Saturday, May 31, 2014

How does it get from this balance sheet to that one?


Steve Roth comments:
And there's no such thing as "money in circulation" at any given moment. That pipe going out of and back into the money bathtub is instantaneous.

It's either in this account, or it's in that account. It's never in between, or in transmission.

There is not money out there on the highway as there are cars.

Money doesn't actually "move." There are only changes in the tallies on balance sheets. (Dollar bills are just physical tokens representing balance-sheet tallies. [See R Wray on the origins and nature of money.])

It's on this balance sheet, or it's on that balance sheet.

"It's on this balance sheet, or it's on that balance sheet," Steve says. But how does it get from this balance sheet to that one? At last we have hit upon the difference between accounting and economics:

Accounting deals with balance sheets.
Economics deals with forces that change balance sheets.


Adam Smith comments:

The gold and silver which can properly be considered as accumulated or stored up in any country may be distinguished into three parts: first, the circulating money; secondly, the plate of private families; and, last of all, the money which may have been collected by many years' parsimony, and laid up in the treasury of the prince.

There is money we plan to spend, and money we plan not to spend. The former is in circulation; the latter is savings. It's that simple. The Federal Reserve defines this clearly on the "notes" tab for the M1SL series:

M1 includes funds that are readily accessible for spending.

The M1 number, the funds that are readily accessible for spending, is probably a little more than the amount of money people plan to spend, because everybody wants to save a dollar. The spending-money I have, that gets me through the week, I don't want to be broke on payday, I want a few bucks left over. Anyway...

Suppose we take total outstanding debt as a measure of total outstanding money. (This is somewhat like Steve Roth saying that the total value of assets is money.) Accumulated debt is a measure of money that exists, somewhere, that borrowers are still paying interest on because they didn't pay off the debt yet, they didn't extinguish the money.

So we can take the funds available for spending -- FRED's M1SL -- and compare that number to accumulated debt as a proxy for the total amount of money that exists, that people are paying interest to maintain in existence, FRED's TCMDO:

Graph #1: M1 -- the money we use to pay off debt -- per dollar of debt.
In 1960 there was about 20 cents of circulating money (that is, the money that becomes income) for each dollar of accumulated debt. That number was down below ten cents by 1980. Today, there is only about four cents of circulating money for every dollar of debt. Four cents. No wonder debt seems a burden today.

Every dollar of that debt corresponds to a dollar of money that was newly created when the debt was created. The debt still exists. So where is the other 96 cents?

A lot of it went into savings and other financial assets, and out of circulation.

There's a big focus these days on income inequality. Here's the root of the problem: Some people are earning interest and others are paying interest on more and more and more of the money in our economy. It's a mad house! A mad house!

The graph shows there's only four cents left, with which to pay the interest and principal on a dollar of debt and still do everything else we need money for.

And paying off a dollar of debt reduces that four cents by a dollar.

11 comments:

Jazzbumpa said...

I think for this line of reasoning to be valid, you have to exclude federal government debt from the picture.

It's private debt that puts a drag on the economy.

The government can always print more currency and monetize the debt away. Private debtors don't have that luxury.

Cheers!
JzB

The Arthurian said...

That's an interesting link, Jazz -- from 2005, before Bernanke chaired the Fed.

The way Thoma laid out his explanation was fascinating, with exceptions like right at the end of Item 5: "The increase in the money supply is inflationary."

No explanation. Only assertion. As if his definition of inflation is not "increasing prices" but "increasing quantity of money".

It stands out like a sore thumb.

Jazzbumpa said...

Yeah - I think money and inflation are very poorly understood concepts, especially by people who think they understand them very well.

But my point was that all debt is not created equal. Government debt and private debt are quite different.

Cheers!
JzB

The Arthurian said...

"my point was that all debt is not created equal. Government debt and private debt are quite different."

Quite different? Sure. But I don't see how that is the least bit relevant to the post. The fact that government debt and private debt differ does not affect whether money is in circulation or in savings.

The fact that government debt and private debt differ does not affect whether the borrower is still paying interest on his outstanding debt.

What the graph shows is not affected by the fact that some part of TCMDO may be Federal borrowing. M1SL is M1SL and TCMDO is TCMDO regardless of whether the four cents that remain are the government's four cents or not.

The 96 cents that disappeared is not changed by the fact that any or all of it may have been government debt.

The fact that "government can always print more currency and monetize the debt away" does not solve the problem that people are paying and earning interest on "more and more and more of the money in our economy". Rather, it has the potential to make that problem worse.

Min said...

Steve Roth: "And there's no such thing as "money in circulation" at any given moment. That pipe going out of and back into the money bathtub is instantaneous."

The "arrow in flight does not move" argument (paradox) of Zeno of Elea.

The Arthurian said...

Min,

If you make a Moebius strip of double sided tape, is it sticky on only one side?

geerussell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
geerussell said...

The fact that "government can always print more currency and monetize the debt away" does not solve the problem that people are paying and earning interest on "more and more and more of the money in our economy". Rather, it has the potential to make that problem worse.

Looking at the relationship between the government and non-government sectors, the stock of government debt is by definition the stock non-government savings. The flow of government deficit spending is non-government income.

It's unclear how an increase in savings and income has the potential to make a private debt problem worse.

The Arthurian said...

Gee, that problem (from your first paragraph, where you quoted me) is that people are paying and earning interest on "more and more and more of the money in our economy".

That's not the same as "a private debt problem" (from your 3rd paragraph). You aren't trying to confuse me, are you Gee?

Using your definition, it should be obvious that increasing "the stock of government debt" (and also "the stock of non-government savings") will aggravate the problem that people are paying and earning interest on "more and more and more of the money in our economy"

It should be quite obvious.

geerussell said...

That's not the same as "a private debt problem" (from your 3rd paragraph). You aren't trying to confuse me, are you Gee?

My fault for assuming "that problem" of "people are paying and earning interest on "more and more and more of the money in our economy" was referring to private debt and not government debt.

Certainly a distinction does need to be made there because the two have inherently different economic effects, constraints and implications for stability. Just looking at TCMDO that distinction is lost.

The Arthurian said...

"my point was that all debt is not created equal. Government debt and private debt are quite different."

Quite different? Sure. But I don't see how that is the least bit relevant to the post. The fact that government debt and private debt differ does not affect whether money is in circulation or in savings.

The fact that government debt and private debt differ does not affect whether the borrower is still paying interest on his outstanding debt.

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