We should ban financial speculation on food prices

The Great Hunger Lottery report shows how such speculation on food has impacted on the poor around the world. Hunger and starvation escalated between 2007 and 2008 with over 1 billion people considered chronically malnourished at the time they prepared the Report. The major players in creating this havoc are Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. In my view, this speculation creates no widespread good and should be declared illegal. We should ban financial speculation on food prices.

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The role of bank deposits in Modern Monetary Theory

I get a lot of queries from readers about how the banking system operates. One recurring theme relates to the role of deposits in the banking system. Mainstream economic theory considers banks to be institutions that take in deposits which then provides them with the funds to on-lend at a profit. Accordingly, the ability of private banks to lend is considered to be constrained by the reserves they hold. While students find it hard to think outside of this construction, the reality is very different. Banks do not operate in this way. From the perspective of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) private bank lending is unconstrained by the quantity of reserves the bank holds at any point in time. We say that loans create deposits. So then what is the role of deposits in MMT. That is the topic for today. I am deliberately simplifying to get the essential understanding across.

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The IMF needs a budget deficit-biased head

Let Peter Costello work his magic at IMF – mounted a case for our former Treasurer (one of the worst this country has ever had) should get the baton and head to Washington. The problem is that Costello left a destructive mess in his wake and is a budget surplus obsessive. What the IMF needs is a budget deficit-biased head.

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