[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] 100% Money

[Bill Totten]

Designed to keep checking banks 100% liquid; to prevent inflation and
deflation; largely to cure or prevent depressions; and to wipe out much of
the National Debt

by Irving Fisher, LL.D

Professor Emeritus of Economics, Yale University

This is from Professor Fisher's book entitled 100% Money, revised edition
published by The Adelphi Company (1936)


Chapter I. Summary in Advance

Introduction

In the United States, as in a few other countries, most of our bills are
paid by check - not by money passing from hand to hand.

When a person draws a check, he draws it against what he calls "the money
I have in the bank" as shown by his deposit balance on the stub of his
check book. The sum of all such balances, on all such stubs in the whole
country, that is all checking deposits, or what we ordinarily think of as
the "money" lying on deposit in banks and subject to check, constitutes
the chief circulating medium of the United States. This I propose to call
"check-book money" as distinct from actual cash or "pocket-book money".
Pocket-book money is the more basic of the two. It is visible and
tangible; check-book money is not. Its claim to be money and to pass as if
it were real money is derived from the belief that it "represents" real
money and can be converted into real money on demand by "cashing" a check.

But the chief practical difference between check-book money and
pocket-book money is that the latter is bearer money, good in anybody's
hands, whereas check-book money requires the special permission of the
payee in order to pass.

In 1926, a representative year before the great depression, the total
check-book money of the people of the United States, according to one
estimate, was 22 billion dollars, whereas, outside of the banks and the
United States Treasury, the pocket-book money - that is, the actual
physical bearer money in the people's pockets and in the tills of
merchants - amounted, all told, to less than four billion dollars. Both
together made the total circulating medium of the country, in the hands of
the public, 26 billion dollars, four billions circulating by hand and 22
by check.

Many people imagine that check-book money is really money and really in
the bank. Of course, this is far from true.

What, then, is this mysterious check-book money which we mistakenly call
our "money in the bank"? It is simply the bank's promise to furnish money
to its depositors when asked. Behind the 22 billions of checking deposits
in 1926, the banks held only some three billions in actual money. The
remaining nineteen billions were assets other than money - assets such as
the promissory notes of borrowers and assets such as Government bonds and
corporation bonds.

In ordinary times, as for instance in 1926, the three billions of money
were enough to enable the banks to furnish any depositor all the money or
"cash" he asked for. But if all the depositors had demanded cash at one
and the same time, the banks, though they could have gotten together a
certain amount of cash by selling their other assets, could not have
gotten enough; for there was not enough cash in the entire country to make
up the 22 billions. And if all the depositors had demanded gold at the
same time, there would not have been enough gold in the whole world.

Between 1926 and 1929, the total circulating medium increased slightly -
from about 26 to about 27 billions, 23 billions being check-book money and
four billions, pocket-book money.

On the other hand, between 1929 and 1933, check-book money shrank to
fifteen billions which, with five billions of actual money in pockets and
tills, made, in all, twenty billions of circulating medium, instead of 27,
as in 1929. The increase from 26 to 27 billions was inflation; and the
decrease from 27 to twenty billions was deflation.

The boom and depression since 1926 are largely epitomized by these three
figures (in billions of dollars) - 26, 27, 20 - for the three years 1926,
1929, 1933.

These changes in the quantity of money were somewhat aggravated by like
changes in velocity. In 1932 and 1933, for instance, not only was the
circulating medium small, but its circulation was slow - even to the
extent of widespread hoarding.

If we assume that the quantities of circulating medium for 1929 and 1933
were respectively 27 and twenty billions and that its turnover for those
years was respectively thirty and twenty, the total circulation would be,
for 1929, 27 x 30 = over 800 billion dollars and, for 1933, 20 x 20 = 400
billion dollars.

The changes in quantity were chiefly in the deposits. The three figures
for the check-book money were, as stated, 22, 23, 15; those for the
pocket-book money were four, four, five. An essential part of this
depression has been the shrinkage from the 23 to the fifteen billions in
check-book money, that is, the wiping out of eight billions of dollars of
the nation's chief circulating medium which we all need as a common
highway for business.

The shrinkage of eight billions in the nation's check-book money reflects
the increase of one billion (that is, from four to five) in pocket-book
money. The public withdrew this billion of cash from the banks and the
banks, to provide it, had to destroy the eight billions of credit.

This loss, or destruction, of eight billions of check-book money has been
realized by few and seldom mentioned. There would have been big newspaper
headlines if eight thousand miles out of every 23 thousand miles of
railway had been destroyed. Yet such a disaster would have been a small
one compared with the destruction of eight billions out of 23 billions of
our main monetary highway. That destruction of eight billion dollars of
what the public counted on as their money was the chief sinister fact in
the depression from which followed the two chief tragedies, unemployment
and bankruptcies.

The public was forced to sacrifice eight billion dollars out of 23
billions of the main circulating medium which would not have been
sacrificed had the 100% system been in use. And, in that case, as we shall
see in Chapter VII, there would have been no great depression.

This destruction of check-book money was not something natural and
inevitable; it was due to a faulty system.

Under our present system, the banks create and destroy check-book money by
granting, or calling, loans. When a bank grants me a $1,000 loan, and so
adds $1,000 to my checking deposit, that $1,000 of "money I have in the
bank" is new. It was freshly manufactured by the bank out of my loan and
written by pen and ink on the stub of my check book and on the books of
the bank.

As already noted, except for these pen and ink records, this "money" has
no real physical existence. When later I repay the bank that $1,000, I
take it out of my checking deposit, and that much circulating medium is
destroyed on the stub of my check book and on the books of the bank. That
is, it disappears altogether.

Thus our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan
transactions of banks; and our thousands of checking banks are, in effect,
so many irresponsible private mints.

What makes the trouble is the fact that the bank lends riot money but
merely a promise to furnish money on demand - money it does not possess.
The banks can build upon their meager cash reserves an inverted pyramid of
such "credits", that is, check-book money, the volume of which can be
inflated and deflated.

It is obvious that such a top-heavy system is dangerous - dangerous to
depositors, dangerous to the banks, and above all dangerous to the
millions of "innocent bystanders", the general public. In particular, when
deflation results, the public is deprived of part of its essential
circulating medium through which goods change hands.

There is little practical difference between permitting banks to issue
these book credits which perform monetary service, and permitting them to
issue paper currency as they did during the "wild cat bank note" period.
It is essentially the same unsound practice.

Deposits are the modern equivalent of bank notes. But deposits may be
created and destroyed invisibly, whereas bank notes have to be printed and
cremated. If eight billion bank notes had been cremated between 1929 and
1933, the fact could scarcely have been overlooked.

As the system of checking accounts, or check-book money, based chiefly on
loans, spreads from the few countries now using it to the whole world, all
its dangers will grow greater. As a consequence, future booms and
depressions threaten to be worse than those of the past, unless the system
is changed.

The dangers and other defects of the present system will be discussed at
length in later chapters. But only a few sentences are needed to outline
the proposed remedy, which is this:

The Proposal

Let the Government, through an especially created "Currency Commission",
turn into cash enough of the assets of every commercial bank to increase
the cash reserve of each bank up to 100% of its checking deposits. In
other words, let the Government, through the Currency Commission, issue
this money, and, with it, buy some of the bonds, notes, or other assets of
the bank or lend it to the banks on those assets as security.{1} Then all
check-book money would have actual money - pocket-book money - behind it.

This new money (Commission Currency, or United States notes), would merely
give an all-cash backing for the checking deposits and would, of itself
neither increase nor decrease the total circuiting medium of the country.
A bank which previosly had $100,000,000 of deposits subject to ckeck with
only $10,000,000 of cash behind them (along with $90,000,000 in
securities) would send these $90,000,000 of securities to the Currency
Commission in return for $90,000,000 more cash, thus bringing its total
cash reserve up to $100,000,000, or 100% of the deposits.

After this substitution of actual money for securities had been completed,
the bank would be required to maintain permanently a cash reserve of 100%
against its demand deposits. In other words, the demand deposits would
literally be deposits, consisting of cash held in trust for the depositor.

Thus, the new money would, in effect, be tied up by the 100% reserve
requirement.

The checking deposit department of the bank would become a mere storage
warehouse for bearer money belonging to its depositors and would be given
a separate corporate existence as a Check Bank. There would then be no
practical distinction between the checking deposits and the reserve. The
"money I have in the bank", as recorded on the stub of my check book,
would literally be money and literally be in the bank (or near at hand).
The bank's deposits could rise to $125,000,000 only if its cash also rose
to $125,000,000, that is, by depositors depositing $25,000,000 more cash,
that is, taking that much out of their pockets or tills and putting it
into the bank. And if deposits shrank it would mean that depositors
withdrew some of their stored-up money, that is, taking it out of the bank
and putting it into their pockets or tills. In neither case would there be
any change in the total.

So far as this change to the 100% system would deprive the bank of earning
assets and require it to substitute an increased amount of non-earning
cash, the bank would be reimbursed through a service charge made to its
depositors - or otherwise (as detailed in Chapter IX).

Advantages

The resulting advantages to the public would include the following:

1. There would be practically no more runs on commercial banks;

because 100% of the depositors' money would always be in the bank (or
available) awaiting their orders. In practice, less money would be
withdrawn than now; we all know of the frightened depositor who shouted to
the bankteller, "If you haven't got my money, I want it; if you have, I
don't".


2. There would be far fewer bank failures;

because the important creditors of a commercial bank who would be most
likely to make it fail are its depositors, and these depositors would be
100% provided for.


3. The interest-bearing Government debt would be substantially reduced;

because a great part of the outstanding bonds of the Government would be
taken over from the banks by the Currency Commission (representing the
Government).


4. Our Monetary System would be simplified;

because there would be no longer any essential difference between
pocket-book money and check-book money. All of our circulating medium, one
hundred per cent of it, would be actual money.


5. Banking would be simplified;

at present, there is a confusion of ownership. When money is deposited in
a checking account, the depositor still thinks of that money as his,
though legally it is the bank's. The depositor owns no money in the bank;
he is merely a creditor of the bank as a private corporation. Most of the
"mystery" of banking would disappear as soon as a bank was no longer
allowed to lend out money deposited by its customers, while, at the same
time, these depositors were using that money as their money by drawing
checks against it. "Mr Dooley", the Will Rogers of his day, brought out
the absurdity of this double use of money on demand deposit when he called
a banker "a man who takes care of your money by lending it out to his
friends".

In the future there would be a sharp distinction between checking deposits
and savings deposits. Money put into a checking account would belong to
the depositor, like any other safety deposit and would bear no interest.
Money put into a savings account would have the same status as it has now.
It would belong unequivocally to the bank. In exchange for this money the
bank would give the right to repayment with interest, but no checking
privilege. The savings depositor has simply bought an investment like an
interest-bearing bond, and this investment would not require 100% cash
behind it, any more than any other investment such as a bond or share of
stock.

The reserve requirements for savings deposits need not necessarily be
affected by the new system for checking deposits (although a strengthening
of these requirements is desirable).


6. Great inflations and deflations would be eliminated;

because banks would be deprived of their present power virtually to mint
check-book money and to destroy it; that is, making loans would not
inflate our circulating medium and calling loans would not deflate it. The
volume of the checking deposits would not be affected any more than when
any other sort of loans increased or decreased. These deposits would be
part of the total actual money of the nation, and this total could not be
affected by being lent from one person to another.

Even if depositors should withdraw all deposits at once, or should pay all
their loans at once, or should default on all of them at once, the
nation's volume of money would not be affected thereby. It would merely be
redistributed. Its total would be controlled by its sole issuer - the
Currency Commission (which could also be given powers to deal with
hoarding and velocity, if desired).


7. Booms and depressions would be greatly mitigated;

because these are largely due to inflation and deflation.


8. Banker-management of industry would almost cease;

because only in depressions can industries in general fall into the hands
of bankers.


Of these eight advantages, the first two would apply chiefly to America,
the land of bank runs and bank failures. The other six would apply to all
countries having check-deposit banking. Advantages "6" and "7" are by far
the most important, that is, the cessation of inflation and deflation of
our circulating medium, and so the mitigation of booms and depressions in
general and the elimination of great booms and depressions in particular.


Objections

Naturally, a new idea, or one which seems new, like this of a 100% system
of money and banking, must and should run the gauntlet of criticism.

The questions which seem most likely to be asked by those who will have
doubts about the 100% system are:

1. Would not the transition to the 100% system - the buying up of the
assets with new money - immediately increase the circulating medium of the
country and increase it greatly?

Not by a single dollar. It would merely make check-book money and
pocket-book money completely interconvertible; change existing circulating
deposits of imaginary money into circulating deposits of real money.

After the transition (and after the prescribed degree of reflation {2} had
been reached), the Currency Commission could increase the quantity of
money by buying bonds, and could decrease it by selling, being restricted
in each case by the obligation to maintain the prescribed price level or
value of the dollar with reasonable accuracy.

But it is worth noting that the maintenance of 100% reserve and the
maintenance of a stable price level are distinct; either could,
conceivably, exist without the other.


2. Would there be any valuable assets "behind" the new money?

The day after the adoption of the 100% system there would be behind the
new money transferable by check the very same assets - mostly government
bonds - which had been behind the check-book money the day before,
although these bonds would now be in the possession of the Currency
Commission.

The idea is traditional that all money and deposits must have a "backing"
in securities to serve as a safeguard against reckless inflation. Under
the present system (which, for contrast, we are to call the "ten percent
system"), whenever the depositor fears that his deposit cannot be paid in
actual pocket-book money, the bank can (theoretically) sell the securities
for money and use the money to pay the panicky depositor. Very well; under
the 100% system there would be precisely the same backing in securities
and the same possibility of selling the securities; but in addition there
would be the credit of the United States Government. Finally, there would
be no panicky depositor, fearful lest he could not convert his deposits
into cash.


3. Would not the gold standard be lost?

No more than It is lost already! And no less. The position of gold could
be exactly what it is now, its price to be fixed by the Government and its
use to be confined chiefly to settling international balances.

Furthermore, a return to the kind of gold standard we had prior to 1933
could, if desired be just as easily accomplished under the 100% system as
now; in fact, under the 100% system, there would be a much better chance
that the old-style gold standard, if restored, would operate as it was
intended.


4. How would the banks get any money to lend?

Just as they usually do now, namely: (1) from their own money (their
capital); (2) from the money received from customers and put into savings
accounts (not subject to check); and (3) from the money repaid on maturing
loans.

In the long run, there would probably be much more money lent; for there
would be more savings created and so available for lending. But such an
expansion of loans - a normal expansion generated by savings - would not
necessarily involve any increase of money in circulation. {3}

The only new limitation on bank loans would be a wholesome one; namely,
that no money could be lent unless there was money to lend; that is, the
banks could no longer overlend by manufacturing money out of thin air so
as to cause inflation and a boom.

Besides the above three sources of loan funds (bank capital, savings, and
repayments), it would be possible for the Currency Commission to create
new money and pass it on to the banks by buying more bonds. But this
additional money would be limited by the fundamental requirement of
preventing a rise of prices above the prescribed level, as measured by a
suitable index number.


5. Would not the bankers be injured? On the contrary,

(a) they would share in the general benefits to the country resulting from
a sounder monetary system and a returned prosperity; in particular they
would receive larger savings deposits;

(b) they would be reimbursed (by service charges or otherwise) for any
loss of profits through tying up large reserves;

(c) they would be almost entirely freed from risk of future bank runs and
failures.

The bankers will not soon forget what they suffered from their mob race
for liquidity in 1931 to 1933 - each for himself and the devil take the
hindmost. Such a mob movement would be impossible under the 100% system;
for a 100% liquidity would be assured at all times and for each bank
separately and independently of other banks.


6. Would the plan be a nationalization of money and banking?

Of money, yes; of banking, no.


In Conclusion

The 100% proposal is the opposite of radical. What it asks, in principle,
is a return from the present extraordinary and ruinous system of lending
the same money eight or ten times over, to the conservative safety-deposit
system of the old goldsmiths, before they began lending out improperly
what was entrusted to them for safekeeping. It was this abuse of trust
which, after being accepted as standard practice, evolved into modern
deposit banking. From the standpoint of public policy it is still an
abuse, no longer an abuse of trust but an abuse of the loan and deposit
functions.

England effected a reform and a partial return to the goldsmiths' system
when, nearly a century ago, the Bank Act was passed, requiring a 100%
reserve for all Bank of England notes issued beyond a certain minimum (as
well as for the notes of all other note-issuing banks then existing).

Professor Frank D Graham of Princeton, in a statement favoring the 100%
money plan, says of President Adams that he "denounced the issuance of
private bank notes as a fraud upon the public. He was supported in this
view by all conservative opinion of his time."

Finally, why continue virtually to farm out to the banks for nothing a
prerogative of Government? That prerogative is defined as follows in the
Constitution of the United States (Article I, Section 8): "The Congress
shall have power ... to coin money [and] regulate the value thereof".
Virtually, if not literally, every checking bank coins money; and these
banks, as a whole, regulate, control, or influence the value of all money.

Apologists for the present monetary system cannot justly claim that, under
the mob rule of thousands of little private mints, the system, has worked
well. If it had worked well, we would not recently have lost eight
billions out of 23 billions of our check-book money.

If our bankers wish to retain the strictly banking function - loaning -
which they can perform better than the Government, they should be ready to
give back the strictly monetary function which they cannot perform as well
as the Government. If they will see this and, for once, say "yes" instead
of "no" to what may seem to them a new proposal, there will probably be no
other important opposition.

Notes:

{1} In ipractice, this could be mostly "credit" on the books of the:
Commision, as very little tangible money would be called for - less even
than at present, so long as the Currency Commission stood ready to supply
it on request.

{2} See Chapter VI.

{3} See Chapter V.


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