Once again, you say so many wrong things I have to
make a list to go through them one by one:
1. Monetary expansion. Well, yes, if you mean that a Public Bank would practice
creating money through what's quaintly known as "fractional reserve
banking" (even though I once heard the 10+ year Senior VP of the Bank of
North Dakota swear to a roomful of PB conventioneers that the BND did NOT
practice Fractional Reserve Banking). But this is what private banks have and
do practice for hundreds of years. Now, you can argue, I suppose, that private
banks do it better, but the $29 trillion bailout (according to Prof. L. Randall
Wray) argues otherwise, and the experiences of countries with their own State
(as in "The State") Banks, like China, show you can have growth for
years, decades even, without bankrupting the State. (Yes, I know about their
"ghost cities" but a Land Value Tax on all that property would solve
that in a year, by lowering prices, forcing sales, and increasing revenue to
the local regions. I am also a Georgist (and president of Common Ground-NYC)
and I have no problem with speculators and hoarders losing money for locational
values they never created in the first place). China will soon eclipse the U.S.
in size of economy, albeit not per capita for a bit longer. I could make a good
case their banking system is less corrupt than ours, but Bill Black has made a
better argument that I could...
2. Ah, Bill Black. He oversaw the prosecution of
thousands of frauds during the S&L crisis. Would DB have preferred to have
the same "Free Market" that gave us the fraud, and gave us an even
bigger one now, continue to "met out punishment"? Even if the BANKS
went bankrupt, as they should, the perpetrators of the fraud, would simply have
lost their jobs and walked away with millions (today, tens or even hundreds, of
millions). Most people would take that kind of "punishment." It's as
one of my economics teachers always asks his classes at the beginning: "If
you knew that you could make millions of dollars in just a couple of years by
doing something wrong, but for which you would almost certainly not be
punished, who would not do it?" Very few hands go up, I can assure you.
Banks without regulations are like driving without traffic rules - exciting,
high-speed, and ultimately lethal. The current system is, as Black has pointed
out, criminogenic, in that fraud is not merely probable, but inevitable.
3. What's wrong with LETS? You want to move away from
Big Government; this is a way to do it, by having alternate currencies, while
still keeping a central one for paying taxes (which gives the currency
legitimacy) and international trade. It also shows that the current economic
system does not produce enough money to meet the productive capacity of the
nation. People from E.F. Schumacher to Monetary Reformer Bill Still are in
favor of them. I'm on Brown's PBI Google group and read all her articles too,
and never heard her say anything negative about them, though she, perhaps
wisely, chooses to focus on Public Banking, which is time-consuming enough.
4. Ah, Bill Still. Former Libertarian Party candidate
for President and a Greenbacker (like me, Brown, and Stephen Zarlenga, though
we all disagree on specific implementations of it - Zarlenga will barely speak
to me anymore, despite my meeting him 4 times both privately and in public, and
Still says Zarlenga's Monetary Authority is far too centralized a power body,
to which I agree (which is why Zarlenga is mad at me, plus my support for
Public Banking, which he regards like the DB, as none of the government's
business). Anyway, Still favors "Decentralization to the maximum extent
practical" a quote he has made repeatedly. Yet, he still found a way to
weave Public Banking into his philosophy, and invited Brown to be his V.P.
running mate on his campaign.
5. DB's "solution" is, shall we say, not well thought out. It is close to anarchy, which, despite your prognostications otherwise, is neither the natural state of Man: "freedom will have its day" in your words, nor desirable. I have a link too! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/06/somalia-libertarian-parad_n_197763.html
It's kind of funny actually. I'm pretty sure DB and Brown would find places to agree - on the size and corrupting influence of the TBTF banks, for example, but DB likes to pick arguments, not agreements - part of the anarchist zeitgeist, as I understand it. As for me, I'll continue trying to synthesize POVs where I can. Still looking for something new from DB, however, instead of just nattering nabobs of negativity.
The Daily Bell Mod Scott Baker
"Monetary expansion. Well, yes, if you mean that a Public
Bank would practice creating money through what's quaintly known as "fractional
reserve banking.'"
You miss the point. These state banks receive their expandable assets basically
at the point of a gun. The state forces people to provide the assets.
"Bill Black " oversaw the prosecution of thousands of frauds during the S&L
crisis. Would DB have preferred to have the same "Free Market" that
gave us the fraud, and gave us an even bigger one now, continue to "mete out
punishment' "?
The S&L crisis was caused by GOVERNMENT regulation and reregulation. We
never hear that the initial ground for such frauds is ALWAYS prepared by
dysfunctional government regulation and legislation -- and of course central
bank monetary stimulation. For us there is something repugnant about
enthusiastically advocating the use of the US penitentiary-industrial complex
with its six million incarcerated inmates, a good many of whom are either
innocent or there as a result of "victimless" crimes. You don't understand that
either.
"What's wrong with LETS?"
In its current incarnation, backed by the recently departed Margrit Kennedy and
her United Nation's employers, it forces people to keep a full ledger of every
single transaction. Great for government paper trails but not much else. You
are shocked, by the way, that Ellen Brown has nothing negative to say about
these systems? Ellen Brown, bless her heart, is basically a government
apparatchik.
"BD's "solution' is, shall we say, not well thought out. It is close to
anarchy, which, despite your prognostications otherwise, is neither the natural
state of man, nor desirable."
Apparently, you don't understand that anarchy is merely the absence of
government force. You believe in Leviathan -- the bigger and more complex the
better -- as a social and economic solution. We believe in human action, local
action and the "invisible hand" of market competition to discipline the fraud
and corruption that inevitably occur in human activities. Every time your
solutions fail, you call for more of them. "The definition of insanity is doing
the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome."
"It's kind of funny actually. I'm pretty sure DB and Brown would find places to
agree."
The solution to most of what ails modern society is additional freedom not
additional regulation. Ms. Brown wants to use Leviathan's force to create a
cure for what Leviathan has caused. We find it " disingenuous. Your arguments
too.
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