Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today’s list.
The top of today’s reading list is a very interesting article about the origin of American currency 1748-1811 …….. and the last article discusses the global aging demographic picture and the relatively good position of the U.S..
- The Constitutional Creation of a Common Currency in the U.S. 1748-1811: Monetary Stabilization Versus Merchant Rent Seeking. (Farley Grubb, Working Paper No. 2004-07, Department of Economics, Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics,University of Delaware, 2004) Hat tip to Roger Erickson, Mike Norman Economics.
In 1787 would-be bankers saw paper-money-creation power as a profit bonanza whose potential could be reaped only if they could be rid of competing government paper money. The U.S. dollar currency union was a counterrevolution led by merchant-bankers intent on usurping state and federal sovereign power over monetary matters to enhance their personal power and wealth60. As Robert Morris confided in a letter to Silas Deane,
“The present oppert’y of improving our Fortunes ought not to be lost, especially as the very means of doing it will contribute to the Service of our Country at the same time“61.
The chance timing of events circa 1787 gave merchant-bankers the opportunity to get rid of their principal money-creating competitor and to have said carved into the “stone tablets” of the U.S. Constitution, thus making the return of this competitor extremely difficult.
Was serfdom of the populace to bankster barons “baked into the cake” from the get-go?
- Southern Europe is on a precipice ( Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph) Hat tip to Roger Erickson.
- Why Europe’s PIIGS are flying (Nicholas Vardy, MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal) Hat tip to Sanjeev Kulkarni.
- Rising consumer debt driving the recovery: boon or bane? (Fabius Maximus, 10 November 2013) Fabius Maximus has contributed to Global Economic Intersection.
- Fed Anxiety Rises as QE Increases Risk of Loss With Costs (Caroline Salas Gage and Joshua Zumbrun, Bloomberg) Hat tip to John O’Donnell. The talk of losses is curious. It would seem that the Fed could only incur losses on bonds that they sold in a period of elevated interest rates. If they hold to maturity then there can be no losses on Treasuries and only default losses on the MBS. If the Fed felt it had to fight inflation it could do so simply by cranking interest rates with limited FOMC activity. The added tool in recent years of paying interest on excess reserves is a powerful way to pull massive amounts of money out of the economy. This would reduce the Fed’s earnings and therefore the remissions to the government, but the Fed balance sheet would not incur losses unless bonds were sold before maturity.
- Republicans and the “Lofgren Corollary” (Bruce Bartlett, The Fiscal Times) Hat tip to Roger Erickson.
“Thus we see a perfect example of what I will henceforth call the Lofgren Corollary to the definition of chutzpah. Chutzpah, of course, is a wonderful Yiddish word for someone with massive nerve, the classic example being the child who murders his parents and then asks the court for mercy on the grounds of being an orphan. The Lofgren Corollary refers to Republicans who intentionally sabotage government programs by denying them adequate resources and then complain that the programs don’t work, thus justifying further reductions in resources leading to more problems. The goal is to ultimately abolish the program on the grounds of being ineffective.”
- Are Deaths Due to Lack of Health Insurance Seriously Underestimated? (Joe Firestone, New Economic Perspectives) Joe Firestone has contributed to Global Economic Intersection.
- Money and Power vs. ‘Money Power’ (Anthony Wile, The Daily Bell) Hat tip to John O’Donnell.
- Obamacare Competition Has Roots in Economist’s Passion (Jeanna Smialek, Bloomberg)
- Global Greying (FlipChart Rick, Piera) U.S. aging demographic burden is far less than much of the world in coming decades.
