Tag Archives: Cash

Having discontinued its production of EUR500 banknotes, it appears Europe is charging towards the utopian dream of a cashless society. Just days after Davos’ elites discussed why the world needs to “get rid of currency,” the European Commission has introduced a proposal enforcing “restrictions on payments in cash.” With Rogoff, Stiglitz, Summers et al. all calling for the end of cash – because only terrorists and...

On Moneyness, JP Koning argues that India’s demonetization experiment could have suffered from fewer frictions if bank notes had been overstamped rather than immediately withdrawn.

On Alt-M, Larry White discusses three aspects of the Indian “demonetization” experiment. The transition from old notes blocks “honest” currency transactions, reduces income, and harms the poor who don’t have access to alternative means of payment. Because not all old notes will be redeemed, the transition into new notes will generate seignorage revenue for the government on the order of USD 40 billion, according to White’s estimates. Not all groups or industries get access to the new...

India follows suggestions to fight tax evasion by taking high denomination notes out of circulation … and introducing new ones. Until the end of the year, Indians may exchange the old banknotes against new ones, at banks or post offices, by identifying themselves. On his blog, J P Koning discusses earlier demonetization episodes in Iraq and Sweden. India’s move does not exactly follow the well publicized suggestions currently debated. But it might work.

On his blog, J P Koning discusses Kenneth Rogoff’s proposal to abolish high denomination notes (discussed earlier). Koning concludes: I agree with Rogoff’s general point that it makes sense to burden cash users with ever more work since this burden disproportionately falls on heavy users like criminals. But Rogoff hasn’t yet convinced me that the status quo policy of gradually increasing the workload involved in cash usage (via inflation) needs to be sped up by a sudden removal of every...

On his blog, Ben Bernanke discusses the merits of the Fed’s strategy to slowly reduce the size of its balance sheet to pre crisis levels. Bernanke suggests that this strategy should be reconsidered: First, the large balance sheet provides lots of safe and liquid assets for financial markets. This might strengthen financial stability. (DN: In my view, there are also reasons to expect the opposite.) Second, a larger balance sheet can help improve the workings of the monetary transmission...

Mi-2007. Crise américaine dite des Subprimes. Cette crise due à l’endettement hypothécaire de ménages américains à faible revenu a mis le monde planétaire dans un chaos financier, économique, social et sociétal dont les portées ne sont pas encore clairement établies. Le fait est que les Etats et les banques centrales du monde ont dû mettre la main à la poche pour racheter aux banques commerciales des actifs américains pourris et ce au prix avant crise. Voici un graphique qui évalue à...

Confiscation de dépôts  

The Economist reports about initiatives by commercial and central banks that aim at adopting the blockchain technology. For commercial banks, distributed ledgers promise various advantages—but they also cause problems: Instead of having to keep track of their assets in separate databases, as financial firms do now, they can share just one. Trades can be settled almost instantly, without the need for lots of intermediaries. As a result, less capital is tied up during a transaction, reducing...

BNS, un Hedge Fund mal inspiré, mal informé ou mal conseillé? Dans tous les cas mal géré… Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc. est en chute libre! L’action vient de perdre 45%. Et ce n’est pas fini! Ce titre nous intéresse  parce que le directoire de la BNS en est fan! Valeant est la bête noire de l’industrie pharmaceutique des États-Unis, la société que tout le monde aime actuellement haïr, après l’avoir longtemps aimée est une experte en effet de levier! Comprenez en spéculation grâce à...