The REAL Battle Over America's Banking System → Washingtons Blog
The REAL Battle Over America's Banking System - Washingtons Blog

Monday, October 12, 2009

The REAL Battle Over America's Banking System


The battle to reform the American banking system needs to include reimposing the barrier between investment banking and depository banking (Glass-Steagall), pay incentives based on what is best for Americans and not just the top executives, the end of too big to fail, and other changes which are frequently discussed by financial writers. These are vital issues.

But there is more to the battle for reform than you might know.

New York Versus the Rest of the Country

If you are happy with the banking system, and don't think it needs to be reformed, then you probably work for one of the banks headquartered in New York.

Indeed, the banks outside of New York have acted much more conservatively, used more conservative capital ratios and less leverage and gotten less involved in credit derivatives and other speculative investments.

Buy a banker in the Midwest a drink, and he will probably rail against the giant New York banks for causing the financial crisis, costing the smaller, better run banks a lot of money and huge fees, and driving many smaller banks out of business.

And even within the Federal Reserve, what the New York Fed and Bernanke are saying is wholly different from what the heads of the regional Fed banks are saying. The Fed banks in Philadelphia and Kansas City and Dallas and elsewhere disagree with what the New York Fed and Fed's Open Market Committee are doing. See this and this.

So the battle isn't between bankers versus outsiders. It is between the giant New York money-centered banks and the rest of the country.

Reserve Requirements

Congresswoman Kaptur said last week:

We used to have capital ratios. We need to get back to them. Ten to one. For every dollar in your bank, you can lend ten. You know what J.P. Morgan did? A hundred to one. And then with derivatives, who knows how much?
Remember, Milton Friedman - the monetary economist worshipped as the guy with all of the answers in the latter part of the 20th century - advocated for 100% reserves.

Friedman has been deified as the economist to follow. But his views on reserve requirements have been completely ignored.

Goldman Using Taxpayer Dollars to Buy Stock in China?

As everyone knows, Goldman became a "bank holding company" in September, to be able to access funds from the Fed at essentially zero percent interest.

But in a new interview with Bill Moyers, Simon Johnson noted that in August of 2009, Goldman switched again - to a "financial holding company".

What's the difference?

Johnson says that being a financial holding company means that Goldman can borrow money from the Fed at essentially no cost, and then invest it in any thing it wants. For example, Johnson says that Goldman has bought a large share of the stock of a Chinese automaker. Johnson says that if the investment succeeds, Goldman will reap the profits; but if it fails, the taxpayers are on the hook.

Banks Have the Power to Create Money

Congresswoman Kaptur also said last week:

Banks have the power to create money. And decide how much that is worth.

What is Kaptur talking about?

Here Comes the Judge

Well, in First National Bank v. Daly (often referred to as the "Credit River" case) the court found that the bank created money without having the reserves:

[The president of the First National Bank of Montgomery] admitted that all of the money or credit which was used as a consideration [for the mortgage loan given to the defendant] was created upon their books, that this was standard banking practice exercised by their bank in combination with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneaopolis, another private bank, further that he knew of no United States statute or law that gave the Plaintiff [bank] the authority to do this.
The court also held:
The money and credit first came into existence when they [the bank] created it.
(Here's the case file).

Nobel Economists, Congressmen, the Fed and Treasury Agree

Still confused?

Well, let's hear from some top economists.

As PhD economist Steve Keen pointed out recently, 2 Nobel-prize winning economists have shown that the assumption that reserves are created from excess deposits is not true:

The model of money creation that Obama’s economic advisers have sold him was shown to be empirically false over three decades ago.

The first economist to establish this was the American Post Keynesian economist Basil Moore, but similar results were found by two of the staunchest neoclassical economists, Nobel Prize winners Kydland and Prescott in a 1990 paper Real Facts and a Monetary Myth.

Looking at the timing of economic variables, they found that credit money was created about 4 periods before government money. However, the “money multiplier” model argues that government money is created first to bolster bank reserves, and then credit money is created afterwards by the process of banks lending out their increased reserves.

Kydland and Prescott observed at the end of their paper that:

Introducing money and credit into growth theory in a way that accounts for the cyclical behavior of monetary as well as real aggregates is an important open problem in economics.

In other words, if the conventional view that excess reserves (stemming either from customer deposits or government infusions of money) lead to increased lending were correct, then Kydland and Prescott would have found that credit is extended by the banks (i.e. loaned out to customers) after the banks received infusions of money from the government. Instead, they found that the extension of credit preceded the receipt of government monies.

Keen explained in an interview Friday that 25 years of research shows that creation of debt by banks precedes creation of government money, and that debt money is created first and precedes creation of credit money.

As Mish has previously noted:

Conventional wisdom regarding the money multiplier is wrong. Australian economist Steve Keen notes that in a debt based society, expansion of credit comes first and reserves come later.

This angle of the banking system has actually been discussed for many years by leading experts:

“[Banks] do not really pay out loans from the money they receive as deposits. If they did this, no additional money would be created. What they do when they make loans is to accept promissory notes in exchange for credits to the borrowers' transaction accounts."
- 1960s Chicago Federal Reserve Bank booklet entitled “Modern Money Mechanics”

“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
- Economist John Kenneth Galbraith

[W]hen a bank makes a loan, it simply adds to the borrower's deposit account in the bank by the amount of the loan. The money is not taken from anyone else's deposit; it was not previously paid in to the bank by anyone. It's new money, created by the bank for the use of the borrower.
- Robert B. Anderson, Secretary of the Treasury under Eisenhower, in an interview reported in the August 31, 1959 issue of U.S. News and World Report

“Do private banks issue money today? Yes. Although banks no longer have the right to issue bank notes, they can create money in the form of bank deposits when they lend money to businesses, or buy securities. . . . The important thing to remember is that when banks lend money they don’t necessarily take it from anyone else to lend. Thus they ‘create’ it.”
-Congressman Wright Patman, Money Facts (House Committee on Banking and Currency, 1964)

"The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.
- Sir Josiah Stamp, president of the Bank of England and the second richest man in Britain in the 1920s.

Banks create money. That is what they are for. . . . The manufacturing process to make money consists of making an entry in a book. That is all. . . . Each and every time a Bank makes a loan . . . new Bank credit is created -- brand new money.
- Graham Towers, Governor of the Bank of Canada from 1935 to 1955

Monetary reformers argue that the government should take the power of money creation back from the private banks and the Federal Reserve system.

Indeed, PhD economist and candidate for Florida governor Farid Khavari wants to create a Bank of the State of Florida, to create credit without burdening the state and its citizens with high interest charges by private banks.

The state of North Dakota already has such a bank.

The bottom line is that monetary reformers argue that letting banks create credit and money and then charge high interest rates creates massive levels of debt for states and taxpayers. They argue that the power to create money should be reclaimed by the government and taken away from the private banks.

Personally, I agree with the monetary reformers. But even for those who think this is too radical a proposition, the question is whether a system where debt has to constantly and continually expand to keep the economy afloat is sustainable.

The Ever-Expanding Bubble

In a hearing held on September 30, 1941 in the House Committee on Banking and Currency, then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Mariner S. Eccles) said:

That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.
Indeed, Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said:
If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.
America's banking system needs to be fundamentally reformed.





6 comments:

  1. Google Ellen Brown.

    Permanent money.

    Monetary Reform.

    NOW!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm a great fan of Steve Keen. His book, Debunking Economics, is required reading for everyone who wants to understand basic economics in terms of what's wrong with the orthodox approach and what to do about it.

    Steve is a circuitist who studies the economy in terms of the non-governmental financial system. (See Monetary circuit Theory. To get a more complete picture of the economy as whole, It is also important to pay close attention to the interaction of the governmental and non-governmental financial systems. Modern chartalismaka neo-chartalism studies this aspect of the economy.

    Bill Mitchell recently conducted a debate with Steve Keen on the differences between these approaches at billyblog. It's in three parts. Here is the first. Steve answers in the comments. Many other commentators are also knowledgeable. This series is a must read, as well as the seminal articles to which Bill links.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Charles Walters(1926-2009),my preferred mentor in all matters agronomic and economic for over 30 years wrote last year "It is willed ignorance that permits the privatization of the constitutional mandate for Congress to "coin the money and regulate the value therof," this by permitting mere business hustlers to take over a sovereign power." For more Charles see www.economy101.net and http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/History%20of%20Money_CW.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  4. Government should not have a monopoly privilege to counterfeit money any more than a central bank. If legal tender laws were repealed, the market would choose honest money and the federal reserve would disappear. Someone would have to be pretty naive to trust a gov't to take the place of a central bank and not act in the exact same manner.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The problem is in fact more serious than you portray it to be. Please look at Greg Pytel's seminal article - The Largest Heist in History

    Quote:

    When the financial crisis erupted at the end of September 2008, there was an unusual sense of incredible panic among banking executives and government officials. These two establishment groups are known for their conservative, understated approach and, above all, their stiff upper lip. Yet at the time they appeared to the public running about like headless chickens. It was chaos. A state of complete chaos. Within a few weeks, however, decisions were made and everything seemed to returned to normal and back under control. The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown even famously remarked that the government “saved the world.”

    But what really caused such an incredible panic in the establishment well known for its resilience? Maybe there are root causes that were not examined publicly and the government actions are nothing more than a temporary reprieve and a cover-up? Throwing good money after bad money, maybe?

    Money Making Machine

    In order to answer these questions we have to examine the basic principles on which the banking system operates and the mechanisms that caused the current crisis.

    End Quote

    Greg's analysis shows the real reason's why the current crisis occured. All his further articles all connect back to the central thesis outlined in this article.

    It would be worthwhile to get your viewpoint on his work.

    ReplyDelete
  6. One aspect of the current monetary system that I haven't seen mentioned here is the fact that the FED effectively holds title to everything that is paid for with FRNs. Because FRNs are the property of a private corporation, they carry a hidden lien which carries over to anything purchased with them. It is this hidden lien that allows governments to regulate nearly every aspect of our lives, because it is their property they are regulating. Furthermore, because they are the product of a foreign corporation (foreign to the de jure u.s. government if not to the American continent), they are taxed with an excise (i.e. income) tax. Robert Rowan and Ronald McDonald have spelled this out very eloquently in numerous radio interviews, and I am champing at the bit to read their book "They Own it All - Including YOU - Through Toxic Currency". Check out http://www.newpeopleorder.com.

    ReplyDelete

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