Marx, Capital, vol. 3, chap. 29: " No matter how often this transaction is repeated, the capital of the state debt remains purely fictitious, and, as soon as the promissory notes become unsaleable, the illusion of this capital disappears. Nevertheless, this fictitious capital has its own laws of motion, as we shall presently see."
Is this true? Was Marx mistaken? Isn't it true that bills, bonds and notes issued by the Treasury are "promises to pay"? Here's a quote from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation: As of January 13, 2021, the Federal Reserve has a portfolio totaling $7.3 trillion in assets, an increase of about $2.7 trillion from the $4.7 trillion total on March 18, 2020. Longer-term Treasury notes and bonds (excluding inflation-indexed securities) comprise about two-thirds of that expansion, with holdings of those two types of securities increasing from $2.2 trillion on March 18, 2020, to 4.0 trillion on January 13, 2021 — an increase of 87 percent. According to this, treasury securities accumulated in bank reserves are "assets," not liabilities. This erroneous conception is the consequence of adhering to the notions of capitalist economic theory that prevail in capitalist countries today. Marx demonstrated these ideas as unscientific and "vulgar." The reason that bourgeois economists and investors consider IOUs as assets is because they are tokens of value that draw interest payments. For that reason they are bought and sold in bond markets. The fact that bank reserves are heavily dependent on these fictitious "assets" is a sign of the underlying weakness of capitalism. See: marxism-science.com -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#6470): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/6470 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/80703248/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
