RALPHONOMICS

Abraham Lincoln: “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.”


Milton Friedman on why full reserve banking has never been implemented: “The vested political interests opposing it are too strong, and the citizens who would benefit both as taxpayers and as participants in economic activity are too unaware of its benefits and too disorganised to have any influence.” (From the preface of his book, “A Program for Monetary Stability”).

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1. Taking the p*ss out of Europe’s debt problems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaD2taAWCoY

2. Harry Endfield and the gold standard: http://www.hamsab.net/women-know-your-limits-harry-enfield-bbc-comedy/

3. Quantitative Easing explained:

http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/lijph/clarke_and_dawe_quantitative_easing/

MUSGRAVE'S LAW SOLVES THE FOLLOWING PROBLEM.

The problem. Deficits and / or national debts allegedly need reducing. The conventional wisdom is that they are reduced by raising taxes and / or cutting government spending, which in turn produces the money with which to repay the debt. But raised taxes or spending cuts destroy jobs: exactly what we don’t want. A quandary.

The solution. The national debt can be reduced at any speed and without austerity as follows. Buy the debt back, obtaining the necessary funds from two sources: A, printing money, and B, increasing tax and/or reduced government spending. A is inflationary and B is deflationary. A and B can be altered to give almost any outcome desired. For example for a faster rate of buy back, apply more of A and B. Or for more deflation while buying back, apply more of B relative to A.

Click here for more info and FAQs.

1. Using money from 100% safe taxpayer backed bank accounts for commercial purposes is a subsidy of commerce, which is wrong.
2. People and businesses have a right to 100% safe accounts, but the relevant money should be kept in a 100% safe manner: at the central bank, where it may earn no interest.
3. Where people and businesses want their money invested in commerce, that is laudable. They will earn some interest, but they are not entitled to taxpayer support.
4. Fractional reserve banking promotes instability.

Peer reviewed publications:

1. A Market Imitating Employment Subsidy, in The Future of the Welfare State, (editor: Bent Greve), 2006, published by Ashgate.

2. Flaws in the Benefit Transfer Programme, The Review of Policy Studies, Vol 3 No.3, 1997.

3. Giving pensioners a bigger state pension would be a better way of helping them than free travel, in Local Transport Today, Issue 457, Nov. 2006.

4. Abolishing Unemployment, Economic Research Council Research Study No 7, 1980.

5. Let’s Print Money and Buy Back National Debts. Positive Money.

http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/2011/05/let%E2%80%99s-print-money-and-buy-back-national-debts/

6. Why the excitement about debt? The Progressive Economics Forum.

http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2011/10/11/ralph-musgrave-debt-excitement/

7. The Debt and Deficit. Jefferson Tree. http://www.thejeffersontree.com/the-debt-and-deficit/

Non-peer reviewed (or only lightly peer reviewed) publications. The coloured clickable links below are EITHER the title of the work, OR a very short summary (where I think a short summary conveys more than the title).

1. Having government as employer of last resort is a flawed policy: remove the flaws and you’re left with an employment subsidy that might worth a try.

2. The Flaws in Keynsian Borrow and Spend.

3. Government Borrowing is Near Pointless.

4. Pensioners’ Travel Concessions: a Misallocation of Resources.

5. Infrastructure and Other Costs of Immigration.

6. Marginal Employment Subsidies Don't Work.

Notes.

i) The above is not a complete list in that earlier versions of some papers have been omitted. For a more complete list see here, and “browse by author” (top of left hand column).

ii) 7 deals with a wide range of alleged reasons for government borrowing, including Keynsian borrow and spend. 6 is an updated version of the "anti-Keynes" arguments in 7. 5 is an updated version of 1, which in turn is an updated version of 4.