patrick.net

shrekgrinch says

The only real money is M0

That's the classical way of looking at it. Money multipliers and all that. It's not really true though when nobody want's it.

Treasury bills? Deposits with the Fed or Cash (m0)? They are almost same thing to the banking system at this point, and no particular preference for which to hold, and nobody is interested in borrowing excess reserves. They're just safe marks on it's balance sheet earning about 0% interest. That's what it means to be at the zero bound. Demand for "real money" has gone infinitely elastic. And now it applies not just to treasury debt, it applies to GSE debt too since it's backed by the government. The distinction between real base money and much of the universe of credit money has become blurry. The concept of base money kind of made since when gold/silver was "real money", but it doesn't much any more. Even Federal reserve notes are backed by debt, just like your account at your bank.

I agree though that m0, m1, m3, mzm, etc. just confuses things. It's all just counting of some subset of liabilities in the financial system.

Ptipking222 says

MarkinSF, if tax rate are that high, people simply stop paying the tax. They somehow avoid it legally or illegally. You can’t seriously expect someone to work or take risk when they only get 20% of any positive return on the money.

Yes I can. Based on the historical fact that people did work and take risk (economic growth was very robust), I seriously can expect someone to work or take risk when top tax rates are high. But I was not advocating or defending those high rates. I was just pointing out they are historical facts.

Ptipking222 says

i.e. taking more risk

assertion not in evidence