Mitchell’s laws: Reduced money growth never stimulates economic growth. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Austerity breeds austerity and leads to civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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Let me begin with a message to debt-hawks: No, I do NOT suggest the government should create infinite amounts of money, or give everyone $1 trillion. So please withhold your straw-man arguments, and attempt to understand what you are about to read.
Perhaps no words more accurately and succinctly illustrate the confusion about economics than “Monetary Sovereignty.” It is not a theory or a hypothesis or a philosophy. In its essence it merely is a description of the way federal financing actually works.
A Monetarily Sovereign government has the exclusively unlimited power to create its sovereign currency. Monetary Sovereignty is the foundation of economics. The United States is Monetarily Sovereign. It has the exclusively unlimited power to create the dollar. China, Canada, Australia and Japan are Monetarily Sovereign. They have the exclusively unlimited power to create their sovereign currencies.
Illinois, Cook County and Chicago are not Monetarily Sovereign. The dollar is not their sovereign currency, and they do not have the unlimited power to create dollars. France, Germany and Italy are not Monetarily Sovereign. They do not have the exclusively unlimited power to create their currency, the euro. You, your business and I also are not Monetarily Sovereign. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet do not have the unlimited power to create dollars. They are not Monetarily Sovereign.
Because a Monetarily Sovereign nation has the unlimited power to create its sovereign currency, it never needs to borrow and it never can be forced into bankruptcy. It can pay any bill of any size at any time. In fact, the federal government creates money by paying its bills. The U.S. has created many trillions of dollars, simply by pressing computer keys, and will continue to do so. It does not “owe” anyone for creating these dollars. The government cannot live beyond its means; it has no means to live beyond.
By contrast, if the debts of France, Germany et al, exceed their ability to obtain euros they, as monetarily non-sovereign nations, could be forced into bankruptcy.
Everything you believe about your personal finances — debts, deficits, spending, affordability, saving and budgeting — are inappropriate to U.S. federal finances. For this reason, your personal intuition about U.S. financing likely is wrong.
Because no Monetarily Sovereign nation can be forced into bankruptcy, none of that nation’s agencies can be forced into bankruptcy. The U.S Supreme Court, the Department of Defense, Congress, Social Security, Medicare and any of the other 1,300 federal agencies cannot go bankrupt unless the federal government wishes it. (All the talk about Social Security or Medicare going bankrupt is misguided. Even if FICA were eliminated, Social Security and Medicare would not need to go bankrupt.)
The unlimited ability to create money is an uncontested fact for Monetarily Sovereign nations, although at any given time,economic growth, inflation, deflation, recession, depression and social factors may influence a nation’s decision to create money. A Monetarily Sovereign nation even can choose to declare bankruptcy, for various reasons, but this would be an arbitrary matter of choice, not a forced necessity. An example would be Congress’s failure to raise the debt ceiling. This could force the U.S. into bankruptcy.
Debt hawks do not (or do not wish to) understand the implications of Monetary Sovereignty. You never will see that term on such debt hawk web sites as The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget” or the Concord Coalition. If you go to those sites you will see federal debt described in the same terms as personal debt – as an unsustainable obligation. While debt can be unsustainable for you, me, businesses, states, cities, counties and the monetarily non-sovereign EU nations, no debt is unsustainable for the U.S. government.
Debt hawks, and others ignorant of Monetary Sovereignty, suffer from Anthropomorphic economics disease — the false belief that federal finances are like yours and mine.
The U.S. was not always Monetarily Sovereign. Prior to 1971, the U.S was on a gold standard. It did not have the unlimited ability to create dollars, since every dollar needed to be backed by a fixed amount of gold. No gold; no dollars. Similarly, the EU nations are on a euro standard. Their ability to create euros is limited by law. Our states, counties and cities are on a dollar standard. Their ability to create or obtain money by borrowing or taxing is limited by local law, by voters and by lenders.
The financial problems of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (The PIIGS), are due not to deficits and debt. They are due to these nations having surrendered the single most valuable asset any nation can own — their Monetary Sovereignty — thus preventing them from servicing their debt by creating money.
Some debt hawks say that a Debt/GDP ratio exceeding 100% puts a nation on the brink of bankruptcy. Yet today, Japan has a Debt/GDP ratio above 200%, and this Monetarily Sovereign nation has absolutely no difficulty servicing its debt. The debt hawks, as usual, having learned nothing from this, continue to wail about the meaningless debt/GDP ratio, which because it is a classic apples/oranges comparison, is devoid of significance (the numerator is a 200-year measure of cumulative T-securities outstanding; the denominator is a one-year measure of productivity. The two are unrelated).
Because so-called federal “debt” is the total of T-securities outstanding, all federal debt easily could be eliminated tomorrow, if the federal government merely credited the bank accounts of T-securities holders. That would require pressing a few computer keys, which would increase the checking accounts and decrease the T-security accounts of federal creditors. As this would be a simple asset exchange, no new money would be created and there would be no inflation consequences.
Because a Monetarily Sovereign nation has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency, that nation needs neither to tax nor to borrow. Why would it? Further, that nation does not use tax money or borrowed money to pay for spending. Federal income has no relationship to federal spending and so, taxes and borrowing are unnecessary.
When the states, counties, cities, you and I spend, we transfer dollars from our checking accounts to some other checking accounts. When the federal government spends, it creates dollars, because to pay its bills, the government instructs banks to increase the dollar amount in suppliers’ checking accounts. If U.S. federal taxes and borrowing fell to $0, or rose to $100 trillion, neither event would reduce by even one penny, the federal government’s ability to create the money to pay any size bills.
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/monetarily-sovereign-the-key-to-understanding-economics/
==========================================================================================================================================
Let me begin with a message to debt-hawks: No, I do NOT suggest the government should create infinite amounts of money, or give everyone $1 trillion. So please withhold your straw-man arguments, and attempt to understand what you are about to read.
Perhaps no words more accurately and succinctly illustrate the confusion about economics than “Monetary Sovereignty.” It is not a theory or a hypothesis or a philosophy. In its essence it merely is a description of the way federal financing actually works.
A Monetarily Sovereign government has the exclusively unlimited power to create its sovereign currency. Monetary Sovereignty is the foundation of economics. The United States is Monetarily Sovereign. It has the exclusively unlimited power to create the dollar. China, Canada, Australia and Japan are Monetarily Sovereign. They have the exclusively unlimited power to create their sovereign currencies.
Illinois, Cook County and Chicago are not Monetarily Sovereign. The dollar is not their sovereign currency, and they do not have the unlimited power to create dollars. France, Germany and Italy are not Monetarily Sovereign. They do not have the exclusively unlimited power to create their currency, the euro. You, your business and I also are not Monetarily Sovereign. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet do not have the unlimited power to create dollars. They are not Monetarily Sovereign.
Because a Monetarily Sovereign nation has the unlimited power to create its sovereign currency, it never needs to borrow and it never can be forced into bankruptcy. It can pay any bill of any size at any time. In fact, the federal government creates money by paying its bills. The U.S. has created many trillions of dollars, simply by pressing computer keys, and will continue to do so. It does not “owe” anyone for creating these dollars. The government cannot live beyond its means; it has no means to live beyond.
By contrast, if the debts of France, Germany et al, exceed their ability to obtain euros they, as monetarily non-sovereign nations, could be forced into bankruptcy.
Everything you believe about your personal finances — debts, deficits, spending, affordability, saving and budgeting — are inappropriate to U.S. federal finances. For this reason, your personal intuition about U.S. financing likely is wrong.
Because no Monetarily Sovereign nation can be forced into bankruptcy, none of that nation’s agencies can be forced into bankruptcy. The U.S Supreme Court, the Department of Defense, Congress, Social Security, Medicare and any of the other 1,300 federal agencies cannot go bankrupt unless the federal government wishes it. (All the talk about Social Security or Medicare going bankrupt is misguided. Even if FICA were eliminated, Social Security and Medicare would not need to go bankrupt.)
The unlimited ability to create money is an uncontested fact for Monetarily Sovereign nations, although at any given time,economic growth, inflation, deflation, recession, depression and social factors may influence a nation’s decision to create money. A Monetarily Sovereign nation even can choose to declare bankruptcy, for various reasons, but this would be an arbitrary matter of choice, not a forced necessity. An example would be Congress’s failure to raise the debt ceiling. This could force the U.S. into bankruptcy.
Debt hawks do not (or do not wish to) understand the implications of Monetary Sovereignty. You never will see that term on such debt hawk web sites as The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget” or the Concord Coalition. If you go to those sites you will see federal debt described in the same terms as personal debt – as an unsustainable obligation. While debt can be unsustainable for you, me, businesses, states, cities, counties and the monetarily non-sovereign EU nations, no debt is unsustainable for the U.S. government.
Debt hawks, and others ignorant of Monetary Sovereignty, suffer from Anthropomorphic economics disease — the false belief that federal finances are like yours and mine.
The U.S. was not always Monetarily Sovereign. Prior to 1971, the U.S was on a gold standard. It did not have the unlimited ability to create dollars, since every dollar needed to be backed by a fixed amount of gold. No gold; no dollars. Similarly, the EU nations are on a euro standard. Their ability to create euros is limited by law. Our states, counties and cities are on a dollar standard. Their ability to create or obtain money by borrowing or taxing is limited by local law, by voters and by lenders.
The financial problems of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (The PIIGS), are due not to deficits and debt. They are due to these nations having surrendered the single most valuable asset any nation can own — their Monetary Sovereignty — thus preventing them from servicing their debt by creating money.
Some debt hawks say that a Debt/GDP ratio exceeding 100% puts a nation on the brink of bankruptcy. Yet today, Japan has a Debt/GDP ratio above 200%, and this Monetarily Sovereign nation has absolutely no difficulty servicing its debt. The debt hawks, as usual, having learned nothing from this, continue to wail about the meaningless debt/GDP ratio, which because it is a classic apples/oranges comparison, is devoid of significance (the numerator is a 200-year measure of cumulative T-securities outstanding; the denominator is a one-year measure of productivity. The two are unrelated).
Because so-called federal “debt” is the total of T-securities outstanding, all federal debt easily could be eliminated tomorrow, if the federal government merely credited the bank accounts of T-securities holders. That would require pressing a few computer keys, which would increase the checking accounts and decrease the T-security accounts of federal creditors. As this would be a simple asset exchange, no new money would be created and there would be no inflation consequences.
Because a Monetarily Sovereign nation has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency, that nation needs neither to tax nor to borrow. Why would it? Further, that nation does not use tax money or borrowed money to pay for spending. Federal income has no relationship to federal spending and so, taxes and borrowing are unnecessary.
When the states, counties, cities, you and I spend, we transfer dollars from our checking accounts to some other checking accounts. When the federal government spends, it creates dollars, because to pay its bills, the government instructs banks to increase the dollar amount in suppliers’ checking accounts. If U.S. federal taxes and borrowing fell to $0, or rose to $100 trillion, neither event would reduce by even one penny, the federal government’s ability to create the money to pay any size bills.
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/monetarily-sovereign-the-key-to-understanding-economics/
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