by WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?First:Remove the central assumption behind the madness and recognise that money is a system of rules in which government has to be a central player, an umpire. The demonization of ‘fiat money’ is rubbish. So is the idea of freeing up market forces by deregulating the finance system. The question is not whether governments should be involved, but how they should be involved – what constitutes good governance of the system.Second:Find ways – it will require a jettisoning of the circular arguments of neo-classical economics – to reimpose some sort of control over the quantity of money. Because of financial deregulation, authorities ceded any control over the amount of credit in the system. They can only control the cost of money, the interest rate. With interest rates at
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WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?
First:Remove the central assumption behind the madness and recognise that money is a system of rules in which government has to be a central player, an umpire. The demonization of ‘fiat money’ is rubbish. So is the idea of freeing up market forces by deregulating the finance system. The question is not whether governments should be involved, but how they should be involved – what constitutes good governance of the system.
Second:Find ways – it will require a jettisoning of the circular arguments of neo-classical economics – to reimpose some sort of control over the quantity of money. Because of financial deregulation, authorities ceded any control over the amount of credit in the system. They can only control the cost of money, the interest rate. With interest rates at close to zero that remaining tool has been rendered useless.
Critics of fiat money get starry-eyed about reintroducing the gold standard or buying Bitcoin. This is because both are finite; in theory they introduce some control over the quantity of money and raise the prospect that it might once again function as a means of exchange rather than something to be debauched in an endless regress. But it is a blind alley. Neither Bitcoin nor gold can be realistically used as a means of exchange, and in any case they are both valued in fiat currency: US dollars. They are just another type of financial asset for investors to play with.
Third:The financial schemers should, even for their own sakes, shelve any ideas about a global central bank digital currency for cross-border transactions, no matter how seductive it might seem as a power grab. It would be a genuine threat to US dollar dominance, imperilling the US military’s ability to spend what it wants. The centralisation of power it implies also poses a threat to Chinese and Russian military autonomy.
Financiers like to think that soldiers are just guns for hire, that money rules everything. A glance at history suggests otherwise. If the financiers go head to head with military interests they will get some nasty surprises and we will be no closer to a solution to the monetary debauch.