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Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
09 April 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
An Informed Atheist Re-Addresses Christianity
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
A Progressive Reform Program for America
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Supply Side and Libertarians Are Wrong and Not Supported by the Data
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
How Income Inequality Injures People and the Economy
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
A Democratic Reform Program for America
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Supply Side Libertarians Are Wrong and Not Supported by the Data
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Economic Ignorance
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part VI)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part V)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part IV)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part III)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part II)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part I)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Racial Hatred Is Confused
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
What To Do About North Korea
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
On Neoliberalism
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Ban Hate Marches and Assemblies
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
On Miss Piggy and Mr. Pork
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Demise of the Democratic Party
09 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
On Elitism

Insights on Monetary Theory

19 November 2016 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Kimball Corson
From Deficit Owls

Sovereign Currency-Issuing Governments Should Stop Selling Bonds

Professor L. Randall Wray discussing how bond sales work with a currency-issuing government with a floating exchange rate. Because the government can issue currency (and indeed must every time it spends) there is no need to issue debt in order to spend. What the debt accomplishes is to remove the excess reserves in the banking system that are created by government deficits (government spending creates reserves, taxes destroy reserves), which raises the interest rate. With excess reserves in the system, banks are not able to get rid of them through lending, so overnight interest rates will fall to zero. Selling bonds drains the excess reserves, causing interest rates to rise above zero.

So, the currency issuing government (with a floating exchange rate) doesn't need to sell bonds, and can control the interest rate. The position held by most adherents of Modern Money Theory is that the government should just stop selling bonds, and let interest rates fall to zero as the excess reserves accumulated. Part of the reason is that adjusting the interest rate is ineffective as a tool to stabilize the economy (see more on that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch...) and also partly because keeping the interest rates above zero is a subsidy for the top 1%. Since most of the government bonds are held by the wealthy, and most of the lending in the economy is done by the wealthy, the government keeping interest rates above zero enriches the already-wealthy.

Selling bonds is completely necessary on a fixed exchange rate, in order to lock up your excess currency to minimize your citizens' demands to convert to the reserve currency. But on a floating exchange rate, this is not a problem, because the government doesn't need to hold on to the foreign currency, because they have no peg to maintain.

See the whole video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zEbo8PIPSc

I was asked to comment on this piece as an economist. I do here. Ignoring for a moment, the idea that government and bank borrowers buy with credit created by those institutions which is indirectly and concurrently monitized by the Fed by being allowed to circulate as money (easily done as loans are also paid back and taxes also paid destroying money, both offsetting monitized credit), I think Wray is basically correct. Both create reserves. Government can destroy reserves by taxation. Banks can't. They must await loan repayments. Both, along with the Fed, create money, but the Fed does it directly and the other two do it by having their credit automatically monetized by what the Fed approves of as money and reserves. This view extends Wray and integrates credit.

The interest rate analysis is too absolute. Excessive reserves simply depress rates, but not necessarily to zero. Other factors are involved. I agree adjusting interest rates is an ineffective tool to stabilize the economy. Monetary aggregates have a bigger impact, via banks, the Fed and government spending. Friedman was not all wrong. Fiscal and monetary policy blur. Low interest rates raise secondary bond and stock market prices by raising internal rates of discount and so favor the rich, not deprive them. Otherwise and with these qualifications, I agree and should write something up myself.
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Vessel Name: Altaira
Vessel Make/Model: A Fair Weather Mariner 39 is a fast (PHRF 132), heavily ballasted (43%), high-aspect (6:1), stiff, comfortable, offshore performance cruiser by Bob Perry that goes to wind well (30 deg w/ good headway) and is also good up and down the Beaufort scale.
Hailing Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
Crew: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
About:
Kimball Corson: I am a 75 year old solo sailor, by choice. However, I did take on a personable, but high maintenance female kitten, now a full grown cat, named KiKiPoo when she is sweet, or KatKatPo after she has just killed something like a bird or bat. [...]
Extra:
Although I was a lawyer and practiced law with good success for thirty years, creating significant new law, I never really believed in the law, the politics of law or in the over reaching self-interest of most lawyers I met. Too much exposure to Nietzsche and other good and seriously thoughtful [...]
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Profile

Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ