Jeffrey D. Sachs

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Rob rich bankers and give money to the poor

Banking occupies a unique niche in the economy. Both vital and prone to crisis, Wall Street and the City of London are the beating hearts of the economy, pumping liquidity through the arteries of industry nationally and globally. When they suffer a financial arrhythmia, as in the dire crisis of September 2008, the entire world economy risks sudden death.

Life support systems are wheeled in. The Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, the ultimate providers of liquidity, not only save the banks but pad their profits too. The seignorage of the central banks (income earned by the privilege of money creation) is, in effect, shared with leading banks by lending them funds at near-zero rates that they lend out at a higher rate.

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