Tag: Monetary Reform

Take Action for Monetary Justice

.
Sign AFJM’s Letter to the Federal Reserve! 

Urgent and fundamental problems require urgent and fundamental solutions. When those in charge are incapable or unwilling to make fundamental changes, then We, the People, must take charge!

The Alliance For Just Money exclaims “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” a distress call for our destructive money system, which is structurally incapable of serving our people and planet. Earth is warming and its species, oceans, and ecosystems are dying. Our government and people are drowning in debt; wealth inequality is growing exponentially; wars are multiplying; and the money supply is bigger than ever. Yet we are told there is not enough money to care for our people and planet!

Individuals and organizations are invited to add their signatures to a letter [also below] initiated by the Alliance For Just Money and supporters of a public money system to the leaders of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago calling on them to work with us and elected officials to enact the American Monetary Reform Act of 2024.

The letter is part of an action taking place at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on Friday, May 17, starting at 12PM CT. It includes an outside press conference, leafleting, petitioning, and delivering the letter to and meeting with Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago leaders.

Take charge! Take action!

  1. Sign the letter as an individual or organization to the Board President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The deadline is Wednesday, May 15th at 5PM CT.
  2. Join us at the Federal Reserve Bank, 230 S La Salle St, Chicago on Friday, May 17th at 12PM CT.
  3. Take part in any of the Mayday for Money events in Chicago, May 17th-19th.

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Dr. Austan D. Goolsbee, 

President, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

230 South LaSalle Street
Chicago, IL 60604

Dear Dr. Goolsbee and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Board of Directors:

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday for Money! The Alliance For Just Money (AFJM), allied organizations, and citizens are gathering together in Chicago this weekend to issue the international distress call about the US Federal Reserve System and related monetary systems worldwide.

Tomorrow marks the 110th anniversary of the formal signing of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s organization certificate.[1] In passing the Federal Reserve Act in December 1913, Congress surrendered its Constitutional authority—under Article I Section 8—to create all U.S. money and regulate the value thereof. Congress instead ceded that power to the commercial banks nationwide. Over a century later, We, the People declare “Mayday for Money,” calling for a sovereign public money system. 

We and a growing number of citizens recognize that, no matter how officially established and protected it has been, the private, debt-based modern money system is inherently unjust, unsustainable, and undemocratic.[2] Our current money system is structurally incapable of serving our people and planet. Earth is warming and its species, oceans, and ecosystems are dying. Our government and people are drowning in debt; wealth inequity is growing exponentially; wars are multiplying; and the money supply is bigger than ever. Yet we are told there is simply not enough money to care for our people and planet! We must change this narrative and demand a sovereign public money system.

We are at a historical juncture regarding monetary policy and financial systems worldwide. With the rise of digital currencies, we invite you to dialogue with us to enact Just Money rather than allow our financial institutions to continue our private, debt-based money system. We call upon you to work with us and our elected officials to pass the American Monetary Reform Act of 2024, that will establish and transition us to a sovereign public money system.[3]

Respectfully submitted by the undersigned, representing over _#_ organizations and _#_ individuals whose signatures are collected in our online petition at http://www.________.  

~~Alliance For Just Money Board of Directors and staff; American Monetary Institute Stewards; Move to Amend Co-Director Team; Banking & Monetary Reform Committee of the Green Party-US; An Economy of Our Own Advisory Board; and the Women, Money, & Democracy committee of the 108-year-old Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-US; Ecological Economics for All.

Cc:  President Biden, Vice President Harris, and US Senators and Representatives

Alliance For Just Money, Inc., is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3)

[2] Omarova, S. T. (2020, March 20). “Technology v technocracy: Fintech as a regulatory challenge“. Journal of Financial Regulation, 6(1), 75–124 . See also International Movement for Monetary Reform; legal scholars of money at JustMoney.org; and regenerative and distributive economics efforts of DoughnutEconomics.org.

[3] The American Monetary Reform Act (AMRA) of 2024 is based on the H.R. 2990 National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act of 2011 which was updated and improved upon by AFJM. It and a two-page factsheet on it are on AFJM’s Archive page (www.monetaryalliance.org/archive-afjm/) and directly at www.monetaryalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/American-Monetary-Reform-Act.pdf, and  www.monetaryalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/AMRA-Fact-Sheet.pdf.

AMI Statement to the UN Climate Conference COP28

 

Introduction

Monetary conference calls COP28’s attention to the connection between the current dysfunctional monetary system and environmental degradation, including climate change

Chicago, November, 2023 — Last month, from September 29 until October 1, the American Monetary Institute (AMI) held its 19th annual conference on monetary theory and reform.

The conference brought together some of the world’s leading experts on monetary history and theory with some of the world’s most serious advocates of real and achievable economic and monetary reforms.

Attendees of the conference and, since then, other interested parties and individuals were and still are invited to sign a statement addressing the strong correlation between the current, debt-based monetary system and environmental degradation.

We call for the debt-based system to be changed into a sovereign monetary system; to develop similar institutions at an international level; and for the UN to set up a commission of monetary inquiry.

The concise statement being released to the participants of the UN Climate Conference’s COP28 is as follows:

The Statement

We acknowledge there exists a strong correlation between the current, debt-based monetary system and environmental degradation, including climate change. It acts through multiple paths of transmission, which have to be taken into account to find just and sustainable solutions.

The current monetary system is a debt-based system, because most of the money used for economic transactions, both in the real economy and the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, is generated through the creation of debt when banks extend loans. This system is also a major cause of destructive economic boom and bust cycles, and creates socioeconomic inequality and political polarisation between and within creditor and a debtor classes.

Furthermore, we strongly believe that sovereign monetary reform (SMR) will allow substantial public investments, which are required to steer global civilization from our brown, carbon-based age to a green, equitable, post- fossil fuel age with a balanced carbon cycle.

In the case of the USA, SMR would entail the three following inter-connected changes to its current design:

        • Requires Congress to be the sole creator of all U.S. money debt-free, as authorized in the U.S. Constitution;
        • Ends the privilege of commercial banks to create money; and
        • Makes all remaining operations of the Federal Reserve System accountable to the public.

At an international level parallel institutions and regulations should be developed including: 1) a supranational reserve currency; 2) an international clearing system; 3) a monetary authority of currency issuance; and 4) an advisory Intergovernmental Panel on Economic and Social Issues (IPESI) to assess progress and detect problems.

Given the promising nature of SMR, we, the undersigned, therefore call for a UN Monetary Commission to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the current monetary system, and to evaluate alternate proposals, especially SMR, to improve it.

Please Sign

The statement with ample background references and names of signers can be found on-line here.

If you like to add your name please fill out this form.

Add, if you like, town, state & country, institutional affiliation and any titles.

For questions email Steven Walsh or Govert Schuller.

AMI is a publicly supported charity to present the results of research leading to monetary reforms that bring forth a greater level of economic justice. The institute was founded in 1996 by Stephen Zarlenga, author of The Lost Science of Money.

Contact: Steven Walsh, Executive Director, (773) 636-8255, stevenjjwalsh@gmail.com

The American Monetary Institute: View from a Steward

 

 

Focus

The focus of the American Monetary Institute was and is on the almost unbridled credit creation facility of commercial banks (and its frequent turning off the tap) as a major cause of the destructive booms & busts in the financial sector and its spilling over into the real economy with disastrous consequences for regular people.

Furthermore, as a viable, structural, long-term solution we promote so-called sovereign monetary reform based on 1930s proposals collectively known as the Chicago Plan developed by prominent economists (Phillips, Demeulemeester, Kumhof).

Our first focus is on monetary theory and AMI embraces the so-named ‘credit creation theory of money and banking’ (Werner, McLeay, Ryan-Collins), aka ‘endogenous money’ in post-Keynesian parlance (Rochon & Rossi), and very nicely explained as the ‘finance franchise’ in Hockett & Omarova (2017).

Secondly, based on numerous analyses and models (Kumhof, Yamaguchi, van Egmond, Huber, Jackson), we promote the proposal that,

a) a nation’s money supply (and central bank if not yet done so) should be nationalized and transformed into debt-free, stable money,

b) stop the credit creation privilege of commercial banks and make them thereby into true intermediaries, 

c) institute a monetary authority to manage the money supply, and

d) let congress allocate the seigniorage (or taxation) coming out of the monetary authority’s decision process.

Implementation

This monetary theory and, based on it, radical reform proposal were a) incorporated into the 2012 NEED Act (HR 2990), with the help of AMI (Zarlenga), and sponsored (only) by Kucinich and Conyers; b) considered by the parliament of Iceland (Sigurjonsson); c) became the subject of a 2017 referendum in Switzerland, sorely lost by 75-25 (Lyons); and d) was debated by the parliament of the Netherlands in 2016, triggered by a citizens initiative, which only led to a thorough report after three years (Schuller; WRR).

After these half successes the movement seems to have burned out a little. Besides there was also a friendly schism, if I can say so, within the AMI leading to the formation of the Alliance For Just Money in 2018. And we had the shock that our very successful sister organization in the UK, Positive Money, thought it was advisable to distance itself from sovereign monetary reform because, in their still non-published deliberations, they thought it would crash the economy. On top of that COVID-19 hit with interesting financial responses by governments, from which we still try to extract the economic lessons.

For now AMI is giving some space to a) economists and monetary activists from LDCs; b) discussing the promises and perils of CBDC; c) of public and non-profit banking; d) of local currencies; and e) of parity economics, i.e. the idea to set a minimum price for raw materials in agriculture, fishing and mining.

But in the end, we are aiming at a ‘big switch’, when the money supply gets secured and prudently managed, and banking as we know it will end.

Sources

Demeulemeester, Samuel. 2018. “The 100% Money Proposal and its Implications for Banking: The Currie–Fisher Approach versus the Chicago Plan Approach“. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 25/2: 357-387.

H.R.2990 – National Emergency Employment Defense Act of 2011 (NEED Act). 112th US Congress (2011-2012).

Hockett, Robert C. & Omarova, Saule. 2017. “The Finance Franchise“. Cornell Law Review, 102: 1143-1218.

Huber, Joseph. 2017. Sovereign Money. Beyond Reserve Banking. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jackson, Andrew & Dyson, Ben. 2012. Modernising Money: Why Our Monetary System Is Broken And How It Can Be Fixed. London: Positive Money.

Kumhof, Michael & Benes, Jaromir. 2012. “The Chicago Plan Revisited.” IMF Working Papers 12/202. Washington: International Monetary Fund.

Lyons, Matthew. 2018. “Will Switzerland Be The First Country In The World To Introduce A Sovereign Money System?” London: Positive Money. 28 Feb 2018.

McLeay, Michael & Radia, Amar & Thomas, Ryland. 2014a. “Money Creation in the Modern Economy”. Monetary Analysis Directorate. Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin (Q1, 2014): 14-27.

Phillips, Ronnie. 1995. The Chicago Plan & New Deal Banking Reform. Oxon, UK & New York, NY: Routledge.

Rochon, Louis-Philippe & Rossi, Sergio (eds.). 2015. The Encyclopedia of Central Banking. Cheltenham, UK & Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Ryan-Collins, Josh & Greenham, Tony & Werner, Richard & Jackson, Andrew. 2012. Where Does Money Come From? A Guide to the UK Monetary and Banking System. London: New Economics Foundation. “Introduction”.

Schuller,Govert. 2019. “Ons Geld and the Road to the WRR Report“. AFJM, 8 Mar 2019.

Sigurjonsson, Frosti. 2015. “Monetary Reform: A Better Monetary System for Iceland“. A Report Commissioned by the Prime Minister of Iceland. March 2015. Foreword by Aidar Turner. Rekjavik, Iceland.

Van Egmond, Nicolas D & de Vries, Bert JM. 2016. “Dynamics of a sustainable financial-economic system”. Sustainable Finance Lab Working Paper. Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

Werner, Richard. 2014c. “How do banks create money, and why can other firms not do the same? An explanation for the coexistence of lending and deposit-taking”. International Review of Financial Analysis, 36 (2014): 71–77.

—–, —–. 2016. “A lost century in economics: Three theories of banking and the conclusive evidence”. International Review of Financial Analysis, 46 (July 2016): 361-379.

WRR. 2019. “Money Creation”. The Hague: The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR).

WRR. 2019. Money and Debt: The Public Role of Banks – Summary of WRR Report. The Hague: Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy.

Yamaguchi, Kaoru. 2011. “Workings of a Public Money System of Open Macroeconomies: Modeling the American Monetary Act Completed”. In: Proceedings of the 29th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, Washington D.C., USA, 2011. The System Dynamics Society. 

—–, —–. 2012. “On the Monetary and Financial Stability under A Public Money System (Revised): Modeling the American Monetary Act Simplified”. Paper presented at the 8th Annual AMI Monetary Reform Conference in Chicago, USA, Sept. 20 – 23, 2012. It was originally presented at the 30th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, St. Gallen, Switzerland, July 22 – 26, 2012.

Zarlenga, Stephen. 2014 (2006). “Presenting the American Monetary Act / The 32-Page Brochure”. Valatie, NY: American Monetary Institute. Extensive introduction to, and final version of, the NEED Act.

Govert Schuller
Shillong, September 20, 2023

Additions to Bibliography February 2023

 

B. Academic Studies on Sovereign Monetary Theory and Reform

Armelius, Hanna & Carl Andreas Claussen, David Vestin. 2020. “Money and monetary policy in times of crisis”. Monetary Policy Department and the Payments Department of the Riksbank. Riksbank of Sweden. Economic Commentaries, 4 (11 June 2020): 1-15.

Assenmacher, Katrin & Claus Brand. 2018. “The Swiss Sovereign Money Initiative”. Credit and Capital Markets, 51/4: 621-644.

Baeriswyl, Romain. 2017. “The Case for the Separation of Money and Credit”. In Heinemann, F., Klüh, U., and Watzka, S. (eds.), 2017, Monetary Policy, Financial Crises, and the Macroeconomy, Cham: Springer, pp. 105–21.

Barber, G. Russell. 1973. “The One Hundred Percent Reserve System”. The American Economist, 17/1: 115–127.

Bertocco, Giancarlo & Andrea Kalajzic. 2018. “How much does finance benefit society?”. PSL Quarterly Review, 71/287: 419-437.

—–, —–. 2001. “Is Kaldor’s theory of money supply endogeneity still relevant?” Metroeconomica, 52/1: 95–120.

—–, —–. 2010. “The endogenous money theory and the characteristics of a monetary economy”. Rivista Italiana degli Economisti, 15/3: 365–401.

—–, —–. 2013a. “Money as an institution of capitalism: Some notes on a monetary theory of uncertainty”. Economic Notes, 42/1: 75–101.

—–, —–. 2013b. “On Keynes’s criticism of the loanable funds theory”. Review of Political Economy, 25/2: 309–26.

Bjerg, Ole. 2018. “We Need to Put Things Back to Normal”. Interview with Ole Bjerg (2018) Journal of Economic Sociology = Ekonomicheskaya sotsiologiya, 19/4: 172–181.

Brown, Harry Gunnison. 1940. “Objections to the 100 Per Cent Reserve Plan.” The American Economic Review, 26/3: 309–314.

Buchanan, James M. 2010. “The Constitutionalization of Money.” Cato Journal, 30/2: 251–258.

Burns, Scott. 2016. “Old (Chicago) School, New Century: The Link between Knight and Simons’ Chicago Plan to Buchanan’s Constitutional Money.” Constitutional Political Economy, 27/3: 299–318.

Carroll, Charles Holt. 1964. Organization of Debt into Currency and Other Papers. Edited with an Introduction by E. C. Simmons. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.

Chai, Hee-Yul, and Sang B. Hahn. 2018. “Does Monetary Policy Regime Determine the Nature of the Money Supply?: Evidence from Seven Countries in the Asia-Pacific Region“. East Asian Economic Review, 22/2: 217-239.

Currie, Lauchlin B. [1934] 1968. The Supply and Control of Money in the United States. New York, NY: Russell & Russell.

Demeulemeester, Samuel. 2019. “The 100% money proposal of the 1930s: Conceptual clarification and theoretical analysis.” PhD thesis, ENS de Lyon.

—–, —–. 2020. “Would a State Monopoly over Money Creation Allow for a Reduction of the National Debt? A Study of the ‘Seignorage Argument’ in Light of the ‘100% Money’”. Debates, Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, vol. 38A, A Symposium on Public Finance in the History of Economic Thought, 123–44.

—–, —–. 2021. “The 100% money proposal of the 1930s: An avatar of the Currency School’s reform ideas?” The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 28,/4: 577–98.

Doorman, Frans. 2015. Our Money – Towards a New Monetary System. Lulu internet publishers.

Douglas, Paul H. 1935. Controlling Depressions. New York, NY: Norton.

Dow, S.C. 1997. “Endogenous Money”. In G.C. Harcourt and P.A. Riach (eds), A ‘Second Edition’ of The General Theory, vol. II, London and New York: Routledge, 61–78.

Fisher, Irving. 1936. “100% Money Again.” Social Research, 3/2: 236–241.

—–, —–. 1936. “The Bankers’ Interest in 100% Money.” The Bankers’ Magazine, October, 1936.

—–, —–. 1937. “100 Percent Reserves—An Old System Adapted to Modern Needs.” Commercial & Financial Digest, Los Angeles, California, June 1937. Reprinted in I. Fisher, Testimony before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, U.S. Senate, 75:1, August 12, 1937, 292–296.

—–, —–. 1937. “Note Suggested by Review of ‘100 Per Cent Money.’” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 100/2: 296–298.

—–, —–. 1946 (1997). “Answers to Objections to the 100% Plan.” Fisher Papers, Yale University Library. Reprinted in Barber et al, 1997, The Works of Irving Fisher – Vol. 11. 100% Money, 308–311.

Graham, Frank D. 1936. “Partial Reserve Money and the 100 Per Cent Proposal.” The American Economic Review, 26/3: 428–440.

—–, —–. 1941. “100 Per Cent Reserves: Comment.” The American Economic Review, 31/2: 338–340.

Higgins, Benjamin. 1941. “Comments on 100 Per Cent Money.” The American Economic Review, 31/1: 91–96.

Hook, Andrew. 2022. “Examining modern money creation: An institution-centered explanation and visualization of the “credit theory” of money and some reflections on its significance.” The Journal of Economic Education, 53/3: 210-231.

Krainer Robert E. 2013, “Towards a Program for Financial Stability”. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 85 (January): 207-218.

—–, —–. 2017, “Economic Stability under Alternative Banking Systems: Theory and Policy”. Journal of Financial Stability, 31: 107-118.

Kumhof, Michael, et al. 2020. “Central Bank Money: Liability, Asset, or Equity of the Nation?” Cornell Law School Research Paper No. 20-46.

Lainà, Patrizio. 2017. “Seignorage from Full-Reserve Banking”. Published in Lainà, Patrizio, “Full-Reserve Banking: Separating Money Creation from Bank Lending”, PhD Thesis, University of Helsinki (November 13, 2017).

Lehmann, Fritz. 1936. “100% Money.” Social Research, 3/1: 37–56.

Lester, Richard A. 1935. “Check-Book Inflation.” The American Scholar, 4/1: 30–40.

Mellor, Mary. 2019. Money: Myths, Truths, and Alternatives. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.

Nayan, S., Kadir, N., Abdullah, M. S., & Ahmad, M. 2013. “Post Keynesian Endogeneity of Money Supply: Panel Evidence”. Procedia: Post Keynesian Endogeneity of Money Supply: Panel Evidence Economics and Finance, 7: 48-54.

Neuman, Andrew M. 1937. “100 Per Cent. Money.” The Manchester School, 8/1: 56–62.

Ponsot, Jean-François. 2017. “Rethinking Money“. In: Rochon, Louis-Philippe, and Sergio Rossi (eds), A Modern Guide to Rethinking Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017, 114-28.

Robbins, Richard H. 2014. “Debt and the Monetary Foundations of Inequality”. Anthropology News, 55, 14–15.

—–, —–. 2020. “Financialization, Plutocracy, and the Debtor’s Economy: Consequences and Limits”. In: Hann, Chris and Don Kalb (Eds.), Financialization: Relational Approaches. Max Planck Studies in Anthropology and Economy, Volume 6, New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 65–94.

—–, —– & Tim DiMuzio. 2020. “Capitalized money, austerity and the math of capitalism”. Current Sociology, 68: 149–168.

Robinson, George Buchan. 1937. “100% Bank Reserves.” Harvard Business Review, 15: 438–447.

Rochon, Louis-Philippe. 1999. Credit, money, and production: An alternative post-Keynesian approach. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

—–, —–. 2001. “Cambridge’s Contribution to Endogenous Money: Robinson and Kahn on Credit and Money”. Review of Political Economy, 13/3: 287-307.

—–, —– & —–, —–. (eds). 2003. Modern Theories of Money: The Nature and Role of Money in Capitalist Economies. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

Schuller, Govert. 2023. “Rochon’s Five Propositions on Bank Credit Creation”. Valatie, NY: American Monetary Institute.

Simarmata, Djamester. 2023. “Development Finance by Money Creation, instead of Foreign Debt or Saving: A New Paradigm For Development Economics”. MS [Forthcoming]

Simons, Henry C. 1934. “A Positive Program for Laissez-Faire”. Public Policy Pamphlet No 15. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Skaggs N.T. 1997. “Henry Dunning Macleod and the Credit Theory of Money”. In: Cohen A.J., Hagemann H., Smithin J. (eds), Money, Financial Institutions and Macroeconomics, Recent Economic Thought Series, vol 53, Dordrecht: Springer.

Smithin, J. 2013. “Keynes’s theories on money and banking in the Treatise and the General Theory”. Review of Keynesian Economics, 2/2: 242–56.

Stellinga, Bart, et al. 2021. Money and Debt: The Public Role of Banks. Research for Policy Series. Studies by the Netherlands Council for Government Policy. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Thomas, Rollin G. 1940. “100 Per Cent Money: The Present Status of the 100 Per Cent Plan.” The American Economic Review, 30/2: 315–323.

Tolley, George S. 1962. “100 Per Cent Reserve Banking”. In: Yeager, L. B. (ed.), In Search of a Monetary Constitution, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 275–304.

Watkins, Leonard L. 1938. Commercial Banking Reform in the United States: With Especial Reference to the 100 Per Cent Plan and the Regulation of Interest Rates on Bank Deposits. Vol. 5. Michigan Business Studies, 8. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan.

Werner, Richard A. 2003. Princes of the Yen: Japan’s Central Bankers and the Transformation of the Economy. New York: M.E. Sharpe.

—–, —–. 2018. “Shifting from Central Planning to a Decentralised Economy”. Paper presented at the 14th Rhodes Forum: Dialogue of Civilisations Research Institute, Panel 2: “Economic Alternatives when Conventional Models Fail”, Rhodos, Greece, on 1 October 2016 and at the 4th European Conference on Banking and the Economy (ECOBATE 2016), in Winchester Guildhall, Winchester UK, on 12 October 2016.

Whittlesey, Charles R. 1935. “Banking and the New Deal”. Public Policy Pamphlet No. 16. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

C. Studies Critical of Sovereign Monetary Theory and Reform (including MMT section)

Pro MMT

Berkeley, A., Ryan-Collins, J., Tye, R., Voldsgaard, A. and Wilson, N. 2022. “The self-financing state: An institutional analysis of government expenditure, revenue collection and debt issuance operations in the United Kingdom.“ UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Working Paper Series (IIPP WP 2022-08)

Ryan-Collins, Josh. 2022. “Why the British state is a magic money tree“. The New Statesman, 26 May 2022

Keen, Steven. 2022. “A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing: Observations on the debate between MMT advocates and Progressive Money Canada founder Jeff Eder”. Planksip, 30 Sept 2022.

Critical of MMT

Eder, Jeff. 2022. “Steve Keen has lost his way in a Minsky Maze”. Progressive Money Canada. [Response to Keen, 2022]

Epstein, Gerald A. 2019. What’s Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave.

Mueller, Antony P. 2019. “The magic money tree: The case against modern monetary theory (MMT).” Research Paper Series Adam Smith Institute (ASI), UK.

Schuller, Govert. 2020a. “Requesting Evidence for a Crucial MMT Claim”. Blog. Alliance For Just Money, 16 Aug 2020.

—–, —–. 2020b. “Triple-column Comparison between Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), the Actual Monetary System, and Sovereign Money Reform (SMR)”. Blog. Alliance For Just Money, 21 Sept 2020.

—–, —–. 2020c. “ ‘What’s Wrong with Modern Money Theory?’: A Summary”. Blog. Alliance For Just Money, 5 Oct 2020.

—–, —–. 2022. “Did Dr. Joshua Ryan-Collins go MMT?”. Paper presented at the American Monetary Institute conference, October 8, 2022. Video here.

D. Non-academic Advocacy Pamphlets, Reports, Briefings and Books

AMI. 2021. “AMI Conference Statement to COP26: Regarding the Monetary Dimension of Climate Change”. American Monetary Institute, Evanston, IL, USA, 11 Nov 2021.

Anon. 2019. “Open Letter: Rethinking the Role of Banks in Economics Education”. Rethink Economics.

Hermanutze, Derryl. 2020. A Brief History of Financial Plunder. Independently published.

Jordan, Thomas J. 2018. “How money is created by the central bank and the banking system.” Speech at the Zürcher Volkswirtschaftliche Gesellschaft, Zürich, 16 Jan 2018. Speech given in German. Zürich: Swiss National Bank.

McConnachie, A. 2006. Clarifying Our Money Reform Proposals: A Report for the Tenth Annual Bromsgrove Conference. Bromsgrove Conference, Bromsgrove, England.

Positive Money. N.d. “What people think banks do: The money multiplier and other myths“. London: Positive Money.

Stuart, James Gibb. 1991. Scotland and Its Money. Edinburgh: John Dunlop.

—–, —–. 1992. Economics of a Green Renaissance. Glasgow: Ossian Publishers.

—–, —–. 1993. Hidden Menace to World Peace. Glasgow: Ossian Publishers.

Turner, W.E. 1966. Stable Money: A Conservative Answer to Business Cycles. With introduction by Representative Wright Patman. N.p.

E. Supporting Studies Addressing Monetary Issues

Costa, Jorge Meira & Marc Gauvin, McNeill. 2015. “A proposal for harmonising current disparate (scientific and legal) definitions of money towards greater decidability in the provision of Justice according to universal principles of contract law“. Presentation at MERC first annual conference on The Monetary Policies in The Balkans, The Future of The Euro and The Eurozone in The Balkan Region. Monetary and EconomicResearch Center, Sofia -Bulgaria, 2015.

DiMuzio, Tim. 2023. “Capitalism, Money and Inequality in the World”. In: Bieri, Sabin & Bader, Christoph (Eds.), Transitioning to Reduced Inequalities, Basel, Switzerland: MDPI Books.

Gauvin, Marc & Sergio Dominguez. 2020. “A Systems Engineering Approach to Formal Monetary and Financial Stability Without the Vagaries of “Austerity” “. Submitted December 2020 to Monetary Research Centre (MRC), University of National and World Economy (UNWE), Sofia Bulgaria.

 

F. Journalistic Articles Addressing Monetary Reform

Baker, Scott, 2012. “The Instant Solution to the New Depression: Debt-free Money”. HuffPost, 4 june 2012.

Howell, John. 2017a. “Who creates money and where does it go?” The Athens Messenger, 25 Jan 2017.

—–, —–. 2017b. “Why money creation is central to most of the problems faced by society”. Athens, OH: Democracy over Corporations.

Joób, Mark. 2014. “The Sovereign Money Initiative in Switzerland“. World Economics Association Newsletter, 4/3 (June 2014): 6-7. (Comments here)

Hulsmann, Jorg Guido & Patrizio Laina & Joseph Huber & Ib Ravn & Bryan Gould. 2020. “Letter: It’s time to reconsider full reserve banking”. Financial Times (UK), 30 Aug 2020.

 

G. Educational and Promotional Videos (and other media)

Collins, Josh Ryan & Gabor, Daniela & Dyson, Ben & Werner, Richard. 2014. “Money and Banking”. Rethinking Economics, London Conference, June 2014. RE YouTube Channel, 25 Aug 2014.

Reiss, Michael. 2012. “Money… How It Works”. Unconventional Economics YouTube Channel, 22 dec 2012.

Schasfoort, Joeri. 2020. “How Commercial Banks Really Create Money (the Money Multiplier is a MYTH).” Money & Macro YouTube Channel, 28 Mar 2020.

—–, —–. 2020. “The Monetary Financial System Visually Explained“. Money & Macro YouTube Channel, 9 Dec 2020.

—–, —–. 2021. “Why Private Bank Money Creation is Dangerous.” Money & Macro YouTube Channel, 27 Jan 2021.

Turner, Adair. 2014. “The Need for Radical Change”. Keynote Speech, Rethinking Economics, London Conference, June 2014. RE YouTube Channel, 25 Aug 2014.

Kamp, Diane & Dave Zollinger. 2008. “Stephen Zarlenga Talks About the Lost Science of Money”. Demcracy’s Edge talk radio. 48m31s. Internet Archive, 20 Oct 2008.

Werner, Richard. 2015. “A Prosperous Future Together”. Dialogues of Civilizations. Rhodes Forum 2015. Dialogues of Civilizations YouTube Channel, 23 Dec 2015.

 

H. Other Relevant Background Studies

Barrdear, John & Kumhof, Michael. 2021. “The macroeconomics of central bank digital currencies.” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2012): 1041-48.

Bichler, Shimshon, Jonathan Nitzan, and Timothy DiMuzio. 2012. “The 1%, Exploitation and Wealth: Tim Di Muzio interviews Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan“. Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong – Papers 810.

Chick, Victoria. 1986. “The evolution of the banking system and the theory of saving, investment and interest”. Economies et Sociétés, 20/8–9: 111–26.

Grim, Ryan. 2009. “Priceless: How the federal reserve bought the economics profession.” Huffington Post,23 Oct 2009

Hockett, Robert C. 2020. “The capital commons: A plan for building back better and beyond.” 20 Aug 2020. Available at SSRN 3697337.

—–, —– & Omarova, Saule T., 2018. “Private Wealth and Public Goods: A Case for a National Investment Authority“. Journal of Corporation Law, 437:

—–, —– & —–, —–. 2020. “Financing Continuous Development: The ‘American Plan’ of State Capitalism”. Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 20-31 (April 2, 2020). Available at SSRN. Also in: Wright, Mike et al (eds.), 2020, The Oxford Handbook of State Capitalism, Oxford: Oxford UP.

Kaldor, N. 1970. “The New Monetarism”. Lloyds Bank Review, 97/1: 1–18.

Kuypers, Stef. 2019. Money, behavior and society: The invisible link. TEDxAntwerp, Nov 2019.

Lietaer, Bernard & Christian Arnsperger, Sally Goerner, Stefan Brunnhuber. 2012. Money and Sustainability The Missing Link. A Report from the Club of Rome – EU Chapter – to Finance Watch and the World Business Academy. Axminster, UK: Triarchy Press.

—–, —– & Dunne, Jacqui. 2013. Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity into Prosperity. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Lonergan, Eric. 2014. Money (The Art of Living). Second edition. Oxon, UK & New York: Routledge.

Minsky, Hyman P. 1994. “Financial Instability and the Decline (?) of Banking: Future Policy Implications“. Working Paper No. 127, October 1994. The Jerome Levy Research Institute of Bard College.

—–, —–. 1995. “Would Universal Banking Benefit the U.S. Economy?” Hyman P. Minsky Archive, Paper 51, reworked version dated April 5, 1995.

Nain, Aditya, & P. G. Jung. 2021. Understanding Money: Philosophical Frameworks of Monetary Value. London & New York: Taylor & Francis.

Omarova, Saule T. “The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy”. Vanderbilt Law Review, 74/5:

Palley, Thomas. 2022. Theorizing dollar hegemony, Part 1: The political economic foundations of exorbitant privilege. No. PKWP2220. Post-Keynesian Economics Society, August 2022.

Ricardo, David. [1824] 1951. Plan for the Establishment of a National Bank. London: John Murray, Albemarle-Street, 1824. Reprinted in: Sraffa P. (ed.), 1951, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 4, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 271-300

Robbins, Richard H. 2022. “ ‘An Opportunity of a Lifetime’: Covid-19 in the Age of Finance”. In: Tim Di Muzio and Matt Dow (Eds.), Covid-19 and the Global Economy, London & New York: Routledge.

—–, —–. 2022. “Financialization”. In: James G. Carrier (ed.), The Handbook of Economic Anthropology, 3rd Edition, Oxford: Berg Publishing.

—–, —–. 2020. ‘The Economy After Covid-19”. Focaal Blog.

Sanderson, Stephen K. 1995. Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-historical Change. Lanham, MD: Rowman Altamira.

Schuller, Govert. 2020. “Talk About Borders”. Blog, Alliance For Just Money, 23 May 2020.

Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson, et al. 1908. The Currency Problem and the Present Financial Situation: A Series of Addresses Delivered at Columbia University, 1907-1908. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Suaste Cherizola, Jesús. 2021. “From Commodities to Assets: Capital as Power and the Ontology of Finance”. Review of Capital as Power, 2/1: 1-29.

Toynbee, Arnold J. 1962–1964 [1934–1961]. A Study of History. 12 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Toynbee, Arnold J. 1947a. A Study of History. Vol. I. Abridgment of vols. I–VI by D. C. Somervell. London: Oxford University Press.

Toynbee, Arnold J. 1947b. A Study of History. Vol. II. Abridgment of vols. VII–XI by D. C. Somervell. London: Oxford University Press.

Viñuela, Carlos, Juan Sapena, and Gonzalo Wandosell. 2020. “The Future of Money and the Central Bank Digital Currency Dilemma” Sustainability, 12/12: 9697.

Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974-1989. The Modern World-System. 3 volumes. New York & San Diego & London: Academic Press.

—–, —–. 2000. The Essential Wallerstein. New York: The New Press.

—–, —–. 2004. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Wilkinson, David. 1987. “Central Civilization”. Comparative Civilizations Review, 17/17: Article 4. Also in: Sanderson, Stephen K., 1995, Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-historical Change, Lanham, MD: Rowman Altamira, pp. 46-74.

 

New Links to Older Studies

Klein, Manuel et al. 2018. “The Future of Money – 10 years after Lehman and Nakamoto” (Conference). Conference videos and papers. 24 Nov 2018. Berlin, Germany: Monetative.

Robertson, James. 2012. Future Money: Breakdown or Breakthrough? Totnes, UK: Green Books.

Werner, Richard A. 1997. “Towards a New Monetary Paradigm: A Quantity Theorem of Disaggregated Credit, With Evidence from Japan“. Kredit und Kapital, 30/2 (July 1997): 276–309 .

—–, —–. 2005. New Paradigm in Macroeconomics: Solving the Riddle of Japanese Macroeconomic Performance. Basingstoke, UK & New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

John Titus is not up to Snuff? Or the Need for Epistemic Maturation

 

For several reasons I feel compelled to write this blog about some of the output of video-blogger John Titus. Titus is a prolific vlogger usually commenting on all kinds of shenanigans in the financial world. In 2012 he produced the feature-length documentary Bailout after which he became a regular commentator. He has been interviewed many times, speaks at conferences and has published some articles.

But he makes some alarming claims which are not backed by evidence. For example, he came out as a Covid-19 conspiracist, stating that “the arrival of the 2020 pandemic was about as accidental as an assassination. The pandemic narrative is nothing but a cover story to conceal from the public what in reality is the biggest asset transfer ever”[1a]. In another video he makes bizarre claims about a mainstream TV interview with a FED official [1b]. It is hard to analyze, so you have to watch it for yourself.

Recently I dove also into his presentation at the 2021 conference of the American Monetary Institute, with which I am affiliated. Its title was “Did BlackRock Originate the Federal Reserve’s Unprecedented Pandemic Response Six Months beforehand?”[2]

My analysis of that presentation is that Titus was construing a false connection between 1) a BlackRock semi-public economics paper discussing the possibility of the FED ‘going direct’, defined there as “the central bank finding ways to get central bank money directly in the hands of public and private sector spenders”[3] and b) a later instantiation of that policy by the FED during the Covid-19 emergency.

Titus tries to make us believe that BlackRock had originated this policy and even ordered the FED to implement it. Titus states at 21m (till which point the video is very instructive and even enjoyable) that the BlackRock paper “tells the FED what to do when there is another downturn” and at 31m “that it is no accident, but according to a plan”.

The two points of meaningful coincidence he mentions to back up his allegation are 1) the paper was delivered at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at the yearly gathering of the central and commercial bank big shots in August 2019, and 2) the FED implemented the policy about six months later at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on this coincidence–which is not even a correlation, leave alone causation–Titus bases his conclusion that BlackRock both originated the plan and ordered its implementation.

What he overlooked, and what pulls pretty much the rug out from his origination and coerced implementation thesis, is that ‘going direct’ and its close cousin ‘helicopter money’ have been discussed far and wide and comes up almost automatically when there is some financial crisis happening.

The media seems awash with talk about rotary flight – the ‘helicopter money’ or ‘helicopter drop‘ of Milton Friedman and Ben Bernanke fame.

This was stated by Oxford Professor of International Economics Roger Baldwin in 2016 in a paper with an overview of economists’ views of ‘going direct’ [4].

And some monetary reformers look at it like a possible step towards a sovereign money system [5,6]. Thomas Mayer, of the Swiss institute Flossbach von Storch Research Institute with sympathies for monetary reform, stated,

Helicopter money would facilitate the change-over from our present credit money system to an alternative money system, in which money is no longer created as private debt but as an asset backed by the reputation of the issuer. Crypto money technology would be well suited for the creation of and payments with reputation money.

And all these papers, including BlackRock’s, not only overlap in their policy proposals, but also in their analyses of the very minimal monetary policy space left for monetary authorities since the 2007 Global financial Crisis, which would justify the unusual policy.

Titus’ construal however–interpreting the policy as a novelty imposed on the FED–is based on unacceptable cherry-picking of just two events (the BlackRock paper and The FED policy), severely de-contextualizing the situation, then insinuating suspicious shenanigans, all laced with an entertaining “gotcha” element.

Titus does have a case in pointing out the entanglement between BlackRock and the FED, creating a big conflict of interest, either real or perceived. But he unnecessarily undermines this alarming fact by framing it in a highly speculative, conspiratorial set-up.

Given the frequency of Titus’ defective analyses I would conclude with the two following points, one of which is about research strategy and the second about the relationship between the monetary reform movement and researchers like Titus.

First, similar to my advise on how to use Wikipedia and conspiracist sources, if Titus (or Wikipedia or a conspiracist) makes a plausible claim, go to the source provided and engage the source itself. And if the material pans out and you get into a debate, refer to the source, not Titus, not Wikipedia nor any conspiracist.

Second, if the movement for just money aspires to applying the highest epistemic standards in making its case to the public, academia and the policy formation community, we have to keep our distance from researchers who mix too many unsubstantiated conspiracist claims into their discourse, as good and informative their non-speculative material might be.

But not all is lost. Many researchers started out in conspiracist or religionist circles and extracted themselves from such and learned to apply higher, epistemic standards to their output. And you would be surprised to find out the many to whom that might apply. Personally speaking, ‘been there, done that’, and left on my old web site the evidence for all to see and remind myself of my own jagged arc of epistemic maturation.

Govert Schuller
Shillong, Sept 2022

Sources

[1a]. Titus, John. 2020. “Summary – Going Direct Reset”. The Solari Report.

[1b]. Titus, John. 2020. “Presenting The Federal Reserve Script for Totalitarianism”. Best Evidence channel on YouTube, 20 April 2020.

[2]. Titus, John. 2021. “Did BlackRock Originate the Federal Reserve’s Unprecedented Pandemic Response Six Months beforehand?” AMI channel on YouTube, 24 Nov 2021.

[3]. Bartsch, E., Boivin, J., Fischer, S., Hildebrand, P., & Wang, S. 2019. “Dealing with the next downturn: From unconventional monetary policy to unprecedented policy coordination“. Macro and Market Perspectives, 105: 1-16.

[4]. Baldwin, Richard. 2016. “Helicopter money: Views of leading economists.” Voxeu.org, 13.

[5]. Mayer, Thomas. 2016. “From Zirp, Nirp, QE, and helicopter money to a better monetary system.” Flossbach von Storch Research Institute, Economic Policy Note 16.3 (2016): 2016.

[6]. Jourdan, Stan & Lonergan, Eric. 2016. “Citizens’ Monetary Dividend: Upgrading the ECB’s toolkit”. Quantitative Easing For People, Policy Brief, September 2016. 

Monetary Reform: Simple Spiel

 

What monetary reform is all about is to promote a bill that has already been drafted in various formulations here in the USA. One in the 1930s and one in 2012. And it concerns a radical change in the current monetary system.

In western countries, the proportion of bank money is about 93-97%. If everyone were to pay off their debt, only a very small amount of money would remain (3-7%).

What most people, including bankers and economists, do not understand is that the money supply comes from banks issuing credit. Most people think that if you borrow for example $200,000, a bank already has that money in the form of deposits from other customers (or equity), and then passes that amount on to the borrower. Not so. The bank creates credit as debt which ‘circulates’ in the economy as if it were money. And when you pay off your loan, the principal is written off, and the money supply decreases (sort of destroying that money). The interest goes into the pocket of the bank.

This sounds counter-intuitive, but this phenomenon has long been known to some economists, sociologists, historians, politicians and critics. Only a few see the consequence that an economic article of faith, i.e. investments follow from savings, is incorrect. The savings are the result of bank lending.

The credit-based monetary system is inherently unstable. If the bank debts are not paid properly, the bank money loses its backing. The government must then help. In this system, the greatest concern is that everyone continues to pay their debts properly. However, debt levels have become unsustainable. In a non-commercial monetary system, this could be easily solved, by putting extra cash into circulation with which to pay off debts. However, the current credit-based monetary system focuses on commercial exploitation. In that system, no debts can be canceled and no money can be given away “for nothing.” Within this commercial system, unsustainable debts will have to be addressed through inflation. This prevents the loss generated by the rickety monetary system from ending up with the banks. The public and society are left with the tab. That is unnecessary and perverse. Hence, I am recruiting you to promote a monetary system that serves society, rather than the oligarchy that exploits it for its convenience.

The very dangerous side of this system lies in the short-term thinking of the banks. Most people expect banks to be prudent, but they are not. Too many loans when things are going well in a boom, and too few during a bust. As a result, the money supply and the economy fluctuate like a yo-yo with repeated financial crises and dramatic consequences for the citizen.

Some even think that this ‘invention’ of bank money is the semi-secret engine of imperialist capitalism and is pushing the world to its doom. All this bank money is manically looking for returns and just waltzes over citizens, governments and nature in search of the greatest possible profit.

What we are now proposing is a system of sovereign, stable money that is issued by the state and managed by a monetary authority. Banks are no longer allowed to create money themselves and will finance their loans with either their own capital, raised capital or savings.

And the monetary authority then has the responsibility to ensure that enough money flows through the economy such that neither inflation nor deflation takes place. And a growing and stable economy thus needs a proportional increase in the money supply, which is calculated by the monetary authority and then gives Congress the green light to spend it democratically as debt-free money.

According to economic analyses and computer models, this system has the advantage that bank runs will no longer take place, the economy is more stable, economic inequality decreases, and that public debt and debt in general will decrease. And because the state now (again) has the right to be the first to spend new money, and it can do this democratically, there is much more leeway to tackle the major social problems. The austerity mindset can be lifted and society can be freed from the political power and malignant priorities of the banking system. Banks naturally have a social function, such as evaluating the creditworthiness of citizens and companies, but they are no longer allowed to run the monetary system.

The monetary system should be seen as a utility company and history provides many examples that the state can do this better than private institutions.

In the Netherlands, our sister organization is called Ons Geld (Our Money) and has put this subject on the political agenda through a citizens’ initiative and with the help of the theater group De Verleiders (The Seducers) and their play Door de Bank Genomen (Taken by the Bank). The political process is a bit slow, but they continue to work towards a socially responsible monetary system.

____________

This blog was written originally in Dutch to explain friends and family there why I took the job of managing director of the Alliance For Just Money in december of 2020. I checked the piece with Edgar Wortmann for grammar and content and then translated it into English. That’s why it might not flow as it could if I’d had it written in English in the first draft and why there is this reference at the end to Dutch monetary reform efforts only.

Additions to Bibliography May 2021

 

Dear folks,

Find here the link to the fourth AFJM Monetary Reform bibliography update.

The list, as is the bibliography itself here on Alpheus and on the AFJM web site, is alphabetized and categorized under Academic Sources, MMT Issue, Advocacy, Supporting Studies, Articles, Videos and Background Studies.

The list contains about ten dozen items collected over the last year. Some are brand new, most were published in the last 5 years.

One of the highlights would be the collection of articles relevant to monetary reform by Richard C. Cook, who worked with Stephen Zarlenga on the NEED Act and was our AFJM Coffee House guest on Aug 24, 2020.

Another highlight is the publication of Uli Kortsch’s anthology The Next Money Crash and its ‘stable’ of authors. Kortsch was also a guest at our coffee house (see also the video section with videos from the “Our Money” conference he organized).

Also articles by AFJM members Steven Walsh, Joe Bongiovanni, Richard Robbins, Ralph Musgrave and Ben Rininger found their way into the list, as well as monetary reform academics Joseph Huber, Mary Mellor, Ben Dyson, Kaoru Yamaguchi, Patrizio Lainà and Ronnie Phillips.

Then I found some writers already active in the 1990s on the monetary reform front like Thomas Greco and William Hixon.

For an international, geo-political perspective I can recommend the articles by Kai Koddenbrock (very much so) and Radhika Dessai.

About doublespeak by Swiss bankers read Pierre Ortlieb and on the MMT front consult Jeff Eder.

A fascinating tale of a legal challenge to the bank money system can be found in Thomas Olson’s reporting on the Credit River Case.

In the video section find another TedTalk on money by Stef Kuypers, and the series of presentations and discussions on monetary reform efforts in Switzerland.

Also many items addressing ‘narrow banking’ were added.

Lastly, some overlap between money and literature was addressed by George Reiff (on Goethe) and Bradly Hansen (on the Wizard of Oz).

For additions or corrections contact the editor.

Govert Schuller

Additions to Bibliography – May 2021

Educational and Promotional Videos

 

VIDEOS ON MONETARY THEORY AND REFORM

 

A. TOP 12 Videos
B. Videos Produced in the Monetary Reform Movement
C. Other Monetary Theory and Reform Videos of Interest
D. Background Videos

 

A. TOP 12 VIDEOS

Bjerg, Ole. 2016. “Where does money come from?“ TEDxCopenhagen. 24 May 2016.

Bongiovanni, Joe. 2013. “Why Monetary Reform Must Become Your Number One Issue“. Argusfest on YouTube. 29 Sept 2013.

Dyson, Ben. 2014. “Why Our Monetary System Is Broken and How It Can Be Fixed“. Presentation at the Economy, People and Planet conference at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). Positive Money on YouTube. 1 Oct 2014.

Grant, Victoria. “12 year old child reveals one of the best kept secrets in the world”. Public Banking Institute. 5 May 2013.

Hammon, Virginia. 2019. “How We Can Pay for a Better World: Change the Money System“. How We Pay for a Better World. YouTube. 30 Aug 2019.

Hammon, Virginia. 2020. “A Solution to the Crisis – Just Money Now!“. How We Pay for a Better World. YouTube. 21 July 2020.

Kucinich, Dennis. 2012. “The Key to Economic Recovery; Kucinich Explains Monetary Reform”. DJ Kucinich on YouTube. 8 May 2012.

Positive Money. 2011. “A Simple Solution to the Debt Crisis“. Positive Money on YouTube. 13 Aug 2011.

Positive Money. 2013. “What Is Money?“. Positive Money on YouTube. 13 May 2013.

Positive Money. 2013. “10 year old explains the truth about where money comes from…” Positive Money on YouTube. 4 Sep 2013.

Wolf, Martin. 2014. “Case for Radical Monetary Refrom“. Keynote speech at “Bridging Theory and Practice” conference organized by the Sustainable Finance Lab, Amsterdam, 14 Dec 2016. Sustainable Finance Lab on YouTube. 16 Oct 2018. (Accompanying slides)

Zarlenga, Stephen. 2009. “Nationalize the Fed: End Banks Power to Create Money”. Recorded 2 May 2009. YouTube. 22 June 2009.

 

B. VIDEOS PRODUCED IN THE MONETARY REFORM MOVEMENT

American Monetary Institute. Collection of Videos. American Monetary Institute on YouTube.

Boait, Fran. 2013. “How the current money system is damaging Businesses, Society and Environment“. Presentation at the Positive Money Conference, January 2013. Positive Money on YouTube. 22 Mar 2013.

Boait, Fran. 2014. “How does the money system affect Inequality, Housing & Environment?“. Positive Money on YouTube. 21 Dec 2014.

Bongiovanni, Joe. 2013. “Why Monetary Reform Must Become Your Number One Issue“. Argusfest on YouTube. 29 Sept 2013.

Bongiovanni, Joe. 2014. “Why Should GUV Borrow? Who Controls the Money?“. Economic Stability on YouTube. 25 Jan 2014.

Bongiovanni, Joe. 2017. “On Public Money: Thoughts on our Monetary Sytem, and our History of Public Money“. Presentation at the 2017 “Democracy Convention”, Minneapolis, MS. AMI on YouTube. 9 Aug 2017.

Chalmers, Patrick. 2013. “Why doesn’t the Media understand Money?“. Presentation at the Positive Money Conference, January 2013. Positive Money on YouTube. 22 Feb 2013.

Chick, Victoria. 2013. “Why don’t Economists understand money?” Presentation at the Positive Money Conference, January 2013. Positive Money on YouTube. 6 Mar 2013.

Coates, Delman. 2016. “The New Abolitionism: Monetary Reform and the Struggle for Human Rights “. Presentation at the 12th AMI Conference, Chicago, September 2016. AMI on YouTube. 12 Oct 2016.

Coates, Delman. 2017. “The New Abolitionism: Monetary Reform and the Future of Social Justice”. Presentation at the 2017 Democracy Convention, Minneapolis, MS. AMI on YouTube. 9 Aug 2017.

Dyson, Ben. 2012. “Power of Banks vs Democracy“. Positive Money on YouTube. 24 Oct 2012.

Dyson, Ben. 2013. “How to Fix Banking“. Presentation at the Positive Money Conference, January 2013. Positive Money on YouTube. 19 Feb 2013.

Dyson, Ben. 2014. “Why Our Monetary System Is Broken and How It Can Be Fixed“. Presentation at the Economy, People and Planet conference at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). Positive Money on YouTube. 1 Oct 2014.

Eckrich, Lucille & Walsh, Steven. 2017. “Money, Schooling and Educators: Creating a Critically-Informed Movement for Monetary Reform and Ecojustice“. Presentation at the 2017 Democracy Convention, Minneapolis, MS. AMI on YouTube. 9 Aug 2017.

Eder, Jeff. 2020. “Banking for a Better World“. Progreessive Money Canada. 6 Sep 2020.

Egnatz, Nick. 2016. “On Social Justice through Monetary Reform”. Presentation at the 11th AMI Conference, Chicago, September 2015. AMI on YouTube. 27 Jan 2016.

Hammon, Virginia. 2019. “How We Can Pay for a Better World: Change the Money System“. How We Pay for a Better World. YouTube. 30 Aug 2019.

Hammon, Virginia. 2020. “A Solution to the Crisis – Just Money Now!“. How We Pay for a Better World. YouTube. 21 July 2020.

Huber, Joseph. 2016. “How The Money System Works“. Presentation at the American Monetary Institute Conference, 2016. American Monetary Institute on YouTube. 16 Dec 2016.

Kucinich, Dennis. 2012. “The Key to Economic Recovery; Kucinich Explains Monetary Reform”. DJ Kucinich on YouTube. 8 May 2012.

Kucinich, Dennis. 2009. “Dennis Kucinich addresses AMI Monetary Reform Conference Participants 2009“. Presentation at the 5th AMI Conference, Chicago, September 27, 2009. AMI on YouTube. 13 Oct 2009.

Kucinich, Dennis. 2010. “Dennis Kucinich 5 Minutes on Money on House Floor”. AMI on YouTube. 16 Aug 2010.

Kucinich, Dennis. 2010. “Dennis Kucinich speaks on the American Monetary Act in House of Representatives – Part 1”. AMI on YouTube. 8 June 2010.

Kumhof, Michael. 2019. “Banks are not Intermediaries of Loanable Funds“. Positiva Pengar on YouTube. 13 July 2019.

Positive Money. Collection of Videos. Positive Money on YouTube.

Positive Money. 2011. “A Simple Solution to the Debt Crisis“. Positive Money on YouTube. 13 Aug 2011.

Positive Money. 2012. “House Prices: Why are they so high?“. Positive Money on YouTube. 18 Sept 2012.

Positive Money. 2012. “Why is there so much Debt?“. Positive Money on YouTube. 24 Oct 2012.

Positive Money. 2013. “What Is Money?“. Positive Money on YouTube. 13 May 2013.

Positive Money. 2013. “Inequality: Why are the rich getting richer?“. Positive Money on YouTube. 2 Aug 2013.

Positive Money. 2013. “10 year old explains the truth about where money comes from…” Positive Money on YouTube. 4 Sep 2013.

Positive Money. 2014. “Could These 3 Simple Changes to Banking Fix the Economy?” Positive Money on YouTube. 16 Jan 2014.

Positive Money. 2014. “How to waste £445 billion? (The Failure of Quantitative Easing)“. Positive Money on YouTube. 27 June 2014

Positive Money. 2014. “Banking 101“. 6 Videos. Positive Money on YouTube. 30 June 2014.

Positive Money. 2019. “It’s the banks, stupid“. Positive Money on YouTube. 8 Aug 2019.

Melor, Mary. 2010. “Money is Us: The Social and Public Nature of Money“. Presentation at the Positive Money Student Conference on Monetary Reform and Fractional Reserve Banking. In three parts. Positive Money on YouTube. 14 Dec 2010.

Morris, Miriam. 2013. “How to change the money system“. Presentation at the Positive Money Conference, January 2013. Positive Money on YouTube. 12 Mar 2013.

Poteat, Robert. 2010. “The Case for Monetary Reform“. Presentation at the 6th Annual AMI Conference, Chicago, September 2010. AMI on YouTube. 14 Oct 2010. [Not complete]

Switzer, Howard. 2017. “Climate Change and Money: Hacking at the Root“. Presentation at the 2017 Democracy Convention, Minneapolis, MS. AMI on YouTube. 14 Aug 2017.

Turner, Aidar. 2015. “A new era for monetary policy“. Positive Money on YouTube. 17 Feb 2015.

Walton, Jamie et al. 2017. “On Public Money: The Need Act“. Presentation at the 2017 Democracy Convention, Minneapolis, MS. AMI on YouTube. 26 Aug 2017.

Zarlenga, Stephen. 2009. “Nationalize the Fed: End Banks Power to Create Money”. Recorded 2 May 2009. YouTube. 22 June 2009.

Zarlenga, Stephen. 2010. “AMI’s Purpose, Objectives and Methodology“. Presentation at the 6th Annual AMI Conference, Chicago, September 2010. AMI on YouTube. 13 Oct 2010.

Zarlenga, Stephen. 2010. “Introduction to The American Monetary Institute “. AMI on YouTube. 4 Jan 2010.

 

C. OTHER MONETARY REFORM AND THEORY VIDEOS OF INTEREST

Altraide, Dagogo. 2017. “Who Controls All of Our Money?“. ColdFusion on YouTube. 11 June 2017.

Altraide, Dagogo. 2020. “How is Money Created? – Everything You Need to Know.”. ColdFusion on YouTube. 8 June 2020.

Anon. “Solutions Unincorporated – My Name Is William”. Interview with William Abram. D See Video Productions. 4 Feb 2013.

Anon. 2012. “Where does money come from? Waar komt geld vandaan? Var kommer pengarna ifrån?” Vastgoedzeepbel, 21 Nov 2012. .

Anon. 2013. “Hitler finds out how money is created“. Ville livarinen. 18 Sep 2013.

Bjerg, Ole. 2016. “Where does money come from? “ TEDxCopenhagen. 24 May 2016.

Brown, Ellen. 2016. “Taking Back the Money Power: The Public Option in Banking“. (Q&A). Argusfest on YouTube. 13 Nov 2016.

Bruce, Jim. 2013. “Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve“. Liberty Street Films. 7 June 2013.

Conference videos: The Future of Money – 10 years after Lehman and Nakamoto. November 2018, Frankfurt, Germany. Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

Conference videos: The Future of Money – Central Bank Digital Currency and Beyond. 15 June 2019, Stockholm, Sweden. Positiva Pengar

Corbett, James. 2014. “Century of Enslavement“. The Corbett Report. 11 July 2014.

Dalio, Ray. 2013. “How The Economic Machine Works“. YouTube, 22 Sept 2013.

Desan, Christine. 2011. “Booms and Busts: The Legal Dynamics of Modern Money “. OpenCulture.com, 12.

Desan, Christine A. 2013. “Modern Money & Public Purpose 5: Constitutional History ”. Presentation at seminar, “Money, Democracy and the Constitution: Revolutionary Experience in the United States”. Modern Money Network. 16 Mar 2013.

Desan, Christine. 2017. “The Dollar as a Democratic Medium: Making Money a Currency of Social Justice ”. HLS Thinks Big, 23 May 2017.

Graeber, David. 2017. “Where Did Money Really Come From? ”. YouTube. 17 Oct 2017.

Grant, Victoria. “12 year old child reveals one of the best kept secrets in the world”. Public Banking Institute. 5 May 2013.

Horwath, Mike & Oswald, Michael. 2012. “97% Owned – Economic Truth documentary – How is Money Created “. Documentary. Independent POV. YouTube. May 1 2012.

Huber, Joseph. 2018. “Vollgeld – Yes, Implementing a Sovereign Money System“. Presentation at “Our Money, Our Banks, Our Country – Money Creation in the Modern Economy” conference by The Monetary Institute, Zürich, February 2018. The Monetary Institute on YouTube. 23 April 2018.

Klein, Manuel et al. 2018. Conference videos and papers. Berlin, Germany: Monetative. 24 Nov 2018.

Kotlikoff, Larry. 2018. “Why I Support Sovereign Money“. Presentation at “Our Money, Our Banks, Our Country – Money Creation in the Modern Economy” conference by The Monetary Institute, Zürich, February 2018. The Monetary Institute on YouTube. 23 April 2018.

Kumhof, Micheal. 2013. “The Chicago Plan Revisited “. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). 22 Nov 2013.

Monetary Institute. Collection of Presentations. From “Our Money, Our Banks, Our Country – Money Creation in the Modern Economy” conference by the Monetary Institute, Zürich, February 2018. The Monetary Institute on YouTube.

Niepelt, Dirk & Rimkus, Ron. 2016. “Contemplating the End of Fractional Reserve Banking in Switzerland”. CFA Institute.

Orrrefur, Samuel K. et al (Eds.). 2019. “The Future of Money: Central Bank Digital Currency and Beyond “. Conference videos. Stockholm: Positiva Pengar. 15 June 2019.

Oswald, Michael. 2014. “Princes of the Yen: Central Banks and the Transformation of the Economy”. Documentary. Independent POV. YouTube. 4 Nov 2014.

Oxley, James. 2014. “Money creation in the modern economy – Quarterly Bulletin Article”. Bank of England on YouTube. 12 Mar 2014.

Oxley, James. 2014. “Money in the modern economy: An introduction – Quarterly Bulletin Article”. Bank of England on YouTube. 12 Mar 2014.

Permanent Commission on Finance. 2015. “Round table conversation on the money system“. Hearing at the Permanent Commission on Finance of the Second Chamber of the States General of the Netherlands. Troelstra Hall. 14 Oct 2015.

Public Banking Institute. Collection of Videos. Argusfest on YouTube.

Rosenblith, Alan. 2009. “The Money Fix – A Documentary for Monetary Reform ”.

Still, Bill. 2013. “Jekyll Island: The Truth Behind The Federal Reserve“. YouTube, 7 April 2018.

Titus, John. 2019. “Mommy, Where Does Money Come From?“. BestEvidence on YouTube. 15 April 2019.

Vollgeld Initiative & Studierende für die Freiheit & Hayek Club. 2017.“Monetary reform and the future of money”. Panel discussion at the University of Zürich.

Vrabel, Damon. “Renaissance 2.0 – the Rise of Financial Empire”. csper.org. 9 Jan 2012.

Vrabel, Damon.”Debunking Money – The Way the World Really Works”. csper.org. 10 Jan 2012.

Werner, Richard. 2018. “Today’s Source of Money Creation“. Presentation at “Our Money, Our Banks, Our Country – Money Creation in the Modern Economy” conference by The Monetary Institute, Zürich, February 2018. The Monetary Institute on YouTube. 23 April 2018.

Wortmann, Edgar. 2015. “Verkenning van de monetaire werkelijkheid [Exploring Monetary Reality]”. In English. Presentation at the University of Leiden. In two parts. (part 1); (part 2).

Wolf, Martin. 2014. “Stop banks from creating money“. Presentation at “Does Money Grow on Trees?” event, 9 Sept 2014. Positive Money on YouTube. 14 Oct 2014.

Wolf, Martin. 2014. “On Radical Reform for the Global Financial System“. Presentation at the New York Council on Foreign Relations, 17 Oct 2014. Council on Foreign Relations on YouTube. 17 Oct 2014.

Wolf, Martin. 2014. “Case for Radical Monetary Refrom“. Keynote speech at “Bridging Theory and Practice” conference organized by the Sustainable Finance Lab, Amsterdam, 14 Dec 2016. Sustainable Finance Lab on YouTube. 16 Oct 2018. (Accompanying slides)

On Money: The Libra versus Sovereignty

A US-based progressive monthly, The Nation, just published an article about the Libra by MMT enthusiast Rohan Grey, titled:

“Facebook Wants Its Own Currency. That Should Scare Us All. Instead of embracing Facebook’s Libra, we should be rallying for a public option for digital currency.”

This is an interesting article and deserves close scrutiny for several reasons. First of all it sounds the alarm about this proposal by a group of transnational corporations led by Facebook to capture the privilege of issuing currency at the expense of sovereign, public institutions. For Democrats, he observes,

. . . the core issue is the ever-greater concentration of economic power in the hands of private actors who lack any meaningful commitment to democratic values.

Secondly, and as a direct effect of this concern, citizens will have to think seriously about what money is; where it comes from; the advantages and disadvantages of the current system; and what reforms are possible and needed to prevent a wholesale kidnapping of our money system.

For better or worse, Libra has brought monetary reform to the forefront of our collective consciousness, and made it impossible to ignore.

The third point is the author’s own extensive list of possible changes, which is blind to the most obvious solution. He commendably mentions bank accounts at postal banks to service the un- and under-banked, and the introduction of digital cash. But, while he refers to the Bank of England’s seminal 2014 paper on how commercial banks create most of our money supply, he merely proposes to regulate that practice and not bring it back under democratic control. He ignores the solution presented by sovereign money advocates who are actively fighting for returning money to democratic control.

The fourth point is that the author of this article, Rohan Grey, is highly sympathetic to modern monetary theory (MMT), which is an amalgamation of economic theories and incorrect assertions. For sovereign monetary reformers, a very curious aspect of MMT is that it correctly embraces the credit theory of money creation, i.e. banks create 90-95% of what we use as money through extending loans, but it is strangely oblivious to the disastrous effects and possible remedies of that privatized money creation system. This MMT sympathy would explain why the author is in favor of digital cash but not necessarily of nationalizing the money supply, which would remove the current privilege of private commercial banks to create our money supply.

We are in agreement with MMT’s opposition to a corporate owned and controlled money system such as Libra and will work with them to oppose this development and promote public digital cash. However, we strongly disagree with MMT’s desire to keep the existing privately-created debt-money supply intact, because it is dysfunctional. Leaving the current money system in place and supplementing it with some changes in banking does not solve the deeper systemic problems of inequality, injustice, and an unsustainable economy. Upgrading from privately created debt-money to publicly created asset money is the best long-term solution. Why does MMT ignore this solution?

The author closes the article with arguably the best observation made on the Libra.

Libra, then, represents the preemptive privatization of a global public monetary layer that does not yet exist: a neoliberal corporatist’s wet dream.

Richard Wolff’s Trajectory beyond MMT into SMR

Introduction

Recently I watched two episodes of the progressive Thom Hartmann Program in which the host discussed banking and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) with the Marxist economist Richard Wolff [1, 2]. Following are the pertinent points I came away with, which developed into a little article, in which I will try to make the case that, when Wolff found in MMT the correct theory of banking and money, he actually went beyond MMT. He did so by discerning some of the theory’s obvious policy implications, which people promoting Sovereign Monetary Reform (SMR)–which is a competing monetary theory focused on a radical reform of the monetary system–would heartily agree with.

Many persons in the comments section stated that both Hartmann and Wolff did not really understand MMT. For example the most stinging (pun intended) came from John B, commenting that

Prof Wolff knows very little about MMT or the functional operation of the banking system. As an academic, he should be conscious that one should not talk ‘authoritatively’ on a specialty discipline that one has not adequately researched[2].

This lack of understanding might be a surprise because both Wolff and Hartmann have had encounters with one of MMT’s spokespersons, Stephanie Kelton, and I assume that they have read some relevant literature.

Where Wolff is Right

Maybe it is most fair to say that Wolff’s understanding of MMT is half wrong and half right. He is right to state that, in order to originate loans, “banks do not depend on other people’s money”[2]. Banks can just credit the deposit account of their client when they sign up for a loan. This is basically the credit creation theory of money and banking.  Its truth is now admitted by central banks like the Bank of England [3] and empirically tested by the economist and central banking expert Richard Werner [4].

He is also right in the idea that the government can fine-tune the economy by increasing and decreasing the supply of money in circulation. This idea goes back to the theory of “functional finance” pioneered by Abba Lerner [5] and incorporated by MMT [6].

He also thinks that when government can create its own money it can drastically decrease its debt burden. He also correctly observed that leaving the money supply “in the hands of people who look at it as a source of private profit is a recipe for the disasters”[2] of the 2007/8 Global Financial Crisis which necessitated massive government bail-outs.

On all these points there is quite some agreement between the experts, MMT and the sovereign money reformers like Dr. Joseph Huber, Dr. Patricio Laina and the good folks at organizations like the American Monetary Institute (AMI), The Alliance for Just Money (AFJM) and the International Movement for Monetary Reform (IMMR).

Where Wolff is Wrong

Wollf is mistaken though when he ascribes to MMT the position that it is wrong to leave the power of money creation with banks and have that power transferred back to the government to put it under democratic control. The position of MMT is to leave the privilege of bank credit creation with the banks, while it assumes that the government already has the power to create money, unrestricted by any funding through taxation or selling bonds.

People promoting SMR will agree with Wolff that the money creation power should be transferred from the banks to the government. In the USA there exists a bill, the NEED Act, exactly proposing that [7]. And SMR disagrees with MMT’s position that taxes and bonds do not finance government spending and that government can just spend money under the existing rules and laws [8].

The Conflation and Confusion of Theories

The three main theories on money and banking all came into play in these conversations between Hartmann and Wolff, but were not sufficiently differentiated and separately evaluated. Hartmann, with his example of a $1m deposit becoming the basis to create $10m extra in loans seems to conflate the credit creation theory and the deposit multiplier theory. The credit creation theory basically says that bank credit money can be created out of nothing and that, at the end of the day, reserve requirements will be easily provided by the central bank. What drives the loan creation process is the demand for loans coupled to the banks’ evaluation of their profitability. Apparently the supply of money is not an issue.

The deposit multiplier theory posits a tight correlation between reserve requirements and the money supply. The often used example is from a 1961 FRB of Chicago publication in which an initial deposit of $10,000 and a reserve requirement of 10% can theoretically balloon into $90,000 in loans and investments. This happens when, in multiple stages, the bank loans out 90% of its deposit ($9,000), which will find its way first into the bank account of the borrower and from there into the account of the entity providing the merchandise or service for which purpose the loan was originated. The bank holding the second account in question can then originate a loan of $8,100, being the 90% allowed of the $9,000 deposit. This process can then be duplicated multiple times [11].

What Hartmann thinks is that a bank can just create $10m out of nothing based on a $1m deposit and an implied 10% reserve acquirement. This unrealistic scenario is not covered by any of these theories and looks more like a conflation of the credit creation theory and the deposit multiplier theory.

Wolff then corrects Hartmann with explaining the old and discredited financial intermediation theory of banking according to which banks make their profit by lending out money for a higher interest rate than they themselves pay to attract depositors. In this theory banks do not create nor multiply the money supply and merely mediate between those who have money to lend and those who desire money to borrow.

From MMT to SMR

Interestingly Wolff made these comments in the April 11, 2019 Hartmann program on the banking system and took them back again in the May 2, 2019 program on MMT. In the second program he first again explained the financial intermediation theory with the narration that first the money supply is created by the Federal Reserve and then banks can lend most of this money out again. Then, by explaining MMT’s research on how banks really operate, he switched to the credit creation theory as the correct one.

When a bank issues a loan nowadays, all that it does is create an account for the recipient of the loan and then the bank deposits into that account the amount of money that they had lend to the borrower. In other words, the bank is not dependent on other people putting deposits in . . . [2].

It looks like that Wolff had done some homework on MMT and was converted from the refuted financial intermediation theory to the credit creation theory. At the same time he did some suplemental thinking or reading over and beyond MMT, because he incorrectly projects behind MMT “the critical impulse” that “we should never have and we should not now put the control of the money supply so utterly into the hands of the banks” and mistakenly thinks that therefore MMT proposes that “we should have the creation of money brought back under the complete control of the government”. I am not sure where he might have found these ideas, but they are positions SMR is promoting and to which MMT is actually explicitly hostile to [9].

Conclusion

In short, the SMR crowd should be elated that Wolff, after learning some MMT and thereby switching from the old financial intermediation to the correct credit creation theory, apparently went beyond MMT by thinking through the policy implications of the credit creation theory and thereby arrived at a position with which SMR is quite in agreement, i.e. “we should have the creation of money brought back under the complete control of the government”.

This position might have been foreshadowed in Wolff’s book Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens in which he made the statement that to “ignore alternatives to private megabanks condemns us all to longer lasting, more socially costly, and recurring crises”[10].

Govert Schuller
Naperville, May 19, 2019

Sources

[1]. “Richard Wolff Explains How the Hell our Banking System was Put Together“. YouTube. Uploaded by Thom Hartmann Program, 11 April 2019.

[2]. “The Truth About Modern Monetary Theory (w/ Richard Wolff)“. YouTube. Uploaded by Thom Hartmann Program, 2 May 2019.

[3]. McLeay, Michael & Radia, Amar & Thomas, Ryland. 2014a. “Money Creation in the Modern Economy”. Monetary Analysis Directorate. Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin (Q1, 2014): 14-27.

[4]. Werner, Richard A. 2016. “A lost century in economics: Three theories of banking and the conclusive evidence”. International Review of Financial Analysis, 46 (July 2016): 361-379.

[5]. Lerner, Abba P. 1943. “Functional Finance and the Federal Debt“. Social Research, 10/1 (Feb): 38-5.

[6]. Bell [Kelton], Stephanie. 2000 “Do Taxes and Bonds Finance Government Spending?” Journal of Economic Issues, 34/3: 603-620.

[7]. H.R.2990 – National Emergency Employment Defense Act of 2011 (NEED Act). 112th US Congress (2011-2012).

[8]. Huber, Joseph. 2019a. “Modern Money Theory revisited – still the same false promise“. Sovereign Money, March 2019. Also here.

[9]. Mitchell, William. 2019. “The conga line of MMT critics – marching into oblivion“. Bill Mitchell – Modern Monetary Theory. 7 March 2019.

[10]. Wolff, Richard. 2016. Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown 2010-2014. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Page 117.

[11]. Nichols, Dorothy M. & Gonczy, Anne Marie L. 1961-1994. “Modern Money Mechanics: A Workbook on Bank Reserves and Deposit Expansion”. Chicago: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.