A very important development for People interested in monetary reform (and everybody should be!):
A new "monetary reference point" has been established, and is presented by the
World Economics Association, in their Real World Economics Review,
issue #66.
The paper is Joseph Huber's work titled
"Modern Money Theory and New Currency Theory."Which he presented at our 9th Annual AMI Monetary Reform Conference in Chicago, last September.
You can read it at http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue66/Huber66.pdf
It's a beautiful work of careful, disciplined thinking!
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), out of the University of Missouri, Kansas City, Economics Department has received as much attention as any monetary ideas in America. The AMI has had serious differences with MMT, largely over their insistence that all money must be debt. While we realize that in our mis- structured money system, wherein what we use for money is created by banks when they make loans, and therefore IS debt, we consider it a huge error of theory and fact to conclude therefore that the NATURE of money must be debt. The overriding importance of this is that it will determine how to reform our money system to protect and enable the entire society rather than just the top one tenth of 1 percent!
We presented our views and reasons in an AMI Paper at our website in early 2012, entitled the "AMI Evaluation of Modern Monetary Theory." After you read Prof. Huber's presentation, you can see our paper at: http://www.monetary.org/mmtevaluation Unfortunately the paper has been ignored by MMT people.
We then discussed the problems we have with MMT at our 8th Annual Monetary Reform Conference in 2012, in papers delivered by myself, Steven Walsh and Jamie Walton. Our papers and presentations were very civil, in fact the whole thing is on the Conference videos and is quite fascinating! Again, our offers to discuss these perceived problems were ultimately ignored.
Then at our 9th Annual Conference last September, Prof. Joseph Huber made an important, scholarly presentation questioning many of these same aspects of MMT. So far, his presentation has also been ignored.
However, since this Real World Economics Review goes out to 23,924 subscribers - very conscious economists - perhaps its a good time for the MMT people to see this as an opportunity to examine the criticisms and perhaps answer them or perhaps adjust some of their positions.
The American Monetary Institute will do what it can to facilitate this process. Professor Huber will be at our 10th Annual AMI Monetary Reform Conference, October 2- 5, 2014 in Chicago, as will I, and Steven Walsh and Jamie Walton. We'll be happy to invite the UMKC Econ Department to send a speaker(s) of their choice, to present/discuss/debate there. I'm certain this would benefit all the people interested in Monetary Reform (and everybody should be!).
Thanks for your attention,
Stephen Zarlenga
Director,
American Monetary Institute
http://www.monetary.org
Some Important Background:
The Real World Economics review started in 2,000 as the Post Autistic Economics Review, which was created when young economics students figured out that their macro economics classes were mostly worthless. Instead of acquiescing and becoming part of the problem, they rebelled and demanded better, and heavily criticize whats called neo-classical economics. The name of their monthly review was later changed to Real World Economics Review and it goes out each month to 23,924 subscribers.
Some Excerpts:
The Huber paper was presented at the 9th Annual AMI Monetary Reform Conference, September 19-22, 2013, in Chicago. It requires some reading. Folks if you want to be involved in a positive way with monetary reform, you really have to do some reading! This paper is a good place to do that and its only 20 pages! These excerpts are purposely selected to spur you to read the paper. Please do!
"Appearances are deceptive. MMT’s assertion of ‘government debt = sovereign money’ turns out to be a rather willful misrepresentation of the actual situation.17
MMT’s re-interpretation of the issue of government IOUs as an issue of sovereign money, thus depicting government as a creditor rather than a debtor, is misguided. The real situation is quite obvious and does not need further interpretation: the government enters into debt with banks and nonbanks. ...
"Is all money debt? Money may be credited into existence, but does not need to constitute debt... In a paper dealing with this matter, Walsh and Zarlenga concluded that ‘money need not be something owed and due, it’s what we use to pay something owed and due. ... We pay our debt with money.’34 In real-economic transactions money is used as a means of settlement.
As such it does not create or transfer debt. The inscription on dollar notes is absolutely appropriate: ‘This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private’ – period. ...
"Moreover, the creation and issuance of money can, but need not, involve a financial transaction of lending/borrowing and redeeming. In actual fact and as a rule, traditional coin currencies for about 2,500 years were created and issued debt-free by being spent rather than loaned into circulation by the rulers of the realm. ...
"The compulsory identification of money and debt just creates banking-doctrinal confusion. It confuses the instrument with the object, i.e. it erroneously identifies the unit of account with what is accounted or measured, and confuses the means of payment with what has to be paid. In addition, as I want to repeat, it ignores or misrepresents 2,500 years of coin currencies when new, additional money typically was not loaned into circulation against interest, but spent into circulation debt-free by the rulers who had reserved for the state the monetary prerogative of coinage and seigniorage, i.e. the second and third component of a state’s monetary prerogative. ...
"Debt money, i.e. the false identity of credit/debt and money, is not a necessity at all. What was true for traditional currencies holds all the more true for modern fiat money, because it can freely be created at discretion by those who are authorized to do so. There is no reason why modern money should not be spent into circulation debt-free by a monetary authority rather than being loaned into circulation as debt money. ...
"Coming back now to the question of whether MMT might be supportive of monetary reform. The answer, on balance, is not as positive as one might have expected. MMT, in contrast to its self-image, represents banking teaching much more than currency theory. Its understanding of sovereign currency and monetary sovereignty is misleadingly incomplete."Prof. Joseph Huber addresses
Modern Money - Interest-bearing Credit or Debt-free Currency?
Prof. Joseph Huber
| Prof. Joseph Huber of Martin-Luther University of Hall-Wittenberg, Germany's most important monetary reformer. Founder of monetative.de, Berlin, a monetary reform initiative. In the '90s he developed a new currency-school approach to overcome fractional reserve banking. Prof. Huber has been working with James Robertson on UK and European monetary reform since 1999, on behalf of the New Economics Foundation, London (report Creating New Money). His talk, Modern Money - Interest-bearing Credit or Debt-free Currency?, starts from certain assumptions of Modern Money Theory, and the views on money, credit, and debt and MMT's belittlement of the dysfunctions of the present mixed-money system on a basis of fractional reserve. He compares this against the analyses given by contemporary monetary reformers who actually stand for a transition from banks' credit-created money to debt-free sovereign money. Prof. Huber has launched an important new website at www.sovereignmoney.eu to help explain monetary reform to all. |
For information on the 10th annual AMI Monetary Reform Conference,
October 2-5, 2014 at Universiy Center in Chicago,
please see: http://www.monetary.org in the coming days.
-- "Over time, whoever controls the money system controls the nation." Stephen Zarlenga Director American Monetary Institute To receive notices for free AMI materials, sign up for our email list at www.monetary.org
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento