by
Mervyn King
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[...] But if the assets have genuinely lost value, then the central bank must be careful not to subsidise insolvent undertakings. [...]
this is almost a bromide but really, why does it matter if no one ever finds out? it's all built on trust anyway
(on lenders of last resort)
[...] For a society to base its financial system on alchemy is a poor advertisement for its rationality. The key to ending the alchemy is to ensure that the risks involved in money and banking are correctly identified and borne by those who enjoy the benefits from our financial system.
I think when I first read this I thought it was great and super radical, but now it just feels meaningless ... how could anyone possibly "correctly" bear the risks? you just have to reduce the possibility of gaining benefits
[...] The pretence that the illiquid real assets of an economy--the factories, capital equipment, houses and offices--can suddenly be converted into money or liquidity is the essence of the alchemy of the present system. Banks and other financial intermediaries will always try to finance illiquid assets by issuing liquid liabilities because they make profits by paying less on the latter than they earn on the former. [...]
there's a great line in a different book (forget which, maybe Yaroufakis) about banks wanting true, instant liquidity ... and yet in reality they have to cope with the short-term/long-term disparity between lending/borrowing maturation rates (I forget the term for this)
[...] each type of asset is given a risk weight, agreed by international regulators, and this is used to calculate the overall amount of equity a bank must issue. Mortgage lending, for example, was thought on the basis of past experience to be relatively safe, and was given a low risk weight. Sovereign debt was believed to be so safe that it was given a zero risk weight, meaning that banks did not have to raise any equity finance in respect of such investments and so had no additional capacity to absorb losses on them. [...]
again, this all stems from the truly stupid idea that this shit is rigorously quantifiable and not just make-believe
[...] Someone buying a meal in a restaurant might use a card, as now, but the result would not be a transfer from their bank account to that of the restaurant; instead there would be a sale of shares from the diner's portfolio and the acquisition of different shares, or other assets, to the same value by the restaurant. [...] There would be no unique role for something called money in order to buy 'stuff'.
this passage kinda boggles the mind (I say so now, but I think I felt similarly when I first read this) cus how can you imagine such a strange concept (which is really functionally equivalent) but not then take the next step of asking why such a transfer is needed at all???? it's still money??? like that startup that tried to get people to do favours for each other in exchange for virtual currency (which they called karma I believe). why is it necessary to transfer wealth in order to support production or consumption??? DRIFT i'm telling you
[...] If the government boosts spending to bring unemployment below its natural rate, then the increased demand for labour will push wages up. But to restore firms' profits, prices will also rise, and real wages will fall back to their original level. [...]
my original notes are "unless you also change policy to discourage profit-seeking ... this has real implications for the minimum wage debate" which, tbh, feels surprisingly woke for the me of 2016
[...] One is convinced that the market will rise; the other that it will fall [...] The first person is so convinced that the markets will rise that he bets $1 million that it will be higher a year from now. Sure that he will be much richer in a year's time, he starts to spend now. The second person [...] also starts to spend now. The bookmaker covers his bets.
[...] Financial markets thrive on differences of opinion--they make the horse race. They also create 'mistakes' in perceptions of wealth or spending power. [...]
my margin notes: "the money shot" which I assume refers to me feeling vindicated about my own theories on financialisation (great)
[...] debt was a consequence, not a cause of the problems that led to the crisis. Debt did not descend like manna from the heavens but was a conscious response by borrowers to the situation they faced. [...]
I mean if you want to take a more Marxist approach, debt was a result of rentiers (wages being suppressed, housing being too expensive, etc)