An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Bernanke lies again. Makes up nonsense. Kills any chance at full output and employment
More and more lawmakers on Capitol Hill seem to be getting it. What they're getting is the fact that monetary policy can't stimulate anything, only fiscal policy can.
Great. So why aren't we seeing any movement in Congress to get another stimulus going? Something WAY bigger than the last one?
It's probably because every time it's mentioned, Bernanke throws cold water on it by saying something like, "We must be careful. It has to be done in a way where fiscal policy can be sustainable."
WTF???????????
What is he talking about?
Fiscal policy of any country under a fiat monetary system is ALWAYS SUSTAINABLE BY DEFINITION.
I thought Greenspan and Volker were bad, but Bernanke is the worst. The absolute worst.
He's almost gotten me to the point where I'll support Ron Paul's "End the Fed" campaign.
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Along the lines that Warren proposes, formally consolidate monetary and fiscal operations under Treasury, automate the settlement system to provide liquidity as required for those having access, and then let the regulators (FDIC) decide who has access to the settlement system based on solvency.
Then we can argue over whether tsys, which are operationally unnecessary, constitute enough public purpose to justify the interest payments as subsides to savers.
Something, anything. Just stop the deceit. It's impoverishing people.
I was listening and it sounded like Ron Paul actually took out a piece of silver and used it as a visual aid...
He is probably sponsored wholly by the mining industry that is quite a coup for them and their lobbyists...
I'm with you guys. These "independent" central banks in Europe and the US are strangling us.
There is no reason at all that the Treasury should have to borrow a dime from either the public or the country's own central bank to finance a deficit. We could have a system in which the Central Bank simply gives the various Treasury accounts a penalty-free overdraft facility, where the permitted annual overdraft never has to be repaid by the Treasury but simply becomes a liability of the central bank in accounting terms.
Then every year, based on macroeconomic conditions, we determine a target federal deficit for the year, with perhaps some discretionary quarterly target adjustment.
Instead of the current system, which bamboozles the public with phony, scary and meaningless "debts" of the Treasury to the government's own central bank, the reformed system would make it clear that the US government, unlike every other entity with a balance sheet in our system, can run a deficit without borrowing. It can run a "pure" deficit - just by spending more than it takes in.
Public borrowing would then be seen as a banking function of the nation's central bank: commitments to pay interest on dollar savings. The point would just be to encourage savings (if necessary), to regulate demand, to regulate interest rates, and to give people an additional reason to accept and hold dollars.
The public debate would shift away from debt sustainability and solvency toward price stability and full employment of people and resources. And reforming the central bank in this way would help move us back to the sensible use of fiscal policy for macroeconomic management, and away from our monetarist over-reliance on open market operations and the supply side.
Good points Dan... I hope that over 2,000 new people in Italy now realize this and can get something going over there politically.
Resp,
I think Bernanke et al believe the deceit is required to keep the Appropriations and Ways and Means people from an all out pork festival.
Just who are we allowed to let in on our little secret?
Re: I'm with you guys. These "independent" central banks in Europe and the US are strangling us.
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Has it really taken it up to now for the penny to drop? Wasn't this obvious at the very outset of the crisis?
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