is most timely to attack the latter, and strive towards supplanting it with the sane, functional economics of MMT and other heterodox approaches.

Some pre- Great Depression roots of The Chicago Plan (& Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis)

Posted on by under Full Reserve Banking, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

 

[This post is primarily focused on a sometimes underappreciated, though by no means unrecognized, pre- Great Depression direct influence on the architects of The Chicago Plan, with brief mention of related influence on Minsky & Milton Friedman. There is a tiny nod to MMT as well]

It seems to often be assumed that The Chicago Plan developed in direct reaction to the Great Depression (perhaps in part because Irving Fisher’s slightly later bank reform proposals are indeed thought to be). For example, Phillips 1992 outlines the early stages of the Great Depression and writes “It is within this historical context that economists at the University of Chicago presented their proposal for reform of the banking system.” (1992, 6).

Economists and historians are of course well aware of the long history of bank reform proposals before this period. But two strands that are sometimes neglected are worth remembering, especially as they relate directly to current renewed interest in The Chicago Plan and indirectly to the work of Minsky which is also appropriately receiving increased attention (they also relate through the same line to Milton Friedman and aspects of his work that tie in closely to bank reform and Minsky).

The direct link is from radiochemist Frederick Soddy (in the social sciences, best known for his 1926 Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt) who has often been criticized as a “crank” writing outside of his field and dismissed – perhaps incorrectly, as we will see – as un-influential (Soddy is usually associated with Full Reserve Banking – he was against the gold standard and for floating exchange rates – and/or known for arguments related to ecological economics). The degree, directness, and timing of Soddy’s impact may have been underestimated.
[To be clear: this is not an attempt to revive Soddy’s views, ahead of but still a product of his times, especially the ones on the tangent of energy, although these have some relevance to economics and environmental concerns , but merely to point out a somewhat surprisingly direct influence from his work].

Phillips (1992) does not mention Soddy at all. Another prominent and detailed work on The Chicago Plan, Allen (1993), writes that:

“In March  1933,  a  group  of  economists  at the  University  of  Chicago, evidently  with little if any  influence from Soddy,  gave  very  limited circulation to  a six-page statement..”(Allen 1993, 705).

Yet it seems both Phillips and Allen overlook a key piece of evidence that shows that the hugely influential Frank Knight, one of the original architects of the confidential 1933 memorandum on banking reform (and teacher of Milton Friedman, George Stigler, James M. Buchanan and senior collaborator with the young Hyman Minsky) was directly influenced by Soddy’s work. Perhaps more remarkably, Knight was influenced well before the Great Depression.

In 1927 Knight penned a short but in retrospect historically important review of Frederick Soddy’s 1926 Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt in The Saturday Review of Literature. Knight is highly critical of parts of the book, especially the mistakes Soddy as a non-economist makes and his neglect in realizing the extent to which economists had long struggled with banking and monetary issues. However, Knight also writes “These problems cannot be gone into here, but we can say with assurance that if this book leads economists to go into them as they deserve it will render the world a service of inestimable value.” Knight then concludes “The concepts of wealth, virtual wealth (money), and debt emphasize important and neglected distinctions, and in general it is a brilliantly written and brilliantly suggestive and stimulating book.” (Knight, 1927).

This is preceded by a still more remarkable passage, especially if we remember it was written in 1927 by a future primary author of The Chicago Plan and future teacher of Milton Friedman and especially developer of the Financial Instability Hypothesis, Hyman Minsky:

 “The practical thesis of the book is distinctly unorthodox, but is in our opinion both highly significant and theoretically correct. In the abstract, it is absurd and monstrous for society to pay the commercial banking system “interest” for multiplying several fold the quantity of medium of exchange when (a) a public agency could do it at negligible cost, (b) there is no sense in having it done at all, since the effect is simply to raise the price level, and (c) important evils result, notably the frightful instability of the whole economic system and its periodical collapse in crises, which are in large measure bound up with the variability and uncertainty of the credit structure if not directly the effect of it.” (Knight 1927, 732).

PS  The Peel Act, Soddy, Simons, Knight and Minsky

Henry Simons was of course a close colleague of Frank Knight (the second draft of The Chicago Plan was written by Henry Simons in close collaboration with Knight and other Chicago economists; they also edited an economics journal together I believe) and an even greater influence on Minsky than Knight (Wray writes that Minsky’s “biggest influences were…Henry Simons, but he also worked with Oscar Lange, Paul Douglas, and Frank Knight”; .Simons is thought to have been especially influential on Minsky through his 1936 article “Rules versus Authorities in Monetary Policy”, Moe 2012).

Simons seems to have been considering banking reform well before the Great Depression. He writes in a letter to Irving Fisher in 1933 that he had been interested from apparently as early as1923 in “trying to figure out the possibilities of applying the principle of the English Act of 1844 to the deposits as well as to the notes of private banks.” (Letter from Simons to Fisher, March 24, 1933, in Allen 1993, 706).

Much less known and rarely mentioned, Soddy had two earlier publications (and gave lectures) that discuss aspects of economics, his 1920 Aberdeen Lectures and 1921 Cartesian Economics: The Bearing of Physical Science upon State Stewardship.

Given that Soddy won a (real) Nobel Prize in 1921 I thought his other writings or economic lectures might have been noticed, and thought I would check if they seemed to have been of any influence on Simons, who, as we saw, said that he was interested in bank reform as early as 1923. However, as far as I can tell, neither of these works mentions the Peel Act nor much else that would probably have interested Simons in 1923. (Soddy cites as influences Silvio Gesell, who seems to have influenced Keynes as well, and Arthur Kitson – this is if nothing else a visually fascinating look at Kitson by the way)

At any rate, in the pre-Great Depression intellectual milieu surrounding Frank Knight and Henry Simons there seems to have been significant attention to ideas related to credit creation and financial stability, as expressed in Simons’ interest, apparently as early as 1923, in the Peel Bank Charter Act of 1844 and in Frederick Soddy’s documented influence on Knight in 1927, where he writes about bank credit-money creation leading to “frightful instability of the whole economic system and its periodical collapse in crises, which are in large measure bound up with the variability and uncertainty of the credit structure if not directly the effect of it.”

It is fascinating to see threads of connection running from modern work such Minsky, Steve Keen, or Benes & Kumhoff to the Bank Charter Act of 1844 (via Simons) and Frederick Soddy (via Knight), especially as Soddy was often dismissed as a crank writing outside of his field.

The MMT Bit:

I ran across these in Soddy 1921:

“Wealth is a flow, not a store…I can conceive no nation so barbaric as to regard gold as a store of value. Demonetise it and where is its value? Not a gold mine would be at work on the morrow.” (Soddy 1921)

money “ought to bear precisely the same relation to the revenue of wealth as a food ticket bears to the food supply or a theatre ticket to a theatrical performance.” (Soddy 1921)

A hint of MMT here – stocks & flows, state theory of money, and money as a token or a ticket. All within a few paragraphs.

Works Cited:

Allen William R. 1993, “Irving Fisher and the 100 Percent Reserve Proposal”, Journal of Law and Economics, 36: 2, 703-717.

Knight, F. (1927), “Review of Frederick Soddy’s ’Wealth, Virtual Wealth, and Debt’”, The Saturday Review of Literature Vol. 3 no. 38 (April 16), p. 732. Full text here

Knight, F. (1933), “Memorandum on Banking Reform”, March, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, President’s Personal File 431.

Moe, Thorvald Grung 2012 Control of Finance as a Prerequisite for Successful Monetary Policy: A Reinterpretation of Henry Simons’s “Rules versus Authorities in Monetary Policy” Levy Economics Institute,Working Paper No. 713

Phillips Ronnie J., 1992, “The ‘ChicagoPlan’ and New Deal Banking Reform” Levy Economics Institute, Working Paper No. 76

Soddy,Frederick, 1920, Science and Life -AberdeenAddresses [1915-1919] (hard to find – ISBN = 0548629781 and 978-0548629789)

Soddy,Frederick, 1921, Cartesian Economics: The Bearing of Physical Science upon State Stewardship.

Soddy,Frederick, 1926,  Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt. The solution of the economic paradox. George Allen & Unwin.

Wray, 2012, Why Minsky Matters (Part One)  March 27, 2012 http://www.multiplier-effect.org/?p=4172

Note: This is by no mean an attempt at a resurrection of Soddy’s work, although Soddy 1926 certainly has some important points in it and in retrospect is clearly more than just the work of a “crank”. The main point here is simply to show that there is documented evidence that Soddy influenced Knight well before the great depression. Given Simons’ direct influence on both Friedman and Minsky, it is also interesting the evidence that Simons was, like Knight, interested in credit-money reform well before the Great Depression. Soddy should also be recognized for his influence on concerns about economic growth and the environment, remarkable for his time [although perhaps not surprising for someone educated in physics and chemistry].

April 1 2019 Update: The new book is finished and available! Live on Amazon here –

1000 Castaways: Fundamentals of Economics

More of Soddy’s economic writings:

Books

Soddy, Frederick, 1931, Money versus Man. London: Elkin Mathews & Marrot

___________ 1934, The Role of Money,London: George Routledge & Sons.

 

Other

“Economic ‘Science’ from the Standpoint of Science”, The Guildsman, No. 43, July 1920.

‘Money’, A lecture delivered to the Oxford City Labour Party in Ruskin College, 21st January 1923.

“What I think of Socialism”, Socialist Review, August 1928, pp. 28-30.

“Unemployment and Hope,” Nature, 1930.

Poverty Old and New, lecture to the New Europe Group,London, published by The Search Publishing Co. Ltd., 1932

“A Physical Theory of Money”, paper to the Liverpool Engineering Society, Transactions of the Liverpool Engineering Society, 56, 1934

“The Role of Money”, The Oxford Magazine, June 7. 1934

“TheNew BritainMovement”, Supplement to New Britain, June 20, 1934

‘Money as Nothing for Something’, Garvin’s Gazette, March 1935.

(A later volume – Garvin’s Gazette)

‘The Gold Standard Snare’, Garvin’s Gazette, July 1935.

The “Pound for Pound” System of Scientific National Monetary Reform in Montgomery Butchart (editor) To-morrow’s Money, Stanley Nott. 1936

‘Money and the Constitution: report of the Prosperity Campaign Conference’, DigswellPark, August 1936

Credit, Usury, Capital, Christianity, and Chameleons, The Economic Reform Club. 1937

The Budget, synopsis in one hundred verses of the author’s ‘Reformed Scientific National Monetary System’, Knapp, Enstone, Oxon. 1938

Money and the Constitution, Knapp, Enstone, Oxon. 1938

Social Relations of Science, Nature, 141, 784-5., 1938

Abolish Private Money, or Drown in Debt: Two Amended Addresses to our Bosses by Walter Crick and Frederick Soddy, 1939

“Finance and War”, Address to members of the Parliamentary Labour Party at the House of Commons , Nature, 147, 449, 1940

‘The Arch-Enemy of Economic Freedom: what banking is, what first it was, and again should be’, A reply to the Rt. Hon. R. McKenna’s ‘What is Banking ?’, Knapp, Enstone, Oxon, 1943.

Demand For Monetary Reform inEngland, a letter sent to the Archbishop of Canterburyand nine other clerical authorities, signed by thirty-two monetary reformers, Authored by Soddy and Norman A. Thompson 1943

‘Present Outlook: A Warning-debasement of the currency, deflation, and unemployment’, For Local Administration Authorities, September 1944.

(the more obscure works are from http://booksinternationale.info/pipermail/freshink/2009-July/002319.html )

Off topic but – While looking for Saturday Review of Literature Covers I ran across a number of interesting ones-

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51h3%2BP52nQL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Saturday Review of Literature August 8, 1942 Sergei Eisenstein Cover

Small c chartalism, sovereign money, & public policy space v. private profit space

Posted on by under Full Reserve Banking, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), Uncategorized

There is a high degree of disagreement, even within heterodox economics,  on the meaning and relations between monetary terms such as exogenous, endogenous, vertical, horizontal, chartal, monetarism, state, fiat, inside, outside, what money things are, is money debt, whether state money can be considered exogenous and on and on.

Part of the problem is that some try to define concepts through identifying historical examples, others through defining “ideal types” of the concepts and then relaxing or mixing these pure definitions to match real world systems, while still others define concepts based on the use of the words by past writers.

The degree of disagreement is so great as to pose a seemingly insuperable barrier to discussion between anything larger than the smallest of in-groups.

Not only is there immense disagreement on definitions of terms between schools of thought (understandable) but significant divergence of definitions and usage within heterodox and Post-Keynesianism (circuitiste, horizontalists, structuralists, Basil Moore, etc etc) and even within the various branches of these.

Just one example from comments on the last post: Ralph Musgrave writes

“First, I’m bothered about your use of the words fiat (as is Tom Hickey)…My Oxford Dictionary of Economics starts its definition of ‘fiat’ as follows. ‘Money which has no intrinsic value, but has exchange value because it is generally accepted.’ On that definition, central bank created and commercial bank created money is fiat. Thus your claim that ‘we do not have a true fiat currency’ is not correct: our existing system is 100% fiat.”

Yet Wray clearly distinguishes between fiat and bank credit-money, the latter of which

“can be thought as a type of ‘leveraging’ of fiat money” (Wray 1998, 111)

(Later Wray doesn’t even see modern money as fiat at all apparently;  he writes that

“The state’s money is not ‘fiat,’ but rather is ‘driven’ by the sovereign ability to impose tax liabilities…”

{Wray 2007; note, however, that the state imposes taxes by fiat}).

 The Way Forward

I think the only way to even begin discussing these issues is to agree on stipulative definitions that are based on ideal types rather than hagiographic discussions of past works. The latter is a prescription for factionalization; the former is a path to consensus and clarity. In such a complex and contested realm,  stipulative rather than descriptive and etymological definitions are needed. Define pure examples of a concept (even if they never existed) and when discussing mixed systems, just say so.

Example

A pure idea of a state theory of money would be to define it as a system where there is only intrinsically worthless currency decreed to be of value by the state, backed by its power to tax.

Alternatively, there can be commodity money.

Either commodity money or state money can be leveraged by private entities.

Separate names could be given to each type of mixed system (leveraged commodity money, leveraged state money).
If you want to call the latter mix “Chartalism” instead of reserving that term for a pure state theory of money, fine.

But then there should be some name for a system where the only money that circulates is state money.

A Pure State Theory of Money

Wray writes

“Modern money is state money…There is a pyramid of these liabilities, with nonsovereign money liabilities leveraging the sovereign’s currency.”    http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/Wray_Understanding_Modern.pdf

In this context Wray is calling private credit-money “nonsovereign money”.  Now Wray on sovereign government currency:

“In the US, the dollar is our state money of account and high powered money (HPM or coins, green paper money, and bank reserves) is our state monopolized currency. I prefer to expand the conventional definition of currency…[to] include HPM plus Treasuries as the government currency monopoly.” (Ibid.)

So “sovereign currency” is HPM plus Treasuries.

If you want to reserve the word “Chartalism” for a hybrid system of sovereign and nonsovereign money (sort of confusing to have a “State Theory of Money” that includes a massive amount of “nonsovereign money”, but whatever) then a system of “state money only” can be called a sovereign money system.

~~~

On private leveraging: In a commodity money system this may be useful.

However, there is no operational reason why state money needs to be leveraged.

A pure state money system is feasible.

MMT and Bank Credit-Money

I think part of the lack of emphasis in MMT on the (negative) role of private bank credit-money in our leveraged state money system stems from earlier bouts with non chartalists, especially metallists, who wanted to prove that money arose privately, and not from the state. As a result, chartalists have a natural tendency to downplay the role of private money in general, including privately created credit-money. Chartalist literature frequently (and often gratuitously, almost a tic)  turns to discussions of metallism. Simultaneously, in highlighting a state theory of money, chartalists needlessly minimize the utterly dominant role of private banks and private credit-money creation for many centuries, leveraging for private gain both commodity and state money in different places and times  (A pernicious dominance that I think vestigial in the current system, and should be excised). With stipulative rather than historical,descriptive definitions of a state money theory, one can recognize the role of private money both now and historically, without weakening a State Theory of Money in the least.

Note – A similar dynamic is evident in Bill Mitchell’s rejection of Full Reserve Banking, where he associates FullRB with the gold standard and Austrians (and says it would be deflationary, a peculiar thing to think considering a sovereign government can always issue currency, and would simply replace existing credit-money with state money with keyboard strokes), when there are plenty of arguments for stopping private credit-money creation that have nothing whatsoever to do with the gold standard or Austrian beliefs.

Sovereign money and public policy space versus private profit space 

There are good reasons to want to remove vestigial private-money creation from state money that have nothing to do with past state money v. private money discussions, debates on metallism etc.

It is hard to understand why a state system of money with private leveraging (a “leveraged state money system”) is somehow more desirable than a system of state money only, a true monopoly by sovereign money. MMT never tires of (correctly) saying that a currency issuer is always solvent. So why is there a need for private leveraging, when the state can always fulfill the money-creating role directly rather than expansion by private leveraging? (the investment and credit purposes of banks are easily carried out with no new credit-money creation).

Éric Tymoigne, in “Chartalism, Stage of Banking, and Liquidity Preference,” writes

“The demand for money-things…ultimately rests, because money-things are debts, on the capacity of their issuers to make them scarce. For the private sector money-things, this means the capacity of the issuers of money-things to make profit…” (Tymoigne 2005, 12).

What purpose is served by letting private entities profit from the public good that is sovereign money? The sovereign cedes policy space for public purpose to private space for private gain. Needlessly and inequitably.

___________________________________________________________

Tymoigne, Éric, 2005 “Chartalism, Stage of Banking, and Liquidity Preference”

Wray, L. Randall, 1998, Understanding Modern Money

Wray, L. Randall 2007 “Endogenous Money: Structuralist and Horizontalist” Levy Institute Working Paper No. 512

~~~

[This post is written partly in response to comments on https://clintballinger.edublogs.org/2013/01/03/mmt-can-address-operational-realities-or-analyze-a-chartalist-system-but-it-cannot-do-both/]

 

MMT can address operational realities or analyze a Chartalist system. But it cannot do both.

Posted on by under Full Reserve Banking, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

Yuan Dynasty Chao 鈔 – oldest known fiat currency

[First, to be clear, I think neoclassical economics is a non-starter, with the only real discussion of the economy being amongst various mainly post-Keynesian approaches.]

Summary: Both proper stock/flow accounting and chartalism must form a large part of any correct understanding of the economy, and MMT has been/is/will be central to this development. There are, however, some problems related to issues of productivity, foreign trade, and endogenous money. This post is on the latter.

The operational reality is we (the U.S., but really most any country) have a tiny state-money system dominated by a much much larger bank credit-money system.* MMT is usefully focused on the operational realities of this system (god knows the neoclassicals aren’t).

However, there are good reasons to believe that a true chartalist system would be a fairer, more stable, and more productive system (as well as more amenable to MMT analysis).

However, when it is suggested that changes should be made to the existing system to change it to true chartalism, a common response is that MMT is focused on operational realities, the system as it is, and anything else is just wishful thinking.

But this is disingenuous. As (especially) Scott Fullwiler never tires of mentioning, MMT is and has long been full of proposals for change – either changes in how the current system is utilized or changes to the system itself.

Although there is a pragmatic core focus on operational realities (an extremely good thing), MMT does indeed speculate and prescribe (also a good thing). The question, then, is why does MMT seem open to some changes and not others?

An obvious answer is that some changes are more important than others either because of value judgments, or because they seem to follow naturally from the logic of MMT, or both.

For example, the job guarantee seems to be both. Most people of any persuasion would agree that unemployment is not desirable. Additionally, the logic of MMT (and some other views) suggests we have to choose some buffer stock, and a full employment buffer stock is the best option if your goal is full employment and price stability with an overall goal of public purpose (I agree with the MMT JG).

But once the option for change is on the table, why not consider other MMT-friendly options, especially if they are at least as politically viable as the job guarantee? And what could be more neo-chartalist friendly than (true) chartalism?

MMT can either address operational realities, or analyze a chartalist system. But it cannot do both, because the operational reality is that we do not have a true fiat currency and are not operating in a true chartalist environment.

There may be moves away from this operational reality that lead to full employment, a  more just economic system, and greater price stability.  There is good evidence that a highly useful move would be to change to a true fiat currency system.

MMT would be a natural choice to lead this change.

___________________________________________

PS  This comment by Tom Hickey 1. demonstrates the standard first reaction when change is discussed to highlight that MMT has an important descriptive element (this is true, and useful, but besides the point in this case; MMT also has prescriptive elements, and therefore MMTers are choosing their prescriptions just like anybody else), 2. expresses the common view that MMT is not interested in Full Reserve Banking, which as I have pointed out,  is really a movement to implement a true fiat currency (whether Full Reservers realize it or not) and 3. lists proposals by Warren Mosler that come very close to creating a true fiat currency. Which makes me wonder why instead of the relatively complicated steps Mosler and other MMT plans call for, the relatively simple and neo-chartalist friendly step of just creating a true chartalist system is not on the table with MMTers.

* You can say “but the government could make this a true fiat system, they are just parceling out the public power of fiat to the private banks because we want to”. Fine, but still the operational reality is that we do not have a fiat system of money. (It may even be that we have reached/are reaching a point where politically the “operational reality” is that it is not realistic to believe a true fiat system could be enacted even if or when we decide we want one. The reality will be a permanent private credit-money dominated system in a plutocracy.) Oh, and don’t try to hand wave and say credit-money is not state HPM and so doesn’t count, or that it nets to zero and doesn’t count. Credit-money clearly functions as just “money” in the current system in ways that matter, accumulates in an inequitable and unstable way that additionally nourishes the problematic FIRE sector, and clearly causes problems.

 

Modern Monetary Theory & Full Reserve Banking: Connected by Fiat

Posted on by under Full Reserve Banking, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

[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.

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

Posted on by under Full Reserve Banking, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

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 writes “It 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

Posted on by under Full Reserve Banking, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

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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