Abstract: Many countries have experimented with price fixing and central planning over the last century. Right now, Venezuela’s government is fixing the prices of many products. This has resulted in widespread shortages of goods which we, as the lucky inhabitants of semi-free economies, take for granted.
Abstract: This paper builds on the proposal of the Dutch citizens’ initiativefor monetary reform “Ons Geld”.“Ons Geld” advocates the disentanglement of public and private matters in money and banking by separating money and credit. Taking carefor the money supply is considered a public matter. Credit is considered a private affair, as it stems from agreement between contracting parties. The separation of money and credit is achieved by replacing bank deposits as the prevalent means of payment with state issued Digital Cash, combined with the dismantling of all government support for means of payment that are not issued by the state itself. In the process interbank clearing is phased out as the prevalent core of the payment infrastructure, and replaced by a digital payment system, based on a public Digital Cash System, in which money is directly transferred from payer to payee, without involvement of any bank balance sheet. This paper puts the “OnsGeld”proposal in context and explores the characteristics of the proposedpublic Digital Cash System,and the migration of the current payment system based on bank deposits to state issued Digital Cash. This migration is primarily driven by demand for Digital Cash as a substitute for bank deposits, which is free of credit risks and free of interest, both negative and positive. Access to Digital Cash Accounts is provided by payment service providers such as banks, as a front-end-service under public supervision.Migration to a public Digital Cash System changes monetary policy radically and implies the introduction of new monetary instruments and requires adaptation ofthe regulatory regime. Credit markets become liberalized as interest rates are no longer centrally managed, and become fully subject to market forces in which supply and demand of money for lending, and the risks involved are reflected. The money supply, in the form of state issued Digital Cash, becomes tightly controlled and directly managed by a separate (4th) power of government; the Monetary Authority. In this Digital Cash System money is essentially information, with no backing other than the power ofcentral government, strengthened by transparency, democratic control and institutional oversight. This requires specific (statutory) principles that govern the monetary power to ensure a sound and stable monetary system serving society at large, enabling it to flourish to its full potential.
Abstract: Most economists differ, not on the causes of the Great Recession, but on their relative importance.They concur, though, on the basic problem, namely human, not market failure. This study appliesthe evidence, some new, some old, to re-try the usual suspects. It finds none guilty. Instead, it identifiesbroadly defined multiple equilibrium, mediated by opacity, false rumors, and panic, as the real culprit.There are many models of bank runs. But each can trigger firing runs – firing someone else’s customersfor fear that others are firing your customers. Firing runs, in turn, exacerbate bank runs, producinga vicious cycle. This cycle can be manipulated by those who benefit from economic distress (shortsellers). If the banking system, not the banking players is the problem, the solution surely lies in fundamentalbanking reform. This paper concludes by pointing out that a reform that shifted to 100 percent, equity-financedmutual-fund banking with government-organized, real-time asset verification and disclosure couldpreclude financial runs and their ability to induce firing runs.
„Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.“ Dies proklamierte einst der amerikanische Poet und Freigeist John Perry Barlow, der als Mitbegründer der NGO Electronic Frontier Foundation für Rechte im digitalen Zeitalter und eine möglichst weitgehende Deregulierung des Internets eintrat. Digitale Phänomene wie Kryptowährungen sind nur schwer den bestehenden Konzepten einer ursprünglich durch körperliche Gegenstände geprägten Rechtsordnung zu unterwerfen. Dieser Aufsatz versucht am Beispiel von Bitcoins diese Erscheinungen in bestehende zivilrechtliche Strukturen einzuordnen und zu klären, ob der Gesetzgeber regulierend einschreiten sollte. Hierzu werden nach einer Einleitung zu Kryptowährungen (I.) ihre Rechtsnatur (II.) und Behandlung i.R.d. Schuldrechts (III.) erörtert.
Summary:
Abstract: Most economists will agree that the future of money will be more digital than today. But while everybody speaks of ‘digitalisation’, the concrete meaning of this term remains very often unclear. There are four major areas where digitalisation could modify the traditional forms of money and credit and as consequence modify the theory and practice of monetary policy: