p ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Michael Hudson <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, 28 July 2012, 14:49 Subject: Re: [gang8] The American Monetary Institute's views on monetary issues Dear Richard, We’re certainly on the same page. What remains to be done is to separate that portion of “money” used for commodity transactions (the CPI) -- probably currency + checking accounts — and credit used for asset transactions. This turns out indeed to be “savings,” in one form or another. The issue can’t be settled until we sit down and say just WHAT lines from the Federal Reserve’s flow of funds accounts are going to be “money,” and what asset-price indices we take. Do we separate mortgage credit from other forms of credit (leveraged buyout credit for stock prices, or pension fund savings and assets). Can this only be done ex post? I wish you had been in Split to discuss these. Any chance of your coming to Chicago or Kansas City in September? Or Berlin in October? Michael On 7/28/12 1:40 AM, "Prof. Richard Werner" <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Arno, Am a bit surprised by your comments. I thought we have had a consensus on these matters…? Werner’s Quantity Theory of Credit: Consider money used for transactions. All that money is credit and can best be measured by credit data. Hence the old textbook MV=PT, which is nicer to write I think as MV=PQ becomes CV=PQ Now we need to separate credit money used for GDP transactions and credit money used for non-GDP transactions: C = Cr + Cf Cr Vr = Pr Qr Cf Vf = Pf Qf Whereby we can approximate PrQr with nominal GDP. Add to this the recognition that there is unlimited demand for credit, and hence the credit market is perpetually rationed and supply-determined, and you also have the direction of causation. My simple quantity theory of credit explains everything we need to explain: economic growth, cycles, asset price booms, banking crises, how to get out of banking crises etc. As to the definition of credit, it includes all forms of credit money, which can in principle also include government-issued money, but sadly we don’t get much of that these days. I am not sure talking too much about precious metal money, and a 100% gold standard, is useful, as there is no evidence that such a monetary system has ever existed for any significant amount of time. I should look at Stephen’s argument, but am also surprised by the claim that Innes actually succeeded in informing anyone about money being credit – clearly this was a view largely ignored until today. I certainly had not come across Innes in my research on monetary systems in Japan and Germany, as, unlike other relevant authors, he did not seem to have been widely read there. Surprised you seem to want to measure ‘money’ using things like M2. Traditional measures of the money supply, such as the M-aggregates, are not money supply measures but savings supply measures, as I have long argued. Regards, Richard
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gunnar Tomasson Sent: 26 July 2012 20:45 To: [email protected] Subject: [gang8] The American Monetary Institute's views on monetary issues
Dear Gang. Stephen Zarlenga’s comments of yesterday’s date to Arno – In the meantime, I'm presenting a paper at our conference on how A. Mitchell Innes has misled the economics profession, back at the founding of the FED, into regarding money as credit. In googling for that theme I found a Gang 8 post on it, and thought I'd ask if you could post my paper on Innes onto the Gang 8? I've attached the paper, in case you can do it. I think it may be controversial there, but many people would like it.
– led me to reflect – and think out aloud – on the AMI views on monetary issues as summarized on Wikipedia:
The American Monetary Institute is a non-profit charitable trust established by Stephen Zarlenga in 1996 for the "independent study of monetary history, theory and reform." The institute is dedicated to monetary reform and advocates taking control of the monetary system out of the hands of banks and placing it into the hands of the US Treasury. Zarlenga argues that this would mean money would be issued by government interest free and spent into circulation to promote the general welfare, and that substantial expenditures on infrastructure, including human infrastructure (education and health care) would become the predominant method of putting new money into circulation. Research results are published in Zarlenga's 736 page book, The Lost Science of Money. This book asserts that money did not emerge from barter between individuals, but rather through trade between tribes and as part of religious worship and sacrifice. Though this is not the mainstream view, there are other scholars of money, such as Keith Hart, who agree that money developed in this way. The reason this distinction is believed to be important is because, according to Zarlenga, it is the definition of money which determines how the public will allow the money supply to be controlled. If money is a commodity to be traded, then all that matters is that the money is 100% backed by some commodity, like gold or silver for example. If money is credit, then it makes sense that bankers control it, as they do in the United States today. But if money is an artifact of law, whose value is derived from law (payment of taxes and legal tender laws) then Zarlenga argues it would only be proper for the government to issue, and control the money supply. According to Zarlenga, it is this last definition that is supported by the history and nature of money. Government-controlled money is also postulated to be more stable than credit money or commodity money. Coins have been claimed to represent an advance over weighing out precious metals with a fixed amount of precious metal being stamped so they need not be weighed and could be exchanged more conveniently than lumps of metal which needed to be weighed[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Monetary_Institute#cite_note-2> . However, Zarlenga emphasises the ratio of gold to silver in ancient coinage, and asserts that the variability in this ratio was crucial to understanding trade in the ancient world, the fall of the Roman Empire, and the drive behind the Crusades. My reflections and comments.
I. Three alternative views of money
1. Commodity money – backed 100% by some commodity, e.g. gold or silver. 2. Credit money – makes sense for bankers to control it. 3. Artifact of law money – proper for government to issue and control the money supply. *** II. Macroeconomic balance-sheet view of money – Dirk Bezemer
…you need to think about balance sheets – which macroeconomics almost forbids one to do.
Nothing more intricate is involved than the accounting equality that the financial sector’s assets are the real sector’s liabilities.
***
III. Implications of Macroeconomic balance-sheet view of money
a. Bank credit is part – but not the whole – of the financial sector’s assets.
b. Bank loans are part - but not the whole – of the real sector’s liabilities. c. Money supply is part – but not the whole – of the financial sector‘s liabilities. d. Money supply is part – but not the whole – of the real sector‘s financial assets. e. All financial sector assets are the non-financial/real sector‘s liabilities. f. All financial sector liabilities are the non-financial/real sector‘s assets. *** IV. Ratio of M2 to GDP in selected countries
United States = 83 France = 152 United Kingdom = 171 Netherlands = 226 Japan = 236 See: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FM.LBL.MQMY.GD.ZS V. Comments To control an economy‘s money supply is not to control the assets/liabilities of its financial/real sectors. Hence, US Treasury control money over supply would affect only a part of US financial assets/liabilities. There is no “ideal“ or “normal“ ratio of M2 to GDP. Hence, there would be no benchmark values of M2/GDP to guide US Treasury control over money supply. Gunnar
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