Graham Hodgson (Guest Author)
“#PosMonWrong” – Mike King’s campaign against Positive Money
29 October, 2015A few weeks ago, a paper entitled "Why Positive Money is Wrong: An Obligations Analysis of Broad Money Growth" was published by Mike King, a writer and academic whose book "Quakernomics: An ethical capitalism", was published in 2014. The thesis of King's paper is that any increase in the stock of money must be due [...]
Helicopter money: setting the tale straight (A response to the Bank of England’s Underground blog)
11 August, 2015In his August 5th post at Bank Underground ("a blog for the Bank of England's staff to share views that challenge - or support - prevailing policy orthodoxies") Fergus Cumming, a member of the Bank's Monetary Assessment and Strategy Division, discusses helicopter money proposals. He explains "why such a policy is different to quantitative easing, [...]
State issued digital currency in Ecuador?
1 September, 2014The BBC published an article on Saturday "Ecuador gives details of new digital currency" reporting that the Central Bank of Ecuador was to issue a digital currency. The story apparently originated with the New Delhi Television (NDTV) technology team, to which the BBC provides a link. The BBC report is largely a rewrite of the [...]
From negative to positive: Money without the debt
25 April, 2014We need to reform a money system that no longer serves the needs of the public This article appeared originally on the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute's website It used to be thought that the means of final settlement of payments had to possess intrinsic value. Since the means of exchange had to be physically [...]
It’s official! Economics students are being misinformed, says Bank of England
13 March, 2014Since at least the 1960s, central bankers have, in their ones and twos, been quietly airing the message through ill-reported speeches and evidence to official committees that money is created by private banks when they make loans. But in their pronouncements targeted at the general public they have persisted in reiterating the fictions promoted by [...]
Quantitative Easing: What happened to the money?
21 November, 2013Quantitative Easing (QE) created reserves to pay for bonds (eventually entirely government bonds) bought by the Bank of England from the private sector. The expectation was that those who sold the bonds would use the money to buy new bonds issued by private corporations to replace bank lending which had dried up. The first [...]
Our money system guarantees that inequality will get worse – Here is the evidence
25 October, 2013The gap between the very richest and the rest of us has increased continuously over the last thirty years. Did you know that top 10% of population earns on average 6 times more than the bottom 90%? Many factors contribute to this growing gap, but one of the most significant is least understood: the role of money creation by [...]
How failed banks on life support can grant humungous bonuses
22 May, 2013In the May 21st edition of London's Evening Standard its financial editor Anthony Hilton laid into the Basel regulatory endorsement of "mark-to-model" risk assessment, citing a speech delivered to the Atlanta Fed by the Bank of England's Andrew Haldane last month. Hilton reported that: "In the course of recent research, Haldane has come to some [...]
Mervyn King – Friend or Foe?
5 May, 2012Here is a transcript of what Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, said on the BBC Radio 4 annual Today Lecture on Wednesday night BBC News - Today - The Today Lecture 2012: Sir Mervyn King. The lecture offered little to excite but the answers he gave to questions from the audience and [...]