"We tolerate unemployment, fiscal deficits, financial bubbles, huge trade deficits, and other such scourges because we really don't know what money is or how it is created," he says
DENVER, Sept. 22, 2010 — The following is the first of a four-part statement by J. Moromisato.
1. A Casino for the Rich
http://www.DenverPlan.com
We tolerate a parasitic financial system, because we don't know what money is or how it is created.
If you think about it, money really consists of numbers in an account, into which we add or from which we take out, money. Money is truly a creation of the private financial system. Most people think that currency, or cash, is the real money, but that is misleading. In fact, currency makes less than 1% of the money we use.
The way money is created is truly a masterwork of deception. When you deposit a hundred dollars in your savings account, the bank would soon lend them out to a borrower.
By a slight-of-hand, the bank has really created an additional hundred dollars for the economy; really? Well, you can prove to anyone's satisfaction that you own that money by going to the bank and taking the money out.
And the borrower, who has just received the hundred dollars, is equally convinced that he owns that money and will spend it soon. And when that money starts circulating, somebody else would decide to deposit it in the bank, which would then lend it out, creating another hundred dollars to be spent into the economy. As they say, "it is all in the wrist."
There are three fundamental problems with the financial system having the power to create money: first, it is clearly unconstitutional; by our Constitution, that power is Congress' alone. Second, it is an inherently erratic system, prone to destructive malfunctions. And third, it is set up to benefit the wealthy at the expense of everybody else.
Figure 1:
http://www.ereleases.com/pic/Figure1.jpg
If you look at Fig. 1, you would notice that the loans (assets) grow together with the deposits (liabilities). In fact, the value of the assets must always be higher than the liabilities, or else the financial institution must declare bankruptcy. The problem is that the values of the assets can fluctuate down, sometimes a great deal; and when that happens, the financial institution is in trouble. And once a financial institution goes down, it can bring down others, and those others still others, until we have the type of collapse that caused the recent Great Recession. The assets bubble is built into the system, and no amount of "reforms" would ever be able to fix that. [For a more detailed description, please go to http://www.DenverPlan.com]
(The Second part of this statement deals with our fiscal deficits and the ballooning national debt.)
Contact: J. Moromisato, (303) 321-0577
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