Brussels Dispatch: A pressing idea

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This week the Government commenced 'operation helicopter', its three-month, £75bn plan, by having the Bank of England buy £2bn of government bonds using money it printed specially for the purpose. 
 
As the the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, wrote in his 17th February letter to the Chancellor: “The Bank of England remains committed to improving liquidity in credit markets that are currently not functioning normally.”   
 
Printing ‘central bank money’ is apparently the way to do this – don’t worry that the Bank has never tried quantitative Easing before in its 315 year history – there are some very clever people working at the Treasury and the Bank. Not having sufficient savings is no longer an inhibition in the light of the Bank’s greater priority of increasing velocity.

So here is my idea of how I can contribute to the 'war on illiquidity'. I have my own 'domestic quantitative easing monetary base expander' which I can use. More commonly known as a ‘counterfeiting machine’. Why can’t I contribute to expanding the money supply? Why not just let me print £2,500 myself, and start spending? 

Brussels Dispatch: I know an old lady...

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The Bank of England has started to purchase assets worth up to £100bn (comprised mostly of government gilts); to be followed by a probable later purchase of private sector assets of £50bn (corporate bonds and commercial paper).

This amount represents almost exactly £2,500 thieved from every single person in the UK. On 3 March the chancellor instructed this Asset Purchase Facility to be funded by money that obviously did not previously exist.

As Mervyn King had asked from Alastair Darling in February, the government has resorted to “unconventional unconventional measures” as opposed to the common-or-garden variety of “conventional unconventional measures”. This just goes to show the ‘experts’ have no plan, and how terrifyingly badly Gordon, Alastair and Mervyn have screwed it all up. I don’t think I would be so scared if Nick Leeson, Bernie Madoff and Sir Allen Stanford were running the economy.

For some strange reason, otherwise sane people are suggesting what we need now is a colossal expansion of the monetary base. The truth is that the economy needs an exploded M0 like I need an exploded aorta.

I know the Old Lady who has counterfeited some money; She counterfeited some money to stimulate demand; “Demand had fallen because the banks didn’t lend”; The banks “didn’t lend” because the property boom bust; The property boom bust because it was unsustainable; It was unsustainable because it was driven by cheap credit and artificially low interest rates; Which is where we are again now but even worse than before; I don’t know why the Old Lady keeps doing the same thing; Perhaps she has dementia; I hope she dies

It is long past time to abolish the Bank of England: This Old Lady needs euthanising quickly before she croaks leaving a will bequeathing nothing but hyper-stagflation.

Brussels Dispatch: Through the looking glass

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If you don’t follow what is going on in Brussels, I envy you. The FT carries an astonishing interview this week with Joaquín Almunia, the Spanish European Commissioner for Monetary Affairs. Sadly, Mr. Almunia’s job title is the nearest we get to monetarism. Here is some dirigiste ‘almunition’ with my comments added:

“I’m convinced that financial regulation will be broader [more pervasive] and stronger [more punitive]. The financial system will be more regulated [more bloated parasites living off fewer wealth creators and more coercion in instructing entrepreneurs in what way they are to create wealth - which will then be confiscated by the State anyway].

This will mean less leverage [Mr. Almunia can perhaps take a look at the Member States’ track record of carrying debt larger than their assets, with their off-balance sheet accounting practices which would be illegal for any commercial enterprise, and redirect his cant in a  more needed direction], less flexibility in the financial system [I honestly have no idea what the man is talking about – unless he is ignorant enough to believe that less responsiveness in the financial markets is a good thing], and less influence for the financial system in the aggregated results of our economy [that’s right – he wants less wealth generation in the economy to come from investment]...

Either we accept that our growth will be lower than in the past because the stimulus [obviously, he’s been reading the New York Times too much, the word he really needed was ‘contribution’] from the financial sector will be smaller, or we find more engines of growth in the non-financial side of the economy. [Oh yes, look at all these engines of growth that we never knew existed just turning over happily in the Retezat hinterland. Good old Romania]. 

Never forget, you pay his salary.

Take a look around you, at what little liberty you still possess, O free market, because this is as good as it gets.

But there is one small sector I am still prepared to invest in – the lamppost industry.  Because when the revolution hits the streets we are going to need a lot of them.  Now a Commissioner for Lamppost and Rope Provision – that would fulfil a useful need…