by MrBill » Wed 24 May 2006, 02:56:04
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DJ_Mittens', 'H')aving a line of credit is meaningless.
Using a line of credit, however, does increase the money supply. We'll assume the person will pay back their loan, and not declare bankruptcy (which, in fact, would increase the money supply even more).
If that person pays back the loan, and the interest, there is a net decrease in money supply, because not only is the principle out of circulation when it once was, but now so is the interest paid. So to keep the supply increasing, either the government prints more, or the banks create even more credit availability or give out even more loans.
If I give you a credit card with a line of credit of $10.000, and you do not use it, then it is a piece of plastic with potential versus kinetic energy.
If you use that line of credit, money supply is not affected. Why? Because as you use the credit card, making a promise to me to repay that personal loan, I pay the vendor upfront for the goods & serviced you buy with my own savings. If I am a bank, I use liabilities that I have incurred, in the form of on demand site deposits from customers to make those payments. If I do not have enough deposits, I sell some of my assets, in the form of securitized credit card receipts, to investors who use their savings to buy those ABSs.
Money supply has not contracted or expanded. Assets and equity have been converted into liabilities. Or more simply, savings into borrowings.
The vendor got his money in any case. If you pay the credit card loan back then I get my original loan back, plus any interest, less any discount from selling my credit card receipts. If I sold credit card receipts, the investors got their principle back, which they had bought at a discount. That discount represents their interest on their principle investment. The interest income that we earned collectively has to come from your savings. If not from your savings than from your future earnings.
The only growth came from you buying a good or a service that had to be produced and then paid for. That created economic growth. Increased GDP. If money supply only increases in line with GDP growth, it is not inflationary.
If there is money supply growth in excess of real GDP growth, it is because the central bank is following an expansionary monetary policy, and it has nothing to do with me giving you a credit card to use or not to use as the case may be.
Credit growth is not money supply growth. Credit growth is converting the present value of savings now into a stream of future income payments later.
The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.