 |
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Welcome to USAGOLD's "Gilded Opinion" pages. We invite you to browse our index of outstanding gold-based commentary.
Problematic Banking Systems!
by Professor von Braun
March 28th, 2009
To maintain a fiat monetary
system ALL demands written within and upon that system need to
be approved either by a regulator who reports to the central bank,
or by the central bank itself.
In the case of the current financial crisis many were asleep at
the wheel.
What has appeared to have happened is that a combination of the
'shadow' banking system and the writers of derivative contracts,
the most prominent being AIG, have written contracts that were
unregulated and therefore outside of the banking system itself.
Where were the regulators? These contracts were payable in units,
in this case US $'s, the issue of which was and is under
the control of the banking system's central bank.
One way of describing this bizarre situation is that the central
bank's role of expanding credit via its member banks was usurped
by the shadow banking system. Debt (read obligations) was created
by non-member unregulated entities, and credit was expanded by
those who had no business expanding credit. That is the role of
the Federal Reserve and its members.
When the eventual contraction occurs, all those who are involved
in credit expansion take a hit and we begin a round of market
inspired credit contraction to restore the balance. What the Fed
and the Treasury are now having to deal with is this contraction
of credit, which, given the size of the expansion, will continue
for a few years as over-inflated assets are written down.
The issue now will be that of outstanding obligations, contracts
entered into by anybody involving either the repayment of debt
or the insurance of the debt itself. Trying to reinflate the value
of the underlying assets, regardless of what they are will not
work. The liabilities attached to them far exceed the Federal
Reserves ability to pretend to fund them. Using taxpayers money,
which is future income already spoken for about 5 times over,
won't work either.
I am not to sure at this point as to whether the Fed or the Treasury
fully understand the situation they are having to deal with. So
far I have not seen too much by way of intelligent comments about
what the problem they are trying to fix actually is.
Its not so much that the value of the assets has dropped, rather
it's the fact that they were over-inflated in the first place
and that over-inflation, in particular, was of non-productive
items. It's the credit expansion game that has ended, a game in
and of itself inherently flawed, but when usurped by unregulated
players it has the apparent effect of expanding the monetary base
without the knowledge of those whose business it is to know about
these things. It is almost as if a your neighbor plugged a hose
into your water supply and forgot to tell you and one day you
wake up and find the well dry. The Fed has been reduced
to using recycled bath water as it scrambles to fix the liquidity
problem.
The real issue here is the fiat monetary system itself. The purpose
of a gold standard is to effect settlement and the closing of
the gold window in 1971 placed the very necessary activity of
settlement into the deferred stage. Since that time no transactions
have been officially settled. These unsettled transactions remain
on other Central Banks balance sheets as reserves, which they
are not. They are liabilities of the United States.
Within the banking industry old debt has been replaced by new
debt as assets were inflated and larger mortgages simply reissued.
The much touted home ownership programs by politicians, in particular
the Democrats, is a fraud. Perhaps it would have been
better named the 'keep the fiat monetary game going program',
as the banking system needed more and more mortgages to continue
to feed itself. Now the bankers' worst nightmare has arrived.
How do they re-inflate non-productive assets when there are no
buyers left! Who can be the new chief re-inflator?
Talk about a strong dollar or a weaker dollar is really quite
pointless. The dollar became the world's reserve currency because
it was backed by gold. President Nixon ended that in 1971, and
now all it is backed by is a perception, one based upon the supposed
strength of the US economy and the US treasury tax take that allows
interest to be paid on its debt. Well the economy is heading south
and so is the tax take, but now they need to increase the debt?
We now have the Federal Reserve buying US Treasuries on the pretext
of providing liquidity to the banking system so they, the bankers,
can now make 'new' loans. But 'new' loans to whom and on what
security? In addition where is the cashflow going to come from
to service the debt when the economy, which itself is a farce,
is, along with credit, contracting.
Nothing will be resolved until the players within the Central
Banking game realize what they have been doing, which is deferring
settlement ad infinitum via the activity of inflating the price
of non-productive assets and they are erroneously calling that
an economy. It's not an economy, its an ecomedy with absolutely
no sound economic basis in fact. You can not settle a debt with
a debt.
All the current talk about the need of new regulations is balderdash,
the regulations were in place and the regulators unregulated them,
with of course some help, by way of campaign contributions, from
the shadow banking system. The issue is that of settlement
and at some stage settlement between countries will have
to be made. That will require a return to gold. Special
Drawing Rights (SDR's) have about as much value as the dollar,
for they too are another perception. Hallo China!
The Prof can be contacted by email at profvonb2@aol.com
Copyright by Professor von Braun. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted at USAGOLD by permission.
Return to the The Gilded Opinion Index Page
The Rocket School of Economics -- The Lecture Series Index
 Centennial Precious Metals Gold coins & bullion since 1973 Denver, Colorado 80246-0009 |
and purchase information.
Monday-Friday admin@usagold.com |
