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.
Pages
▼
Pages
▼
Friday, October 26, 2012
Lord Keynes — Fisher on Debt Deflation by Lord Keynes
Reason 573 why only a fool or a lunatic would be in favor of a fiat funny money system where funny money loans invariably artificially bid up the prices of most everything to unsustainable levels leading inexorably to a horrible and painful re-pricing downward towards reality.
(1) the commodity deflation in a recession/depression is neither necessary nor desirable.
(2) even if an economy has an asset bubble, price readjustment can occur without causing severe real output collapse, with the appropriate interventions.
(3) as usual Roddis throws around the absurd term "funny money": yet the private sector is perfectly capable of creating new "funny money" credit instruments (such as bank deposits, bills of exchange, etc) and contributing to price inflation, and - outside the historically aberrant 1873-1896 period - inflationary booms were the norm even in the 19th century:
Roddis's absurd obsession with new money creation means he must also be opposed to anyone creating a negotiable bills of exchange, negotiable promissory notes, negotiable cheques, bank deposit money (through fractional reserve banking [FRB]).
Yet he says if these were all voluntary, he would not ban them - nor would he ban free FRB.
Yet he *knows* (perhaps by magic or telepathy) that the private sector either would not accept credit money or that credit money would not cause significant price inflation.
He has also never explained the following:
(1) with FRB legal in an anarcho-capitalist society, why wouldn't inflation of the money supply via fiduciary media occur?;
(2) under the logic of ABCT, the anarcho-capitalist society will be hit by perpetual trade cycles;
(3) even under the logic of their own trade cycle theory, the anarcho-capitalist belief that the trade cycle will be eliminated in their system is nonsensical rubbish;
(4) the anarcho-capitalist system just reduces to a free banking system: it faces all the instability and unemployment that a free banking system would face, including asset bubbles, banking sector collapse, and debt deflationary depression.
the commodity deflation in a recession/depression is neither necessary nor desirable.
Relative price corrections are infact necessary if the state refrains from continually accelerating credit expansion ad infinitum.
even if an economy has an asset bubble, price readjustment can occur without causing severe real output collapse, with the appropriate interventions.
Which will only blow up another bubble, just like what happened post nasdaq bubble collapse, in 2000-2001, when the state imposed "appropriate interventions" to avoid a recession, and in the process blew up a housing bubble.
yet the private sector is perfectly capable of creating new "funny money" credit instruments (such as bank deposits, bills of exchange, etc) and contributing to price inflation, and - outside the historically aberrant 1873-1896 period - inflationary booms were the norm even in the 19th century
That was the age of "national banking". It was not free market. See Selgin.
Roddis' absurd obsession with new money creation means he must also be opposed to anyone creating a negotiable bills of exchange, negotiable promissory notes, negotiable cheques, bank deposit money (through fractional reserve banking [FRB]).
It's funny seeing you accuse others of being obsessed with money creation, since that is precisely what you advocate.
At any rate, the creation of fiduciary media would be minimized in a non-national bank act / non-Fed / non-central bank economy, and without any state privileges, the tendency would be for the quality of money to gradually improve over time.
Yet he says if these were all voluntary, he would not ban them - nor would he ban free FRB.
Yet he *knows* (perhaps by magic or telepathy) that the private sector either would not accept credit money or that credit money would not cause significant price inflation.
It doesn't take magic to know that without state backing, or bank credit legal tender enforcement, banks would be unable to expand anywhere near the amount of fiduciary media they do now.
He has also never explained the following:
(1) with FRB legal in an anarcho-capitalist society, why wouldn't inflation of the money supply via fiduciary media occur?;
(2) under the logic of ABCT, the anarcho-capitalist society will be hit by perpetual trade cycles;
(3) even under the logic of their own trade cycle theory, the anarcho-capitalist belief that the trade cycle will be eliminated in their system is nonsensical rubbish;
(4) the anarcho-capitalist system just reduces to a free banking system: it faces all the instability and unemployment that a free banking system would face, including asset bubbles, banking sector collapse, and debt deflationary depression.
Hardly. The 4 worst economic slumps in US history that followed banking crises occurred under central banking.
Central banking only exacerbates banking crises because it allows booms to go on longer and to a greater extent
...Which will only blow up another bubble, just like what happened post nasdaq bubble collapse, in 2000-2001
With financial regulation and limits to speculative lending, it will not - just as asset bubbles were minimised in 1945-1970s era, when financial regulation was effective, as opposed to the ineffective neoliberal financial regulatory system.
"It doesn't take magic to know that without state backing, or bank credit legal tender enforcement, banks would be unable to expand anywhere near the amount of fiduciary media they do now."
Just because they might not create the large amount of credit money they create now, it does not mean that they would still create a significant amount - more than enough (in theory) to cause an Austrian business cycle (ABC). Mises's original point is that FRB without a central bank is a sufficient cause of ABCs.
Also, any economy's base commodity money might be expanded by chance gold discoveries or inflows through the capital account, just as Australia was in 1860-1880s.
"Hardly. The 4 worst economic slumps in US history that followed banking crises occurred under central banking.
Central banking only exacerbates banking crises because it allows booms to go on longer and to a greater extent."
lol.. nothing like a idiotic red herring argument to refute your opponent!
Assume you're correct (with regard to the 4 slumps: 1929-1933, 1937 and 2 other recessions, which escape me: which ones do you mean?), that does not refute or address my 4 points.
The essence of MMT is new money creation. When I critique MMT, I mysteriously find it necessary discuss the creation of new money, right? You dumb ass bastard.
means he must also be opposed to anyone creating a negotiable bills of exchange, negotiable promissory notes, negotiable cheques, bank deposit money (through fractional reserve banking [FRB]).
Lies lies lies. I’ve been very clear that the problem I have with “FRB” is with bank notes that state on their face that specie is available on demand to the bearer when it really isn’t under a regime of private competitive currencies. Then I’ve said that if the true nature of note was set forth in detail on the face of the note, no payees would accept them. And I've said that I could be wrong, so let’s wait until we have a competing private monetary regime to worry about that. The End. You stupid lying bastard.
Yet he says if these were all voluntary, he would not ban them - nor would he ban free FRB.
If they were problematic, I might suggest that they banned in my particular private area. If I’m not in contractual privity with the people using them, then I’m not in contractual privity with the people using them and I’m not in a position to ban anything they might do that doesn’t impact my area. Further, if someone is actually taken in by the misleading language on the notes and incurs a loss therefrom, they might have a cause of action for fraud.
Yet he *knows* (perhaps by magic or telepathy) that the private sector either would not accept credit money or that credit money would not cause significant price inflation.
Since each brand of private competitive money would be “branded” [duh], prices would be stated in brands of money which would act as a check on general price inflation. For example, I would expect that a house costing $100,000 in 100% reserve notes might cost $500,000 in FRB if a house seller would ever accept payment in FRB at all. I suspect they’d want a certified check for real specie. But I could be wrong.
He has also never explained the following:
(1) with FRB legal in an anarcho-capitalist society, why wouldn't inflation of the money supply via fiduciary media occur?
See above. You stupid lying bastard [Lord “Kelso” Keynes has been calling me an “idiot” for years. I just finally lost my usual calm demeanor].
"I’ve been very clear that the problem I have with “FRB” is with bank notes that state on their face that specie is available on demand to the bearer when it really isn’t under a regime of private competitive currencies."
And yet private banknotes historically don't promise specie as if it is held as a bailment: they - like all debt instruments - promise repayment of a debt on demand. Completely different thing.
Furthermore, negotiable bills of exchange, negotiable promissory notes and negotiable cheques are all mainly drawn, used and accepted by business people anyway - people perfectly well aware of the risks of accepting a debt instrument as a means of payment.
"Further, if someone is actually taken in by the misleading language on the notes and incurs a loss therefrom, they might have a cause of action for fraud."
Except there is little evidence that banknotes historically promised specie as if it is held as a bailment, as I have said. You're just inventing history.
"Since each brand of private competitive money would be “branded” [duh], prices would be stated in brands of money which would act as a check on general price inflation ... But I could be wrong."
Any "private competitive money" would just be a debt instrument as all historical debt instruments, and would be redeemed for commodity money, as in the past.
There is no logically no sense why prices would be stated on a completely different level when final payment would be in the commodity money anyway. Further blatant illogic.
"let’s wait until we have a competing private monetary regime..."
No need. We've had it before and it has never operated in the way that you, for some reason, believe that it would. History has already proven you wrong, repeatedly, yet you still continue to hold your erroneous beliefs. You're a fundamentalist and nothing can persuade you that you are wrong, not even facts.
Under a regime of competitive currencies, how can an informed payee determine if the bank issuing a particular note holds 100% reserves of specie or 90% or 50% or 2% UNLESS SUCH INFORMATION IS PLAINLY STATED ON THE FACE OF THE NOTE?
"Under a regime of competitive currencies, how can an informed payee determine if the bank issuing a particular note holds 100% reserves of specie or 90% or 50% or 2% UNLESS SUCH INFORMATION IS PLAINLY STATED ON THE FACE OF THE NOTE?"
No doubt they could print the average level of reserves on the notes. Why would that stop people from using debt instruments? The idea is laughable.
Any business person with savy and experience knows that negotiable debt instruments are merely *promises* to pay in the future. The person writing the debt instrument might not even have the necessary money until some date in the future - after their production cycle has earned them a profit. And that's what happens in the real world.
And any institution issuing mere receipts for commodity money and holding 100% backing for the receipts is in no sense a bank - it is a mere warehousing facility offering bailment services.
No law has prevented or stopped capitalists from offering such services, yet there are hardly any example of such pure money "warehouses".
Why? Because consumers don't them; businesses don't want them. Who want to pay money merely to have your money locked up, when you can get a return on it from an actual bank.
"Neither I nor any other Austrian is talking about or proposing restricting the use of "debt instruments"
This is a most bizarre assertion - the whole point of Rothbard's work was vehement opposition to FRB in principle because he thought it was inherently fraud.
He advocated 100% reserve "banking" (if you can even call it banking).
But FR demand deposits are nothing but debt instruments - so no Austrian has ever proposed restricting the use of "debt instruments"!?
lol...
Also, as Selgin has noted, the logic of modern Rothbardians' anti-FRB position means they in fact would need to ban all callable loans including debt instruments:
"“If De Soto’s position is in fact that callable loans are ipso-facto illegitimate, then that position is even less tenable than I once supposed. For now it isn’t just a question of wishing to suppress fractionally-backed bank deposits, but of wishing to suppress all call loans, starting with brokers loans (which have long played a very important role in financing securities trades) but also including callable bonds and many other non-bank intermediated securities."
Bob, one thing I think you are presuming is not the case. No one is saying that government participation in an economy leaves everything as it would be otherwise. Of course, government participation has effects on prices, wages, and so forth, and there very likely will be Cantillion effects. You seem to assume that this is less efficient than a system without government, and therefore this system will necessarily be more effective due to the free play of market forces. We are questioning that assumption and saying that intelligently conceived government participation can be more effective economically even though ti may not be most efficient in particular respects.
Societies are complex adaptive systems that increase in complexity, e.g., with population growth and innovation. This increase in complexity results in emergence of unanticipated factors that call for addressing. One view is to let nature handle it as nature does in non-human systems, pruning where needed through market forces operating freely, that is, "naturally."
Another view holds that increasing adaptive rate and return on coordination through application of human intelligence is a more satisfactory solution in that can reduce the need for pruning. This view holds that evolutionary theory suggests that the most adaptive survive and in social species adaption involves ability to coordinate successful responses.
There is no way to know that "natural" forces, i.e., free markets, competition, and sound money will lead to the optimal solution of emergent challenges. It is a belief that cannot be tested and there is no reason to think that it is superior to the coordinated application of human intelligence to emergent challenges. Most people believe that humans have a natural advantage in their level of intelligence and that using it to best advantage is the optimal way forward in a world of increasing complexity, therefore, emergent challenges.
"Money is not metal. It is trust inscribed. And it does not seem to matter much where it is inscribed: on silver, on clay, on paper, on a liquid crystal display. Anything can serve as money, from the cowrie shells of the Maldives to the huge stone discs used on the Pacific islands of Yap."
There is no way to know that "natural" forces, i.e., free markets, competition, and sound money will lead to the optimal solution of emergent challenges.
Well, that’s the dispute then. Value is purely subjective and its only OBJECTIVE manifestation among strangers are the prices and terms of trade that people agree to when exchanging goods and services. AKA “catallactics” which is why Mises called “the state theory of money” “acatallactic”. Bureaucracies backed by SWAT teams must always lack the essential knowledge to guide society without prices which is why Communist countries were and always must be poverty ridden hell holes.
Perhaps you can now see why I call LK a liar. Mises’ “socialist calculation problem” theory is based upon the fact that under soviet style socialism, exchange is forbidden and there are thus no prices or terms of trade providing the essential manifestation of subjective value to allow for economic calculation. LK seems to agree with that critique. However, the Austrians also attack Keynesianism (and monetarism) for producing false prices (as opposed to no prices under socialism) which mislead most everyone into investing time, money and labor into lines of production that only seem worthwhile due to the various injections of funny money but which are, in fact, unsustainable.
So, I can understand someone rejecting the socialist calculation problem theory as applied to both socialism and Keynesianism (if only because they would be consistent), but I cannot understand how someone can say it applies to socialism but not to Keynesianism, as LK does. Further, LK is nuts to claim that Austrians have never before applied it to Keynesianism. That has always been the basis of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory which LK still does not comprehend.
Name a monetary economy without a government. Doesn't exist.
What you mean by "natural" is an economy in which the role of the elected government is minimised (as far as is possible), and its place is taken instead by the wealthiest individuals and private organisations (which become the de-facto government in the process), who simply pursue their own private interests.
The basic argument of people like Bob, once you cut through the bullshit, is that a (de-facto) government which pursues profit is superior to one which doesn't.
This makes no sense from the point of view of basic mathematics - as a (de-facto) government which achieves profit necessarily takes more money out of the economy than it puts in, which it then lends back to the population at interest in order to make even more profit.
This results in a situation where the population ends up in ever-deeper debt to the (de-facto) government.
Here's another view on full-reserve banking and fiat money:
"Any debate on the origins of money is not of merely academic interest, because it leads directly to a debate on the nature of money, which in turn has a critical bearing on arguments as to who should control the issuance of money. Specifically, the private trading story for the origins of money has time and again, starting at least with Adam Smith (1776), been used as an argument for the private issuance and control of money. Until recent times this has mainly taken the form of monetary systems based on precious metals, especially under free coinage of bullion into coins. Even though there can at times be heavy government involvement in such systems, the fact is that in practice precious metals tended to accumulate privately in the hands of the wealthy, who would then lend them out at interest. Since the thirteenth century this precious-metals-based system has, in Europe, been accompanied, and increasingly supplanted, by the private issuance of bank money, more properly called credit. On the other hand, the historically and anthropologically correct state/institutional story for the origins of money is one of the arguments supporting the government issuance and control of money under the rule of law. In practice this has mainly taken the form of interest-free issuance of notes or coins, although it could equally take the form of electronic deposits.
There is another issue that tends to get confused with the much more fundamental debate concerning the control over the issuance of money, namely the debate over “real” precious-metals-backed money versus fiat money. As documented in Zarlenga (2002), this debate is mostly a diversion, because even during historical regimes based on precious metals the main reason for the high relative value of precious metals was precisely their role as money, which derives from government fiat and not from the intrinsic qualities of the metals.15 These matters are especially confused in Smith (1776), who takes a primitive commodity view of money despite the fact that at his time the then private Bank of England had long since started to issue a fiat currency whose value was essentially unrelated to the production cost of precious metals. Furthermore, as Smith certainly knew, both the Bank of England and private banks were creating checkable book credits in accounts for borrowing customers who had not made any deposits of coin (or even of bank notes).
The historical debate concerning the nature and control of money is the subject of Zarlenga (2002), a masterful work that traces this debate back to ancient Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome. Like Graeber (2011), he shows that private issuance of money has repeatedly led to major societal problems throughout recorded history, due to usury associated with private debts.16 Zarlenga does not adopt the common but simplistic definition of usury as the charging of “excessive interest”, but rather as “taking something for nothing” through the calculated misuse of a nation’s money system for private gain. Historically this has taken two forms. The first form of usury is the private appropriation of the convenience yield of a society’s money. Private money has to be borrowed into existence at a positive interest rate, while the holders of that money, due to the non-pecuniary benefits of its liquidity, are content to receive no or very low interest. Therefore, while part of the interest difference between lending rates and rates on money is due to a lending risk premium, another large part is due to the benefits of the liquidity services of money. This difference is privately appropriated by the small group that owns the privilege to privately create money. This is a privilege that, due to its enormous benefits, is often originally acquired as a result of intense rent-seeking behavior. Zarlenga (2002) documents this for multiple historical episodes. We will return to the issue of the interest difference between lending and deposit rates in calibrating our theoretical model. The second form of usury is the ability of private creators of money to manipulate the money supply to their benefit, by creating an abundance of credit and thus money at times of economic expansion and thus high goods prices, followed by a contraction of credit and thus money at times of economic contraction and thus low goods prices. A typical example is the harvest cycle in ancient farming societies, but Zarlenga (2002), Del Mar (1895), and the works cited therein contain numerous other historical examples where this mechanism was at work. It repeatedly led to systemic borrower defaults, forfeiture of collateral, and therefore the concentration of wealth in the hands of lenders. For the macroeconomic consequences it matters little whether this represents deliberate and malicious manipulation, or whether it is an inherent feature of a system based on private money creation. We will return to this in our theoretical model, too.
Name a monetary economy without a government. Doesn't exist.
There has never been a modern state without a strong government that plays a key role in the economy, if only due to military expenditure. Moreover, states have always been controlled by elites that structure institutions in their favor.
A discussion of the crises brought on by excessive debt in ancient Mesopotamia is contained in Hudson and van de Mierop (2002). It was this experience, acquired over millennia, that led to the prohibition of usury and/or to periodic debt forgiveness (“wiping the slate clean”) in the sacred texts of the main Middle Eastern religions. The earliest known example of such debt crises in Greek history are the 599 BC reforms of Solon, which were a response to a severe debt crisis of small farmers, brought on by the charging of interest on coinage by a wealthy oligarchy. It is extremely illuminating to realize that Solon’s reforms, at this very early time, already contained many elements of what Henry Simons (1948), a principal proponent of the Chicago Plan, would later refer to as the “financial good society”. First, there was widespread debt cancellation, and the restitution of lands that had been seized by creditors. Second, agricultural commodities were monetized by setting official monetary floor prices for them. Because the source of loan repayments for agricultural debtors was their output of these commodities, this turned debt finance into something closer to equity finance. Third, Solon provided much more plentiful government-issued, debt-free coinage that reduced the need for private debts. Solon’s reforms were so successful that, 150 years later, the early Roman republic sent a delegation to Greece to study them. They became the foundation of the Roman monetary system from 454 BC (Lex Aternia) until the time of the Punic wars (Peruzzi (1985)). It is also at this time that a link was established between these ancient understandings of money and more modern interpretations. This happened through the teachings of Aristotle that were to have such a crucial influence on early Western thought. In Ethics, Aristotle clearly states the state/institutional theory of money, and rejects any commodity-based or trading concept of money, by saying “Money exists not by nature but by law.” The Dialogues of Plato contain similar views (Jowett (1937)). This insight was reflected in many monetary systems of the time, which contrary to a popular prejudice among monetary historians were based on state-backed fiat currencies rather than commodity monies. Examples include the extremely successful Spartan system (approx. 750-415 BC), introduced by Lycurgus, which was based on iron disks of low intrinsic value, the 390-350 BC Athenian system, based on copper, and most importantly the early Roman system (approx. 700-150 BC), which was based on bronze tablets, and later coins, whose material value was far below their face value.
Many historians (Del Mar (1895)) have partly attributed the eventual collapse of the Roman republic to the emergence of a plutocracy that accumulated immense private wealth at the expense of the general citizenry. Their ascendancy was facilitated by the introduction of privately controlled silver money, and later gold money, at prices that far exceeded their earlier commodity value prices, during the emergency period of the Punic wars. With the collapse of Rome much of the ancient monetary knowledge and experience was lost in the West. But the teachings of Aristotle remained important through their influence on the scholastics, including St. Thomas Acquinas (1225-1274). This may be part of the reason why, until the Industrial Revolution, monetary control in the West remained generally either in government or religious hands, and was inseparable from ultimate sovereignty in society. However, this was to change eventually, and the beginnings can be traced to the first emergence of private banking after the fall of Byzantium in 1204, with rulers increasingly relying on loans from private bankers to finance wars. But ultimate monetary control remained in sovereign hands for several more centuries. The Bank of Amsterdam (1609-1820) in the Netherlands was still government-owned and maintained a 100% reserve backing for deposits. And the Mixt Moneys of Ireland (1601) legal case in England confirmed the right of the sovereign to issue intrinsically worthless base metal coinage as legal tender. It was the English Free Coinage Act of 1666, which placed control of the money supply into private hands, and the founding of the privately controlled Bank of England in 1694, that first saw a major sovereign relinquishing monetary control, not only to the central bank but also to the private banking interests behind it. The following centuries would provide ample opportunities to compare the
results of government and private control over money issuance. The results for the United Kingdom are quite clear. Shaw (1896) examined the record of monarchs throughout English history, and found that, with one exception (Henry VIII), the king had used his monetary prerogative responsibly for the benefit of the nation, with no major financial crises. On the other hand, Del Mar (1895) finds that the Free Coinage Act inaugurated a series of commercial panics and disasters which to that time were completely unknown, and that between 1694 and 1890 twenty-five years never passed without a financial crisis in England. The principal advocates of this system of private money issuance were Adam Smith (1776) and Jeremy Bentham (1818), whose arguments were based on a fallacious notion of commodity money. But a long line of distinguished thinkers argued in favor of a return to (or, depending on the country and the time, a maintenance of) a system of government money issuance, with the intrinsic value of the monetary metal (or material) being of no consequence. The list of their names, over the centuries, includes John Locke (1692, 1718), Benjamin Franklin (1729), George Berkeley (1735), Charles de Montesquieu (1748, in Montague (1952)), Thomas Paine (1796), Thomas Jefferson (1803), David Ricardo (1824), Benjamin Butler (1869), Henry George (1884), Georg Friedrich Knapp (1924), Frederick Soddy (1926, 1933, 1943), Pope Pius XI (1931) and the Archbishop of Canterbury (1942, in Dempsey (1948)).
"However, the Austrians also attack Keynesianism (and monetarism) for producing false prices (as opposed to no prices under socialism) which mislead most everyone into investing time, money and labor into lines of production that only seem worthwhile due to the various injections of funny money but which are, in fact, unsustainable."
An alleged economic calculation problem different from the original one of Mises.
"Austrians also attack Keynesianism (and monetarism) for producing prices that are different to the imaginary perfect prices that are created by the imaginary economy that only exists inside my imagination. These mislead the imaginary people that only exist in my imagination into investing imaginary time, imaginary money and imaginary labor into imaginary lines of production that only seem worthwhile in my imagination due to the various imaginary injections of imaginary funny money, but which are, in my imagination, unsustainable."
Reason 573 why only a fool or a lunatic would be in favor of a fiat funny money system where funny money loans invariably artificially bid up the prices of most everything to unsustainable levels leading inexorably to a horrible and painful re-pricing downward towards reality.
ReplyDelete(1) the commodity deflation in a recession/depression is neither necessary nor desirable.
ReplyDelete(2) even if an economy has an asset bubble, price readjustment can occur without causing severe real output collapse, with the appropriate interventions.
(3) as usual Roddis throws around the absurd term "funny money": yet the private sector is perfectly capable of creating new "funny money" credit instruments (such as bank deposits, bills of exchange, etc) and contributing to price inflation, and - outside the historically aberrant 1873-1896 period - inflationary booms were the norm even in the 19th century:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-gold-standard-did-not-prevent-price.html
Roddis's absurd obsession with new money creation means he must also be opposed to anyone creating a negotiable bills of exchange, negotiable promissory notes, negotiable cheques, bank deposit money (through fractional reserve banking [FRB]).
ReplyDeleteYet he says if these were all voluntary, he would not ban them - nor would he ban free FRB.
Yet he *knows* (perhaps by magic or telepathy) that the private sector either would not accept credit money or that credit money would not cause significant price inflation.
He has also never explained the following:
(1) with FRB legal in an anarcho-capitalist society, why wouldn't inflation of the money supply via fiduciary media occur?;
(2) under the logic of ABCT, the anarcho-capitalist society will be hit by perpetual trade cycles;
(3) even under the logic of their own trade cycle theory, the anarcho-capitalist belief that the trade cycle will be eliminated in their system is nonsensical rubbish;
(4) the anarcho-capitalist system just reduces to a free banking system: it faces all the instability and unemployment that a free banking system would face, including asset bubbles, banking sector collapse, and debt deflationary depression.
Lord Keynes:
ReplyDeletethe commodity deflation in a recession/depression is neither necessary nor desirable.
Relative price corrections are infact necessary if the state refrains from continually accelerating credit expansion ad infinitum.
even if an economy has an asset bubble, price readjustment can occur without causing severe real output collapse, with the appropriate interventions.
Which will only blow up another bubble, just like what happened post nasdaq bubble collapse, in 2000-2001, when the state imposed "appropriate interventions" to avoid a recession, and in the process blew up a housing bubble.
yet the private sector is perfectly capable of creating new "funny money" credit instruments (such as bank deposits, bills of exchange, etc) and contributing to price inflation, and - outside the historically aberrant 1873-1896 period - inflationary booms were the norm even in the 19th century
That was the age of "national banking". It was not free market. See Selgin.
Roddis' absurd obsession with new money creation means he must also be opposed to anyone creating a negotiable bills of exchange, negotiable promissory notes, negotiable cheques, bank deposit money (through fractional reserve banking [FRB]).
It's funny seeing you accuse others of being obsessed with money creation, since that is precisely what you advocate.
At any rate, the creation of fiduciary media would be minimized in a non-national bank act / non-Fed / non-central bank economy, and without any state privileges, the tendency would be for the quality of money to gradually improve over time.
Yet he says if these were all voluntary, he would not ban them - nor would he ban free FRB.
Yet he *knows* (perhaps by magic or telepathy) that the private sector either would not accept credit money or that credit money would not cause significant price inflation.
It doesn't take magic to know that without state backing, or bank credit legal tender enforcement, banks would be unable to expand anywhere near the amount of fiduciary media they do now.
He has also never explained the following:
(1) with FRB legal in an anarcho-capitalist society, why wouldn't inflation of the money supply via fiduciary media occur?;
(2) under the logic of ABCT, the anarcho-capitalist society will be hit by perpetual trade cycles;
(3) even under the logic of their own trade cycle theory, the anarcho-capitalist belief that the trade cycle will be eliminated in their system is nonsensical rubbish;
(4) the anarcho-capitalist system just reduces to a free banking system: it faces all the instability and unemployment that a free banking system would face, including asset bubbles, banking sector collapse, and debt deflationary depression.
Hardly. The 4 worst economic slumps in US history that followed banking crises occurred under central banking.
Central banking only exacerbates banking crises because it allows booms to go on longer and to a greater extent
...Which will only blow up another bubble, just like what happened post nasdaq bubble collapse, in 2000-2001
ReplyDeleteWith financial regulation and limits to speculative lending, it will not - just as asset bubbles were minimised in 1945-1970s era, when financial regulation was effective, as opposed to the ineffective neoliberal financial regulatory system.
"It doesn't take magic to know that without state backing, or bank credit legal tender enforcement, banks would be unable to expand anywhere near the amount of fiduciary media they do now."
Just because they might not create the large amount of credit money they create now, it does not mean that they would still create a significant amount - more than enough (in theory) to cause an Austrian business cycle (ABC). Mises's original point is that FRB without a central bank is a sufficient cause of ABCs.
Also, any economy's base commodity money might be expanded by chance gold discoveries or inflows through the capital account, just as Australia was in 1860-1880s.
"Hardly. The 4 worst economic slumps in US history that followed banking crises occurred under central banking.
Central banking only exacerbates banking crises because it allows booms to go on longer and to a greater extent."
lol.. nothing like a idiotic red herring argument to refute your opponent!
Assume you're correct (with regard to the 4 slumps: 1929-1933, 1937 and 2 other recessions, which escape me: which ones do you mean?), that does not refute or address my 4 points.
Lord Keynes said...
ReplyDeleteRoddis's absurd obsession with new money creation
The essence of MMT is new money creation. When I critique MMT, I mysteriously find it necessary discuss the creation of new money, right? You dumb ass bastard.
means he must also be opposed to anyone creating a negotiable bills of exchange, negotiable promissory notes, negotiable cheques, bank deposit money (through fractional reserve banking [FRB]).
Lies lies lies. I’ve been very clear that the problem I have with “FRB” is with bank notes that state on their face that specie is available on demand to the bearer when it really isn’t under a regime of private competitive currencies. Then I’ve said that if the true nature of note was set forth in detail on the face of the note, no payees would accept them. And I've said that I could be wrong, so let’s wait until we have a competing private monetary regime to worry about that. The End. You stupid lying bastard.
http://factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.com/2012/07/bob-roddis-makes-bad-argument.html
Yet he says if these were all voluntary, he would not ban them - nor would he ban free FRB.
If they were problematic, I might suggest that they banned in my particular private area. If I’m not in contractual privity with the people using them, then I’m not in contractual privity with the people using them and I’m not in a position to ban anything they might do that doesn’t impact my area. Further, if someone is actually taken in by the misleading language on the notes and incurs a loss therefrom, they might have a cause of action for fraud.
Yet he *knows* (perhaps by magic or telepathy) that the private sector either would not accept credit money or that credit money would not cause significant price inflation.
Since each brand of private competitive money would be “branded” [duh], prices would be stated in brands of money which would act as a check on general price inflation. For example, I would expect that a house costing $100,000 in 100% reserve notes might cost $500,000 in FRB if a house seller would ever accept payment in FRB at all. I suspect they’d want a certified check for real specie. But I could be wrong.
He has also never explained the following:
(1) with FRB legal in an anarcho-capitalist society, why wouldn't inflation of the money supply via fiduciary media occur?
See above. You stupid lying bastard [Lord “Kelso” Keynes has been calling me an “idiot” for years. I just finally lost my usual calm demeanor].
Typo:
ReplyDeleteThen I’ve said that if the true nature of THE note was set forth in detail on the face of the note, no payees would accept them.
"I’ve been very clear that the problem I have with “FRB” is with bank notes that state on their face that specie is available on demand to the bearer when it really isn’t under a regime of private competitive currencies."
ReplyDeleteAnd yet private banknotes historically don't promise specie as if it is held as a bailment: they - like all debt instruments - promise repayment of a debt on demand. Completely different thing.
Furthermore, negotiable bills of exchange, negotiable promissory notes and negotiable cheques are all mainly drawn, used and accepted by business people anyway - people perfectly well aware of the risks of accepting a debt instrument as a means of payment.
"Further, if someone is actually taken in by the misleading language on the notes and incurs a loss therefrom, they might have a cause of action for fraud."
Except there is little evidence that banknotes historically promised specie as if it is held as a bailment, as I have said. You're just inventing history.
"Since each brand of private competitive money would be “branded” [duh], prices would be stated in brands of money which would act as a check on general price inflation ... But I could be wrong."
Any "private competitive money" would just be a debt instrument as all historical debt instruments, and would be redeemed for commodity money, as in the past.
There is no logically no sense why prices would be stated on a completely different level when final payment would be in the commodity money anyway. Further blatant illogic.
"let’s wait until we have a competing private monetary regime..."
ReplyDeleteNo need. We've had it before and it has never operated in the way that you, for some reason, believe that it would. History has already proven you wrong, repeatedly, yet you still continue to hold your erroneous beliefs. You're a fundamentalist and nothing can persuade you that you are wrong, not even facts.
Under a regime of competitive currencies, how can an informed payee determine if the bank issuing a particular note holds 100% reserves of specie or 90% or 50% or 2% UNLESS SUCH INFORMATION IS PLAINLY STATED ON THE FACE OF THE NOTE?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pearlegg.com/500_note.jpg
"Under a regime of competitive currencies, how can an informed payee determine if the bank issuing a particular note holds 100% reserves of specie or 90% or 50% or 2% UNLESS SUCH INFORMATION IS PLAINLY STATED ON THE FACE OF THE NOTE?"
ReplyDeleteNo doubt they could print the average level of reserves on the notes. Why would that stop people from using debt instruments? The idea is laughable.
Any business person with savy and experience knows that negotiable debt instruments are merely *promises* to pay in the future. The person writing the debt instrument might not even have the necessary money until some date in the future - after their production cycle has earned them a profit. And that's what happens in the real world.
And any institution issuing mere receipts for commodity money and holding 100% backing for the receipts is in no sense a bank - it is a mere warehousing facility offering bailment services.
No law has prevented or stopped capitalists from offering such services, yet there are hardly any example of such pure money "warehouses".
Why? Because consumers don't them; businesses don't want them. Who want to pay money merely to have your money locked up, when you can get a return on it from an actual bank.
"Neither I nor any other Austrian is talking about or proposing restricting the use of "debt instruments"
ReplyDeleteThis is a most bizarre assertion - the whole point of Rothbard's work was vehement opposition to FRB in principle because he thought it was inherently fraud.
He advocated 100% reserve "banking" (if you can even call it banking).
But FR demand deposits are nothing but debt instruments - so no Austrian has ever proposed restricting the use of "debt instruments"!?
lol...
Also, as Selgin has noted, the logic of modern Rothbardians' anti-FRB position means they in fact would need to ban all callable loans including debt instruments:
"“If De Soto’s position is in fact that callable loans are ipso-facto illegitimate, then that position is even less tenable than I once supposed. For now it isn’t just a question of wishing to suppress fractionally-backed bank deposits, but of wishing to suppress all call loans, starting with brokers loans (which have long played a very important role in financing securities trades) but also including callable bonds and many other non-bank intermediated securities."
http://blog.mises.org/9973/white-and-horwitz-on-hoppe/#comment-548897
Bob, one thing I think you are presuming is not the case. No one is saying that government participation in an economy leaves everything as it would be otherwise. Of course, government participation has effects on prices, wages, and so forth, and there very likely will be Cantillion effects. You seem to assume that this is less efficient than a system without government, and therefore this system will necessarily be more effective due to the free play of market forces. We are questioning that assumption and saying that intelligently conceived government participation can be more effective economically even though ti may not be most efficient in particular respects.
ReplyDeleteSocieties are complex adaptive systems that increase in complexity, e.g., with population growth and innovation. This increase in complexity results in emergence of unanticipated factors that call for addressing. One view is to let nature handle it as nature does in non-human systems, pruning where needed through market forces operating freely, that is, "naturally."
Another view holds that increasing adaptive rate and return on coordination through application of human intelligence is a more satisfactory solution in that can reduce the need for pruning. This view holds that evolutionary theory suggests that the most adaptive survive and in social species adaption involves ability to coordinate successful responses.
There is no way to know that "natural" forces, i.e., free markets, competition, and sound money will lead to the optimal solution of emergent challenges. It is a belief that cannot be tested and there is no reason to think that it is superior to the coordinated application of human intelligence to emergent challenges. Most people believe that humans have a natural advantage in their level of intelligence and that using it to best advantage is the optimal way forward in a world of increasing complexity, therefore, emergent challenges.
"Money is not metal. It is trust inscribed. And it does not seem to matter much where it is inscribed: on silver, on clay, on paper, on a liquid crystal display. Anything can serve as money, from the cowrie shells of the Maldives to the huge stone discs used on the Pacific islands of Yap."
ReplyDeleteNiall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money.
There is no way to know that "natural" forces, i.e., free markets, competition, and sound money will lead to the optimal solution of emergent challenges.
ReplyDeleteWell, that’s the dispute then. Value is purely subjective and its only OBJECTIVE manifestation among strangers are the prices and terms of trade that people agree to when exchanging goods and services. AKA “catallactics” which is why Mises called “the state theory of money” “acatallactic”. Bureaucracies backed by SWAT teams must always lack the essential knowledge to guide society without prices which is why Communist countries were and always must be poverty ridden hell holes.
Perhaps you can now see why I call LK a liar. Mises’ “socialist calculation problem” theory is based upon the fact that under soviet style socialism, exchange is forbidden and there are thus no prices or terms of trade providing the essential manifestation of subjective value to allow for economic calculation. LK seems to agree with that critique. However, the Austrians also attack Keynesianism (and monetarism) for producing false prices (as opposed to no prices under socialism) which mislead most everyone into investing time, money and labor into lines of production that only seem worthwhile due to the various injections of funny money but which are, in fact, unsustainable.
So, I can understand someone rejecting the socialist calculation problem theory as applied to both socialism and Keynesianism (if only because they would be consistent), but I cannot understand how someone can say it applies to socialism but not to Keynesianism, as LK does. Further, LK is nuts to claim that Austrians have never before applied it to Keynesianism. That has always been the basis of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory which LK still does not comprehend.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteName a monetary economy without a government. Doesn't exist.
What you mean by "natural" is an economy in which the role of the elected government is minimised (as far as is possible), and its place is taken instead by the wealthiest individuals and private organisations (which become the de-facto government in the process), who simply pursue their own private interests.
The basic argument of people like Bob, once you cut through the bullshit, is that a (de-facto) government which pursues profit is superior to one which doesn't.
This makes no sense from the point of view of basic mathematics - as a (de-facto) government which achieves profit necessarily takes more money out of the economy than it puts in, which it then lends back to the population at interest in order to make even more profit.
This results in a situation where the population ends up in ever-deeper debt to the (de-facto) government.
This is called feudalism.
Here's another view on full-reserve banking and fiat money:
ReplyDelete"Any debate on the origins of money is not of merely academic interest, because it leads
directly to a debate on the nature of money, which in turn has a critical bearing on
arguments as to who should control the issuance of money. Specifically, the private
trading story for the origins of money has time and again, starting at least with Adam
Smith (1776), been used as an argument for the private issuance and control of money.
Until recent times this has mainly taken the form of monetary systems based on precious
metals, especially under free coinage of bullion into coins. Even though there can at times
be heavy government involvement in such systems, the fact is that in practice precious
metals tended to accumulate privately in the hands of the wealthy, who would then lend
them out at interest. Since the thirteenth century this precious-metals-based system has,
in Europe, been accompanied, and increasingly supplanted, by the private issuance of
bank money, more properly called credit. On the other hand, the historically and
anthropologically correct state/institutional story for the origins of money is one of the
arguments supporting the government issuance and control of money under the rule of
law. In practice this has mainly taken the form of interest-free issuance of notes or coins,
although it could equally take the form of electronic deposits.
There is another issue that tends to get confused with the much more fundamental debate
concerning the control over the issuance of money, namely the debate over “real”
precious-metals-backed money versus fiat money. As documented in Zarlenga (2002), this
debate is mostly a diversion, because even during historical regimes based on precious
metals the main reason for the high relative value of precious metals was precisely their
role as money, which derives from government fiat and not from the intrinsic qualities of
the metals.15 These matters are especially confused in Smith (1776), who takes a primitive commodity view of money despite the fact that at his time the then private
Bank of England had long since started to issue a fiat currency whose value was
essentially unrelated to the production cost of precious metals. Furthermore, as Smith
certainly knew, both the Bank of England and private banks were creating checkable book
credits in accounts for borrowing customers who had not made any deposits of coin (or
even of bank notes).
The historical debate concerning the nature and control of money is the subject of
ReplyDeleteZarlenga (2002), a masterful work that traces this debate back to ancient Mesopotamia,
Greece and Rome. Like Graeber (2011), he shows that private issuance of money has
repeatedly led to major societal problems throughout recorded history, due to usury
associated with private debts.16 Zarlenga does not adopt the common but simplistic
definition of usury as the charging of “excessive interest”, but rather as “taking something
for nothing” through the calculated misuse of a nation’s money system for private gain.
Historically this has taken two forms. The first form of usury is the private appropriation
of the convenience yield of a society’s money. Private money has to be borrowed into
existence at a positive interest rate, while the holders of that money, due to the
non-pecuniary benefits of its liquidity, are content to receive no or very low interest.
Therefore, while part of the interest difference between lending rates and rates on money
is due to a lending risk premium, another large part is due to the benefits of the liquidity
services of money. This difference is privately appropriated by the small group that owns
the privilege to privately create money. This is a privilege that, due to its enormous
benefits, is often originally acquired as a result of intense rent-seeking behavior. Zarlenga
(2002) documents this for multiple historical episodes. We will return to the issue of the
interest difference between lending and deposit rates in calibrating our theoretical model.
The second form of usury is the ability of private creators of money to manipulate the
money supply to their benefit, by creating an abundance of credit and thus money at
times of economic expansion and thus high goods prices, followed by a contraction of
credit and thus money at times of economic contraction and thus low goods prices. A
typical example is the harvest cycle in ancient farming societies, but Zarlenga (2002), Del
Mar (1895), and the works cited therein contain numerous other historical examples where
this mechanism was at work. It repeatedly led to systemic borrower defaults, forfeiture of
collateral, and therefore the concentration of wealth in the hands of lenders. For the
macroeconomic consequences it matters little whether this represents deliberate and
malicious manipulation, or whether it is an inherent feature of a system based on private
money creation. We will return to this in our theoretical model, too.
Name a monetary economy without a government. Doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteThere has never been a modern state without a strong government that plays a key role in the economy, if only due to military expenditure. Moreover, states have always been controlled by elites that structure institutions in their favor.
A discussion of the crises brought on by excessive debt in ancient Mesopotamia is
ReplyDeletecontained in Hudson and van de Mierop (2002). It was this experience, acquired over
millennia, that led to the prohibition of usury and/or to periodic debt forgiveness
(“wiping the slate clean”) in the sacred texts of the main Middle Eastern religions. The
earliest known example of such debt crises in Greek history are the 599 BC reforms of
Solon, which were a response to a severe debt crisis of small farmers, brought on by the charging of interest on coinage by a wealthy oligarchy. It is extremely illuminating to
realize that Solon’s reforms, at this very early time, already contained many elements of
what Henry Simons (1948), a principal proponent of the Chicago Plan, would later refer
to as the “financial good society”. First, there was widespread debt cancellation, and the
restitution of lands that had been seized by creditors. Second, agricultural commodities
were monetized by setting official monetary floor prices for them. Because the source of
loan repayments for agricultural debtors was their output of these commodities, this
turned debt finance into something closer to equity finance. Third, Solon provided much
more plentiful government-issued, debt-free coinage that reduced the need for private
debts. Solon’s reforms were so successful that, 150 years later, the early Roman republic
sent a delegation to Greece to study them. They became the foundation of the Roman
monetary system from 454 BC (Lex Aternia) until the time of the Punic wars (Peruzzi
(1985)). It is also at this time that a link was established between these ancient
understandings of money and more modern interpretations. This happened through the
teachings of Aristotle that were to have such a crucial influence on early Western thought.
In Ethics, Aristotle clearly states the state/institutional theory of money, and rejects any
commodity-based or trading concept of money, by saying “Money exists not by nature but
by law.” The Dialogues of Plato contain similar views (Jowett (1937)). This insight was
reflected in many monetary systems of the time, which contrary to a popular prejudice
among monetary historians were based on state-backed fiat currencies rather than
commodity monies. Examples include the extremely successful Spartan system (approx.
750-415 BC), introduced by Lycurgus, which was based on iron disks of low intrinsic
value, the 390-350 BC Athenian system, based on copper, and most importantly the early
Roman system (approx. 700-150 BC), which was based on bronze tablets, and later coins,
whose material value was far below their face value.
Many historians (Del Mar (1895)) have partly attributed the eventual collapse of the
ReplyDeleteRoman republic to the emergence of a plutocracy that accumulated immense private
wealth at the expense of the general citizenry. Their ascendancy was facilitated by the
introduction of privately controlled silver money, and later gold money, at prices that far
exceeded their earlier commodity value prices, during the emergency period of the Punic
wars. With the collapse of Rome much of the ancient monetary knowledge and experience
was lost in the West. But the teachings of Aristotle remained important through their
influence on the scholastics, including St. Thomas Acquinas (1225-1274). This may be
part of the reason why, until the Industrial Revolution, monetary control in the West
remained generally either in government or religious hands, and was inseparable from
ultimate sovereignty in society. However, this was to change eventually, and the beginnings
can be traced to the first emergence of private banking after the fall of Byzantium in 1204,
with rulers increasingly relying on loans from private bankers to finance wars. But
ultimate monetary control remained in sovereign hands for several more centuries. The
Bank of Amsterdam (1609-1820) in the Netherlands was still government-owned and
maintained a 100% reserve backing for deposits. And the Mixt Moneys of Ireland (1601)
legal case in England confirmed the right of the sovereign to issue intrinsically worthless
base metal coinage as legal tender. It was the English Free Coinage Act of 1666, which
placed control of the money supply into private hands, and the founding of the privately
controlled Bank of England in 1694, that first saw a major sovereign relinquishing
monetary control, not only to the central bank but also to the private banking interests
behind it. The following centuries would provide ample opportunities to compare the
results of government and private control over money issuance.
ReplyDeleteThe results for the United Kingdom are quite clear. Shaw (1896) examined the record of
monarchs throughout English history, and found that, with one exception (Henry VIII),
the king had used his monetary prerogative responsibly for the benefit of the nation, with
no major financial crises. On the other hand, Del Mar (1895) finds that the Free Coinage
Act inaugurated a series of commercial panics and disasters which to that time were
completely unknown, and that between 1694 and 1890 twenty-five years never passed
without a financial crisis in England.
The principal advocates of this system of private money issuance were Adam Smith (1776)
and Jeremy Bentham (1818), whose arguments were based on a fallacious notion of
commodity money. But a long line of distinguished thinkers argued in favor of a return to
(or, depending on the country and the time, a maintenance of) a system of government
money issuance, with the intrinsic value of the monetary metal (or material) being of no
consequence. The list of their names, over the centuries, includes John Locke (1692, 1718),
Benjamin Franklin (1729), George Berkeley (1735), Charles de Montesquieu (1748, in
Montague (1952)), Thomas Paine (1796), Thomas Jefferson (1803), David Ricardo (1824),
Benjamin Butler (1869), Henry George (1884), Georg Friedrich Knapp (1924), Frederick
Soddy (1926, 1933, 1943), Pope Pius XI (1931) and the Archbishop of Canterbury (1942,
in Dempsey (1948)).
Michael Kumhof and Jaromir Benes
The Chicago Plan Revisited
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12202.pdf
"However, the Austrians also attack Keynesianism (and monetarism) for producing false prices (as opposed to no prices under socialism) which mislead most everyone into investing time, money and labor into lines of production that only seem worthwhile due to the various injections of funny money but which are, in fact, unsustainable."
ReplyDeleteAn alleged economic calculation problem different from the original one of Mises.
You continue to prove the original point.
What Bob means is:
ReplyDelete"Austrians also attack Keynesianism (and monetarism) for producing prices that are different to the imaginary perfect prices that are created by the imaginary economy that only exists inside my imagination. These mislead the imaginary people that only exist in my imagination into investing imaginary time, imaginary money and imaginary labor into imaginary lines of production that only seem worthwhile in my imagination due to the various imaginary injections of imaginary funny money, but which are, in my imagination, unsustainable."