Thursday 9 April 2009

A deficit in my thinking?

What do I know about economics?
I didn't do it for A-Level (despite the attraction that the 'Economics Tie' was one of the coolest looking at my school). I did Geography instead (which also had a decent tie if I remember right).
And so, I have never read an economics text book (though I am really thinking that should change).
But as I read today that the Bank of England are not changing their interest rates while they wait to see how stimulating their 'Quantitative Easing' is, I am wondering why we all can't do some of our own Quantitative Easing?

Step 1: Write a long list of all the stuff we want to buy/do.
Step 2: Go shopping with all the credit cards we can lay our hands on and buy/do all the 17 000 things that we want.
Step 3: Print up some money to pay off the debt.
[and ta da! All that debt is magically gone! A whole lot of 'wealth' has been created for us & jobs for other people (at Rolex; Hilton; Mamas & Papas etc.!!)]
Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3!

Just imagine! If we all did this we'd all be million billion trillion gazillionairres. Wouldn't we?

Why is it just the Bank of England (and who are 'they' anyway?) that gets to have all the fun in this 'wealth creation' game?

2 comments:

Neil Jeffers said...

Hnery Hazlitt, "Economics in One Lesson" is the book you're looking for. I'm loving it. Happy Easter

Anonymous said...

Tim,

As someone who did economics at uni.;Quantative Easing is that the BOE simply credits money to the Govt.'s account. Thus, the Govt needs to borrow, say, £10 Bil at a gilt auction (sale of Govt. bonds). Instead of financial insitutions buying the debt (hence reducing credit supply for businesses), the BOE credits the Govt with £ 10 billion because money is a bearer promise from the BOE.

This cant't work for us because we don't have the authority to create money (which is a promise -see your £ notes).
It illustrates the imputation of Christ's righteousness reasonably well. Because of our union with Christ, he takes our maasive debt which we can't pay,and He credits us with His active & passive obedience which is received as a verbal promise through passive grasping trust.

Love

Ro.