Saturday, May 30, 2015

Madness In Global Monetary Policy Continues

Posted: 5/30/2015

Trigger

Just read “http://www.nzz.ch/finanzen/devisen-und-rohstoffe/devisen/die-idee-des-bargeldverbots-steht-fuer-eine-irrsinnige-welt-1.18551125”. This article is about leading Swiss monetary economists discussing the pros and cons of a government mandated abolishment of cash.

I have blogged here frequently about monetary policy, central bankers and so on.

The Madness Continues

  1. Dominant central banks still maintain basically zero interest rates for now over 10 years. This large scale interest rate manipulation by dozens of governments is perhaps unprecedented in the past 100 years or so allowing for cheap finance through accumulating of government debt
  2. We have entered the bizarre world of negative interest rates thanks to government manipulation (also known as removal of the zero lower bound interest rate favored by some lunatic economists)
  3. It appears there is a trend towards governments mandating the elimination of cash money. There is no doubt that the use of cash money (coins and notes) is outdated. However, it should be left to the free markets and sovereign consumers to phase out cash money if they wish to do so. Privacy or anonymity concerns are probably overblown, but I am sure could be addressed as well.

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