Tag: money supply

-How to eliminate federal debt and save the economy

An alternative to popular faith

Here is the solution to the federal debt problem — a solution that involves neither increased taxes nor reduced spending.

The federal debt is caused by deficit spending. Taxpayers do not pay for deficit spending, which by definition is spending above tax receipts. Yet taxpayers find the debt worrisome for two reasons: They incorrectly believe someday, they or their grandchildren will have to pay it, and they incorrectly believe large federal deficits cause inflation.

Those concerns affect efforts to improve our health care system, crumbling infrastructure, bad schools, excessive taxes, bankrupt states, Social Security funding, poverty, joblessness and homelessness, Internet service, NASA funding, military funding, disease research and repeated recessions. The solutions require deficit spending, which debt fear prevents.

Currently the government obtains money for deficit spending by borrowing. It borrows by creating T-securities (T-bills, notes and bonds), then selling them. These T-securities are created in unlimited quantities out of thin air. This method, though still used, actually became obsolete in 1971, when President Nixon took us off the last vestiges of the gold standard. Before then, T-securities were collateralized in part by gold, which limited their issuance. Today, they are collateralized solely by the “full faith and credit” of the federal government, a resource the government has in unlimited supply.

Just as the government now creates T-securities out of thin air, it as easily and prudently could create money directly – also out of thin air and also backed only by full faith and credit.

Ending the creation and sale of T-securities would end the creation of debt. No longer would we suffer over deficits, fears that nations might refuse to lend to us and fears our path is “unsustainable.” Rather than “deficit spending” the process would be called “money-creation,” and what now is called “debt,” would more properly be called “Net Money Created.”

By eliminating debt, we would eliminate taxpayers’ concerns they or their grandchildren would pay it. Further, because the federal government now controls not only the supply, but the demand for U.S. money (via interest rates), large federal deficits have not caused inflation. See chart, below:

Deficits vs. inflation
Since we went off the gold standard, there has been no relationship between deficits and inflation.

The elimination of T-securities would allow us to create the money to solve our many economic problems and to prevent the negative economic consequences of tax increases or spending decreases.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com/

–Federal Debt/GDP– A Useless Ratio

An alternative to popular faith

Lately, we’ve heard a great deal about the federal debt/GDP ratio.

The Investopedia says, “The debt-to-GDP ratio indicates the country’s ability to pay back its debt.” This ratio often is quoted in stories predicting the demise of America if federal debt continues to rise and especially if the debt ever were to exceed 100% of GDP. (Since we are about to hit that level, and we still exist, the debt hawks now have moved the time of Armageddon too 200%. But Japan is there already, so maybe move it to 300%?)

This nonsense ratio is so important, the European Union once required, as a condition of membership, the ratio of gross government debt to GDP not to exceed 60% at the end of the preceding fiscal year.

What would you say if I told you the total number of hits the Chicago Cubs made in 2008 is 47% of the total number of runs the Cubs have scored in all of their 100+ year history?

You might well say, “Huh? What does one thing have to do with the other? One is hits; the other is runs. One is 100+ years; the other is one year. It’s classic apples vs oranges.” And you would be right.

Yet, that is exactly what the debt/GDP ratio represents. Federal “debt” is the net amount of outstanding T-securities created in the history of America. The GDP is the total dollar value of goods and services creating this year. The two are unrelated. The federal government does not use GDP to service its debt.

Actually, federal “debt” is not even related to federal “deficits” by function, though the two are related by law. During the gold standard days, the Treasury was required by law to issue T-securities in the amount of the federal deficit.

It was necessary then, because the Treasury could only produce money in the amount of gold reserves. In 1971, we went off the gold standard, which gave the Treasury the unlimited ability to create money.

The creation of T-securities no longer is necessary; it is a relic of the gold standard days. A government with the unlimited ability to create dollars does not need to borrow those dollars.

The government “borrows” by creating T-securities out of thin air, backed only by full faith and credit. Purchasers of T-securities instruct their banks to debit their checking accounts and credit their T-security accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank.

No dollars are created or destroyed.

Then, to “pay off” its debt, the process is reversed: The government merely transfers dollars from T-security accounts (essentially bank savings accounts) back to checking accounts.

Again, no dollars are created or destroyed.

Today, Japan’s ratio is above 200%. The U.S. ratio is near 100%.

monetary sovereignty

By contrast, Russia’s, Chile’s, Libya’s, Qatar’s and others are below 10% – which tells you nothing about their economies, but says a great deal about the meaningless Debt/GDP ratio.

As for GDP indicating “the country’s ability to pay back its debt,” again we have apples/oranges. The value of goods and services created by the private sector, has no relationship to the federal government’s ability to transfer dollars from T-security accounts at the FRB to checking accounts at private banks.

Finally, Debt/GDP (shown as “FYGFDPUN/GDP”) has no relationship to inflation:

Debt/GDP vs inflation

And that is why the debt/GDP ratio is meaningless.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http:www.rodgermitchell.com

-Richard Koo–If you don’t believe me, believe him

An alternative to popular faith
Listen to Richard Koo’s tape at http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/richard-koo-great-recessions-lessons-learned-from-japan/comment-page-1/#comment-233008. He says some of what I have been saying for the past 15 years. Federal deficit spending is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth.

I hope our government leaders listen to him, though I doubt they will. They sure haven’t listened to me. The reason: The debt hawks have the nation worried, because they equate federal debt with personal debt. So you hear that your grandchildren will have to pay the debt, and large deficits cause inflation, and surpluses are more prudent than deficits — none of which are true.

So, we struggle with trying to provide universal health care, which the government can and should provide, while debt fear negatively impacts the physical and financial health of millions.

Deficit spending grows the economy and can provide health care, too — and it never needs to be paid back. Never. But Congress, the President and most of the economists simply don’t get it. They don’t even look at our economic history, which repeatedly shows long-term deficit spending is necessary for long-term economic growth.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

–Deficits: The Possible vs. the Certain

An alternative to popular faith

Human beings have difficulty distinguishing threat levels. Despite the absolute fact that airline travel is safer per mile than auto travel, some people drive, even long distances, because they fear the safer air travel more than the dangerous auto travel.

Then think of the people who won’t vaccinate their children against the H1N1 flue, because they fear any unknown, possible adverse effects of vaccination more than they fear the known, deadly effects of the flue.

I was reminded of this human failing when I read an article in which the author claimed the economic recovery was not “real,” because it relied on government funding rather than on private funding. The author seemed to feel government funding was, in some way, artificial – as though we were using saccharine, rather than sugar, to sweeten our coffee.

Of course, money is money, and federal money is indistinguishable in effect from private money. But I suspect the author had something more than artificiality in the back of his mind. He probably understands that the federal government has the unique and unlimited ability to create money from thin air, and repeatedly has proved it never can run out of money. So, what is his concern? He must fear two things: Federal deficit spending might cause inflation and our grandchildren might have to pay for deficits.

As for inflation: Despite current, massive deficit spending we do not now experience an unacceptable level of inflation, and are unlikely to soon. Moreover, in the thirty-five years since we went off the gold standard, large deficits never have caused inflation. Clearly, something is askew with the deficits-cause-inflation hypothesis.

Even if deficits did cause inflation, private spending is identical with public spending; both add money to the economy. So the author should fear the supposed inflationary effects of private and public spending, equally.

As for grandchildren, I am a grandchild of the adults who saw the gigantic deficits of WWII and of President Reagan. Yet, because tax rates have gone down, I never have paid one penny toward those monster deficits. Similarly, if tax rates continue to stay level or decline, as they should, my grandchildren will not pay a penny toward today’s deficits.

What has this to do with the human difficulty distinguishing threat levels? The debt hawks know with certainty, that many millions of people now suffer the devastating effects of unemployment and loss of homes and lifestyle. People are dying, financially, emotionally and yes, even physically.

These same debt hawks believe that at some unknown time in the future, their children, grandchildren or great grandchildren may have to pay some unknown amount toward today’s debt. Yet they fear unknown future damage more than the certainty of today’s. That is why you see people rail against deficits. In essence, they are so afraid they one day may run short of water, they will let a home burn to the ground rather than allowing the fire fighters to save it.

The shame is that many professional economists, who should know better, foster these misguided fears, leading to misguided actions.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com/