domenica 2 luglio 2017

Italia: vignetta per spiegare agli immigrati come funziona il governo


SNB-BNS: Seigniorage rip-off in the Swiss Confederation

The Swiss National Bank Owns $80 Billion in US Stocks—Here’s the Catch

June 23, 2017
BY JOHN MAULDIN
http://www.mauldineconomics.com/editorial/the-swiss-national-bank-owns-80-billion-in-us-stocks-heres-the-catch

Switzerland is a small country of just 8 million people, but they make an outsized impact on economics and finance and money.
Because Switzerland is considered a safe haven and a well-run country, many people would like to hold large amounts of their assets in the Swiss franc. This makes the Swiss franc intolerably strong for Swiss businesses and citizens.
So the Swiss National Bank (SNB) has to print a great deal of money and use nonconventional means to hold down the value of their currency. Their overnight repo rate is -0.75%.
That’s right, they charge you a little less than 1% a year just for the pleasure of letting your cash sit in a Swiss bank deposit.

Switzerland Is Buying US Stocks on an Enormous Scale

And the SNB is buying massive quantities of dollars and euros, paid for by printing hundreds of billions in Swiss francs.
The SNB owns about $80 billion in US stocks today (June, 2017) and a guesstimated $20 billion or so in European stocks (this guess comes from my friend Grant Williams, so I will go with it).
They have bought roughly $17 billion worth of US stocks so far this year. And they have no formula; they are just trying to manage their currency.
Think about this for a moment: They have about $10,000 in US stocks on their books for every man, woman, and child in Switzerland, not to mention who knows how much in other assorted assets, all in the effort to keep a lid on what is still one of the most expensive currencies in the world.
Switzerland is now the eighth-largest public holder of US stocks. It has got to be one of the largest holders of Apple.

What Happens When There Is a Bear Market?

Who bears the losses?
Print just more money to make up the difference on the balance sheet? Do we even care what the Swiss National Bank balance sheet looks like? More importantly, do they really care?
We all remember European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s famous remark, that he would do “whatever it takes” to defend the euro. We could hear the Swiss singing from the same hymnbook soon.

Central Banks and Governments Exacerbate the Bubble

The point is that central banks and governments are flooding the market with liquidity all over the world.
That’s showing up in the private asset markets, in stock and housing and real estate and bond prices. It creates an unquenchable desire for what appear to be cheap but are actually overvalued assets—which is what creates a Minsky moment.
Now, remember what Minsky said: When an economy reaches the Ponzi-financing stage, it becomes extremely sensitive to asset prices. Any downturn or even an extended flat period can trigger a crisis.
While we have many domestic issues that could act as that trigger, I see a high likelihood that the next Minsky moment will propagate from China or Europe. All the necessary excesses and transmission channels are in place.

The Great Reset Is Close

The hard part, of course, is the timing. The Happy Daze can linger far longer than any of us anticipate. Then again, some seemingly insignificant event in Europe or China—an Austrian Archduke’s being assassinated, or what have you—can cause the world to unravel.
It’s a funny world.
Our central banks and governments exhibit unmistakable herd behavior and continue to do the same foolish things over and over. They never really intend to have the crisis that ensues.
Remember Farrell’s Rule 3: There are no new eras. The world changes, but danger remains. Gravity always wins eventually. It will win this time, too. And when it does, we will begin to undergo the Great Reset.

mercoledì 28 giugno 2017

UBS Whistleblower Offers Expert Consultation to UBS Clients

UBS Whistleblower Reveals the Secrets of Offshore Banking and Offers Expert Consultation to Help UBS and Swiss Bank Clients Get Their Rightful Compensation


News provided by
Lucifer's Banker
07:00 ET

LONDON, June 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

For decades, the now-defunct façade of Swiss banking secrecy has cheated worldwide clients who deposited money in Switzerland, alleges UBS Whistleblower and former banker, Bradley Birkenfeld. In his explosive book, Lucifer's Banker - The Untold Story of How I Destroyed Swiss Bank Secrecy,  Birkenfeld details how UBS, one of the world's largest banks, helped the ultra-wealthy commit tax fraud. Now, a team of senior ex-UBS bankers and international lawyers are lending their expertise to help former Swiss bank clients get their rightful compensation from "kickbacks" taken.
In 2012, in a landmark Swiss Federal Supreme Court ruling in Zurich, Switzerland, UBS was found guilty of knowingly taking "kickbacks" for years from their global clients on structured products and asset management activities.
Presently, every UBS client whether individual, corporation, endowment, foundation, trust and/or government entity can now demand all of their rightful "kickbacks" from UBS before October 2017.  Birkenfeld, along with a group of senior ex-UBS private bankers and professional international law firms, have been assembled to assist every Swiss bank client to promptly file their rightful claims.  To get the facts go to:
WWW.LUCIFERSBANKER.COM
UBS SCANDALS
UBS "Kickbacks"

Publicist: C.S. Lewis & Company Publicists
+1-845-679-2188 (Phone)
http://www.cslewispublicity.com


SOURCE Lucifer's Banker

Forum BCE sul central banking: lettera a Marco Buti sui cicli e la crisi

Mr. Marco Buti
Director-General for Economic and
Financial Affairs
European Commission
B-1049 Bruxelles


Roma, 27 giugno 2017

Egregio,

domattina Lei interverrà al panel sui cicli economici in Portogallo nell’ECB Forum. 

La crisi attuale è direttamente condizionata dalle pratiche contabili bancarie che non considerano la creazione di liquidità (Euro immateriale) all’attivo dei loro bilanci e che, contemporaneamente, non segrègano i depositi della clientela dallo Stato Patrimoniale. La creazione di nuova valuta FIAT che le banche praticano quando fanno prestiti, investimenti o pagamenti di fornitori, non risulta registrata nell'attivo dei flussi di cassa delle banche: né della Banca Centrale, né delle banche commerciali. La BCE, come ben sappiamo, risolve parzialmente il problema occultando al pubblico il proprio Rendiconto Finanziario (Cash Flow Statement) – infatti non lo pubblica. Nel caso delle banche commerciali, almeno in Italia, il rendiconto finanziario viene pubblicato, ma senza indicare la creazione di denaro. Stiamo parlando di cifre notevolissime (qui la recente statistica pubblicata dalla Banca d’Italia: https://seigneuriage.blogspot.it/2017/06/quantita-di-moneta-creata-dal-sistema.html )

Se le banche indicassero la quantità di denaro creato nell’ATTIVO del bilancio, non si troverebbero esposte ai fragili bilanci che risultano oggi. E’ vero che la creazione di denaro a sua volta rappresenta una PASSIVITÀ, ma indicandola come “valuta in circolazione”, nel caso della BCE, o come “debiti verso clientela”, nel caso delle banche commerciali, questa passività rimane irredimibile. Questa passività – che attualmente lo è solo di nome – dovrebbe essere inverata come “debito da signoraggio” e diventare una passività riscuotibile da parte dei Tesori dei paesi membri della UE i quali, a loro volta, dovrebbero aprire una voce attiva in bilancio denominata “signoraggio da creazione di valuta FIAT”.

La corretta lettura degli standard contabili internazionali impone di considerare la creazione di denaro come un aumento delle attività delle banche. Solo allora si potrà trovare una adeguata soluzione alla crisi incomprensibile di banche che, sole, hanno il potere di creare il denaro, e quindi alleviare le tensioni che oggi affliggono le politiche comunitarie. La politica dello struzzo, di nascondere la polvere sotto al tappeto, potrà forse far guadagnare tempo. Ma quando i nodi verranno pubblicamente al pettine potrebbe essere troppo tardi e troppo difficile per Mago Draghi trovare un nuovo coniglio credibile da estrarre dal vecchio cilindro e, per la Commissione Europea, sarebbe una perdita letale di credibilità.

La invito quindi cordialmente a trasmettere al Forum la possibilità di adeguare finalmente la stesura dei bilanci bancari agli standard contabili IAS-IFRS che, in questo particolare caso, (IAS 7.6) trovano pure corrispondenza nelle US-GAAP (US GAAP ASC 942-230-20) e quindi non dovrebbero occasionare alcun attrito con gli Stati Uniti che, fino ad oggi, non hanno ancora pensato a questa semplice soluzione.

Rimanendo a Sua disposizione per i dettagli, Le porgo cordiali saluti,

Marco Saba
Contabile forense ed economista
Skype: marcosabait

Riferimenti:
- Cash Flow Accounting in Banks— A study of practice, Ásgeir B. Torfason, University of Gothenburg - 2014

- Cash Flow Reporting by Financial Companies: A Look at the Commercial Banks By Charles W. Mulford and Eugene E. Comiskey - 2009

martedì 20 giugno 2017

About "the destruction of money" (myth?): email to Paul Mercier (BCL)

About "the destruction of money" (myth?) in your last paper

June 20, 2017 - h.12:48

Dear Paul Mercier,

in Your last paper (Public debt, central bank and money: some clarifications, May, 2017, pag.41) I read:

"....creation might be compensated by the destruction of money resulting from the possibility that the seller of the bond uses the proceeds of the sale to extinguish a debt initially granted by a commercial bank...".

From our research conducted in Italy such destruction don't really occur. Upon repayment of a debt with a bank the sum involved is received in the bank's main account ("conto accentrato"), while the position is cleared only in the accounting books. The electronic money in the main account is never destroyed and there are not records of such a destruction.

The problem may be as follow: money creation in a bank is never recorded as an inflow in the cash flow account of the same bank, hence it is created "off the books" and upon repayment it is "off-the-books" again (sort of shadow-money). Bank money and book-accounting are two very different things.

See for reference:
Torfason, A. - Cash flow accounting in banks – a study of practice, Göteborgs University, 2014
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/35272
This is why the ECB do not publish it's own CASH FLOW STATEMENT I guess... The Swiss SNB also refuses to publish it and was able to force a law excluding the central bank from the duty of publishing the Cash Flow Statement. It is interesting to note that both central banks are still pretending to follow IAS-IFRS and GAAP rules, and their auditing firms have nothing to tell on this matter...
So the truth is that all the electronic money (FIAT Currency, in EBA words) created by banks - while lending or spending it into circulation - is orphaned and not accounted for both in banks' cash flow account AND in the European registry of scriptural money creation (European Monetary Cadastre).
The misunderstanding arises from a misconceived view that confuses MONEY with DEPOSITS and with LIABILITIES which are three very different things.
The money created by banks can never be a real liability to the bank until it is not a real debt and/or is not recognized as a debt to the national Treasury - a debt that can be called SEIGNIORAGE ON COST-LESS CAPITAL CREATION (click-money).
I would like to receive your comments if any.

Best regards,
Marco Saba
president at IASSEM - http://iassem.org
director at UniMoscow - http://www.imperialclub.net/unimoscow_istituti.htm
member of the scientific board of Vollgeld: http://www.vollgeld-initiative.ch/wissenschaftlicher-beirat/

The answer, below (edited):

h. 14:13 (same day)

Dear Mr Saba,

First of all let me thank you for having read, and with attention from what I see, my paper;

(...omissis...)

I would be delighted to discuss this further with you should you ever have the opportunity to visit Luxembourg.

In any I would express my appreciation for stimulating the discussion and my own thoughts.

Kind regards,

Paul Mercier 

domenica 18 giugno 2017

Conferenza a Biella il 18 giugno 2017


"Di regola gli economisti non si prendono la briga di studiare la storia della moneta, è più facile per loro immaginarla e dedurre dei principi da questa conoscenza immaginaria." - Alexander Del Mar, 1895

sabato 27 maggio 2017

100%-reserve versus single-circuit sovereign money

Home » Blog » 2017 » May » 24 » Sovereign Money:… bundesbank 100% reserve sovereign money
The following is a re-post by the expert on Sovereign Money and a member of the Positive Money’s Advisory Panel, Professor Joseph Huber. In this piece, Professor Huber responds to the Bundesbank’s recent ‘Remarks on a 100% reserve requirement for sight deposits‘.

100%-reserve versus single-circuit sovereign money

To begin with, we need to be clear about the subject of the Bundesbank text. It is about a reform approach from the 1930s, that is, 100%-banking (Chicago Plan) or 100%-money according to Fisher. This approach basically keeps the split between the public circuit among nonbanks on the basis of bankmoney (deposits) and the interbank circuit on the basis of central bank reserves. In order to stop bankmoney creation, the minimum reserve requirement (today 1% in the euro area) is to be raised up to 100%.That approach comes with a number of counter-intentional results, even though not always of the kind the Bundesbank assumes.
What can be endorsed is the Bundesbank’s conclusion that even a 100%-reserve does not prevent banks from pro-actively creating additional bankmoney, which indeed applies in any reserve system with pro-active primary bankmoney creation through extending bank credit. Independently, the need to refinance 100% of the bankmoney would improve the effectiveness of base rate policy.
Today’s monetary reform proposals, by contrast, such as for example represented by the initiatives in the International Movement for Monetary Reform, go beyond reserve banking in favour of a sovereign money system or central bank money system. The proposals aim at substituting central bank money for bankmoney in order to create a single-circuit system on the basis of central bank money only, the money circulating among nonbanks and banks alike, be it solid cash, money-on-account, or central bank digital currency.
100%-reserve banking and sovereign money pursue comparable goals, such as for example control over the stock of money by preventing banks from private bankmoney creation; enabling effective and crisis-preventive monetary policies; and full gain from money creation to the benefit of the public purse. Concerning technical aspects, however, the two approaches are fundamentally different, and equating them leads to confusion and wrong conclusions.
The heading of the Bundesbank article correctly indicates that it is just about 100% reserves, but incorrectly states that critical money system analysts today were looking back to 100%-reserve approaches for restraining otherwise overshooting bankmoney, credit and debt creation. The press and blogosphere have subsequently covered the Bundesbank article as a statement on a sovereign money system (i.e. the German Vollgeld or Positive Money), and as a rejection of respective reform initiatives. It is difficult to say whether the confusion is due to a lack of proper understanding or whether in some quarters there may be method behind equating 100%-reserve with sovereign money beyond reserve banking*.

Tighter Basel rules on bank equity versus monetary reform

At the beginning of the Bundesbank text it is said that critics of the present monetary system explain boom and bust cycles by unrestrained bankmoney creation feeding into credit and debt bubbles. This explanatory approach is not contradicted, but is in fact implicitly endorsed, as it is maintained that, rather than calling for a full reserve requirement, the better alternative in dealing with the problem is tighter Basel rules on bank equity and liquidity (a higher equity-to-credit ratio, or credit-to-equity ceiling respectively).
On the surface of it, higher equity buffers appear to be desirable. The question arises, nonetheless, as to why a higher dose of a remedy would be promising if it has proved to be completely ineffective in previous smaller doses? Within the frame of the bankmoney regime, Basel rules III and thereafter maybe IV are not likely to be very effective after implementation. The reason is that securities and equity on a bank balance sheet, as far as when acquired from nonbanks, are paid for with bankmoney created by the banking sector itself. Basel rules thus might decelerate bankmoney creation a little in the short run, but will not prevent banks in the longer run from creating an overshooting primary supply of bankmoney for funding credit and debt bubbles (secondarily also funded by on-lending of bankmoney among nonbanks, further money surrogates such as money market fund shares, and private digital currencies). Banks have always gone bust, even at equity ratios of 30–50 percent as was the case in the 19th century. Rather than caring too much, and ultimately in vain, about the banks’ health, of primary importance is to make sure the money is safe beyond a bank’s balance sheet and under the control of an authority independent of banks and treasuries.
Irrespective of the scope and extent to which tighter Basel rules may make sense, it is misleading to depict Basel rules and sovereign money reform as mutually exclusive alternatives. Banking regulation relating to specific objectives can be advisable in both a bankmoney regime and a sovereign money system. Besides, Basel rules and sovereign money essentially refer to different things. Basel rules are about hopes for enhanced stability of banks in the fractional reserve system by higher loss-absorbing buffers. Considered as a credit-to-equity ceiling this is hoped to act as a brake to overly runaway credit expansion, or bankmoney creation respectively. Sovereign money, by contrast, is about regaining control of the stock of money in the first place, as a prerequisite for achieving monetary safety and financial stability in a much wider sense, including bank stability.
Some people have difficulty drawing the functional distinction between money creation and credit extension due to today’s ostensible identity of money and bank credit. Questions of credit risk, collateral requirements and bank equity are thus mixed with the question of monetary safety and the reliability of cashless payments (which today depend on the banks’ solvency and liquidity in terms of fractional amounts of cash and reserves with the central bank).
The money system today is a state-backed private bankmoney regime, with the bankmoney determining the entire money supply, pro-actively led by the banking sector, re-actively accommodated by the central banks as lenders and dealers of last resort, and warranted by government as the guarantor of last instance. In this system, the safety of the money stands and falls with the (in-)stability of the banks. Economic and financial developments, however, are generally exposed to different degrees of uncertainty. The banking business is unavoidably exposed to different levels of risk, and the banks’ balance-sheet positions, including the bankmoney (liabilities to customers), are latently always at stake, which largely explains the arm-twisting ability of the banking industry to get its way.

Weakness of conventional monetary policy instruments

The Bundesbank article confirms that under today’s monetary conditions central banks always accommodate the banks’ fractional demand for reserves, including an automated intraday overdraft in the ECB payment system Target2. The article, however, fails to conclude that this is tantamount to saying that there is no effective monetary quantity policy. Independently, the article concedes that the effectiveness of base rate policy has weakened, too. This is explained by the presently low or even no cost of refinancing. This certainly applies, but blinds out a more fundamental fact, that is, the fractionality of reserves which is next to irrelevant: 1.4% cash and 0.1–0.5% excess reserves on 100% of the sight deposits (the liquid part of bankmoney), and, in the eurozone, an additional 1% obsolete minimum reserve requirement also on savings and time deposits (the inactive part of the bankmoney). The article nevertheless continues to assume a degree of effectiveness of short-term base rate policy. This is inconsistent with the otherwise accurate description of important features of the present split-circuit monetary system.

Liquidity and credit shortage?

A standing criticism of 100%-banking, also applied to single-circuit sovereign money, warns against liquidity and credit shortages. Apparently, it is assumed that banks, if stripped of the privilege of creating bankmoney on a small reserve of central bank money, ‘have no more money’ and could only finance further lending and investment by expanding their equity base. This is plucked from thin air. Similarly, other critics have claimed that funds for bank lending and investment could only be obtained from the central bank (which may be an echo of the IMF’s 2012 special version of the Chicago Plan Revisited, according to which banks would have to apply for additional credit funding from the central bank. This, however, is very special and not a feature in any other plan for 100%-banking, less so in a sovereign money system).
In actual fact, under a 100%-reserve or in a single-circuit sovereign money system there is no reason at all why banks would not be able to obtain sufficient funding at a reasonable level of interest. Available sources include the money continually flowing back to the banks in repayment of earlier loans and investments, taking up money from customers as well as on the open money and capital markets (which of course can and must exist), and finally also short-term borrowing from the central bank. A central bank can always provide any amount of additional money denominated in its own currency, literally overnight if need be. No expansion of bank equity is needed for this; unless the critics inadequately project an exhaustion of the potential of the Basel rules on a 100%-reserve or a sovereign money system, as critics often inadequately project today’s false identity of money and credit onto a sovereign money system in which money creation and the banking business would be separate.
Considering the present system, by contrast, cyclical shortages of bank credit and money in various actor groups are widespread despite the central banks’ preparedness to provide very large quantities of reserves. If banks at times are not willing to lend or invest, central banks are not in the position to do much about it, because there is no effective transmission from the supply and price of central bank money to the creation of bank credit and bankmoney. If the banks are interested in accommodating the market demand for credit, they can easily do so anytime without needing huge quantities of excess reserves.
In any case, in a 100%-reserve system as much as in a pure sovereign money system it can easily be ensured there is always enough money and never a harmful shortage of money. Whether, however, there would at times or in certain cases be a credit crunch, continues not to be depending on the monetary system, but on the financial institutions, including the banks, and the financial markets. In today’s bankmoney regime with its false identity of money credit, of course, the one is automatically tied to and confounded with the other.

Maturity transformation and financial intermediation

Another standing criticism concerns maturity transformation, a favourite issue of orthodox banking theory to which the Bundesbank article refers at some length. This too contradicts the otherwise correct description of the bankmoney regime. The theory of maturity transformation considers banks to be financial intermediaries by taking up money short-term and lending that money long-term. This is definitely wrong as modern banks are not and cannot be financial intermediaries like nonbank financial institutions (e.g. funds). A modern bank is not a savings and loan association.
Banks have become monetary institutions; i.e., (a) banks are bankmoney creators whenever they make payments to nonbanks, and (b) banks are bankmoney transferers – monetary intermediaries – whenever they carry out payments on behalf of nonbank customers to other nonbank customers.
Nevertheless, even though there is no maturity transformation in the banking sector, there are mismatches, to a greater or lesser extent, regarding maturities of various banking assets and liabilities. Equally, there are balance sheet positions with different degrees of (dis-)advantageous liquidity. In a way, this violates the golden banking rule of bygone times, but, given the prevailing general liquidity preference, such mismatches are unavoidable in maintaining the banking business.
The Bundesbank article posits, as other critics have done before, that under a 100%-reserve rule maturity transformation is no longer possible. As explained, such transformation does not exist in the banking system (but it does exist in nonbank financial intermediaries), and assuming the banks under a 100%-reserve rule or in a sovereign money system not to be able to run their business on the basis of a tolerable degree of maturity and liquidity mismatch is again plucked from thin air. In a sovereign money system, banks would no longer be money-creating institutions; instead, they would again be financial intermediaries, taking up money short- or long-term as suits them, and lending or investing that money short- or long-term in a somewhat different composition of maturities and liquidity.
Maturity and liquidity mismatches were necessary in former cash economies as well as under the gold standard; they are common in today’s bankmoney regime, and would continue to exist with a 100%-reserve requirement as well as in a sovereign money system. Supervisory authorities and specific regulation of financial institutions will not become redundant. But a monetary system with effective control of the money stock will rest on safe money, will thus be able to make redundant various parts of the regulation, and will reduce the number and severity of instabilities and crises that haunt banking and finance today.

domenica 14 maggio 2017

The Future of Money (University of Zurich, video)

Dr. Thomas Mayer, former chief economist of Deutsche Bank, and Frank Van Lerven, Head of Research at Positive Money, are discussing monetary reform and the future of money at the University of Zurich.

domenica 7 maggio 2017

Cara BNS, aiutaci a liberare Helvetia!

Performance all'Assemblea generale della BNS
Cara BNS, aiutaci a liberare Helvetia!
Bitte Bilder anzeigen
La Svizzera, rappresentata dalla Helvetia, quale marionetta delle grandi banche. Questa è l'immagine che abbiamo comunicato con la nostra performance davanti al Kutur Casino di Berna, nel quale si teneva l'Assemblea generale della Banca nazionale svizzera. L'iniziativa Moneta intera libererebbe la Svizzera dalla dipendenza delle grandi banche, per cui noi promotori richiediamo che la BNS si occupi in dettaglio dell'iniziativa. Per rappresentare ciò, alla fine della performance Guglielmo Tell ha spinto "Thomas Jordan" a tagliare i fili che legavano la Helvetia al burattinaio.

Foto della performance
Articolo su Bloomberg (inglese)
Comunicato stampa (tedesco)

Durante l'Assemblea generale della BNS abbiamo inoltre consegnato al direttoriato della BNS, per un simbolico rafforzamento di quest'ultima, l'indirizzo web www.schweizernationalbank.ch, che abbiamo utlizzato per copiare il sito web della BNS nell'ambito del nostro pesce d'aprile.
 
Konstantin Demeter, coordinatore per il Ticino
+41 76 437 88 92, +41 91 863 23 50,
konstantin.demeter@moneta-intera.ch, info@moneta-intera.ch

Sergio Morandi,  membro del Consiglio scientifico
+41 78 712 91 25, sergio.morandi@moneta-intera.ch
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Associazione Modernizzazione Monetaria (MoMo)
casella postale 3160, 5430 Wettingen
Tel.: +41 (0)44 58 66 994, +41 (0)79 77 33 450
info@moneta-intera.ch
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