Vatican Is 'Cash Only' As Bank Of Italy Blocks Electronic Payments Over Money Laundering Concerns

VATICAN CITY -- It's "cash only" now for tourists at the Vatican wanting to pay for museum tickets, souvenirs and other services after Italy's central bank decided to block electronic payments, including credit cards, at the tiny city-state.

Deutsche Bank Italia, which for some 15 years had provided the Vatican with electronic payment services, said Thursday that the Bank of Italy had pulled its authorization to do so after Dec. 31.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that the Italian central bank took the action because the Holy See has not yet fully complied with European Union safeguards against money laundering. That means Italian banks are not authorized to operate within the Vatican, which is in the process of improving its mechanisms to combat laundering.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

When Steven Vicinanza got a letter in the mail earlier this year informing him that he needed to pay $1,000 per employee for a license to some "distributed computer architecture" patents, he didn't quite believe it at first. The letter seemed to be saying anyone using a modern office scanner to scan documents to e-mail would have to pay--which is to say, just about any business, period.

There is regular commentary here that seeks to argue that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is flawed, bereft or worse because apparently it avoids any discussion of the natural environment. This apparently arises from the inherent conclusion in MMT that growth in aggregate demand (and real GDP) is required to maintain high levels of employment, which are considered both economically and socially desirable. This is the first part of a two-part blog on this topic. We will see that MMT is highly sympathetic to the challenges posed by anthropogenic global warming (a catch-all term) and central policy indications that follow from an understanding of MMT (for example, the superiority of employment buffer stocks) lead to an understanding of how MMT is a green paradigm as opposed to mainstream (neo-liberal) economics and much of Post Keynesian thinking, the latter which relies on generalised expansion as the solution to entrenched unemployment. We conclude that those who seek to dismiss MMT because it doesn't satisfy their particular pet solution to climate change issues have probably not read some of the earlier MMT literature nor understood fully what is required to develop and disseminate a new way of thinking about the economy. Further, MMT is not a theory about everything! What we will see is that when MMT advocates economic growth it does so with a very different view of what that economic growth might be comprised of and driven.

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But the point is that the early MMT work clearly recognised that economic growth and environment decay are intrinsically linked and an answer to the latter required a different approach than that offered by the mainstream economists (more about which later).

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These issues have occupied our research group for the last 15 years or so. What we argue is that full employment and the continuity and health of the social settlement are necessary conditions for achieving economic and social sustainability, which is the overarching aim.

However, they are not sufficient conditions. Without a balance being achieved between these elements and the natural (physical) environment, the macroeconomic situation is not sustainable.

Thus, a forward-looking, progressive macroeconomics - such as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) - requires economic activity to be in balance with the natural environment. There are two aspects of this concept of `sustainability' that are relevant to macroeconomic policy design: (a) the level of production (and consumption) must be consistent with the demands of the physical environment; and (b) locally- or community-based production should be encouraged.

Boehner re-elected as House speaker

John Boehner was re-elected Speaker of the House of Representatives Thursday with 220 votes, just a few more than he needed.

The Ohio Republican began his second term as speaker by warning of the "anchor of debt" hanging over the nation.

And he urged the House to be humble, remembering that "We're standing here not to be something, but do something."

There had been some thought that conservatives might challenge Boehner, but in the end, no serious opponent emerged. Democrats voted for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, but no Republican other than Boehner got more than three votes.

But the drama of this Kabuki Theater show served admirably as cover for the renewal of tax breaks for Goldman-Sachs, NASCAR, et cetera ad nauseum. That has got to please our political class from the center-right, Obama, to the far right, Tea Party Caucus.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Forget about the divisions between saltwater and freshwater economists. The hottest debate in economics right now is about Smaug, the dragon nemesis in J.R.R. Tolkein's novel "The Hobbit."