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A central bank in the alternative fantasy universe of neoliberal belief.

It seems highly likely that there is some artifice by which the functional equivalent of an overdraft facility can be provided ... after all, when a government "borrows" to "finance" deficit spending, it is "borrowing" purchasing power brought into being by that deficit spending ... so someone who knows how the economy actually works may indeed be able to work out an instrument that follows the rules of the neoliberal fantasy while in fact relying on the actual working of a reserve banking chartalist money system in the real morning.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Thu Apr 15th, 2010 at 12:23:25 PM EST
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It seems highly likely that there is some artifice by which the functional equivalent of an overdraft facility can be provided

The Government gets an overdraft facility from a politically connected major private bank, and the private bank uses ECB repos to fund that facility.

The brainless should not be in banking -- Willem Buiter

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Apr 15th, 2010 at 12:28:40 PM EST
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Bear in mind that the US central bank is not "a" central bank, but a network of regional central banks, de jure privately owned, but with their core central bank functions controlled by a majority government appointed external board of governors.

This evolved, of course, in the aftermath of an entrenched anti-central-bank ideology among agrarian populists, so that chartered "third Bank of the United States" would have been politically much harder to get established than the "network of clearing houses".

Quite the same trick could be done to provide for EU central commission overdraft facilities in some privately owned but publicly governed bank. The pretext, being a pretext, would be any useful function that would involve a subordinate clearing house role ... it could be related to trade promotion (say, with low-income nations), with regulating some variety of transaction, or insuring deposits in some class of institution ... , and with the privately owned shareholder banks being under some legal requirement to  hold some share of their Eurobank reserves on account with the subordinate clearing house by transfer to its own Eurobank reserve account.

That gets around the letter of the law regarding discrimination between public and private institutions.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Thu Apr 15th, 2010 at 12:56:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Quite the same trick could be done to provide for EU central commission overdraft facilities in some privately owned but publicly governed bank.

Ah, we have found a use for the much maligned Spanish Cajas de Ahorros, German Landsbanken and Sparkassen, etc...

The brainless should not be in banking -- Willem Buiter

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon May 3rd, 2010 at 01:05:53 PM EST
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A central bank in the alternative fantasy universe of neoliberal belief.

Thanks for confirming that the fantasy world of neoliberal belief is encoded in the European Union's treaties.

[Europe.Is.Doomed™ Alert] and I don't mean to snark.

The brainless should not be in banking -- Willem Buiter

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Apr 15th, 2010 at 12:29:51 PM EST
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