European Tribune

Display:
I think the graph below explains why all the money pumped into the system isn't having an effect.  It comes courtesy of a post by Rabee Tourky at John Quiggin's blog.  Like your graph, it is generated at the St Louis Fed's website and it shows the M1 multiplier for the last 8 years.  M1 is a narrow measure of the amount of money in the economy, and is composed of currency in circulation plus balances of demand deposits (checking accounts).  The M1 multiplier is M1 divided by the total of currency in circulation plus bank reserves.  What it measures is the degree to which banks are creating money (by lending) relative to the monetary base.  The graph below shows very clearly that there is a credit crunch in the US at the moment - the banks have more or less stopped lending!

by canberra boy (canberraboy1 at gmail dot com) on Sat Nov 29th, 2008 at 01:30:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:
Login
. Make a new account
. Reset password
Debates
Campaigns
Occasional Series