Monday, January 23, 2017

Money Wisdom #422

"An efficient interbank market has the ideological function of effacing the difference between commercial bank credit money and state-created fiat money. The unconditional willingness of the central bank to exchange central bank money for commercial bank credit money at the nominal value enables commercial bank credit money to circulate in the general economy as if it were indeed central bank money. The effacing of the difference between credit and fiat money is established through the myriad of ways in which the central bank accepts different kinds of credit and securities in exchange for central bank money. When the interbank market functions most efficiently, the central bank does not even have to actually perform these transactions. The mere commitment to doing so if needed is enough. The central bank's commitment to accepting credit money at the nominal value from any of the banks in the interbank network allows the banks to exchange credit among themselves at nominal value without considering the creditworthiness of each individual bank. As we have already noted, the central bank functions as a 'believer of the last resort', which allows each of the individual commercial banks to believe unconditionally in each other."

Ole Bjerg Making Money (2014) p. 180