inflation

(A couple of) Monday Links and the trap that keeps on showing up

Michalis Trepas Links , , ,

Meet skimpflation: A reason inflation is worse than the government says it is (NPR)

Hayekian behavioral economics (Behavioral Public Policy)

Short-ass rant: The Loop of The First and Only (title inspired from here)

  • Locate random piece in the net (usually thru a link, or a reference)
  • It turns out to be, you know, good stuff
  • If applicable, you probably subscribe to the relevant newsletter
  • And things only go downhill from there
  • Each subsequent piece drifts farther and farther from your interest
  • Like, you start contemplating why you bothered in the first place
  • Said newsletter slumps to the not-even-open-the-darn-incoming-mail plateau
  • Locate another random piece in the net (usually thru a link, or a reference)
  • It turns out to be, again, you know, good stuff
  • …
  • Wild cards: Going paid, changing frequency

The Loop applies mostly in narrowly focused, specialist newsletters. I guess that, in a way, it exposes those who skim and skip among subjects (the mere dilettantes, like yours truly), vis-à-vis the more dedicated crew. It adds to the Email Overload Curse and fits nicely with hoarding tendencies (so, no, no unsubscribe, no way).

Some Monday Links, in feary tales

Michalis Trepas Links , , , , , , , , ,

Two sleeping beauties (the one has probably awaken), Pinocchio, and France.

Economic transitions aren’t transitory (The Hill)

Adam Posen is hardly an inflation alarmist. UK, 10 years ago. A nascent recovery and an inflation surge had Bank of England split on the way forward. He alone, as a member of the institution’s monetary policy committee, argued for more stimulus, deeming – correctly, with the benefit of hindsight – the inflation overshoot as temporary. That was in a world still relatively new in lowflation, central bank QE programs and suppressed interest rates, mind you. Today, he thinks quite different for the US.

Property is not (just) private (Verfassungsblog)

A ghost in the shell of German constitution haunts Berlin – the ghost of socialization. Article 15, which enables it, “has survived the decades, preserved and untouched and peculiarly history-less: no cases, no judgments, hardly any academic, economic and political interest”. Until now.

Why the French are revolting (UnHerd)

On pissed off French and their fighting chops (indeed, the Hellenic Military Academy, seemingly one of the world’s finest, was founded on French standards back in 1828). The author somehow missed that the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, is a literal call-to-arms.

Is the Original Pinocchio Actually About Lying and Very Long Noses? (Literary Hub)

About the famous work of a not-so-famous, disillusioned liberal in the freshly unified Italy of latter 19th century. Sheds some light at the sinister backdrop of the era (poverty, child labor and the like).

Some Monday Links

Michalis Trepas Links , , , , , , ,

(US) inflation?

YES — Is the Fed Getting Burned Again? (Project Syndicate)

NO — In the Fed We Trust (Foreign Affairs)

TENTATIVE — Is the Phillips Curve Back? When Should We Start to Worry About Inflation? (Niskanen Center)

The dimming of the light (Aeon). Adds some color to this brief-but-thick (and somewhat pessimistic) exchange with Jacques Delacroix.

Fast Cars, Wide Roads, Blue Skies: Vintage Postcards From Across America (Flashbak)

Some Monday Links

Michalis Trepas Links , , , , ,

Propagating Propaganda: Franklin Barrett’s Red, White, and Blue Liberty Bond Carp (The Public Domain Review)

Science has become a cartel (Unherd)

The Ghost of Arthur Burns (Project Syndicate)

Pandemics and Hyperinflations

Kevin Kallmes Books, Current Events, Economics, History, Law, Politics , , ,

I wrote an article a few years ago about hyperinflation in ancient Rome (and blogged about it here), arguing that the social trust in issuing bodies has been a foundation for monetary value long before modern institutions.

I got a random notification that someone had actually read and cited my work in a recent article “The US Money Explosion of 2020, Monetarism and Inflation: Plagued by History?” I really liked the author’s concept: inflation during pandemic periods is staved off for years because of saving rates, but then the post-crisis period is actually when the most inflation occurs.

This passed my ‘gut check’: during a crisis, who blows their entire budget? It also passed my historical-precedent check, and not only because he researched the Spanish flu and medieval precedent; in the Roman hyperinflation, the inflation lagged decades behind the expanded monetary volume, and in fact came right as the civil wars that nearly brought the Empire to its knees came to an end.

So, in short, inflation-hawks, you are probably right to fear the dramatic expansion of the money supply; however, you won’t feel vindicated for potentially years to come. In an age where people look for causes today to become results tomorrow (EVERY DAY, the WSJ tells me “stocks moved up/down because MAJOR EVENT TODAY”), we need to lengthen our time horizons of analysis and recognize that, just maybe, the ramifications of today’s policies will not really be felt for years. Or, put in a more dire light, by the time we realize who is right, it will be too late to reassert social trust in monetary value, and the dollar will follow the denarius into histories of hyperinflations.

Wats On My Mind: the state of the economy

Derrill Watson Current Events, Economics , , , , , , ,

I wrote the following update for my Principles of Macroeconomics students and thought it might just count as an update for Wats On My Mind.

In the first two minutes of class, I asked you how you would know how the economy is doing. Let’s focus on our three big areas: GDP, unemployment, and inflation.

Initial estimates are that GDP decreased by 4.8% in the first quarter (Jan-Mar). Let me comment on that a bit:

  1. That number is almost certainly inaccurate. It will be revised 3 months from now, 6 months from now, and be finalized 9 months from now. That is totally normal – as more and more data rolls in, our estimates get better. My bet is that the number is worse than that because closed firms won’t be reporting anything yet.
  2. The number for the second quarter will certainly be worse than that. We were only closed for 2-3 weeks in March, so the fact that we’re done that much in such a short window is a bad sign. We have already been closed longer in this quarter and the careful, measured opening we’re doing right now – which I think is wise to prevent a new spike of cases – won’t make for an instantaneous rebound.
  3. This is as bad as we saw during the Great Recession, but faster. Again, my hope and expectation is that our recovery will also be faster.
  4. GDP dropped in the EU by 14%. So it could be a lot worse!

The Bureau of Labor Statistics also released new numbers. So far 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment. That is roughly 18-19% of the workforce. This is officially, as expected, the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The good news is that the number of new applicants has been going down each week, from 6.8 million at the end of March to “only” 3.8 million last week. (Recall: That’s still 4x larger than the previous high set in the 1980s.) The other bit of good news is that 90% of unemployed workers expect to return to their old job, while that number is usually only 40%. That gives me more encouragement that we could quickly bounce back.

Inflation is DOWN. If this were primarily a supply shock, we would be seeing overall higher prices. That means the drop in aggregate demand is bigger than the supply shock. To a Keynesian or a Monetarist, that also means that all the fiscal and monetary stimulus we have done so far is not enough and more needs to be done. To a Classical economist, the thing that needs to be fixed is still supply – demand itself is not terribly important. A Hayekian, of course, thinks all this stimulus is making things worse – it messes with the price signals markets rely on.

To get a rough estimate of where inflation is going, I have been recommending comparing TIPS bonds to nominal bonds because the difference between the interest rate on those bonds (the TIPS spread) is the market’s best guess of inflation. As you can see here the TIPS spread fell from 1.8% in 2019 to 0.5% at the end of March. During April, it has recovered slightly to 1-1.2%. A very rough guesstimate based on that suggests we would need a stimulus 3x as large as we have done right now to return inflation expectations to normal. !!!

The very idea of having Congress spend an extra $5 trillion on top of what is already being done is more than my little fiscally-conservative heart can comprehend just now. Politically, though, I expect Congress will find it in their hearts/re-election campaigns to have another round of stimulus. The Federal Reserve has even called on Congress to spend more, so have no fears of monetary offset hampering anything. Here is a monetarist arguing the Fed needs to do a great deal more to ensure spending expectations don’t fall. One of the points, though, is that we should not expect hyperinflation is around the corner.

On that first day, most students suggested looking at the stock market. From Feb 21-Mar 23 the Dow lost 10,000 points – 1/3 of its value. Since then it has recovered more than half. Notice that the drop came BEFORE quarantine and that the stock market has been recovering even as unemployment has climbed to record heights. This is another reason I don’t recommend imagining that the stock market gives a clear and unbiased view of what’s going on in “the economy”! The situation right now is clearly much worse than it was a month ago, so trying to figure out current conditions would not make sense. If I wanted to give it the best spin possible, I’d say the stock market is predicting better times ahead despite how bad things currently are.

 A few other data points:

  • 59% of Americans say they can social distance as long as needed, which is up from a few weeks ago. (Gallup)
  • Western European countries started reopening earlier than we have and they are starting to see an increase in cases and deaths again. Now, so far that’s only a 3-day trend and it could just be a blip, but it’s not encouraging.
  • Most people are actually behaving like decent, responsible people during the crisis – and they usually do.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Historicizing Foucault Stuart Elden (interview), JHIBlog
  2. Historicizing inflation George Selgin, Alt-M
  3. Historicizing Hong Kong Brian Fong, Diplomat
  4. Historicizing West Africa Barnaby Crowcroft, Literary Review

Be Our Guest: “Of Monies and Juries and Freedoms”

Brandon Christensen Economics, History, Law , , , , ,

Be Our Guest is a new, experimental series at NOL. Basically, NOL is invite-only but you can, and should, submit your thoughts to us. The latest piece is by Michalis Trepas, a Greek national working in the financial sector. An excerpt:

The judicial system was reluctant to intervene, out of respect of the separation of powers (according the Weimar Constitution, currency matters were reserved for the parliament). So, at first, the courts upheld the nominalistic principle and refused to accept a revalorisation of debts. But then, something began to change in the courts’ reasoning. The currency’s slide prior to 1921 could be attributed to the conditions of the “war economy”, whose burden was to be shared by everyone in the country. The unrestrained fall thereafter, the courts said, was a monetary phenomenon, punishing “blindly and unpredictably” only the creditor class.

If you cannot guess by now what Michalis is writing about, read on! If you have figured out what the subject of his piece is about, read on, as it only gets more interesting.

There are cultural and geopolitical considerations to think about here, too, in regards to Greece and Germany and financial markets and constitutionalism.

Turkey at the start of one-man rule

Barry Stocker Current Events, Economics, Liberty, Politics , , , , , , , ,

1. Yesterday (Monday) Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan took office under the system of executive presidency, which gives him arbitrary personalised powers, based on the claim that a system of such extreme powers for one person is the most democratic system if that person is elected. The changes came about as the result of a referendum last year, which gave a narrow victory for the constitutional changes. It seems to me, and many others, that rigging allowed victory in the election. For the first time in Turkey, all ballot papers unstamped by an electoral officer were counted, allowing unlimited fraud. There are other issues about intimidation and irregularities, but this is not the moment to go into further detail, but I will just point out that radical changes to the constitution were ‘legitimised’ by pseudo-democratic fraud.

2. The constitutional changes enable the President to: legislate by decree, appoint most Constitutional court judges, appoint the army chiefs, appoint police chiefs, appoint all higher level members of the bureaucracy, appoint government ministers and vice-presidents without reference to the National Assembly. There is no Prime Minister. The President, Vice-Presidents, and Ministers are not obliged to answer questions in the National Assembly. In principle the National Assembly can reverse decrees as laws, but to allow the President to legislate in such an unaccountable way in the first place undermines all understanding of what a national assembly is for and what the limits on the head of government or head of state (now the same person) should be in a state which is constitutional and democratic.

3. Ministerial appointments have most notably included the elevation of Erdoğan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance. Albayrak is a major businessman whose rise in business and then politics have taken place since Erdoğan became the most powerful man in Turkey in 2002.

4. Other appointments have given business people ministerial posts for areas of the economy in which they have a dominant market position. Erdoğan’s own family doctor who owns a medical business is health minister. The education minister owns a private college.

5. The appointments of business people and a son-in-law show carelessness about propriety in the separation of the administration of public affairs from private and family interests, to put it in the mildest way possible. It also suggests that Erdoğan thinks he is too big for the party which brought him to power, AKP. It has been clear for some time that the most powerful people in the AKP are this son-in-law and one of the sons. That is, the AKP exists as a vehicle of one family, and its businesses associates. In this case, it is hardly a properly functioning democratic party.

6. The appointments were preceded by a presidential decree on the appointment of the governor and vice-governors of the central bank, which reduces its autonomy and makes it more vulnerable to Presidential pressure. Erdoğan has clearly been struggling to live with central bank decisions to raise interest rates in response to inflation and the falling value of the Turkish Lira. Anyway, the currency lost 20% of its value and inflation is at nearly 16% though the central bank’s target is 5%.

7. Market confidence in Turkey, even of a very minimal kind, was resting on one man, Mehmet Şimşek, who has western training in economics and is the last remnant of the days when the AKP appeared to many to be a centre-right reformist party, and did manage to behave in part like such a party. Şimşek appears to have been increasingly unhappy with his situation, putting a rational face on polices he knows are going in the wrong direction, occasionally winning battles to raise interest rates. One of Erdoğan’s main obsessions is that interest creates inflation. He has found it necessary to curtail that belief on occasions. Şimşek apparently wanted to resign from government recently, but no one ‘betrays’ Erdoğan in that way. Şimşek was bullied into staying and has now been sacked. His replacement is Erdoğan’s son-in- law. The markets have been spooked and the lira fell very sharply yesterday evening.

8. The Erdoğanists do have a solution to lack of international market confidence in Turkey. It is to create a Turkish ratings authority which will rate Turkish government credit as the government wishes! This absurd proposal, which will only reduce the credibility of the lira and government debt, shows the depths to which economic policy run on political paranoia has sunk in Turkey. Political paranoia because low credit ratings are due to foreign conspiracies!

9. Going back to last month’s election, about 2% of ballots cast have been declared invalid by the Supreme Electoral Council. HDP (Kurdish rights and leftist party) has pointed out that most ‘invalid’ ballots are from polling stations where it did not have observers. The HDP is defined as ‘terrorist’ by the followers of Erdoğan and its presidential candidate is in prison on ‘terrorism’ charges. This is all based not on credible evidence of co-operation with the PKK, which does have common roots with HDP, but on absurdly broad definitions of terrorism which take in people who do not oppose the PKK enough or which offer any criticism of state policy towards the PKK.

10. Based on point 9, it looks very much like 2% of votes cast were spoiled to take votes from the HDP. It hardly seems likely that would be the limit of fraud. As mentioned in point 1, all ballots were counted which did not have the basic security guarantee of a stamp from an electoral official on the ballot itself or the envelope containing the ballot. It is inherently difficult to arrive at accurate figures in this matter, but it looks very much like at least 4% of the ballot was fixed (that would merely double the most obvious form of rigging, which I do not think is an extravagant assumption, after all most rigging will take place in very hidden ways). If I am correct then the pro-Erdoğan electoral list for the National Assembly did not get a majority of votes and Erdoğan did not get a majority of votes in the presidential election.

11. The government-state machine extends claims that the HDP is terrorist to the main opposition party, CHP, on the grounds that the CHP has offered some criticisms of the detention of the HDP presidential candidate, and that some CHP supporters voted HDP to help it overcome fraud and reach the 10% of votes necessary to enter the National Assembly. CHP provincial leaders have been banned from attending the funerals of soldiers killed by the PKK, soldiers who in some cases will be CHP supporters, showing the kind of spite, vengefulness, and abuse of state power driving the AKP.

12. The Istanbul municipal government has announced that public transport will be ‘only’ half price during next month’s Kurban Bayram (Sacrifice Festival; religious festival and public holiday) instead of free as has been normal for a long time. This shows the strains that public finances are under in Turkey. The AKP are specialists in providing ‘free’ benefits to electors, along with favours for individuals and families, building up a base in local government in this way before they came to power nationally. The Istanbul news is a small thing in itself, but is suggestive of a decline in the capacity of the AKP to use public money to buy votes.

13. Given increasing personal indebtedness, rising inflation, the falling value of the currency, the decline of foreign investment and the credibility of government debt instruments, we could see some very difficult economic times in Turkey. It is clear that this process was important in holding the recent election 18 months early. The loyalty of the AKP and Erdoğanist base is intense, but was formed at a time of economic growth and expanding public services. We see going to see what happens to loyalty in less happy circumstances.

Inflation in Canada and the US since 1774

Vincent Geloso Economics , , , ,

It is often said that Canada and the United States are very much alike, except for the fact that Canada has tons of French people (myself included) and free (TANSTAFL) healthcare. It is also often said that when the US economy catches a cold, Canada gets pneumonia.

From an economic historian’s perspective, this is a hard claim to swallow without making tons of nuances. Yes, economic conditions in Canada are heavily affected by those in the US. But, the evidence for that generally concerns the twentieth century. There is very little before that. The first pieces of evidence we have for Canada start only in the 1870s. In fact, that evidence is also subject to many caveats (my work with Michael Hinton suggests that the GDP deflator for Canada from 1870 to 1900 causes a considerable underestimation of Canadian economic growth during the period and that Canada).

Thus, we do not know if that was always true. To some extent, I am tempted to believe that this is true, but that it is has grown “truer” over time. Canada used to be geared towards Britain and Europe for a long time, but, progressively, it became more connected with the United States. Now, the Maddison project data shows that Canada in terms of GDP per capita converged towards that of the United States from the 1870s to the present day. Morris Altman produced revised estimates of Canadian GDP growth (here) that show a moderately steeper convergence between 1870 and 1929. Given the amount of capital movements between both countries, this is not really surprising (in fact, excluding Quebec from Canada brings the two countries closer together).  But again, we don’t go back further than 1870.

So, to see if this is the case, I decided to take my paper (online since yesterday) on creating a price index for Canada since 1688. Measuring Worth offers an American Price Index that starts in 1774. If the two economies began to become more interlinked, then a price index that goes back to the founding of the United States should do the trick. The result is below.

pricescorrelation

I organized the data by time period and it seems that the rates are generally correlated (which you would expect since global monetary conditions do suggest some long-terms similarities in terms of price trends – I have many reservations about the book I am citing here, but it gets the empirical point across). However, the dispersion seems to collapse over time. As we move from the colonial era to the modern era, inflation rates get more tightly grouped together. Free trade, lower transport costs, central bank policy, capital mobility and labor mobility would have factored in to mean that things become more tightly knit.

It does seem like Canada and the US became more interdependent over time.

I have more to come on this!

Prices in Canada, 1688 to 2015

Vincent Geloso Economics , , ,

I have just finished my working paper creating a price index for Canada that covers the period from 1688 to 1850 in order to link with the existing datasets that cover up to 2015. Here is the result (and the paper is currently consideration for publication). The paper is here and it shows how much prices have changed in Canada since the late 17th century.

pricescanada

Undergraduate degrees are a stamp of participation

Bill Rein Liberty , ,

Here’s an article I wrote for my college newspaper ( = designed for a different audience). I’m mostly interested in the direction college “worthwhileness” is going alongside more opportunities for starting small businesses, entrepreneurship, etc.

Getting a degree is a stamp that says you participated in the established educational conduct. Wisdom, implementation and experience can all be achieved elsewhere. The worst misuse of this stamp is when administrations arbitrarily select it as their sole judgment of criterion, namely, other teaching facilities.

I’m interested in opinions and disagreements anyone might posit – particularly from any professors or postgraduate writers.

President Condemns Price Gougers, Dealers Raided

Warren Gibson Books, Economics, History, Liberty , , , , , ,

On one sunny August 16, at a time of high price inflation, government operatives announced the seizure of millions of eggs and 200,000 pounds of sugar. Raids on the larders of other suspected profiteers continued for weeks thereafter … The government was prepared to return these items to their owners once the chastened profiteers agreed to sell them at a “reasonable” price and under the watchful eye of a government officer.

The official in charge of the raids explained thusly: “I am one of those who believe that a large part of the high cost of living is due to the fact that a number of unconscionable men in the ranks of the dealers have taken advantage … If we can make a few conspicuous examples of gougers and give the widest sort of publicity to the fact that such gougers have been and will be punished, in the future there will be little inclination to profiteer in this country.”

Earlier, the President of the Republic had laid the blame for a lesser bout of price inflation squarely at the feet of gouging businessmen: “The high cost of living is arranged by private understanding” is how he put it.

By now you may have guessed that I am talking about present-day Venezuela, its Presidente, and his henchmen. You would have guessed wrong. The year was 1919, Woodrow Wilson was president, and his henchman, quoted above, was Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. The high cost of living was a result of Mr. Wilson’s war, which was financed partly by money printing, as well as the absorption of vast quantities of real goods and services by the government for use in fighting the war. The obvious effect of more money chasing a reduced supply of goods and services was price inflation, and that same phenomenon happened in all the warring countries, most notably France.

This episode provides one of many reasons, too numerous to elaborate here, why Woodrow Wilson is properly called a proto-fascist and why he is a serious contender for the dubious honor of worst-ever U.S. president. For more, see Jim Powell’s, “Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II.”

The first three paragraphs above are paraphrased from p. 24 of James Grant’s new book, “The Forgotten Depression.” Though I have not finished the book, I couldn’t resist sharing this tidbit. The gist of Grant’s thesis can be seen in its subtitle, “1921: the Crash that Cured Itself.” Highly recommended, so far.

How the Rentenbank Stopped Inflation

Fred Foldvary Economics, History , , , , , , , , , ,

After World War I, Germany had to pay reparations to the United Kingdom and France. Having sold off its gold, the German government had no specie with which to back its currency, the mark. Therefore Germany issued fiat money, not backed by anything. It was called the Papiermark, the paper mark.

With its economy in ruins, the German government printed more and more currency with which to pay its bills, and the German expansion of money became the world’s most famous example of hyperinflation.

The inflation induced alternative currencies in Germany. In 1922, the Roggenrentebank was established, issuing notes backed by rye grain. In 1923 several local governments issued small-denomination loan notes denominated in commodities such as rye, coal, and gold. The commodity front served as a price index relative to marks for the notes.

The inflation came to a halt with the replacement of the Papiermark with a new currency, the Rentenmark on October 15, 1923*. One Rentenmark could be exchanged for a trillion Papiermarks.

The Rentenmark was fronted by bonds indexed to amounts of gold. Since the US dollar was backed by gold then, the Rentenmark was thus also pegged to the US dollar at 4.2 RM to $1. To “back” a currency means to exchange it for a commodity at a fixed rate. It was not enough to merely index the units of the Rentenmark to gold. To become stabilized, the new currency needed to be fronted by a commodity that was actually used. That commodity was real estate.

The Deutschen Rentenbank, the central bank of Germany, established reserves that included industrial bonds as well as mortagages on Germany’s real estate. A currency is fronted when the issuer has collateral that it can deliver in exchange for indexed units of the money. Real estate rentals payable in Rentenmarks were fronts for the new German currency. “Rente,” derived from French, means income in German, such as a pension.

After having stabilized the money, the Rentenmark was replaced by the legal-tender Reichsmark in 1924 one-to-one, although Rentenmark notes continued to serve as money until 1948.

Previous attempts to front a currency with land value failed, because such frontage is insufficient. In France during the early 1700s, John Law’s bank issued money on the collateral of land in Louisiana, but that hypothetical land value did not constrain the over issue of the banks’ notes. Then during the French Revolution, the government issued “assignats” on the collateral of confiscated church land, but that too did not prevent the inflation of the money.

Land rent cannot “back” a currency, since there are no uniform units of land that can be exchanged for units of money. But land rent can be a “front” for money when taxes are payable in that currency, which helps give that money its value. But that alone does not prevent an excessive expansion of the money. To stabilize the currency, it also needs to be backed by or indexed to some commodity. And gold has been a common and suitable backing for paper and bank-account currency.

The German experience also shows that the gold backing does not require large amounts of gold. It is sufficient for stabilization that there is some credible limit to the expansion of the money. The Germans were lucky in 1923 in having monetary chiefs such as Hans Luther of the Finance Ministry, and Hjalmar Schacht, Commissioner for National Currency, who maintained the gold index by limiting the expansion of the new currency.

But as the experience of France, shows, it is risky to depend on the integrity of monetary chiefs. Permanent monetary stability requires a structure of money and banking that is self-correcting. That structure is best provided by free-market banking, in which the real money (outside money) is some commodity beyond the control of the banks, and the banks issue “inside money” or money substitutes backed by the real money. Competition and convertibility prevent inflation.

Any kind of tax can serve to help endow money with value, but a land-value tax offers the greatest frontage for currency, because in effect, LVT acts as a mortgage on land value, and the government can take over land when the tax is not paid. Unlike with taxes on income, nobody goes to prison for not paying a real estate tax, because the rent serves as a reliable collateral. Land rent can serve as collateral not just for real estate loans, but also for taxation, and for currencies. All countries can have “renten money” when they covert from market-hampering taxes on production to market-enhancing taxes on the economic surplus that is land rent.

* This was corrected from an earlier typo listing the year as 2013 instead of 1923.