Alan Longbon - Comments
MBA
I have an MBA and over 25 years of experience in real estate development, stocks, bonds, finance, and forex markets. My investment approach is very simple. I find countries with the highest and strongest macro-fiscal flows and low levels of private debt and invest in them using country ETFs and ...more
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Debt, Deficits, And False Stories
5 years ago

Right on the money.

In this article: TLT
Monetary Policy Takes Center Stage: MMT, QE Or Public Banks?
5 years ago

Hello Ellen,

Great to find you writing here. This is a quote that I regularly post in reply to scaremongering about the national debt.

"Under current institutional arrangements, governments around the world voluntarily issue debt into the private bond markets to MATCH $-for-$ their net spending flows in each period. A sovereign government within a fiat currency system does not have to issue any debt and could run continuous fiscal deficits (that is, forever) with a zero public debt."

(Source: Professor William Mitchell, 2014) http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=29214

Issuing "debt" is totally and utterly not necessary.

If the Federal Government made two key changes there would be no need for treasury issuance and these are:

1. Change the law so that Federal deficit spending was not matched with treasury issuance.

2. Set a support rate on the Federal Fund Rate instead of a target rate so that the buying and selling of treasuries are not used to maintain the target rate.

The 'national debt' would roll off in a few months as treasuries were converted to dollars again. From savings account to checking account just like your savings at a commercial bank.

Seasonal Trading Patterns For The World's Biggest Economies
5 years ago

I agree with you and there are about 3 authors there that I follow and the rest I do not. I will be writing here more now that I have discovered it. Here my articles get a lot more page views that weeks at SA.

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Seasonal Trading Patterns For The World's Biggest Economies
5 years ago

Thank you for reading and commenting. I disagree. It is an example of applied sectoral flow analysis where flows of income cause a change in the stock of assets. It uses national accounting to track the flows at the macro level, a thing that on one does nut that was discovered by Professor Wynne Godley and the Post Keynesian school of economics. It has been out of favour for the last 50 years or so as it runs counter to current neoliberal economic thinking. It is taught though at the Levy Institute Bard College.

In this article: S
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