Posted on 12/30/2018 10:11:53 AM PST by MNDude
Giving politicians control over the money supply is a guarantee of hyperinflation.
The fate of gov’t issued Continental Dollars is a lesson in that, they lost 90% of their value before Hamilton pegged them with gold.
Lincoln’s fiat US Note issue resulted in prices rising to 180% of what they had been. And the gold standard was suspended for two decades.
Modern politicians have already weakened the dollar enough by constantly increasing the national debt, something that they do have control over.
The broadest measure of the money supply includes Treasury bills, which are easily monetized and converted into liquid money.
Before Nixon abrogated Bretton Woods the remnants of the gold standard put a brake on excessive growth of government spending and growth of the debt, because in response the Fed would have to restrict credit growth to keep the dollar in line with the gold price.
Of course using the dollar as the world’s reserve currency made it impossible to both keep the dollar pegged at $35/oz and have any money available for our domestic economy. And rather than cease the dollar’s role as reserve currency Nixon chose to break its last link with the discipline of gold.
Full audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks.
Can’t go wrong with that about time greased palms get exposed.
The US Treasury doesn't use FRNs, why would they borrow them?
or to other subsidiary FED member banks at a discounted rate, so it can be put into circulation.
The Fed doesn't lend FRNs to banks and they certainly wouldn't do so at a discount. What a silly claim.
If your bank needs FRNs, their reserve balance (think checking account for a bank) at the Fed is debited. At 100% of their purchase.
Excuse me, but you don’t know what you are talking about.
Money, currency, has no intrinsic value. It is worth only what you and I and everyone else who accept it agrees it is worth, nothing more. It cannot be exchanged for any intrinsic commodity of fixed value, such as a Troy ounce of Fine Silver or the same in some fraction of a fixed amount of pure Gold.
It is lent into existence as a liability to the borrower, an IOU, that means it has to be on some entities books as an asset on which they intend to make a profit. Since it is not a coupon bearing debenture, it’s essentially lent out at a discount below face value. That difference is their profit. That is what the Federal Reserve discount rate is. Such a discount is fractional on the face value, but they lend can out billions and volume is king. . . and they essentially create what they lend out from of thin air.
The Federal Reserve Banks don’t even need depositors to provide what they lend out; if it’s currency it gets printed for them, or if it’s just digital money, it’s created by a computer which is even cheaper for them to whip up from a froth of electrons. With digital money the Fed banks don’t have to pay the Bureau of Engraving its few cents per note for digital fiat currency! Look Ma, no fancy rag paper or special ink to pay for! They just make a debit entry in their books and voilá, they’ve got money their member banks can draw on at need. . . or they can send wherever they want.
Only 8.3% of the world’s money is now represented by paper or coin money. The rest is digital, created exactly the way I just described it. . . Made out of nothing except someone’s decision for more money and some handy electrons.
By the way, did I happen to mention that by education I am an economist, specifically a Chicago school monetarist type economist like the late Milton Friedman, although I’m not practicing? That said, it’s a truism that you could lay every economist head to toe, endlessly, and still never reach a valid conclusion. That’s why I’m not practicing! ;^)
Sure. Which has nothing to do with your confusion about the Fed and Treasury.
It is lent into existence as a liability to the borrower, an IOU, that means it has to be on some entities books as an asset on which they intend to make a profit.
FRNs are a liability of the issuer, they're an asset to the holder.
Since it is not a coupon bearing debenture, it’s essentially lent out at a discount below face value.
You are mistaken.
That difference is their profit. That is what the Federal Reserve discount rate is.
Wrong. The discount rate is the interest rate the Fed charges a bank that borrows money overnight at the Discount Window.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discount_window
The Federal Reserve Banks don’t even need depositors to provide what they lend out;
Correct. Central banks are allowed to create money out of thin air.
By the way, did I happen to mention that by education I am an economist
Wow! Was AOC a classmate?
I did not say they did, but when a bank receives new currency, how do you think they get it? It just doesn’t magically appear in their vaults, converted by osmosis from those checks and wires. It’s borrowed from the Federal Reserve Bank. . . creating a credit entry on the sub-bank’s books.
They order it from the Fed. Each $20 FRN costs them $20.
It’s borrowed from the Federal Reserve Bank.
They buy it from the Fed, they don't borrow it. They use their reserve account to pay for it.
Meeting the Variable Demand for Cash
The public typically obtains its cash from banks by withdrawing cash from automated teller machines (ATMs) or by cashing checks. The amount of cash that the public holds varies seasonally, by the day of the month, and even by the day of the week. For example, people demand a large amount of cash for shopping and vacations during the year-end holiday season. Also, people typically withdraw cash at ATMs over the weekend, so there is more cash in circulation on Monday than on Friday.
To meet the demands of their customers, banks get cash from Federal Reserve Banks. Most medium- and large-sized banks maintain reserve accounts at one of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, and they pay for the cash they get from the Fed by having those accounts debited. Some smaller banks maintain their required reserves at larger, "correspondent," banks. The smaller banks get cash through the correspondent banks, which charge a fee for the service. The larger banks get currency from the Fed and pass it on to the smaller banks.
Your blanket sweeping statement is wrong on its face, showing you don’t grasp the meaning of a medium of exchange. It depends on how the "holder" acquired the notes. Money can be earned or borrowed by its holder. The first method makes money an asset the second makes it a liability. The only way to find the total assets (net value worth) is to subtract the liabilities (value owned by someone else) from the actual assets (value owned a person himself).
The beauty of money is in its utility as a tool, because of its agreed upon liquidity.
Wow! Was AOC a classmate?
I’ll echo your "Wow!" because you show your ignorance by that insulting remark comparing me to Ocassional-Cortex. She is a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist who doesn’t understand money at all; no Marxist does, as witness the Ruble. She thinks as all socialists do that you can fund your wonderful utopias by printing whatever money you need forever and ever.
I told you what school of economic thought I followed. Monetarist.
Such printing of fiat money as advocated by socialists such as AOC is the worst form of regressive taxation there is as it hits the poor much harder than any other segment of the population, causing their wages and savings to be rapidly devalued, as other, more wealthy individuals can hold wealth in forms other than money, such as land, stock, inventory, jewelry, tc., which doesn’t get diluted with the number of bills being printed by whatever means, printing or electronic (incidentally that includes government spending by borrowing money that previously did not exist from financial institutions to fund new programs, money that is then spent into circulation in whatever form.).
It doesn't matter how I get my FRNs, they are assets to me, liabilities to the Federal Reserve.
I’ll echo your "Wow!" because you show your ignorance by that insulting remark comparing me to Ocassional-Cortex.
She thinks we should fund her Green Idiocy partially by running the Fed's "printing press", you think the Fed loans FRNs to banks.....at a discount. You both hold silly ideas.
I told you what school of economic thought I followed. Monetarist.
All the more reason your errors are so surprising.
If you have any sort of backup that proves your claim about the Discount Rate, post it here.
I'm always willing to learn something new.
You are making the classic mistake of confusing currency with money. Only approximately 8.3% of the U.S. money supply, it’s liquidity, is in the form of paper currency and coinage. Currency and coin are a small subset of money. The rest exist in magnetic or optical or electronic storage methods . . . or even paper entries on books as accounting balances. Even those forms of money have been, at some point, lent into existence as a consequence of the reserve system of banking which allows banks to create money over the amount they actually have on deposit. They are required to maintain a reserve of liquid money on hand to meet cash demand for depositors’ needs but some of that can be electronic these days which can be wired or issued as a cashier’s check in digital, non-cash form. For flexibility, they can also reach out to a pooled cash reserve account at either the Federal Reserve Bank, or an adjunct bank.
No, I'm really not. And we're talking about new currency getting to banks.
They are required to maintain a reserve of liquid money on hand to meet cash demand for depositors’ needs but some of that can be electronic these days which can be wired or issued as a cashier’s check in digital, non-cash form.
Yes, bank reserves include balances at the Fed and vault cash.
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