A Few MORE Capital Homesteading Monetary Reforms

Yesterday we looked at one or two things that should be done to return the Federal Reserve system (or any central bank, for that matter) to its original purpose of providing adequate liquidity for private sector development for qualified agricultural, commercial, and industrial projects.  Note that financing government was not one of the original purposes for which central banks were invented.  It just turned out that way due to an accident of history . . . if by “accident” you mean “expedient for those wielding political power and who could withhold a charter unless their terms were met.”

A Few Capital Homesteading Monetary Reforms

Hokey doke, we’ve come to the conclusion that the Federal Reserve system, the central bank of the United States, needs a few tweaks to put it back on the rails and conform to the purpose for which it was originally intended: provide liquidity for private sector growth.  Yes, there’s some stuff about regulating clearinghouse operations and so on, but the main purpose was to make certain that the private sector would always have “accommodation” for qualified industrial, commercial, and agricultural development, not finance government.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 13

This week has been very busy, but mostly because we’re preparing for upcoming events, notably the annual Rally, this year stressing “Own or Be Owned”: if you do not own capital, you soon become owned as capital — what they used to call “slavery” but now call “job security” and “welfare.”

Don’t Put the Horse Before the Cart

Okay, we’ve been looking at money (looking at money you don’t have is much better than spending money you don’t have, trust us), and the key role it must play in the restructuring of the economy to empower people to take back their lives, liberties, and property, and run things for themselves, instead of for the benefit of an élite, or to conform to whatever weird idea has seized those who want to run the world for our own good.

Why Focus on the Federal Reserve?

Not naming names (YOU know who you are. . . .), but some people have accused the Federal Reserve of being the source of many of our economic ills.  While that might be the case, it can also be the source of the cure.  Of course, the real problem is how the institution is misused, not the institution itself, but if you haven’t gotten that straight by now, well, just assume it’s the case and read on.

How to Restore an Asset-Backed Reserve Currency

In recent postings we’ve seen what can happen when an economy shifts from a uniform and stable asset-backed reserve currency, to one that is worth what the government says (or hopes) it is worth, and changes the standard to meet political needs, for short-term expedience, or just for the heck of it.

What Happens When the Central Bank is Misused

Last week we looked at what a central bank is, and what it’s supposed to do.  Today we’re going to take a short look at how the whole reason for having a central bank in the first place has been diverted to serve political interests.  No wonder some people say the Federal Reserve ought to be abolished and the government just print the money it needs directly instead of fattening the purses of brokers whose only purpose is to turn the primary issuances that the Federal Reserve isn’t permitted to deal in, into secondary issuances by holding them for a microsecond.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 12

A while back, Alan Greenspan made a comment about “irrational exuberance” and the market, or something like that.  Seeing the Dow soar today after this week’s wild fluctuations (below) and you start to question your own sanity — are the experts really believing what they’re telling us about being in a “recovering” economy?  Are Happy Days really here again?

An Untapped Source for Private Sector Growth

Yesterday we asked the question on everyone’s lips.  That is, besides, “What’s for lunch?”  (What you didn’t eat for dinner, of course.)  And that is, what should the Federal Reserve system be doing?  Financing government?  No.  Financing private sector growth.

What Is a Central Bank NOT Supposed to Do?

Yesterday we looked at what central banks were designed and intended to do.  Today we look at what central banks have been diverted or hijacked into doing, i.e., shifted from providing an elastic, asset-backed reserve currency to finance the private sector by supplying liquidity for qualified agricultural, commercial, and industrial purposes, to providing virtually unlimited financing for government using an elastic, debt-backed currency to expand the power of the State.

What Is a Central Bank Supposed to Do?

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.  We won’t be wearing green on the blog today, but we will be talking about it.  Long green, that is: money.  Admittedly, that’s a pretty clumsy way of segueing into our subject, but they can’t all be smooth . . . which doesn’t detract from the importance of what we’re talking about.

What is Money?

Did you read the Wall Street Journal this morning?  Of course you did/didn’t.  Want to know something?  The people who write those front-page articles and the back page articles (and all the ones in between) for the world’s most important financial newspaper have a slight gap in their knowledge.  They don’t know what money is.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 11

It’s up!  It’s down!  Spin the wheel and see if you make or lose a fortune on Wall Street today!  Or, better, go to Las Vegas.  At least you get dinner and a show while throwing your money around — and when you win or lose, you at least know why: you forgot to placate the gods and goddesses of chance properly or sufficiently, or perform the proper rituals.

You Asked. Kelso Answered

Things do seem a little bad in economic terms these days.  A few days ago in the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson criticized the "Fed Bashers," i.e., people who want to shut down the Federal Reserve.  He was right in that the Federal Reserve is critical.  Unfortunately, this gives the impression that what the Federal Reserve is doing is fine and dandy — which we know is not the case.  As it is presently used, it represents a serious threat to economic growth and stability.

Past Savings and Pure Credit

The stock market is booming (except for that eentsy little drop yesterday ... good for the short sellers) ... but why does the economy seem so bad away from Wall Street?  It might be because a critical tenet of Louis O. Kelso’s binary economics is that the purpose of production is consumption. Within the logic of the Kelsonian economic system, all income (particularly income produced by capital), should be spent for consumption, instead of saving it for reinvestment and using it to increase capital gains (which traditionally have been accorded more favorable tax treatment than dividends).

Financing Private Sector Growth Under Capital Homesteading

According to today's Wall Street Journal, the European Central Bank is "betting big" on stimulus, i.e., print enough money, and Something Good will happen.  Add to that all the uproar over the Federal Reserve recently, and we decided to start taking a look at money and credit.  In The Formation of Capital (Harold G. Moulton, The Formation of Capital, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1935), Dr. Harold G. Moulton, president of the Brookings Institution, presented the theoretical foundation for the monetary reforms advocated under Capital Homesteading. Moulton pointed out that economic growth does not depend exclusively on past (accumulated) savings.  There need not be a tradeoff between expanded consumption and expanded investment.

Lord of the World, XV: A Perfect Society?

Welcome to the final posting in our long digression into the world of Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson, author of Lord of the World, recommended reading by Pope Francis and other intelligent people.  That was a dangerous thing for the pope to do.  People don’t understand straightforward teachings of the Catholic Church or any other moral authority.  How are they supposed to understand something as subtle as satire?

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 10

You figure it out.  All the news reports yesterday were bubbling with excitement over the U.S. jobs report, chattering on how the good news would send stock market prices soaring.  Sure enough, the stock market is soaring . . . if you’re standing on your head.  As of this writing, it’s down nearly 200 because the Federal Reserve is talking about a rate hike in June due to the drop in the “official” unemployment rate.

Lord of the World, XIV: Ordinary Heroes

Believe it or not, there are people today who think that Robert Hugh Benson’s The Dawn of All is Benson’s blueprint for an ideal society — which Benson explicitly denied.  Just in case you’re tempted to think so, despite what the author thought was obviously a satiric parody, here’s a brief summary of the book:

Lord of the World, XIII: Unstuck in Time

Properly speaking, The Dawn of All is not one of Benson’s “sensational novels,” except, perhaps, to a rabid anti-Catholic who would be incensed at the description of an admittedly fantastic (in the sense of fantasy) Catholic England in the enlightened twentieth century. Rather, the novel is something of an addendum to Lord of the World, an effort to correct the general misimpression the public had gained of the earlier work.

Lord of the World, XII: The “Counterblast”

The trouble with writing a book on a controversial subject is that the book itself tends to become controversial. So it was with Lord of the World, Robert Hugh Benson’s initial foray into the science fiction genre. It became clear almost from the start that, whether people thought well or ill of the novel, the vast majority failed to understand the point the author was making.

Lord of the World, XII: Denying Truth

Last week we looked at the foundation of the premise in Robert Hugh Benson’s satiric novel, Lord of the World.  That is, take to its reductio ad absurdum everything that the secular world considers good, such as atheism and the establishment and maintenance of universal wellbeing provided by the State (socialism, whatever it manages to get itself called), and show how the secular utopia would turn into a hell on earth.