Hello Haroki, Thank you very much for the link. Your comments are very valuable for me. I glimpsed at NY fed financial statements. Page 15. The solvency ratio (equity / total liabilities) = 2.66% Average solvecy ratio for banks in Europe is 7 - 8%. A minimum requested solvency ratio for banks in my third world country is 11%. I used to be an accountant in a firm and a credit risk score manager in a bank. If NY Federal Reserve was my bank's client I would request the loans to be immediately repaid by NY Federal Reserve. Their balance sheet is a baloon. Look at the difference between receivables from the government and liabilities toward government - also page 15. Do you know if 12 fed's consolidated yearly statements would be available from somewhere? Thank you.
You have a very valid point. Could you imagine an Illinois Governor in charge of the money supply? I hear they are going to be building a governor's wing over at Statesville. Who can be trusted with the money? I don't suppose we can get Ben Franklin out of the grave. An efficient money system would have to be a matter of law that could be amended with the passage of time, but immune from corruption. That's no easy task.
Well the government should ideally stay out of things completely rather than 'creating' anything.Governments can't create wealth they can only reallocate it.What they can create are hurdles that prevent capital being allocated to the most efficient purpose.The market would decide the price of Gold as it is a commodity.Wealth comes from savings so if America went back to manufacturing goods the World wanted rather than being a parasite that consumes hard assets and consumer goods in return for paper (which I hope it does) your buying power would increase and Gold would flow into the country but also as you say the stock of Gold is irrelevant because its price in terms of other commoditys will always reflect its scarcity.During many of the Gold Standard years prices actually fell year on year as efficiency improved.Savers knew their money would buy the same goods or more in their old age than when they earned it.Lenders would be protected.
Hello PTF, I disagree with you regarding your view on Europe. As far as I know BoE was nationalised in 1954 and since then belongs to the exchequer / state treasury. Also as far as I know a majority of countries from continental Europe (if not all) have state owned central banks. These banks (like Bundesbank or National Bank of Poland) are grounded by respective countries' consitutions and thier operations are envisaged in separate parliamentary acts. USA is the only country with non-state-owned central bank that I know of and this was one of the reasons that I started this thread. Now, is USA really the only country with such a central bank??? Regards
Hi PTF, This is how politicians are managed in Europe. Each central bank's operations are governed by an additonal act of a central bank. There are provisions set for appointing Board Members in such an act, e.g. each candidate to the board must have at least MA in banking or economy, must have at least 7 year experience on managerial level in banking, etc. Such provisions prevent ignorants from being appointed as board members. If the board consists of e.g. 9 members, the president has the right to appoint only 3 of them, the lower house has the right to appoint another 3, and the upper house has the right to appoint the remaining 3. Thus only people with sufficient academic and practical knowledge can be selected. As we know politicians can hardly meet those requirements. Regards
I agree the gold would not work these ages. Please look at the attached 2007 NY FED balance sheet. in the end of 2007 NY FED gold inventory (gold certificates) was worth only $4 billion. Assuming that reginal FEDs possess similar gold inventories ($4 billion x 12),we would arrive at $48 - 50 billion worth of all FED's gold. Now let's compare those $50 billion worth of Federal Reserve gold to zillions of zillions worth of money in circulation. There would be simply not enough gold in the whole world to implement the Gold Standard just in one medium size country. Regards
I try to bite my tongue when I read or hear ignorant statements like this, but I can't. With a gold standard, the gold in circulation would simply be stretched thinner. A statement such as yours is comparable to saying that you can't measure a microbe because an inch is too large. You're obviously a slave to fiat money. Economics is a funny subject. You either "get it" right away or you'll never understand it.
Please explain something to me in plain English: Assumptions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_gold_reserves: 1. all ever mined gold the whole world over totaled 145,000 tonnes = $3.4 trillion 2. USA official gold holding is 8,133 tonnes How is it possible to effectively implement (and subsequently maintain) the Gold Standard in the US if the money in circulation in the US is $ 7 - 8 trillion? - 2 x higher than all gold ever mined. How would you stretch thinner the gold in circulation knowing ahead of time there is not sufficient amount of gold anyway? Not to mention exponential increase in the price of gold and possible shortage of this metal in periods when the financial system needs inflow of money? Regards