Italian article this am

Misrepresents what I say a bit, but they do have my picture next to JFK!
;)

The IMF: sovereign currency, no longer the monopoly of the banks

Eliminate the public debt of the United States at once, and do the same with Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Greece. At the same time revive the ‘ economy, stabilize prices and oust the bankers. In a clean and painless, and faster than what you can imagine. With a magic wand? No. With a simple law, but able to replace the current system, in which to create money out of nothing are private banks. We only need a measure requiring the banks to hold a financial reserve real, 100%. To propose two economists at the International Monetary Fund, Jaromir Bene and Michael Kumhof. You, the bank, you want to make money on the loan of money? First you have to prove it really that much money. Too easy to have it by the central bank (which the factory from scratch) and then “extort” families, businesses and entire states, imposing exorbitant interest.

The study of two economists, “The Chicago Plan Revisited,” with “a revolutionary and” scandalous “‘Maria Grazia Bruzzone,” La Stampa “, emphasizes the global resonance of the dossier, that bursts like a bomb on the world capitalist system now jammed. The global debt came the exorbitant sum of 200 trillion, that is 200 trillion dollars, while the world GDP is less than 70 trillion. Translated: the world debt is 300% of gross domestic product of the entire planet. “And to hold this huge mountain of debt – which continues to grow – there are more advanced economies and developing countries,” says the Bruzzone, stressing that “the heart of the problem and the cross” is the highest “power” Japan, Europe and the United States. Hence the sortie “heretical” by Bene and Kumhof: simply write off the debt, it disappears.Sparked the debate was the last IMF report, which points the finger on austerity policies aimed at reducing thepublic debt . Policies that “could lead to recession in the economies ‘, since’ cuts and tax increases depress the ‘economy ‘.

Not only. The IMF would be really worried the crisis that is ravaging the ‘ Europe threatens to be worse than the 2008 financial. The surprise is that even the IMF now thinks that “austerity can be used to justify the privatization of public services,” with consequences “potentially disastrous”. But if the problem is the debt – public, but now “privatized” by finance – you can not delete? Solution already ventilated by the Bank of England, which holds 25% of the British sovereign debt: the Bank of England may reset it by clicking on the computer. Advantages: “You will pay much less interest, it would free up cash and you could make less harsh austerity.” The debate rages on many media, starting from the same “Financial Times”. thread which breaks now the revolutionary proposal of the two IMF economists targati: cancel the debt.

“The Chicago Plan Revisited,” writes Maria Grazia Bruzzone, raises and explores the “Chicago Plan” original, drawn up in the middle of the Great Depression of the ’30s by two other economists, Irving Fisher, Henry Simons of the University of Chicago, the cradle of liberalism . Cancel 100% of the debt? “The trick is to replace our system, where money is created by private banks – for 95-97% of the supply of money – money created by the state. It would mean return to the historical norm, before the English King Charles II put in private hands control of the money available, “back in 1666. It would mean a frontal assault on the “fractional reserve” banking, accused of seigniorage on the issue of currency speculation: if lenders are instead forced to hold 100% of its reserves to guarantee deposits and loans, “pardon the exorbitant privilege of create money out of nothing. ” As a result: “The nation regained control over the availability of money,” and also “reduces the pernicious cycles of expansion and contraction of credit.”

The authors of the first “Plan of Chicago” had thought that the cycles of expansion and contraction of credit lead to an unhealthy concentration of wealth: “They had seen in the early thirties creditors seize farmers effectively bankrupt, grab their lands or comprarsele for a piece of bread. ” Today, the authors of the new edition of this plan argue that the “trauma” of the credit cycle that expands and contracts – caused by private money creation – is a historical fact that is already outlined with Jubilees Debt ancient Mesopotamia, as well as in ancient Greece and even Rome. Sovereign control (the state or the Pope) on currency, recalls Bruzzone, Britain remained so throughout the Middle Ages, until 1666, when it began the era of the cycles of expansion and contraction. With the “bank privatization” of money, add the “Telegraph”, “opened the way for the agricultural revolution, and after the industrial revolution and the biggest leap Economic ever seen “- but it is not the case of” quibbling, “quips the newspaper.

According to the young economists of the IMF, is just a myth – disclosed “innocently” by Adam Smith – that the money has been developed as a medium of exchange based on gold, or related to it. Just as it is a myth, the study points out the IMF, what you learn from books: that is the Fed, the U.S. central bank, to control the creation of the dollar. “In fact, money is created by private banks to 95-97% through loans.” Private banks, in fact, do not lend as owners of cash deposits, the process is exactly the opposite. “Every time a bank makes a loan, the computer writes the loan (plus interest) and the corresponding liability in its balance sheet. But the money that pays the bank has a small part. If it does borrow from another bank, or by the central bank. And the central bank, in turn, creates out of nothing that lends the money to the bank. ”

In the current system, in fact, the bank is not required to have its own reserves – except for a tiny fraction of what it provides. Under a system of “fractional reserve”, each money created out of nothing is a debt equivalent: “Which produces an exponential increase in the debt, to the point that the system collapses on itself.” The economists of the IMF hours overturn the situation. The key is the clear distinction between the amount of money and the amount of credit between money creation and lending. If you impose banks to lend only numbers covered by actual reserves, loans would be fully funded from reserves or profits accrued. At that point, the banks can no longer create new money out of thin air. Generate profits through loans – without actually having a cash reserve – is “an extraordinary and exclusive privilege, denied to other business.”

“The banks – says Maria Grazia Bruzzone – would become what he mistakenly believed to be, pure intermediaries who have to get out their funds to be able to make loans.” In this way, the U.S. Federal Reserve “is approprierebbe for the first time the control over the availability of money, making it easier to manage inflation.” In fact, it is observed that the central bank would be nationalized, becoming a branch of the Treasury, and now the Fed is still owned by private banks. “Nationalizing” the Fed, the huge national debt would turn into a surplus, and the private banks’ should borrow reserves to offset possible liabilities. ” Already wanted to do John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who began to print – at no cost – “dollars of the Treasury,” against those “private” by the Fed, but the challenge of JFK died tragically, as we know, under the blows of the killer of Dallas , quickly stored from “amnesia” of powerful debunking.

Sovereign coin, issued directly by the government, the state would no longer be “liable”, but it would become a “creditor”, able to buy private debt, which would also be easily deleted. After decades, back on the field the ghost of Kennedy. In short: even the economists of the IMF hours espouse the theory of Warren Mosler, who are fighting for their monetary sovereignty as a trump card to go out – once and for all – from financial slavery subjecting entire populations, crushed by the crisis , the hegemonic power of a very small elite of “rentiers”, while the ‘ economic reality – with services cut and the credit granted in dribs and drabs – simply go to hell. And ‘the cardinal assumption of Modern Money Theory supported in Italy by Paul Barnard: if to emit “money created out of nothing” is the state, instead of banks, collapsing the blackmail of austerity that impoverishes all, immeasurably enriching only parasites of finance . With currency sovereign government can create jobs at low cost. That is, welfare, income and hope for millions of people, with a guaranteed recovery of consumption. Pure oxygen ‘s economy . Not surprisingly, adds Bruzzone, if already the original “Chicago Plan”, as approved by committees of the U.S. Congress, never became law, despite the fact that they were caldeggiarlo well 235 academic economists, including Milton Friedman and English liberal James Tobin, the father of the “Tobin tax”. In practice, “the plan died because of the strong resistance of the banking sector.” These are the same banks, the journalist adds the “Print”, which today recalcitrano ahead to reserve requirements a bit ‘higher (but still of the order of 4-6%) required by the Basel III rules, however, insufficient to do deterrent in the event of a newcrisis . Banks: “The same who spend billions on lobbying and campaign contributions to presidential candidates. And in front of the new “Chicago Plan” threaten havoc and that “it would mean changing the nature of western capitalism. ‘” That may be true, admits Bruzzone: “Maybe but it would be a better capitalism. And less risky. ”

And the Wolf responds..


[Skip to the end]

(email exchange – in response to previous email)

 
>   
>   On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Martin Wolf wrote:
>   
>   
>   Inflation is default.
>   

I respectfully do not agree.

Default is failure to make payment as agreed.

There is no zero inflation contract.

In fact, most every currency has inflation most years.

>   
>   Surely that is obvious to everybody.
>   

Credit default contracts don’t include inflation, nor does any other default provision.

>   
>   When the economy finally recovers, the government will end up with a very large debt.
>   

It will be some % of GDP that you may consider ‘very large’.

>   
>   Such debt is owed to bond-holders and serviced by taxpayers.
>   

In the first instance it is serviced by crediting accounts on the Fed’s own spread sheet.

If aggregate demand is deemed too high at that time future governments may opt to raise taxes.

If future govts desire to alter the distribution of real output to those then alive they will be free to do that via the usual fiscal and monetary measures.

>   
>   Politicians who are elected by the latter will want to default on liabilities to the former
>   (particularly if many of them are foreigners) and provide taxpayers with goodies, instead.
>   

Very possible!

>   
>   A burst of inflation is how they have always done it.
>   

Yes.

>   
>   End of story.
>   

As above. If you mean to say deficits will cause inflation, then do that.
Default is the wrong word for an international financial column.
Surely that’s obvious to everyone.

>   
>   I suggest you study the history of Argentina or indeed of the post-first-world-war inflations.
>   

And you can study what the ratings agencies have considered to be defaults.

 
All the best,
Warren

>   
>   Martin Wolf
>   


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FT.com The Economists’ Forum: Why Washington’s rescue cannot end the crisis story

Why Washington’s rescue cannot end the crisis story



by Martin Wolf

Last week’s column on the views of New York University’s Nouriel Roubini (February 20) evoked sharply contrasting responses: optimists argued he was ludicrously pessimistic; pessimists insisted he was ridiculously optimistic. I am closer to the optimists: the analysis suggested a highly plausible worst case scenario, not the single most likely outcome.

Those who believe even Prof Roubini’s scenario too optimistic ignore an inconvenient truth: the financial system is a subsidiary of the state. A creditworthy government can and will mount a rescue. That is both the advantage – and the drawback – of contemporary financial capitalism.

Any government with its own non-convertible currency can readily support nominal domestic aggregate demand at any desired level and, for example, sustain full employment as desired.

The ‘risk’ is ‘inflation’ as currently defined, not solvency.

In an introductory chapter to the newest edition of the late Charles Kindleberger’s classic work on financial crises, Robert Aliber of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business argues that “the years since the early 1970s are unprecedented in terms of the volatility in the prices of commodities, currencies, real estate and stocks, and the frequency and severity of financial crises”*. We are seeing in the US the latest such crisis.

Yes, price volatility has seemingly substituted for output gap volatility.

All these crises are different. But many have shared common features. They begin with capital inflows from foreigners seduced by tales of an economic El Dorado.

With floating fx/non-convertible currency ‘capital inflows’ do not exist in the same sense they do with a gold standard and other fixed fx regimes.

This generates low real interest rates and a widening current account deficit.

The current account deficit is a function of non-resident desires to accumulate your currency. These desires are functions of a lot of other variables.

Non-residents can only increase their net financial assets of foreign currencies by net exports.

This is all an accounting identity.

Domestic borrowing and spending surge, particularly investment in property. Asset prices soar, borrowing increases and the capital inflow grows. Finally, the bubble bursts, capital floods out and the banking system, burdened with mountains of bad debt, implodes.

With variations, this story has been repeated time and again. It has been particularly common in emerging economies. But it is also familiar to those who have followed the US economy in the 2000s.

The US did not get here by that casual path.

Foreign CB accumulation of $US financial assets to support their export industries supported the US trade deficit at ever higher levels.

The budget surpluses of the late 1990s drained exactly that much net financial equity from then non-government sectors (also by identity).

As this financial equity that supports the credit structure was reduced via government budget surpluses, non-government leverage was thereby increased.

This meant increasing levels of private sector debt were necessary to sustain aggregate demand as evidenced by the increasing financial obligations ratio.

Y2K panic buying and credit extended to funding of improbably business plans came to a head with the equity peak and collapse in 2000.

Aggregate demand fell, GDP languished, and the countercyclical tax structure began to reverse the surplus years and equity enhancing government deficits emerged.

Interest rates were cut to 1% with little effect.

The economy turned in Q3 2003 with the retroactive fiscal package that got the budget deficit up to about 8% of GDP for Q3 2003, replenishing non-government net financial assets and fueling the credit boom expansion that followed.

Again, counter cyclical tax policy began bringing the federal deficit down, and that tail wind diminished with time.

Aggregate demand was sustained by increasing growth rates of private sector debt, however it turns out that much of that new debt was coming from lender fraud (subprime borrowers that qualified with falsified credit information).

By mid 2006, the deficit was down to under 2% of GDP (history tells us over long periods of time we need a deficit of maybe 4% of GDP to sustain aggregate demand, due to demand ‘leakages’ such as pension fund contributions, etc.), and the subprime fraud was discovered.

With would-be-subprime borrowers no longer qualifying for home loans, that source of aggregate demand was lost, and housing starts have since been cut in half.

This would have meant negative GDP had not exports picked up the slack as non-residents (mainly CBs) stopped their desire to accumulate $US financial assets. This was Paulson’s work as he began calling any CB that bought $US a currency manipulator and used China as his poster child. Bernanke helped with his apparent ‘inflate your way out of debt/beggar thy neighbor policy’. Bush also helped by giving oil producers ideological reasons not to accumulate $US financial assets.

Our own pension funds also helped sustain GDP and push up prices with their policy of allocating to passive commodity strategies as an asset class.

The fiscal package will add about $170 billion to non-government net financial assets, and non-residents reducing their accumulation of $US financial assets via buying US goods and services will also continue to help the US domestic sector replenish its lost financial equity. This will continue until domestic demand recovers, as in all past post World War II cycles.

When bubbles burst, asset prices decline, net worth of non-financial borrowers shrinks and both illiquidity and insolvency emerge in the financial system. Credit growth slows, or even goes negative, and spending, particularly on investment, weakens. Most crisis-hit emerging economies experienced huge recessions and a tidal wave of insolvencies. Indonesia’s gross domestic product fell more than 13 per cent between 1997 and 1998. Sometimes the fiscal cost has been over 40 per cent of GDP (see chart).

Yes, interesting that this time with the boom in resource demand, emerging markets seem to be doing well.

By such standards, the impact on the US will be trivial. At worst, GDP will shrink modestly over several quarters.

Yes, that is the correct way to measure the real cost. Still high, as growth is path dependent, but not catastrophic.

The ability to adjust monetary and fiscal policy insures this. George Magnus of UBS, known for his “Minsky moment”, agrees with Prof Roubini that losses might end up as much as $1,000bn (FT.com, February 25). But it is possible that even this would fall on private investors and sovereign wealth funds.

Those are nominal losses: rearranging of financial assets. The real losses are the lost output/unemployment/etc.

In any case, the business of banks is to borrow short and lend long.

Not US banks – that’s called gap risk, and it’s highly regulated.

Provided the Federal Reserve sets the cost of short-term money below the return on long-term loans, as it has for much of the past two decades, banks can hardly fail to make money.

As above. In fact, with low rates, banks make less on free balances.

If the worst comes to the worst, the government can mount a bail-out similar to the one of the bankrupt savings and loan institutions in the 1980s. The maximum cost would be 7 per cent of GDP.

Again, that’s only a nominal cost, a rearranging of financial assets.

That would raise US public debt to 70 per cent to GDP and would cost the government a mere 0.2 per cent of GDP, in perpetuity.

Whatever that means..

That is a fiscal bagatelle.

Because the US borrows in its own currency,

Spends first, and then borrows to support interest rates, actually

(See Soft Currency Economics.)

it is free of currency mismatches that made the balance-sheet effects of devaluations devastating for emerging economies.

True. ‘External debt’ is not my first choice for any nation.

Devaluation offers, instead, a relatively painless way out of a slowdown: an export surge.

Wrong in the real sense!

Exports are real costs; imports are real benefits. So, a shift as the US has been doing is actually the most costly way to ‘fix things’ in real terms.

And it’s obvious the real standard of living in the US is taking a hit – ‘well anchored’ incomes and higher prices are cutting into real consumption that’s being replaced by real exports/declining real terms of trade, etc.

Between the fourth quarter of 2006 and the fourth quarter of 2007, the improvement in US net exports generated 30 per cent of US growth.

Yes, we work and export the fruits of our labor. In real terms, that’s a negative for our standard of living.

The bottom line, then, is that even if things become as bad as I discussed last week, the US government is able to rescue the financial system and the economy. So what might endanger the US ability to act?

The biggest danger is a loss of US creditworthiness.

Solvency is never an issue. I think he recognizes this but not sure.

In the case of the US, that would show up as a surge in inflation expectations. But this has not happened. On the contrary, real and nominal interest rates have declined and implied inflation expectations are below 2.5 per cent a year.

I think they are much higher now, but in any case, inflation expectations are a lagging indicator, and in my book cause nothing.

An obvious danger would be a decision by foreigners, particularly foreign governments, to dump their enormous dollar holdings.

The desire to accumulate $US financial assets by foreigners is already falling rapidly, as evidenced by the falling $ and increased US exports. The only way to get rid of $ financial assets is ultimately to ‘spend them’ on US goods, services, and US non-financial assets, which is happening and accelerating. Exports are growing at an emerging market like 13% clip and heading higher.

But this would be self-destructive. Like the money-centre banks, the US itself is much “too big to fail”.

Statements like that make me think he still has some kind of solvency based model in mind.

Yet before readers conclude there is nothing to worry about, after all, they should remember three points.

The first is that the outcome partly depends on how swiftly and energetically the US authorities act. It is still likely that there will be a significant slowdown.

If so, the tax structure will rapidly increase the budget deficit and restore aggregate demand, as in past cycles.

The second is that the global outcome also depends on action in the rest of the world aimed at sustaining domestic demand in response to a US shift in spending relative to income. There is little sign of such action.

True, budget deficits are down all around the world except maybe China and India, especially if you count lending by state supported banks, which is functionally much the same as government deficit spending.

The third point is the one raised by Harvard’s Dani Rodrik and Arvind Subramanian, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, (this page, February 26), namely the dysfunctional way capital flows have worked, once again.

I would broaden their point. This is not a crisis of “crony capitalism” in emerging economies, but of sophisticated, rules-governed capitalism in the world’s most advanced economy. The instinct of those responsible will be to mount a rescue and pretend nothing happened. That would be a huge error.

Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

And those who keep saying that seem to be the worst violators.

One obvious lesson concerns monetary policy. Central banks must surely pay more attention to asset prices in future. It may be impossible to identify bubbles with confidence in advance. But central bankers will be expected to exercise their judgment, both before and after the fact.

While asset prices are probably for the most part a function of interest rates via present value calculations, my guess is that other more powerful variables are always present.

A more fundamental lesson still concerns the way the financial system works. Outsiders were already aware it was a black box. But they were prepared to assume that those inside it at least knew what was going on. This can hardly be true now. Worse, the institutions that prospered on the upside expect rescue on the downside.

I’d say demand rather than expect. Can’t blame them – whatever it takes – profits often go to the shameless.

They are right to expect this. But this can hardly be a tolerable bargain between financial insiders and wider society. Is such mayhem the best we can expect? If so, how does one sustain broad public support for what appears so one-sided a game?

Watch it and weep.

Yes, the government can rescue the economy. It is now being forced to do so. But that is not the end of this story. It should only be the beginning.

‘should’ ???

Fiscal costs of bank bailouts

US yield curve

US inflation expectations

* Manias, Panics and Crashes, Palgrave, 2005.

martin.wolf@ft.com

February 27th, 2008 in US economy | Permalink

4 Responses to “Why Washington’s rescue cannot end the crisis story”

Comments

  1. Kent Janér (guest): Largely, I agree with Martin Wolf’s analysis of what went wrong and what should be done in the future to prevent the by now very familiar pattern of boom and bust in regulated financial systems.There is one aspect that I think merits more attention than it has been given, an aspect that also has some important short term effects – the equity base of the financial system. I think the equity base is currently being mismanaged, and regulators could have some tools to improve the situation.

    As everyone knows, there are much more losses in the financial system than have so far been declared. I think close to USD 150 bn has been reported at this stage. That could be compared to for example the G7 comment of 400 bn in mortgage related losses, and 400-1000 bn in total losses probably covering most private sector forecasts. At the same time new risk capital has been raised to the tune of roughly 90 bn USD (ballpark number).

    A back of the envelope calculation shows that a large part of the equity of the financial system has been wiped out, much more than has been reported. The market knows, the regulators know and the banks themselves certainly know that even though they are far from bankrupt, they are on average in truth operating at equity/capital adequacy ratios clearly below both legal requirements and sound banking practices.

    Currently, the banks are responding by reporting losses little by little, keeping up the appearance of reasonable capitalization. At the same time, they try to reduce their balance sheet, especially from items that carry a high charge to capital. This way they hope (but hope is never a strategy) that time will heal their balance sheet; earnings will over time be able to offset continued writedowns. High vulnerability to negative surprises, but no formal problems with minimum capital adequacy ratios and control of the bank, “only” weak earnings for some time.

    That is all very nice and cosy for bank´s directors, but not for the economy in general. If a small part of the banking sector has specific problems and rein in lendig, so be it. That probably has little impact on the rest of the economy. However, if the entire financial sector postpone reported losses and contract their balance sheet, that is another question altogether. The cost to rest of the economy could be very high indeed.

I am less concerned about ‘loanable funds’ with today’s non-convertible currency. I see the issues on the demand side rather than the supply side of funding. Capital ’emerges’ endogenously as a supply side response to potential profits. The reducing lending is largely a function of increased perception of risks.

So, what should be done? Pretending that banks are OK and sweat it out over time is dangerous to economy as a whole, but so is being too harsh on the banks right now.

I actually think there is an answer – the banks should be made to recapitalize quickly and aggressively. Accepting new equity capital would minimize social cost of their current mistakes. There is an obvious practical problem with that, the price at which that capital is available is not necessarily the price at which current shareholders want to be diluted. So, in essence, the banking system continues to push the cost of their mistakes to others by not coming clean on their losses and recapitalize, rather they try to muddle through by not declaring their losses in full and pull in lending to the rest of the economy.

You hit on my initial reaction here. It’s up to the shareholders to supply market discipline via their desire to add equity, and it’s up to the regulators to make sure their funds – the insured deposits (most of the liability side, actually, when push comes to shove) – are protected by adequate capital and regulated bank assets. I think they are doing this, and, if not, the laws are in place and the problem is lax regulation.

I think regulators should be tougher here, banks that clearly are below formal capital adequacy ratios with proper mark to market should be armtwisted to accept new money.

Yes, as above.

I am also looking with dismay on the fact that even some of the weaker banks are still paying dividends to their shareholders – on a global scale I think the financial system has paid out more in dividends since the start of the crisis than they have raised in new capital.

Also, a regulatory matter. Regulators are charged with protecting state funds that insure the bank liabilities.

My proposals have been to not use the liability side of banks for market discipline. Instead, do as the ECB has done and fund all legal bank assets for bank in compliance with capital regulations.

So, a likely situation is that banks with failed business models in the first part of the crisis distribute capital to their owners and somewhat later asks the taxpayer for help…

Kent Janer runs the Nektar hedge fund at Brummer & Partners AB in Sweden Posted by: Kent Janér | February 27th, 2008 at 3:06 pm |

Saudis are Necessarily in Position of Price-Setter

Published November 16, 2007 in the Financial Times

From Mr Warren Mosler.

Sir, Adrian Binks’ letter “Oil price conspiracy theories get in the way of facts”(November 14) is precisely the response indicated in my letter (November 12); in this case from an energy information service. While Mr Binks’ statements are indeed factual, the institutional structure outlined, which the Saudis initiated, leaves more than sufficient room for the Saudis effectively to set prices and meet the demand at that price.

Note that their current production level of about 8.5m barrels per day is down about 2m bpd from just a few years ago. If they were simply producing based on capacity and selling the resulting output at “market” prices, their output would be higher and the price of crude much lower.

Furthermore, if they were not acting as swing producer, it would be far more difficult to organize general Opec production levels.

Regarding Russia, Mr Binks’ statement that “the Kremlin proposed that an oil exchange be established at St Petersburg to set the price of Russian oil, although this has not yet come into being”, is indicative that President Vladimir Putin is well aware that Russia is indeed a “price-setter”, and I suggest that it is an error to underestimate his progress in this direction.

To address Mr Binks’ conclusion: this is not a “conspiracy theory” and not precisely a “price-setting cartel”. It is, rather, a point of logic describing a case of “imperfect competition” where (at least in the short run) a given supplier’s output is sufficiently large and flexible, and demand sufficiently constant, that the supplier is necessarily in the position of “price-setter”.

Warren Mosler,
Chairman,
Valance & Co,
St Croix,
USVI 00820

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007


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