I don't know about pen-l but i know the monetary policy i would implement. first make the federal reserve an official department of the treasury (this is actually how monetary policy worked before the fed). This is mostly just political since the fed is already legally a "fiscal agent" although it would then mean the treasury could just directly spend settlement balances into the banking system (which the treasury can already do with the much maligned "platinum" coin). Then set interest rates at zero and stop issuing treasury bills. I wouldn't set long term interest rates (so no "qe") simply because that would push up mark to market wealth inequality and would take too long to seriously impact rentiers.
Beyond that i don't think monetary policy is very useful under current political constraints. I agree with Doug that fiscal policy would be ideal and i also agree I would prefer very high marginal taxes on capital gains (on existing structures) and very high income levels. However, my taxes on wealth are mostly about reducing taxes on labor and reducing the political (and economic) power of the very wealthy then any revenue concern. p.s. the only way to get the fed to do fiscal policy is evoke the special rule saying that otherwise the targeted persons don't have access to credit. I've also heard it argued that the fed could do infrastructure/ job program spending out of it's operating budget (not set by congress) as long as congressmen notified don't raise the red flag (NSA much?). the fed can also mimic fiscal policy by using it's regulatory powers to crack down on mortgage servicers and force them to do major principal writedowns that are actually in investor interests. -- -Nathan Tankus ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
