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posted by LaminatorX on Tuesday March 25 2014, @03:25AM   Printer-friendly

Anonymous Coward writes:

"http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/ 18/truth-money-iou-bank-of-england-austerity

Back in the 1930s, Henry Ford is supposed to have remarked that it was a good thing that most Americans didn't know how banking really works, because if they did, 'there'd be a revolution before tomorrow morning.'

Last week, something remarkable happened. The Bank of England let the cat out of the bag. In a paper called "Money Creation in the Modern Economy", co-authored by three economists from the Bank's Monetary Analysis Directorate, they stated outright that most common assumptions of how banking works are simply wrong, and that the kind of populist, heterodox positions more ordinarily associated with groups such as Occupy Wall Street are correct. In doing so, they have effectively thrown the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window."

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by SlySmiles on Tuesday March 25 2014, @10:24AM

    by SlySmiles (3841) on Tuesday March 25 2014, @10:24AM (#20892)
    In doing so, they have effectively thrown the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window
    Which really does want to ask a few more questions:
    • Assuming austerity is bad for an economy what are the reasons for implementing it?
    • All countries implementing austerity are borrowing less but still borrowing massively more than before the crisis, can this even be call austerity?
    • Every single country in the world is in massive debt, silly question, to whom?

    So really we need to move the conversation beyond the fact the central and national banks create money, that all currency in the 21st Century is fiat to understanding what our banks and governments are attempting to do and why. Why appeal to 'household budget' concepts?
    Why appeal the the 'hardworking person' (isn't everyone working 40+ hours a week hardworking or this there a special cutoff limit?)
    Why is western governments all implementing austerity and yet the balance sheets of the their banks are 10 times bigger?

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bucc5062 on Tuesday March 25 2014, @01:08PM

    by bucc5062 (699) on Tuesday March 25 2014, @01:08PM (#20926)

    "Every single country in the world is in massive debt, silly question, to whom?"

    that that silly a question at all. The old phrase is 'follow the money', so when Greece gets the screws turned to pay it back, pay it back to whom? And what happens when they don't? If banks own the debt can they not just foreclose? Take over the country or is that the end game?

    --
    The more things change, the more they look the same
  • (Score: 1) by monster on Tuesday March 25 2014, @03:28PM

    by monster (1260) on Tuesday March 25 2014, @03:28PM (#20995) Journal

    You are hammering the nail in the head with those questions, because it has become a matter of morals, not of economic policy.

    They are using charged words, like 'easy money' (easy for whom?), 'confidence' (in what?) and 'fiscal responsibility' (is depressing the economy of the country responsible?) to mask their view that by allowing inflation to reduce the burden of debts, it's encouraging moral hazards like overspending. In their view, it's The Grasshopper and the Ant, and Grasshoppers must be punished.