U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: We have a Chartalist Monetary System
US Media, MSM, rightwing media, leftwing media, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians do not acknowledge our present Monetary System yet keep us uninformed by making us think we still operate under commodity based money such as the gold standard or some other form of limited federal reserve. Federal Budgets do not need balance only reflect National priorities on spending, but on a Chartalist System there can be no Fiscal Crisis.
PRETENDING TO ACT AS IF WE WERE ON GOLD STANDARD IS THE BIGGEST ON GOING US MEDIA AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP FAILURE SINCE 1971...this is why we have the foolish battles about the Federal Government
"Money is "chartal" because the state makes a ‘proclamation . . . that a piece of such and such a description shall be valid as so many units of value" - Chartalism and the tax-driven approach to money Pavlina R. Tcherneva* http://pavlina-tcherneva.net/Tcherneva-Chartalism.pdf
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: We have a Chartalist Monetary System
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Money, unit of account is created by Legal Proclamation
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Money is just a unit of the exchange for commodity value, has no intrinsict value
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Money is an IOU backed by Federal Gov.
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Government Spending is what creates Money
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Fed Gov. has a monopoly on its issued Currency
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Fed Gov. can never go bankrupt, it monopolizes money creation
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Money Exists in either the FED's account or Treasurey account
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Creation of Money is not same as printing money
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Money Flows from Fed Gov to Private sector by debiting/crediting FED-TREASURY
electronic accounts
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: BUDGET BALANCE = Gov Spending = Full Employment
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Is a much more powerful/flexible system over Commodity Money
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Means the U.S. is a Monetarily Sovereign Country
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Means Fed Gov. Spending creates IOU Gov buys back thru Taxation
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Because Fed Gov. buys back its own IOU's it can never bankrupt
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Fed Gov. Deficit and Spending are not a problem
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Fed Gov. Budget does not work like Household Budget
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Fed Gov. Budget does not have to be balanced
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Fed Gov. Budget Deficit does not result in Interest Rate hikes
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Fed Gov. Budget Deficit has no impact on future generations
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Public Officials never inform Public of this system
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Public Officials behave as if we were on Commodity Based money system
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Currency has legitimacy because of legislative fiat
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: The currency has no intrinsic value does not need devaluing..
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Taxes drive money
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Currency is not backed or limited by gold
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Currency is not backed or limited by bank reserves
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Currency is not backed or limited by bank deposits
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Currency is not backed or limited by debt
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Currency is not backed or limited by Congress
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Debt is money
U.S. MonetarySystem101-Chartalism: Only a real economic forecast of inflation makes the deficit matter and this is not forseen in the short or long term...given that we also have a FRACTIONAL FEDERAL RESERVE to balance this out
1) When are we going to realize that we are no longer on the gold standard?
bywhoknu
I grow very tired of the hair on fire statements, not based on fact, that say we are devaluing our currency by 'printing' money. The endless rending of garments that certain groups (you know who you are) have gone through would stock a clothing store a 1,000 times over.
Our ability to issue currency into the economy is not backed or limited by gold, bank reserves, bank deposits, debt, how many taxes we collect or GOP whining. In fact, it's not even limited by Congress. Our currency is not a commodity. It is however, an accounting tool to measure the store of value we owe each other based on an agreement between two or more parties.
If I agree to work for you, you will tell me how many dollars you will pay me for my labor. It is my labor that is the value, and the dollar is used to mark how many hours of labor I worked and it's worth in the market place. I am then given a piece of paper (or more realistically, numbers stored in a computer at a bank of my choosing) to measure the labor I have given to my employer. I will then take these dollars out into the market place and exchange my stored value of labor to someone else for a product I need or want to buy. My labor is the commodity, the dollar is only the vehicle for exchanging my labor, it has no value in and of itself.
What exactly does this mean?
I could go deeply into the history of money and how we came to believe it needed to be a commodity first, before we could call it money, but suffice it to say, our U.S. dollars are no longer a commodity. This has been true since 1971.
Value?
In a fiat currency system, the currency has legitimacy because of legislative fiat: the government tells us that’s the currency and then legislates it as such. The currency has no intrinsic value
What does give us the incentive to use dollars?
Taxes drive money
One of the most important powers claimed by sovereign government is the authority to levy and collect taxes (and other payments made to government including fees and fines). Tax obligations are levied in the national money of account—dollars in the US, Canada, and Australia, Yen in Japan, Yuan in China, and Pesos in Mexico. Further, the sovereign government also determines what can be delivered to satisfy the tax obligation. In all modern nations, it is the government’s own currency that is accepted in payment of taxes.
What IS devaluing our currency is this; our constant refusal to recognize that we no longer operate under the gold standard, that our dollar bills are a fiat currency, and the U.S. Government is the Monopoly issuer. We cannot ever be broke because we can't run out of dollars.
Every time John Boehner cries on the house floor that we are broke, he devalues our currency. Every time the Tea Party idiots threaten to not raise the 'debt' ceiling, they are devaluing our currency. What they are basically doing is telling the world that we will renege on our promise to pay for the agreements we have already made. The really sad part is, that we decry the GOP as the stupid party, but we have bought right into their talking points hook line and sinker. It's plain pathetic.
So just how much money can the Fed print before we get into trouble?
Free Lunch?
Our real opportunities for economic progress are grounded in our ability to apply work, cooperative activity and creative ingenuity to the real resources we already possess. By the enterprising application of our industry and intelligence, we transform the things we have into different and better things, and exchange our work and the products of our work among ourselves to make our lives better. Our real limits, then, are the constraints imposed by our inherently finite nature: we only have so many resources; we can only work so hard; our cognitive capacities are only so great; we only live so long, etc.
To answer that question more succinctly, our current spending limit could be measured this way;
Estimated $2.2 Trillion in infrastructure upgrades
$1.2 Trillion in Student Loans
23 Million unemployed
40,000 factories idled since 2000
Climate Change
Underfunded schools
Failing electrical grid
50 million without affordable health care
1 in 4 kids living in poverty
I could go on...
So instead of buying into the false meme that we have too much debt, and that we are broke, lets recognize what our real limits are and then get to work.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/01/1184066/-When-are-we-going-to-realize-that-we-are-no-longer-on-the-gold-standard
ORIGINALLY POSTED TO WHOKNU ON FRI FEB 01, 2013 AT 07:22 PM PST.
ALSO REPUBLISHED BY MONEY AND PUBLIC PURPOSE.
2) Chartalism and the tax-driven approach to money Pavlina R. Tcherneva
Chartalism, posits that money (broadly speaking) is a unit of
account, designated by a public authority for the codification of social debt obligations.
More specifically, in the modern world, this debt relation is between the population
and the nation-state in the form of a tax liability. Thus money is a creature of the
state and a tax credit for extinguishing this debt. If money is to be considered a
veil at all, it is a veil of the historically specific nature of these debt relationships.
Therefore, Chartalism insists on a historically grounded and socially embedded analysis of money.
This chapter distinguishes between several broad Chartalist propositions about the
origin, nature and role of money, and several specific propositions about money in the
modern context. It offers only a cursory examination of the historical record to illuminate the essential characteristics of money emphasized in the Chartalist tradition.
Chartalist ideas are not new, although they are most closely associated with the writings
of Georg Friedrich Knapp of the German Historical School. Thus the chapter briefly
surveys instances in the history of thought which have emphasized the chartal nature of
money. The paper then expounds on Chartalism, clarifying aspects of the concepts and
drawing out the implications for modern currencies. It concludes with a discussion of the
various applications of this approach to policy
1. Modern currencies exist within the context of certain state powers. The two essential
powers are:
(a) the power to levy taxes on its subjects, and
(b) the power to declare what it will accept in payment of taxes.
2. Thus the state delimits money to be that which will be accepted at government pay
offices for extinguishing debt to the state.
3. The purpose of taxation is not to finance government spending but to create demand
for the currency – hence the term ‘tax-driven money’.
4. Logically, and in practice, government spending comes priorto taxation not after, to provide
that which is necessary to pay taxes. It does not need a Balanced Budget.
5. In the modern world, states usually have monopoly power over the issue of their currency. States with sovereign currency control (i.e. which do not operate under the
restrictions of fixed exchange rates, dollarization, monetary unions or currency
boards) do not face any operational financial constraints (although they may face
political constraints).2
6. Nations that issue their own currency have no imperative to borrow or tax to finance
spending. While taxes create demand for the currency, borrowing is an ex ante interest
rate maintenance operation. This leads to dramatically different policy conclusions.
7. As a monopolist over its currency, the state also has the power to set prices, which include
both the interest rate and how the currency exchanges for other goods and services
http://pavlina-tcherneva.net/Tcherneva-Chartalism.pdf
3) 7 Frauds of Conservative Fiscal Responsibility
Deadly Innocent Fraud #1:
The federal government must raise funds through taxation or borrowing in order to spend. In other words, government spending is limited by its ability to tax or borrow.
Fact:
Federal government spending is in no case operationally constrained by revenues, meaning
that there is no “solvency risk.” In other words, the federal government can always make any and all payments in its own currency, no matter how large the deficit is, or how few taxes it collects.
Deadly Innocent Fraud #2:
With government deficits, we are leaving our debt burden to our children.
Fact:
Collectively, in real terms, there is no such burden possible. Debt or no debt, our children get to
consume whatever they can produce.
Deadly Innocent Fraud #3:
Federal Government budget deficits take away savings.
Fact:
Federal Government budget deficits ADD to savings.
Deadly Innocent Fraud #4:
Social Security is broken.
Fact:
Federal Government Checks Don’t Bounce.
Deadly Innocent Fraud #5:
The trade deficit is an unsustainable imbalance that takes away jobs and output.
Facts:
Imports are real benefits and exports are real costs. Trade deficits directly improve our standard of living. Jobs are lost because taxes are too high for a given level of government spending, not because of imports.
Deadly Innocent Fraud #6:
We need savings to provide the funds for investment.
Fact:
Investment adds to savings.
Deadly Innocent Fraud #7:
It’s a bad thing that higher deficits today mean higher taxes tomorrow.
Fact:
I agree - the innocent fraud is that it’s a bad thing,
when in fact it’s a good thing!!!
---------------- open the pdf for the full economic report on these frauds from Mosler Modern Monetary Theory ---http://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf
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4) Now, check this out as well
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The false belief that federal finances are like yours and mine"Debt hawks", "Fiscal Conservatives" and others...(maybe some Libertarians I know...)
ignorant of Monetary Sovereignty, suffer from Anthropomorphic economics disease
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/anthropomorphic-economics/ — the false belief that federal finances are like yours and mine. 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 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.
Although Monetarily Sovereign nations need neither to tax nor to borrow, they may choose to do so for many reasons unrelated to financial need. The spending by Monetarily Sovereign nations is constrained only by inflation. However, since 1971, the end of the gold standard and the beginning of Monetary Sovereignty, there has been no relationship between federal deficit spending and inflation. More about this at
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/46/
and at SUMMARY.
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/introduction/
At some level, deficit spending could cause inflation. For instance, if the government were to give every American $1 trillion, I am confident we would have inflation. But we are nowhere near that point. (Debt hawks love to propose extreme circumstances, like the $1 trillion gift to each American, as “proof” deficit spending is unsustainable. But that is no more proof than the other extreme circumstance (tax every American $1 trillion) demonstrates taxes are unsustainable.)
Because taxes do not pay for federal spending, FICA does not pay for Social Security benefits. FICA could (and should) be reduced to zero, and benefits could be tripled, and this would not affect by even one penny the federal government’s ability to pay Social Security benefits.
There had been some question about whether the federal government would or should make a profit on its purchases of corporate stock (GM et al). Any such profits come out of the economy, and therefore are anti-stimulative. By reducing the money supply, federal profits = losses for the economy. Federal surpluses = economic deficits.
There also has been talk about the federal government “saving” money by firing, or reducing the pay of, federal employees. Those so-called “savings” would be money not sent into the economy, and therefore, anti-stimulative.
Politicians and the press do not yet seem to understand Monetary Sovereignty. However, no one intelligently can discuss national deficits and debt without understanding the implications of Monetarily Sovereignty. The concept is the basis for all modern economics. Monetary Sovereignty is to economics as arithmetic is to mathematics.
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/monetarily-sovereign-the-key-to-understanding-economics/
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