Quantitative easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn’t been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks. A real “helicopter drop” that puts money into the pockets of consumers and businesses has not yet been tried. Why not? Another good question . . . .
When Ben Bernanke gave his famous helicopter money speech to the Japanese in 2002, he was not yet chairman of the Federal Reserve. He said then that the government could easily reverse a deflation, just by printing money and dropping it from helicopters. “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent),” he said, “that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.” Later in the speech he discussed “a money-financed tax cut,” which he said was “essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous ‘helicopter drop’ of money.” Deflation could be cured, said Professor Friedman, simply by dropping money from helicopters.
It seemed logical enough. If the money supply were insufficient for the needs of trade, the solution was to add money to it. Most of the circulating money supply consists of “bank credit” created by banks when they make loans. When old loans are paid off faster than new loans are taken out (as is happening today), the money supply shrinks. The purpose of QE is to reverse this contraction.
But if debt deflation is so easy to fix, then why have the Fed’s massive attempts to pull this maneuver off failed to revive the economy? And why is Japan still suffering from deflation after 20 years of quantitative easing?
On a technical level, the answer has to do with where the money goes. The widespread belief that QE is flooding the economy with money is a myth. Virtually all of the money it creates simply sits in the reserve accounts of banks.
That is the technical answer, but the motive behind it may be something deeper . . . .
An Asset Swap Is Not a Helicopter Drop
As QE is practiced today, the money created on a computer screen never makes it into the real, producing economy. It goes directly into bank reserve accounts, and it stays there. Except for the small amount of “vault cash” available for withdrawal from commercial banks, bank reserves do not leave the doors of the central bank.
According to Peter Stella, former head of the Central Banking and Monetary and Foreign Exchange Operations Divisions at the International Monetary Fund:
[B]anks do not lend “reserves”. . . . Whether commercial banks let the reserves they have acquired through QE sit “idle” or lend them out in the internet bank market 10,000 times in one day among themselves, the aggregate reserves at the central bank at the end of that day will be the same.
This point is also stressed in Modern Monetary Theory. As explained by Prof. Scott Fullwiler:
Banks can’t “do” anything with all the extra reserve balances. Loans create deposits—reserve balances don’t finance lending or add any “fuel” to the economy. Banks don’t lend reserve balances except in the federal funds market, and in that case the Fed always provides sufficient quantities to keep the federal funds rate at its . . . interest rate target.
Reserves are used simply to clear checks between banks. They move from one reserve account to another, but the total money in bank reserve accounts remains unchanged. Banks can lend their reserves to each other, but they cannot lend them to us.
QE as currently practiced is simply an asset swap. The central bank swaps newly-created dollars for toxic assets clogging the balance sheets of commercial banks. This ploy keeps the banks from going bankrupt, but it does nothing for the balance sheets of federal or local governments, consumers, or businesses.
Central Bank Ignorance or Intentional Sabotage?
Another Look at the Japanese Experience
That brings us to the motive. Twenty years is a long time to repeat a policy that isn’t working.
UK Professor Richard Werner invented the term quantitative easing when he was advising the Japanese in the 1990s. He says he had something quite different in mind from the current practice. He intended for QE to increase the credit available to the real economy. Today, he says:
[A]ll QE is doing is to help banks increase the liquidity of their portfolios by getting rid of longer-dated slightly less liquid assets and raising cash. . . . Reserve expansion is a standard monetarist policy and required no new label.
Werner contends that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) intentionally sabotaged his proposal, adopting his language but not his policy; and other central banks have taken the same approach since.
In his book Princes of the Yen (2003), Werner maintains that in the 1990s, the BOJ consistently foiled government attempts at creating a recovery. As summarized in a review of the book:
The post-war disappearance of the military triggered a power struggle between the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan for control over the economy. While the Ministry strove to maintain the controlled economic system that created Japan’s post-war economic miracle, the central bank plotted to break free from the Ministry by reverting to the free markets of the 1920s.
. . . They reckoned that the wartime economic system and the vast legal powers of the Ministry of Finance could only be overthrown if there was a large crisis – one that would be blamed on the ministry. While observers assumed that all policy-makers have been trying their best to kick-start Japan’s economy over the past decade, the surprising truth is that one key institution did not try hard at all.
Werner contends that the Bank of Japan not only blocked the recovery but actually created the bubble that precipitated the downturn:
[T]hose central bankers who were in charge of the policies that prolonged the recession were the very same people who were responsible for the creation of the bubble. . . . [They] ordered the banks to expand their lending aggressively during the 1980s. In 1989, [they] suddenly tightened their credit controls, thus bringing down the house of cards that they had built up before. . . .
With banks paralysed by bad debts, the central bank held the key to a recovery: only it could step in and create more credit. It failed to do so, and hence the recession continued for years. Thanks to the long recession, the Ministry of Finance was broken up and lost its powers. The Bank of Japan became independent and its power has now become legal.
In the US, too, the central bank holds the key to recovery. Only it can create more credit for the broad economy. But reversing recession has taken a backseat to resuscitating zombie banks, maintaining the feudal dominion of a private financial oligarchy.
In Japan, interestingly, all that may be changing with the election of a new administration. As reported in a January 2013 article in Business Week:
Shinzo Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party swept back into power in mid-December by promising a high-octane mix of monetary and fiscal policies to pull Japan out of its two-decade run of economic misery. To get there, Prime Minister Abe is threatening a hostile takeover of the Bank of Japan, the nation’s central bank. The terms of surrender may go something like this: Unless the BOJ agrees to a 2 percent inflation target and expands its current government bond-buying operation, the ruling LDP might push a new central bank charter through the Japanese Diet. That charter would greatly diminish the BOJ’s independence to set monetary policy and allow the prime minister to sack its governor.
From Bankers’ Bank to Government Bank
Making the central bank serve the interests of the government and the people is not a new idea. Prof. Tim Canova points out that central banks have only recently been declared independent of government:
[I]ndependence has really come to mean a central bank that has been captured by Wall Street interests, very large banking interests. It might be independent of the politicians, but it doesn’t mean it is a neutral arbiter. During the Great Depression and coming out of it, the Fed took its cues from Congress. Throughout the entire 1940s, the Federal Reserve as a practical matter was not independent. It took its marching orders from the White House and the Treasury—and it was the most successful decade in American economic history.
To free the central bank from Wall Street capture, Congress or the president could follow the lead of Shinzo Abe and threaten a hostile takeover of the Fed unless it directs its credit firehose into the real economy. The unlimited, near-zero-interest credit line made available to banks needs to be made available to federal and local governments.
When a similar suggestion was made to Ben Bernanke in January 2011, however, he said he lacked the authority to comply. If that was what Congress wanted, he said, it would have to change the Federal Reserve Act.
And that is what may need to be done—rewrite the Federal Reserve Act to serve the interests of the economy and the people.
Webster Tarpley observes that the Fed advanced $27 trillion to financial institutions through the TAF (Term Asset Facility), the TALF (Term Asset-backed Securities Loan Facility), and similar facilities. He proposes an Infrastructure Facility extending credit on the same terms to state and local governments. It might offer to buy $3 trillion in 100-year, zero-coupon bonds, the minimum currently needed to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. The collateral backing these bonds would be sounder than the commercial paper of zombie banks, since it would consist of the roads, bridges, and other tangible infrastructure built with the loans. If the bond issuers defaulted, the Fed would get the infrastructure.
Quantitative easing as practiced today is not designed to serve the real economy. It is designed to serve bankers who create money as debt and rent it out for a fee. The money power needs to be restored to the people and the government, but we need an executive and legislature willing to stand up to the banks. A popular movement could give them the backbone. In the meantime, states could set up their own banks, which could leverage the state’s massive capital and revenue base into credit for the local economy.
______________
Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private, privileged banking oligarchy has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com, http://EllenBrown.com, and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org. The Public Banking Institute is hosting a conference June 2-4, 2013, in San Rafael, CA; details here.
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary |
WEB OF DEBT BLOG 
[…] How The Fed Could Fix The Economy – And Why It Hasn’t […]
[…] Ellen Brown, February 24, 2013: “Quantitative Easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn’t been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks. A real ‘helicopter drop’ that puts money into the pockets of consumers and businesses has not yet been tried.” […]
Agree 100%. QE worked in WW-II when the money was spent on the war industries. The military-industrial complex kept this game going afterwards with the fear of the Russkies.
9/11 was an attempt to reactivate this strategy using Muslims as the new bogeymen. The 2007/8 Financial Crisis repeated this with the threat against most people’s savings & investments.
[…] Ellen Brown, February 24, 2013: “Quantitative Easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn’t been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks. A real ‘helicopter drop’ that puts money into the pockets of consumers and businesses has not yet been tried.” […]
[…] Ellen Brown, February 24, 2013: “Quantitative Easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn’t been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks. A real ‘helicopter drop’ that puts money into the pockets of consumers and businesses has not yet been tried.” […]
Repeal the federal reserve act completely. Nationalise the entire banking system.
All problems stem from the private for-profit banking system and its practice of usury.
“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.”
Abraham Lincoln
The bankers of England took matters into their own hands. They issued this public proclamation in the London Times, through Lord Goschen, spokesman of the Financiers;
“If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become indurated down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
They got it right, so why can’t we ?
Thanks for posting, as justaluckyfool may I add one other quote,”
***** “Believe nothing merely because you have been told it…But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis,you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit,the welfare of all beings – that doctrine believe and cling to,and take it as your guide.”- Buddha[Gautama Siddharta] (563 – 483 BC), Hindu Prince, founder of Buddhism.
I suppose because those who now hold the money power would disagree regarding what is “right”. As they have for millennia.
Sage advice from Buddha.
Let me rephrase: They got it correct, why can’t we?
Even the “money power” would agreed but state that they were intelligent (not brain washed) in those days.
Excerpt from “The Role of Money” 1926,1933 by Frederick Soddy, ”
“The more profound students of money and,
more recently, a very few historians have realized
the enormous significance of this money power
or technique, and its key position in shaping the
course of world events through the ages… It is con-
cerned less with the details of particular schemes
of monetary reform that have been advocated
than with the general principles to which, in the
author’s opinion, every monetary system must at
long last conform, if it is to fulfil its proper role
as the distributive mechanism of society. To allow
it to become a source of revenue to private issuers
is to create, first, a secret and illicit arm of the
government and, last, a rival power strong enough
ultimately to overthrow all other forms of
government.
http://archive.org/stream/roleofmoney032861mbp/roleofmoney032861mbp_djvu.txt
THE ROLE OF MONEY-WHAT IT SHOULD BE, CONTRASTED WITH WHAT IT HAS BECOME.By FREDERICK SODDY ; Nobel Laureate ..
Got it. And thanks for that link. I’ve just downloaded it in PDF format. It will go into the Money/Economics folder of my PDF library.
Thanks to Ellen Brown for allowing a dialog for all opinions.
She does wish to examine for the benefit of all mankind.
Fullwiler will be discredited. Bernanke will be blamed for the Great-Recession. Rates-of-change (roc’s) in required reserves (RRs) is a proxy for roc’s in all transactions (see: Irving Fisher’s “equation of exchange” where MVt=PT [only because the G.6 debit & demand deposit turnover release was discontinued in 1996].
We knew this already. In 1931 a commission was established on Member Bank Reserve Requirements. The commission completed their recommendations on Feb. 5, 1938. The study was entitled “Member Bank Reserve Requirements — Analysis of Committee Proposal”
It’s 2nd proposal: “Requirements against debits to deposits”
This research paper was “declassified” on March 23, 1983. By the time this paper was “declassified”, RRs had become a “tax” [sic].
Roc’s in RRs = roc’s in nominal-gDp. But e-mail 11/16/06: “xxxx, this is an interesting idea. Since no one in the Fed tracks reserves…” V.P. Fed’s technical staff.
And the lags for monetary flows (MVt) are not “long & variable”. They have been mathematical constants for 100 years. This is the Gospel. No other metric has a higher R^2.
Regardless of the level of short-term interest rates, the remuneration rate is still higher than the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s: “Daily Treasury Yield Curve Rates” 2 years out (i.e., the short-end segment of the yield curve is still inverted after 4+ years).
This is the exactly same monetary policy blunder as the BOG & FDIC made during the 1966 S&L credit crisis. This borrow short, to lend long, funding matrix depletes the NBs of loan-funds (induces dis-intermediation [not deleveraging] – where the size of the NBs shrink, but the size of the CB system remains the same. I.e., the NBs are not now, nor have ever been, in competition with the CBs from the standpoint of the CB system.
By allowing the CBs to out bid the NBs for short-term funding (savings), the Fed lowers the net interest margins for both lenders & savers, induces maturity mis-matches, discourages lending in multifaceted ways, in short, reduces real-gDp, & forces the Fed to follow an easier or less restrictive monetary policy (i.e., causes stagflation).
Contrary to Fullwiler, the payment of interest on excess reserve balances is deflationary.
[…] How the Fed Could Fix the Economy and Why It Hasn’t by Ellen Brown […]
[…] Ellen Brown, February 24, 2013: “Quantitative Easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn’t been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks. A real ‘helicopter drop’ that puts money into the pockets of consumers and businesses has not yet been tried.” […]
the real problem is the very heart of corruption that directs all policy decisions in the USA. when something beneficial is considered for the people it is never done any more because no one is getting paid off to look after the people’s interest.
this internal rot is inviting maggots and bacteria to create a disgusting transformation of a once great and promising nation.
From my reading of the situation in the financial press, the QE3 money being printed is NOT going into circulation. It is being added to the Banks “reserves”. But not to all of America’s banks, only to the TBTF banks, which, revealingly, are the owners of the Federal Reserve Bank, which is ‘printing’ the money. As it is not being circulated, ie lent out to businesses, one must assume it is being used to soak up all the TBTF Banks bad debts.
If this is not financial chicanery of the highest order, I don’t know what is. The Fed has no interest in helping the American people, it is only interested in saving the Oligarchs who run Wall st, and therefore their stake in America.
[…] Quantitative easing is poorly understood by the general public and provokes strong reactions from many economists. Some think QE must lead to hyperinflation (it hasn’t so far, and it’s been going on for nearly five years). Others think that, in principle, it could be used (if differently organized and applied) to solve all our debt problems. [https://ellenbrown.com/2013/02/24/how-the-fed-could-fix-the-economy-and-why-it-hasnt/] […]
[…] Quantitative easing is poorly understood by the general public and provokes strong reactions from many economists. Some think QE must lead to hyperinflation (it hasn’t so far, and it’s been going on for nearly five years). Others think that, in principle, it could be used (if differently organized and applied) to solve all our debt problems. [https://ellenbrown.com/2013/02/24/how-the-fed-could-fix-the-economy-and-why-it-hasnt/] […]
[…] How the Fed Could Fix the Economy—and Why It Hasn’t […]
FYI:
Scott Baker posted in Public Banking.
November 4 at 3:12am
Still Report #448 – The Truth About the Fed
Yesterday, a Japanese Professor, Kaoru Yamaguchi, came
across my information on how the Fed silences…….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3CrQK5NF9I&feature=share
Justaluckyfool address all these issues with one simple solution.
A honest Central Bank (a/k/a a honest Federal Reserve) that will
“QE For The People”.ANY “QE” PLAN COULD BE USED AS A “PEOPLE’S ” QE” PLAN.
Increase…. net wages,
Increase.. Jobs,
Decrease.. Federal Debt,
Decrease… Poverty
Decrease .. Inequality.
ALL AT THE SAME TIME:
” QE4JOBS”-a plan to create millions of jobs that will pay for themselves while decreasing federal debt,
poverty, as well as the income gap….or stated another way, “How does this capitalistic government create
an INCOME stream over and above its budget, while decreasing its present debt, while having complete
control over the quality and quantity of its currency?
“QE 4 JOBS”
Have the American financial system rush to the rescue with a generous and flexible
legal funding that no other country could match.
Not a bailout.
Not a cost to all the taxpayers.
Not an increase in deficit spending.
Rather a magic economic proven golden bullet, (Bernanke should get Noble for this):QE!
A simple change in direction of doing something for the common bettering of all the people.
Especially those in need now.
The FEDS did in fact QE for the Private For Profit Banks.
The FEDS made direct purchase of bank assets.
Why not have the FEDS do for the States exactly that-purchase from each state $20 billion of State
improvement bonds w/ terms of 2% for 36 years.
Thereby creating 3-5 million jobs while at the same time producing an income stream
(tax revenue)or a banks call Net Interest Income, (money that by law is to be turned over to Congress for appropriations).
***** “Believe nothing merely because you have been told it…But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis,you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit,the welfare of all beings – that doctrine believe and cling to,and take it as your guide.”- Buddha[Gautama Siddharta] (563 – 483 BC),
Comments by Justaluckyfool ( http://bit.ly/MlQWNs )
( “You are always welcome to share, copy, plagiarize, improve, etc..any comments.)
WHY WOULD YOU NOT WANT PROSPERITY FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR CHILDREN?
[…] By Ellen Brown Quantitative easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn’t been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks. A real “helicopter drop” that puts money into the pockets of consumers and businesses has not yet been tried. Why not? Another good question. READ more at https://ellenbrown.com/2013/02/24/how-the-fed-could-fix-the-economy-and-why-it-hasnt/ […]
[…] Quantitative easing is poorly understood by the general public and provokes strong reactions from many economists. Some think QE must lead to hyperinflation (it hasn’t so far, and it’s been going on for nearly five years). Others think that, in principle, it could be used (if differently organized and applied) to solve all our debt problems. [https://ellenbrown.com/2013/02/24/how-the-fed-could-fix-the-economy-and-why-it-hasnt/] […]