This is not a new phenomenon. It happened big time in the Sixties and Seventies as those who "dropped out" (opted out really) created an "underground economy" in parallel with the conventional economy. So today's youth has not only examples but also a functioning infrastructure that is now global, linked through social media. It's happening. When its future is taken away, youth will create its own future.
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Get on the Bus! Youth Lead New Economy Movement at Upcoming Convergence
Mira Luna
I generally like movement about greater economic democracy and I believe that this ground up movement sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I've been wondering if the MMT movement would become more popular if it suggested that the we have a problem with the Federal Reserve current structure.
On one hand is it de-facto Treasury-Fed consolidated public sector financial institution in terms of it's operations but it's ownership and thus corporate outlook reflects the interests of the Wall-Street Member Banks whose interests aren't directed toward public purpose.
I find it curious that MMT people don't talk about the problems all this "Fed Independence" and how it represents a real institutional confusion of sectors.
As a solution, I'm wondering it is would be possible to re-organize the Federal Reserve away from the traditional banking form and toward something like a National Credit Union where we the people are the actual voting share owners rather than some guys on Wall Street. It would provide a additional means of oversight above the Congress which is easily bribed into handing out bailouts to crooks.
If your local credit unit decided to bailout a bunch of the bad local business you could in theory make the the Credit Union have to get direct approval of the membership before they decided to something like that.
Why couldn't the Fed be organized around these lines?
Why couldn't the Fed be organized around these lines?
ReplyDeleteA central bank derives it's money creation power from the sovereign state. Morally, ownership should reside with all the citizens of the state.
A credit union is a customer ownership model. I guess we could consider ourselves customers and have some form of direct democratic control of the central bank. Seems like overkill to me though.
Here in Australia the central bank (RBA) is a state owned bank, a branch of the treasury. It's not perfect, but they do run a tighter ship than the Fed. They are less beholden to private bank interests. I get to vote for a political party that controls the Treasury, not that they do much good.
Agree that the Fed should be reorganized and have been lobbying for ending Fed independence as a technocratic command system, which is a a major threat today globally. There is hardly anything of higher priority than confronting growing technocracy that is undermining democracy worldwide through central banking. This is the real road to serfdom.
ReplyDeleteMMT does propose formally consolidating the Treasury and Fed under Treasury to do this. The payments system can be fully digitized, for instance, and monetary policy can be brought under democratic control so that those in control are regularly accountable to voters at the ballot box.