100% reserve banking: lecture at the LSE by de Soto.

Jesus Huerta de Soto, is a Spanish prof who has written an entire book against fractional reserve banking (750 pages!). He goes into the entire history. Seems to me (and don't take my word for it) that we are still all arguing about the points relating to banking that ancient Romans were aware of and that various Europeans were aware of 500 years go.

The book is called "Money, bank credit and economic cycles" and it's available online.

His lecture at the London School of Economics is on Thursday 28th Oct., which I intend going to. Details here:

Conference on Banking, Money, etc in London, 13th & 14th November, 2010.

See:
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/studentconference

See here for more details about the Positive Money Campaign:

http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/issues/

I think the conference is open to almost anyone who is interested. At least they’re letting me attend, so it must be open to almost anyone! Cost: £10 for students and £20 for non students.

Ricardian equivalence is nonsense.

At least there is a way in which Ricardian equivalence is applied to the stimulus debate which is nonsense, and as follows.

If government borrows and spends in a recession, so the Ricardian argument goes, it will have to raise taxes and pay back the money sooner or later. Plus households are allegedly aware of this. So given a deficit, households will allegedly start saving now for the above future tax hike. And this in turn renders stimulus ineffective. The flaws in this argument are thus.

First, the idea that the average household has enough knowledge about economics to be able to calculate the “deficit per household” is an idea that comes from “la-la” land, as Bill Mitchell put it in his recent blog post about Ricardian equivalence.

However, let’s proceed on the basis that the average household CAN make the above calculation, and proceed to “flaw No. 2”, which is thus.

Government will not necessarily get the money for the payback from increased tax. It may get the money from public spending cuts. Indeed, govt probably WILL do this, to a greater or lesser extent.

And there is no need for households to “save up” for public spending cuts. When the cuts arrive, govt just spends a bit less on roads, the armed forces, the police and so on, and that’s that.

Third, and assuming the pay back comes from tax increases, there is no point in govt paying back the above debt till the economy looks like overheating. I.e. the debt is paid back in a scenario where households cannot effectively spend any more (on pain of causing inflation). Thus taxes have to rise. However there is no point in “saving up” to pay this extra tax in as far as govt grabs this extra tax before the average household gets its hands on the money.

For example most income tax (i.e. for wage earners) is deducted before wage earners see the money (at least that’s the case in Britain and most Western countries). In that govt grabs extra tax before households get their hands on the relevant money, any household which “saves” to meet the tax liability is engaged in double counting.

Turning now to where households DO get their hands on income before govt confiscates a proportion in the form of tax, there is a paradox or self contradiction in household behaviour here, if the average household “saves up” to meet the alleged future tax liability. The paradox is thus.

As pointed out above, a rational govt will only raise taxes where the economy looks like overheating, that is, where households are attempting to spend too much, i.e. and demand goods and services in such a volume that the economy cannot meet the demand.

Now what is the central objective in “saving so as to meet a future tax liability”? The objective is presumably to be able to meet the liability while leaving the household bank balance undiminished. But the whole cause of the problem (excess demand) is caused by households attempting to RUN DOWN their bank balances too fast (or “dissave”).

Let’s summarise that. If the average household is thrifty and saves to meet some future tax liability, demand will not become excessive, so there’ll be no need for the tax! Alternatively, if the average household becomes too spendthrift, demand will rise too far, thus govt will have to increase taxes so as to damp demand. But in this situation, the average household is clearly not aiming to “leave its bank balance undiminished”!

There is a fourth and less important flaw in the Ricardo argument. This is worth a mention because the mere fact that you never see it mentioned by advocates of the argument illustrates their ignorance. The flaw is thus.

If the monetary base and national debt are to remain constant as a proportion of GDP, they will have to be constantly topped up because they are constantly declining in real terms because of inflation. To illustrate, if nat debt and mon base are say 50% of GDP and inflation is 2%, you need a constant and never ending deficit of 2 x 0.5 = 1% of GDP. That portion of the deficit is NEVER paid back. I.e. it is not “future tax”. To illustrate, the U.S. mon base increased from around $50bn in 1960 to around $2,000bn in 2010. (And you can just imagine the average household being fully conversant with that point, can’t you!)

To reiterate, I’ve never seen advocates of the Ricardo argument mention the point in the above paragraph. That is they never say something like “households will save to meet the cost of deficits, except in as far as there is there is need for a constant and never ending deficit of about 1% of GDP per year”.

___________

Finally, it is always possible that the above mentioned situation where debt has to be paid back to stop the economy overheating may take several years to materialise, during which time a somewhat bloated national debt persists. This may strike some readers as unsatisfactory and I quite agree. That is, I think Keynesian “borrow and spend” has serious flaws. I much prefer what might be called “Modern Monetary Theory / Abba Lerner print and spend”. I’ve set out the reasons here:

There is something wrong at the Federal Reserve.

When one senior person in an organisation talks nonsense, that doesn’t prove much. But when the numbers start rising to significantly above one or two, the suspicion arises that there is something wrong with the organisation itself.

I highlighted some nonsense emanating from two Fed people here.

Plus there is an ex-Fed economist (Arnold Kling) who says on his blog that he is having difficulty understanding Modern Monetary Theory. However his errors were put right by those leaving comments on the blog. Which raises the question: who is the more economically clued up – professional economists or the best bloggers?

That is three individuals. Now there is a fourth. Alan Greenspan (the one person, if there is one person, responsible for the credit crunch) has an article in the Financial Times today. The article is hogwash. Here is the first paragraph.

Although rising moderately this year, US fixed capital investment has fallen far short of the level that history suggests should have occurred given the recent dramatic surge in corporate profitability. Combined with a collapse of long-term illiquid investments by households, they have frustrated economic recovery. These shortfalls, the result of widespread private-sector anxiety over America’s future, have defused much, if not most, of the impact of the administration’s fiscal stimulus. Moreover, the activism embodied in such programmes has itself stoked the degree of anxiety.

“Long term illiquid investments by households”?? Well presumably that’s just a fancy name for houses. At least housing is far and away the biggest “illiquid investment” that the average family makes. Now given that there has been a GROSS OVERINVESTMENT in houses, what on Earth does Greenspan expect or want heavily indebted households to do? Run out and burden themselves with more NINJA mortgages, buy more or bigger houses and go even further underwater?

As to businesses, the main reason they are not investing as these three surveys show, is not, as Greenspan claims “widespread private-sector anxiety over America’s future”. The latter is an important element, but if there is one overriding reason for not investing it is plain simple lack of demand.

1. See here (p.28), 2, See here (page 14), and 3, See here, page 26).

In the next few paras, Greenspan repeats several times that it is an aversion to illiquid risk that “explains a large part of the anaemic recovery”, to quote.

So the basic purpose of an economy is indulge in risk? I thought the basic purpose of an economy is to provide consumers or citizens with what they want. If there is excess unemployment, then there is scope for giving citizens more of that which enables them to have more of what they want and employ the unemployed. And the stuff that kills the latter two birds with one stone is . . . wait for it . . . . money!! I.e. money needs to be fed into household pockets or “Main Street” pockets, not in to the pockets of Greenspan’s friends: the crooks and fraudsters of Wall Street.

As to the amount of investment needed to meet this demand from the consumer, well businesses can decide for themselves what level of investment is appropriate. They don’t need Nanny Greenspan encouraging or discouraging them from making investments.

Greenspan is a classic example of a phenomenon I highlighted here. That is, the tendency to lose sight of what economies are for, and instead mess around with important sounding concepts like “illiquid investments”.

Greenspan also attributes much of the problem to “the widespread major restructuring of our financial system”. What restructuring? The too big to fails have been left alone, i.e. they are the same size as they always were. (With the exception of the U.K. where the merger of Lloyds and HBOS made the “too big to fails” even bigger!!!!)

As to criminal or fraudulent mortgage practices, there has been next to no clamp down. As to Basle III, it’s as weak as water. Basle III won’t cause banks any lost sleep.


Deficits crowd out private sector investment?

Greenspan then makes the bizarre claim that a significant part of the problem is that the deficit has crowded out private sector investment.

I’ve just done a quick Google search for “deficit “crowd out” and investment”. The various articles and papers available seem to be inconclusive on whether deficits do crowd out investment. Indeed, one of them explicitly states in the summary that the jury is still out on this one.

But even asking the question as to whether deficits crowd out investment displays an ignorance of economics. Reasons are thus.

There are two basic reasons for running a deficit. One is as a substitute for tax. That is, government abstains from covering all its spending with tax and funds a portion from borrowing. That involves wading into the markets, and upping interest rates with a view to attracting funds to cover the relevant spending. (BTW, I’m using non Modern Monetary Theory phraseology here, but never mind.)

Now that IS BOUND TO CROWD OUT INVESTMENT! Indeed, crowding out private sector activity in general (including investment) IS THE WHOLE OBJECT OF THE EXERCISE!!!

That is, private sector activity has to damped down to make room for the relevant public sector activity. In this circumstance, anyone who complains about “crowding out” needs to do a basic course in economics and logic.

The second reason for deficits is to counter a recession, i.e. to do a bit of “Keynsian borrow and spend”. Here, obviously if government just borrows and spends period, then interest rates would rise, and crowding out would occur. But governments / central banks don’t do that. That is they certainly do not let interest rates rise in a recession. In fact they do the reverse: cut interest rates, which makes it easier to borrow and invest!

All in all, the question “do deficits cause crowding out?” is a bit like asking “are fires dangerous?” The answer to the latter “fire” question is “the question is so vague, that it’s a useless question, but ultimately the danger depends on who’s in charge of the fire, what the purpose of the fire is, where it is, how big it is, and a dozen other factors.” In short, don’t ask silly questions.

If Greenspan had his way, matches and cigarette lighters would be banned in case they caused another great fire of London.

And finally, Greenspan bemoans the damaging effect that bank regulation will have on “financial innovation”. Yes, we really need those Ninja mortgages up and running again, don’t we? And then there are those fiendishly clever and “innovative” people at hedge funds, Long Term Asset Management being the main culprit, which nearly brought the U.S. economy crashing down before the credit crunch. And then there are those clever clever CDOs the main aim of which is to hid toxic stuff from the innocents buying the CDOs.

We need “financial innovation” like we need a hole in the head.


Afterthought (9th Oct): More critical comments on Greenspan here.

Afterthought (4th Apr 2011): two more people of the view that Greenspan is past his sell by date: here and here.

Ben Bernanke thinks that if the national debt rises too far, so will interest rates!!!

So how come Japan’s debt is 200% of GDP, yet interest rates there are around 1%? That’s about three times the U.S. debt to GDP ratio. And as to the U.S. itself, it has the largest national debt for several decades, while interest rates are at a record low!

This speech by Bernanke clearly demonstrates he hasn’t a clue. Much of the rest of the speech is based on the idea that if the deficit continues, the national debt will also rise. It seems Bernanke has never heard of Keynes or Milton Friedman. As both the latter two individuals made clear, a deficit can accumulate as additional national debt OR additional monetary base.

And as to the idea that extra monetary base means inflation, there has been an astronomic and unprecedented increase in the U.S. base in the last two years, with not so much as a tenth of 1% worth of inflation to show for it.

But Bernanke is not the only ignorant duffer at the Federal Reserve. There’s at least one other: Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed.

This speech by Fisher is as hilarious as Bernanke’s.

This speech by Fisher devotes much space to casting doubt on the merits of quantitative easing. He then asks “The vexing question is: Why isn’t this liquidity being utilized to hire new workers and reduce unemployment?” (That’s the liquidity created by QE).

His answer is his own personal impressions gained from business people he has talked to. To quote: “My soundings among those who actually do the work of creating sustainable jobs and making productive capital investments―private businesses big and small―indicate that few are willing to commit to expanding U.S. payrolls or to undertaking significant commitments to expand capital expenditures in the U.S. other than in areas that enhance productivity of the current workforce. Without exception, all the business leaders I interview cite nonmonetary factors―fiscal policy and regulatory constraints or, worse, uncertainty going forward…”

Well, Fisher’s personal impressions, are no substitute for actual surveys of business opinion. And what is truly hilarious here is that Fisher actually cites a survey of employers’ views in his speech according to which the main problem facing businesses (by a substantial margin) are none of the ones he cites, but plain simple lack of demand or “poor sales” as they call it. (See p. 18 of the survey).

The problems he cites are far from being a total irrelevance, but they are not the MAIN problem cited by employers in the above survey.

Another survey shows similar results (See page 4).

The final bit of nonsense in Fisher’s speech is that he wants to see businesses “hiring and training a workforce”. Problem with that idea is that precious little training needs to be done: there are loads of unemployed skilled people just waiting to fill vacancies. Both the above surveys showed that employers regard a shortage of skilled employees as a total non-problem compared to other factors.

National debt reduction for dummies.

The dummies in charge of Britain and several other countries can’t fathom out how to stop their national debts rising. All they plan to do is SLOW DOWN THE RATE OF GROWTH. For example the consensus amongst British politicians is that Britain should halve its deficit in about four years.

Well pay attention dummies. Here’s how to stop the national debt rising as from tomorrow. (This is actually just a move towards a monetary regime advocated by Milton Friedman which involved NO NATIONAL DEBT AT ALL.)


1. Stop all government borrowing tomorrow (apart from rolling over existing debt).

2. Leave public sector spending untouched.

3. That means a large UNFUNDED deficit. That is, the deficit accumulates as extra monetary base instead of extra national debt.

4. Still with me?

5. The effect of “3” above would be excessively stimulatory and probably inflationary. So temper that with a DEFLATIONARY method of deficit reduction, i.e. get some of the money for the deficit reduction by raising taxes and/or cutting public spending: ideally by just enough that the above inflationary and deflationary effects cancel out. That leaves a NEUTRAL EFFECT.

6. Having the above stimulatory and deflationary effects EXACTLY cancel each other is of course difficult. But getting ANYTHING exactly right when running an economy is never easy. The important point about the argument here is that it achieves something that according to conventional thinking is impossible. That is the important point about the argument here is the THEORY.

7. If you think the above tax rises and public spending cuts means “austerity”, then you are wrong. Remember I said “NEUTRAL” just above? That is, there is (ideally) no stimulatory or deflationary effect from the above wheeze. That is aggregate demand, output per head, total numbers employed, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. remain the same.

8. Still with me?

9. A moderately intelligent question at this stage would be along the lines “You’ve just said no austerity is involved, but you’re advocating tax rises and public spending cuts. Isn’t that a self contradiction?”

Answer: remember that the unfunded deficit or accumulation of monetary base in the hands of the private sector puts extra spending power into the hands of the private sector. Thus the private sector will spend more. If some of that money is then taken away from the private sector in the form of extra tax, the private sector will be approximately back where it started. Ergo . . . . . no austerity!!!!!

As to the public sector spending cuts, these can be immediately cancelled because of the above mentioned increased government income from the above extra tax which can be spent on public sector employment.

10. It would be easy to take the above argument a stage further and actually bring about a REDUCTION IN THE NATIONAL DEBT STARTING AS FROM TOMORROW. But that would be too much of a shock for economic conservatives and adherents to the conventional wisdom. One step at a time when teaching babies to walk!

11. The real bonus of the above policy is that it would enable Britain to stick two metaphorical fingers up at “the markets”. “The markets” are currently desperate to lend to just about anyone willing to take their money, apart from obvious no hopers (e.g. some PIG countries). Yields on U.S. inflation proofed government bonds are currently NEGATIVE*.

If Britain, the U.S. and other major countries all adopted the above “Churchillian salute” policy, I suspect “the markets” would have a collective nervous breakdown and would beg any reasonably responsible country to take their money at a negative real rate of interest.

12. It is worth summarising the changes in the flows of money between households and government that result from the above policy So here goes.

First, those who do not have significant holdings of national debt (roughly speaking the less well off) pay less tax because they do not need to fund so much interest on national debt. Thus extra taxes can be raised on this section of the population: ideally enough tax to put them back where they started.

Second, there are those who DO have significant holdings of national debt (roughly speaking, the well off). The purpose of having government borrow from these people (as Modern Monetary Theory correctly points out) is NOT to fund government. The purpose is to damp private sector demand by enough to make room for proposed increases in government spending.

Under the “no more borrowing” policy advocated here, these people would pay more tax. Ideally the amount of tax needs to be whatever brings the same “damping” effect as would have been occasioned by borrowing, had the deficit been left in place.

The ACTUAL AMOUNT of tax will CERTAINLY NOT be equal to the amount of borrowing that would otherwise have taken place (and any suggestion that the two are or would be equal is to fall for the most popular mistake in economics: applying micro economic ideas at the macroeconomic level).

At a rough guess, the amount of tax that would have to be raised from the wealthy would be a small proportion of the amount that would otherwise have been borrowed, perhaps about a tenth. Reason is that there is a very big difference between government PERMANENTLY CONFISCATING one’s money (tax) and government borrowing one’s money. In the latter scenario (borrowing) one is still the “owner” of the money. Moreover, one gets a receipt from government (Treasuries in the US and “Gilts” in the UK) which are almost as good as money: the “receipts” can readily be used (like money) to transact business. To illustrate if you have $10k of Treasuries, no money, and want to buy a $10k car, all you do is sell the Treasuries and use the cash to buy the car!

Stop press - (6th Oct). Looks like my above suggestion about responsible governments being able to stick two fingers up at their creditors has become slightly nearer a reality. See post by Stefan Karlsson entitled "Please, U.S. Government. Take My Money" (6th Oct).


Afterthought (12th Oct). Re the amount the amount of extra tax than needs to be raised from the wealthy or Gilt owners, it could easily be less than a tenth of the value of the Gilts concerned. The relevant question is: “what amount of tax leaves a neutral effect?” To illustrate, if I get £X in exchange for £X of Gilts, there will be a finite stimulatory effect: I’ll have excess cash and will channel it to other assets (and presumably a small amount of extra consumption). But suppose I get £0.95X, because I am taxed to the tune of 0.05 of the value of the Gilts. In that case I may well feel poorer and will in consequence not do anything that results in stimulation. I.e. the ratio could easily be 1:20 or less.



* See Stefan Karlsson’s blog post, “Record Low Real U.S. Treasury Yields.” (28th Sept 2010).

Martin Wolf claims “We can only cut debt by borrowing”.

In an article in the Financial Times with the above title, Martin Wolf claims that the currently excessive unemployment is partially “paradox of thrift” unemployment. The solution, as he rightly points out, is for government to supply households with more cash so that households no longer feel poor, or no longer feel they have cash flow problems.

Unfortunately Wolf claims this additional cash can only come from extra government borrowing. That claim is implicit in the title of the article and is spelled out in more detail in the last four paras.

Well as Mugabwe has worked out, governments can simply print money: there is no need for additional government debt. Governments can either physically print money (i.e. produce extra dollar bills, pound notes, etc) or they can do the same thing with book keeping entries, or with cheque books, etc.


Stop press – Martin Wolf moves closer to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).

A few days after the above article (published on 26th Sept), another one (1st Oct) by Wolf suggests stimulus should take the form of a National Insurance contribution cut, funded by the government borrowing from the Bank of England. Well the latter is plain old money printing, assuming the bank does not sell the relevant bonds on the open market. See in particular the final three paragraphs of the article.

Now that is all very similar to Warren Mosler’s proposed payroll tax cut funded by new money. (National Insurance contribution in the U.K. is a payroll tax supposed to fund social security.)