3 ms·

But you can't just hand wave concerns regarding money laundering and other criminality away. I'm not, I'm pointing out the rhetorical techniques being used to

But you can't just hand wave concerns regarding money laundering and other criminality away. I'm not, I'm pointing out the rhetorical techniques being used to delegitimize people who try to create privacy tools. You mean to say that we live in a democracy. We elect our representatives, and they pick who runs these institutions. It's a pernicious myth that there is some meaningful democratic oversight over monetary policy. Central banks are privately owned and/or structured in such a way as to not be beholden to political pressure (for the somewhat justifiable reason that politicians are even worse at managing monetary policy).

qsort 4y ago
> It's a pernicious myth that there is some meaningful democratic oversight over monetary policy Latinate words are not a useful cover when you're lying. All Western central banks are effectively a branch of government and are directly responsible to Congress/euparl/$local_variant, and are run by a bunch of politicians (the chair of the Fed is Powell and the president of the ECB is Lagarde, ffs). The notion that they aren't beholden to the popular will is just ridicolous.
- jcbrand 4y ago
  The second paragraph on Wikipedia: Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally independent from political interference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank
  - Seriomino 4y ago
    You used 'privately owned' to indicate it being shady.
  - qsort 4y ago
    The paper linked in the Wikipedia citation for that line has the following in its abstract: "The governance of central banks has two dimensions: corporate governance and public governance. Public governance is an institutional framework whereby the general public governs a central bank by and through the legislative and executive bodies in a country (...)". "Independence of the central bank" means independence from direct intrusion by the executive branch, in the same sense the judiciary is independent from political interference.
  - jameshart 4y ago
    So, generally, are courts, police and civil servants. That doesn’t mean that those are not government institutions.
dools 4y ago
[flagged]
- jcbrand 4y ago
  Which propaganda videos would you prefer I watch? The Federal Reserve (by far the most important one) is privately owned, as are Belgium, Greece, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey and the Bank of Italy. The ECB is owned by central banks of member states, some of which are privately owned. Private ownership is any case one issue, the other is the fact the CBs are structured in such a way to be resistant to political pressure and (meaningful) oversight.
  - dools 4y ago
    > Which propaganda videos would you prefer I watch? This is a good start: https://youtu.be/sT1KoXayDNU https://youtu.be/sT1KoXayDNU
    - jcbrand 4y ago
      I'm familiar with Mosler and MMT. MMT requires the government to raise taxes once inflation starts rising due to previous money printing. What are governments doing now? They are actually thinking of handing out more money to people to offset the effects of inflation (thereby making the inflation worse). In other words, MMT requires governments to always do the right thing, which they don't. That's ignoring the theoretical underpinnings of MMT which are by no means unassailable.
      - dools 4y ago
        > MMT requires the government to raise taxes once inflation starts rising due to previous money printing. That’s a common misconception. Have you seen any MMT economist advocate a tax increase recently? Here is an excellent podcast with one of the most eminent MMT scholars Randall Wray discussing his recent publication on how to deal with inflation in the US currently: https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-173-inflation-the-feds-crash-landing-with-l-randall-wray/ https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-173-inf... Here is the publication: https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/ppb_157.pdf https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/ppb_157.pdf

qsort 4y ago

> It's a pernicious myth that there is some meaningful democratic oversight over monetary policy Latinate words are not a useful cover when you're lying. All Western central banks are effectively a branch of government and are directly responsible to Congress/euparl/$local_variant, and are run by a bunch of politicians (the chair of the Fed is Powell and the president of the ECB is Lagarde, ffs). The notion that they aren't beholden to the popular will is just ridicolous.

jcbrand 4y ago
The second paragraph on Wikipedia: Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally independent from political interference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank
- Seriomino 4y ago
  You used 'privately owned' to indicate it being shady.
- qsort 4y ago
  The paper linked in the Wikipedia citation for that line has the following in its abstract: "The governance of central banks has two dimensions: corporate governance and public governance. Public governance is an institutional framework whereby the general public governs a central bank by and through the legislative and executive bodies in a country (...)". "Independence of the central bank" means independence from direct intrusion by the executive branch, in the same sense the judiciary is independent from political interference.
- jameshart 4y ago
  So, generally, are courts, police and civil servants. That doesn’t mean that those are not government institutions.

dools 4y ago

[flagged]

jcbrand 4y ago
Which propaganda videos would you prefer I watch? The Federal Reserve (by far the most important one) is privately owned, as are Belgium, Greece, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey and the Bank of Italy. The ECB is owned by central banks of member states, some of which are privately owned. Private ownership is any case one issue, the other is the fact the CBs are structured in such a way to be resistant to political pressure and (meaningful) oversight.
- dools 4y ago
  > Which propaganda videos would you prefer I watch? This is a good start: https://youtu.be/sT1KoXayDNU https://youtu.be/sT1KoXayDNU
  - jcbrand 4y ago
    I'm familiar with Mosler and MMT. MMT requires the government to raise taxes once inflation starts rising due to previous money printing. What are governments doing now? They are actually thinking of handing out more money to people to offset the effects of inflation (thereby making the inflation worse). In other words, MMT requires governments to always do the right thing, which they don't. That's ignoring the theoretical underpinnings of MMT which are by no means unassailable.
    - dools 4y ago
      > MMT requires the government to raise taxes once inflation starts rising due to previous money printing. That’s a common misconception. Have you seen any MMT economist advocate a tax increase recently? Here is an excellent podcast with one of the most eminent MMT scholars Randall Wray discussing his recent publication on how to deal with inflation in the US currently: https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-173-inflation-the-feds-crash-landing-with-l-randall-wray/ https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-173-inf... Here is the publication: https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/ppb_157.pdf https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/ppb_157.pdf