Goff says RB policy targets don’t work
In a speech to Federated Farmers today Labour leader Phil Goff has indicated that at least one of the major political parties appears to be getting the message, saying:
“… our Reserve Bank policy targets are not well designed to produce a stable and competitive exchange rate, nor to keep interest rates as low as possible. In fact, it often operates the other way round. When there is a surge in domestic demand, the policy response is to increase interest rates. Ironically, higher interest rates attract even more inflows of foreign capital, which then gets lent out and sometimes causes even stronger domestic demand. So New Zealand’s overseas debt increases inexorably, while monetary policy punishes our most productive businesses and first home-buyers – just about the two sectors that we least want to affect.”
The full text of his speech is available here.
Monday this week I made the following comment about this topic:
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2009/11/16/top-10-at-10-south-canterbury-losses-china-bubble-to-pop-mad-butcher-vs-chrisco-dilberts/comment-page-1/#comment-47427
(Plus see further comments in that thread.)
So got to thinking about how ‘The Guernsey Way’ (interest free public credit) could be combined with, increasing the core funding ratio to 100% – ie. full reserve banking. However, I thought that too incredible and defaulted back to the ‘mixed’ approach, ie. ‘The Guernsey Way’ and ‘The North Dakota Way’ – the latter went in the NZMEA submission to the oppositions banking inquiry. In mulling that over came across a vid by Bill Still, who presents better than Ellen Brown, see here where he describes North Dakota state bank:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGNPEQDXxwo
So blow me down with a feather as he cites the same idea as a salve to the US’ woes, in parts 20/21 of ‘The Money Masters’ vid series on You-Tube. The link below is to part 19 where he sums up and proposes the ‘public credit’ and full reserve banking solution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIPHd4Gjcck&feature=related
I wonder if Dr. B is thinking this way with the new focus on the core funding ratio?
I doubt it, But maybe Goff and co. will have what it takes – LEADERSHIP – and start a purposful debate on how NZ can remodel KiwiBank toward the BND approach (with all central government finances transacted through it,) OR, consider NZ regions having their own ‘community focused banks’ (with all local gov. finances transacted through them) OR, maybe a sector specific bank, say ‘The Exporters Bank’, or ‘Productive Economy Bank’ – given we seem to have plenty of banks for the ‘Unproductive Economy’!!
No harm in dreaming a bit eh?