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A de-growth model would therefore necessitate a fundamental restructuring of the global financial system. This is not likely to happen any time soon. But this has as much to do with political barriers and vested-interests as economic ideology.

A lot of it was spent on bailing out US banks and that money is still there, as well as money funnelled into well connected corporations within the US. Already in the UK inflation is going out of control because of QE in this country, why should the US expect to be any different? What will happen when the US’s banks begin lending those trillions they are sitting on?

prefer ron paul /austrian economics view of life, but if you take on fiat debts worth trillions… you can’t solve the problem by cutting spending and having people suffer for this, this is not right, this type of debt should be canceled first (at least most of it)

Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have rightly been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry both in the United States and abroad. Anxiously focused on national economic growth, we increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable and empathetic citizens. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world.

men vi skal være opmærksomme på, at vi løber tør for dem på et tidspunkt.

Derfor medregnes udtømningen af ressourcen som et negativt bidrag til den ægte opsparing, mens produktionen indgår positivt i BNP. Forbruget af reserverne i Nordsøen har reduceret opsparingen med knap to pct. af BNP om året.

Alt i alt har den ægte opsparing med de anvendte beregningsforudsætninger udgjort omkring 7½ pct. af BNP i gennemsnit om året siden 1990. De nuværende generationer har dermed netto lagt værdier svarende til 7½ pct. af produktionen til side til de fremtidige generationer.

Imidlertid viser vore beregninger, at forventede omkostninger i den nævnte størrelsesorden, er mindre end den beregnede gavnlige virkning af opsparingen i andre aktiver, vi som samfund foretager. Befolkningen har således fået bedre og ikke ringere vilkår for at få opfyldt deres behov i den betragtede periode.

As an ardent supporter of Ron Paul, I must acknowledge Paul Krugman's point about getting inflation wrong, at least in the years since the crash. He is right that there were many outspoken critics of monetary expansion at the time, including Paul and Schiff, who predicted massive inflation around the corner. But there are two further points to be made about Austrian Economics in general.First, there were at the time and continue to be Austrians who correctly anticipated the strong deflationary pressures we actually ended up facing. Mike Shedlock, for example, is concerned much more with contracting aggregate credit than expanding monetary base.Second, Austrians are unanimous on a much bigger point: that we are still in the middle of this crisis. We reject any suggestion that a recovery is underway or that any underlying structural problems have actually been resolved. As such, we have yet to confront the worst consequences of the crisis and once we do, some of the outcomes Paul and Schiff predict could come into play.Austrians also agree that while the monetary expansion may not have yet caused massive inflation, it has managed to keep incumbent banks in power. Money printing is thus seen as maintaining the status quo. Rather than the mighty banks falling and being replaced by smaller, fairer banks, they remain entrenched. This populist angst towards money printing - as a tool of the establishment - currently holds more sway than concern about rampant inflation.

No one seems to have pointed out that the original example given is actually wrong. (I've stumbled on this looking for something else, but had to comment.) The second balance sheet should still show $1000 as both the total assets and liabilities. The "deposit creation multiplier" idea referred to is the theoretical maximum aggregate balance sheet of the banking sector, if there is more than one bank and they all lend to each other and only each other. Its double counting, but that's allowed in the calculation of M4 money supply, but isn't allowed on any particular bank balance sheet (which is why the example is so wrong).

promisory notes

promisory notes

This perpetual game of borrow-lend-borrow and fractional reserve banking is dependent on the paradigm of infinite economic growth.

I rapporten Where does money come from? fra den britiske tænketank New Economics Foundation kritiseres den foretrukne fortælling fra bankerne om indlånet som begivenheden, der muliggør udlånene og pengeskabelsen. Det er typisk omvendt, påpeger tænketanken og andre med den. Som den tidligere bankøkonom, viceafdelingschef i Den Internationale Valutafond Michael Kumhof: »Det, der i virkeligheden sker, er præcis det modsatte. Og jeg har selv gjort det, jeg er bankmand, jeg ved, hvordan det fungerer, og du kan læse det på mange centralbankers hjemmesider – når bankerne siger til sig selv: ’Økonomien ser godt ud, vi er optimistiske, nu yder vi lån’, så behøver de ikke vente på, at nogen indsætter penge. For når de opretter et lån, skaber de et indestående. Bare sådan. Banker skaber penge ud af den blå luft.« Altså: Ydelse af et lån betyder alene, at der åbnes to kolonner i bankens computer: Én som siger, at kunden nu har X kr., og én som siger, at banken nu har en fordring hos denne kunde på X kr. Kundens nye virtuelle penge kan samtidig være grundlaget for et nyt udlån, noteret på næste kundes konto. Den første kunde har ret til at hæve alle sine penge, samtidig med at disse står opført på den anden kundes konto. Bankpenge kan – som udtrykt af den store amerikanske økonom John Kenneth Galbraith – være to steder på én gang. Mindst.