Gernot Koehler wrote: > Suppose the president of the US empire were a socialist (and his ideological > stand accepted and certified by the core members of pen-l), what could be > proposed to him as regards the global dimension of the present crisis? My > suggestion (i.e., issuing 1 trillion SDRs) is meant to indicate a direction > of action and is not meant as a blueprint ready for signature by the > imperial president. SDRs are presently issued by the IMF in rather small > quantities. Another minus is that they come from the IMF. > > However miserly and problematic current SDRs may be, they are fiat money > created at the global level. That is important as a principle. That means > that the world system has already an organization that performs a function > that is normally performed by national central banks, namely, creating fiat > money out of nothing. In true Anglo-Saxon fashion one could use that > precedent and enlarge and refine it. An organization that can create small > amounts of fiat money out of nothing could also create large amounts of fiat > money out of nothing. Why not? And instead of rescuing the rich with those > funds, it could disburse them to qualified recipients in poor countries.
the practical problem with the IMF as a world version of the Fed is political: it would only be allowed to take on that role if the US and its allies could make sure that it (a) followed their bidding or (b) was "independent" in the way the Fed is (i.e., catering to the collective interests of the financial sector and not to democratic forces) or (c) had to follow some kind of inflation-targeting rule. These three overlap. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
