Tapering called off

[Kshartle]

It could just be responding to the prospect of a resumption of negative real interest rate conditions.

What are negative real interest rates. What does that mean?

It means that the yield on the 10 year or 30 year bond is lower than what the market believes inflation will be over that period.

Interest rates are still clearly positive though I admit the ten year has dropped 15/100ths of a point. So that must mean inflation expectations are growing. Could this be due to the promise to continue printing or is it just a coincidence? If it's just an asset swap and not inflationary is everyone buying gold mistaken? Do they not realize that printing money is not inflationary and just trading one financial asset for another?

[Mdraf]

Doesn't every asset depend on the value of other factors? A stock's value depends on the value of the underlying company. A currency-issuer bond's value depends on the stability of the government. A currency user bond's value depends on the issuing entity having enough money to pay. A piece of real estate's value is dependent on the quality of the quality of construction, the advantages of the location, the likelihood of natural disasters, And so on and so forth. Even gold's value is dependent on its relative scarcity; if someone invented a machine that could distill gold from seawater, gold would become basically valueless overnight and platinum or something else would replace it.

Yes. Except currency. Only with currency (cash) do both parties know what they are getting without recourse to some external means of valuation.

Sure.  Cash has the highest degree of moneyness.  And bank deposits are similarly high.

But U.S. treasuries (notes, bills, bonds) are all highly liquid, and are just below cash in terms of moneyness.  In my mind, this liquidity is the outcome of that "external valuation".

Yes. But "not the same" is the key. US obligations are liquid not because we are "currency issuers" but because our economy is so big and our debt/gdp is still manageable.  Take Argentina this week. They are also currency issuers and their government obligations are not worth the paper they are printed on.

What many of us object to is that debt/gdp ratio getting out of control. You guys don't believe it matters.

I disagree that bank deposits are as high as cash. They are subject to government oversight and the bank has the legal right to deny a transaction. Also think identity theft and how the burden of proof is on you. No such limitations questions with cash.

[Pointedstick]

Yes. But "not the same" is the key. US obligations are liquid not because we are "currency issuers" but because our economy is so big and our debt/gdp is still manageable.  Take Argentina this week. They are also currency issuers and their government obligations are not worth the paper they are printed on.

What many of us object to is that debt/gdp ratio getting out of control. You guys don't believe it matters.

Now we're getting somewhere!!

I agree with basically everything you said there, and I do believe that the debt-to-GDP ratio matters. I don't have any idea what level is "too high" but I will agree with you that the higher it goes, the more danger there is. And I think the danger level varies enormously depending on the economy's situation. An economy with a great deal of slack is probably much better able to absorb more government debt than one with an economy going at full bore.

[Gumby]

What many of us object to is that debt/gdp ratio getting out of control. You guys don't believe it matters.

I agree with basically everything you said there, and I do believe that the debt-to-GDP ratio matters. I don't have any idea what level is "too high" but I will agree with you that the higher it goes, the more danger there is. And I think the danger level varies enormously depending on the economy's situation. An economy with a great deal of slack is probably much better able to absorb more government debt than one with an economy going at full bore.

To be clear, there is no danger of solvency, but there may be a danger of inflation depending on what's going on in the private sector.

Robert J. Shiller took those tired Reinhart and Rogoff arguments to task over the absurdity of magical debt thresholds:

Debt and Delusion

by Robert J. Shiller

Economists like to talk about thresholds that, if crossed, spell trouble. Usually there is an element of truth in what they say. But the public often overreacts to such talk.

Consider, for example, the debt-to-GDP ratio, much in the news nowadays in Europe and the United States. It is sometimes said, almost in the same breath, that Greece’s debt equals 153% of its annual GDP, and that Greece is insolvent. Couple these statements with recent television footage of Greeks rioting in the street. Now, what does that look like?

Here in the US, it might seem like an image of our future, as public debt comes perilously close to 100% of annual GDP and continues to rise. But maybe this image is just a bit too vivid in our imaginations. Could it be that people think that a country becomes insolvent when its debt exceeds 100% of GDP?

That would clearly be nonsense. After all, debt (which is measured in currency units) and GDP (which is measured in currency units per unit of time) yields a ratio in units of pure time. There is nothing special about using a year as that unit. A year is the time that it takes for the earth to orbit the sun, which, except for seasonal industries like agriculture, has no particular economic significance.

We should remember this from high school science: always pay attention to units of measurement. Get the units wrong and you are totally befuddled.

If economists did not habitually annualize quarterly GDP data and multiply quarterly GDP by four, Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio would be four times higher than it is now. And if they habitually decadalized GDP, multiplying the quarterly GDP numbers by 40 instead of four, Greece’s debt burden would be 15%. From the standpoint of Greece’s ability to pay, such units would be more relevant, since it doesn’t have to pay off its debts fully in one year (unless the crisis makes it impossible to refinance current debt).

Some of Greece’s national debt is owed to Greeks, by the way. As such, the debt burden woefully understates the obligations that Greeks have to each other (largely in the form of family obligations). At any time in history, the debt-to-annual-GDP ratio (including informal debts) would vastly exceed 100%.

Most people never think about this when they react to the headline debt-to-GDP figure. Can they really be so stupid as to get mixed up by these ratios? Speaking from personal experience, I have to say that they can, because even I, a professional economist, have occasionally had to stop myself from making exactly the same error.

Economists who adhere to rational-expectations models of the world will never admit it, but a lot of what happens in markets is driven by pure stupidity – or, rather, inattention, misinformation about fundamentals, and an exaggerated focus on currently circulating stories.

What is really happening in Greece is the operation of a social-feedback mechanism. Something started to cause investors to fear that Greek debt had a slightly higher risk of eventual default. Lower demand for Greek debt caused its price to fall, meaning that its yield in terms of market interest rates rose. The higher rates made it more costly for Greece to refinance its debt, creating a fiscal crisis that has forced the government to impose severe austerity measures, leading to public unrest and an economic collapse that has fueled even greater investor skepticism about Greece’s ability to service its debt.

This feedback has nothing to do with the debt-to-annual-GDP ratio crossing some threshold, unless the people who contribute to the feedback believe in the ratio. To be sure, the ratio is a factor that would help us to assess risks of negative feedback, since the government must refinance short-term debt sooner, and, if the crisis pushes up interest rates, the authorities will face intense pressures for fiscal austerity sooner or later. But the ratio is not the cause of the feedback.

A paper written last year by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, called “Growth in a Time of Debt,”? has been widely quoted for its analysis of 44 countries over 200 years, which found that when government debt exceeds 90% of GDP, countries suffer slower growth, losing about one percentage point on the annual rate.

One might be misled into thinking that, because 90% sounds awfully close to 100%, awful things start happening to countries that get into such a mess. But if one reads their paper carefully, it is clear that Reinhart and Rogoff picked the 90% figure almost arbitrarily. They chose, without explanation, to divide debt-to-GDP ratios into the following categories: under 30%, 30-60%, 60-90%, and over 90%. And it turns out that growth rates decline in all of these categories as the debt-to-GDP ratio increases, only somewhat more in the last category.

There is also the issue of reverse causality. Debt-to-GDP ratios tend to increase for countries that are in economic trouble. If this is part of the reason that higher debt-to-GDP ratios correspond to lower economic growth, there is less reason to think that countries should avoid a higher ratio, as Keynesian theory implies that fiscal austerity would undermine, rather than boost, economic performance.

The fundamental problem that much of the world faces today is that investors are overreacting to debt-to-GDP ratios, fearful of some magic threshold, and demanding fiscal-austerity programs too soon. They are asking governments to cut expenditure while their economies are still vulnerable. Households are running scared, so they cut expenditures as well, and businesses are being dissuaded from borrowing to finance capital expenditures.

The lesson is simple: We should worry less about debt ratios and thresholds, and more about our inability to see these indicators for the artificial – and often irrelevant – constructs that they are.

Robert J. Shiller is Professor of Economics at Yale University.

Source: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commen ... 78/English

Reinhart and Rogoff made the classic correlation does not equal causation error.

I don't see much value and obsessing about raw Debt/GDP ratios. What really matters is what is going on in the private sector in relation to government spending.

[Mdraf]

And, again, you've not explained how the assessment of QE as an asset swap that has no effect on inflation is flawed.

Geez I spent all day explaining how all assets are not the same thing.  An "asset swap" as you describe it is a misnomer. It is not a "swap". One is cash the other is debt.  They can't be just "swapped".  I am not addressing inflation (in this thread). You bring up a new subject. Kshartle is dealing with that.

[Gumby]

One is cash the other is debt.  They can't be just "swapped".

That's weird, because cash is created by monetizing debt.

The primary tool of monetary policy is open market operations: the central bank buys and sells financial assets such as treasury bills, government bonds, or foreign currencies. Purchases of these assets result in currency entering market circulation, while sales of these assets remove currency.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation

The crazy thing about all this is that even Austrians are supposed to understand that money is credit...

Advocates from an Austrian School or Libertarian perspective often hold that money is equivalent to debt in our current monetary system, but that it need not be in one where money has inherent value, such as a gold standard. They have frequently used this view point to support arguments that it would be best to return to a gold standard, to other forms of commodity money, or at least to a monetary system where money has positive value. Similar views are also occasionally expressed by Conservatives.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_theory_of_money

So, if you don't subscribe to the Austrian definition of "Credit Money," then I guess that just makes you a pure Metallist who subscribes to Monetarism!

Metallism is the economic principle that money derives its value from the purchasing power of the commodity upon which it is based. The currency in a metallist monetary system may be made from the commodity itself (commodity money) or use tokens such as national banknotes redeemable in that commodity.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallism

But, once again, the problem is that we don't use commodity money anymore! Metallism is no longer relevant in our society!

[Kshartle]

And, again, you've not explained how the assessment of QE as an asset swap that has no effect on inflation is flawed.

Geez I spent all day explaining how all assets are not the same thing.  An "asset swap" as you describe it is a misnomer. It is not a "swap". One is cash the other is debt.  They can't be just "swapped".  I am not addressing inflation (in this thread). You bring up a new subject. Kshartle is dealing with that.

I've wasted too much of my life explaining these concepts over and over in increasingly simple terms here. When the cumulative weight of propping up ridiculous non-counter points crushes some people the subject is either changed or the electronic equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and say "na na na na na" goes on.

Je suis tres fatigue. J'ai fini aussi.

Can we discuss the merits of QE without this magical nonsense about it not having an impact?

Look at the markets for Christ's sake. Clearly there is an impact.

The US stock market dropped in Gold terms, Euro terms, Aussie dollar terms, foreign stock terms, just about everything but dollar terms. Anyone want to venture a guess as to why?

[Gumby]

I've wasted too much of my life explaining these concepts over and over in increasingly simple terms here. When the cumulative weight of propping up ridiculous non-counter points crushes some people the subject is either changed or the electronic equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and say "na na na na na" goes on.

We aren't sticking our fingers in our ears. You are telling us the definition of Metallism — which we are well aware of — and we are telling you that Metallism might make a little sense if we had commodity money, but our society is based on Credit Money. That's all there is to it.

Come on Kshartle/Mdraf... even the Austrians don't agree with your denial of Credit Money.

[MediumTex]

I've wasted too much of my life explaining these concepts over and over in increasingly simple terms here. When the cumulative weight of propping up ridiculous non-counter points crushes some people the subject is either changed or the electronic equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and say "na na na na na" goes on.

We aren't sticking our fingers in our ears. You are telling us the definition of Metallism — which we are well aware of — and we are telling you that would all make sense if we had commodity money, but our society is based on Credit Money. That's all there is to it.

If private sector credit were to start rapidly expanding, under current policies we might have a problem with high inflation.

If and when that happens, I hope that Congress and the Fed will take measures to help prevent such inflation from occurring, perhaps by raising taxes and/or interest rates.

For now, though, private sector credit isn't rapidly expanding, and it's therefore not a great surprise that the Fed's policies are not translating into high inflation.

You have to look at the whole picture, including private sector credit.  If all you look at is what the Fed and Treasury are doing, you can't possibly get a clear picture of what is going on through the whole monetary system.

The time to do something about out current system will be when the economy has completely healed and private sector credit is expanding at a healthy rate.  At that point, the Fed should aggressively raise rates to make sure that credit expansion doesn't begin to fuel more speculative asset bubbles.

[Gumby]

Can we discuss the merits of QE without this magical nonsense about it not having an impact?

Look at the markets for Christ's sake. Clearly there is an impact.

The US stock market dropped in Gold terms, Euro terms, Aussie dollar terms, foreign stock terms, just about everything but dollar terms. Anyone want to venture a guess as to why?

We explained this already (literally a few hours before the market's reaction). QE increases excess reserves (while removing other financial assets) and those excess reserves are used to bid up asset prices in an attempt to get a return on those reserves that are no longer invested in bonds and to counteract negative real interest rates (i..e. from a paltry IOR). The jump in the markets are speculators front-running the asset bidding.

[Libertarian666]

As I've already explained, the Fed can never stop buying bonds, because if they do, the markets will crash.
Again I have been shown to be correct, but of course no one will ever admit it.
That's the fate of all Cassandras: always right, never acknowledged.

[Pointedstick]

As I've already explained, the Fed can never stop buying bonds, because if they do, the markets will crash.
Again I have been shown to be correct, but of course no one will ever admit it.
That's the fate of all Cassandras: always right, never acknowledged.

I actually do agree with you. I just don't think an end to QE would cause the economy to crash. The markets, sure. QE has clearly blown up a bunch of asset price bubbles.

[moda0306]

As I've already explained, the Fed can never stop buying bonds, because if they do, the markets will crash.
Again I have been shown to be correct, but of course no one will ever admit it.
That's the fate of all Cassandras: always right, never acknowledged.

This is no different than gold in a growing economy.  Eventually there won't be enough gold to pay off all the debt plus the outstanding interest payments.  The lack of the growth of the gold supply would create a market crash, eventually.

So yes, tech, any fixed-supply monetary arrangement is bound to collapse.  If you tried to turn the dollar into such an arrangement, it's no different.

[Kshartle]

As I've already explained, the Fed can never stop buying bonds, because if they do, the markets will crash.
Again I have been shown to be correct, but of course no one will ever admit it.
That's the fate of all Cassandras: always right, never acknowledged.

I will acknowledge it. I've been saying the same thing for a long time. Since I understand what QE is, what it does, and how it hurts the economy it's been clear to me that the economy will continue to deteriorate. Price fixing and counterfitting interferes with the distribution of capital. If it was small the economy could shrug it off. Now it's so large we probably need a full scale depression to repair the damage.

Don't worry, we'll get it eventually (Depression). Let's hope they don't don't nuke the economy by accelerating the printing beyond what can be deflated.

That being said, I think after a period of calm now that taper talk will go away, eventually the bad reports will give the FED cover to up the ante over 100 billion per month. I hope you have gold, silver, foreign stocks and foreign bonds in your VP.

[Kshartle]

I've wasted too much of my life explaining these concepts over and over in increasingly simple terms here. When the cumulative weight of propping up ridiculous non-counter points crushes some people the subject is either changed or the electronic equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and say "na na na na na" goes on.

We aren't sticking our fingers in our ears. You are telling us the definition of Metallism — which we are well aware of — and we are telling you that Metallism might make a little sense if we had commodity money, but our society is based on Credit Money. That's all there is to it.

Come on Kshartle/Mdraf... even the Austrians don't agree with your denial of Credit Money.

This is what I'm talking about. 

Clearly I'm defining Metalism even though I've never heard of it and denying the credit theory of money even though I've never heard of it. Ohhh yeah, and I really don't care what Austrians think. Or Germans, or Lebanese, or Hutus or Tootsies.

What I'm stunned by is the inability of MR/MMT devotees and Cullen Roche acolytes to answer simple economic questions:

For Example I asked the following: If I print one trillion dollars (perfect counterfeits) do I have more purchasing power?

Several MR/MMT students responded:

1. Are you the Fed?
2. Depends on what you do with that $1 trillion. If the Fed were to buy a bag of dirt with that $1 trillion, that would be the equivalent of a helicopter drop (since the bag of dirt has no value) and it would be highly inflationary.
3. What if you built a bonfire with it and burned it all up?
4. I don't understand the question.. YOU don't have the power to print $1 trillion.
5. No. Your purchasing power doesn't change if you lost a financial asset of equal value — which is what would happen if a Primary Dealer got that money from the Fed.
6. You don't have more purchasing power after a POMO transaction
7. Then you are probably going to jail.
8. A counterfeiter is creating a fake financial asset that defrauds people into believing he has purchasing power. It's known as fraud. What's your point?
9. If private sector credit is contracting on your island, people might not even notice the extra money you are printing.

Now this is a question even a child can easily answer. Cleary I have more purchasing power. And since it can't be created by printing it had to be stolen from it's rightful owners.

There are other examples. Such as If A has zero money and B has $100, if B loans the $100 to A and gets an IOU in return, has their respective purchasing power changed?

If you explain to a child that purchasing power is the ability to buy stuff they will answer this easily.

The MR/MMT students really struggled with this one. Yes, no, I don't get it, I don't understand, A has more but B has the same, A doesn't have more etc.

No one got it right. A now has the purchasing power that B had. He has borrowed it. They cannot by loaning create purchasing power.

My question is, how does studying MR/MMT turn very simple economic questions into such mind-benders that getting the right answer would seemingly have to happen by accident?

[Gumby]

The MR/MMT students really struggled with this one.

KShartle... It's simply because you've asked a question that doesn't happen in reality. There are no perfect counterfeiters. Counterfeiters commit fraud. You can't expect a descriptive framework — based on reality — to answer a question about hypothetical fantasylands where counterfeiters are causing moral issues. It just ain't going to happen.

But, hey... Keep it up with the bedtime stories. I'm sure you'll figure something useful out from them.

[Kshartle]

The MR/MMT students really struggled with this one.

KShartle... It's simply because you've asked a question that doesn't happen in reality. You can't expect a descriptive framework — based on reality — to answer a question about hypothetical fantasylands where counterfeiters are causing moral issues. It just ain't going to happen.

But, hey... Keep it up with the bedtime stories. I'm sure you'll figure something out from them.

Which one doesn't happen in reality? People don't counterfeit or people don't borrow money? What alternate reality are you talking about?

[Gumby]

The MR/MMT students really struggled with this one.

KShartle... It's simply because you've asked a question that doesn't happen in reality. You can't expect a descriptive framework — based on reality — to answer a question about hypothetical fantasylands where counterfeiters are causing moral issues. It just ain't going to happen.

But, hey... Keep it up with the bedtime stories. I'm sure you'll figure something out from them.

Which one doesn't happen in reality? People don't counterfeit or people don't borrow money? What alternate reality are you talking about?

There are no "perfect" counterfeiters. Counterfeiters commit fraud. You are basically talking about a crime and MR is simply a manual for the banking system.

For instance, your descriptive car manual doesn't cover crimes of car theft. That doesn't make the manual incorrect. It simply means that the manual isn't interested in discussing crime.

You have this desire to turn every conversation into a political one. And I just don't care about political conversations that much.

[Kshartle]

KShartle... It's simply because you've asked a question that doesn't happen in reality. You can't expect a descriptive framework — based on reality — to answer a question about hypothetical fantasylands where counterfeiters are causing moral issues. It just ain't going to happen.

But, hey... Keep it up with the bedtime stories. I'm sure you'll figure something out from them.

Which one doesn't happen in reality? People don't counterfeit or people don't borrow money? What alternate reality are you talking about?

There are no "perfect" counterfeiters. Counterfeiters commit fraud. You are basically talking about a crime and MR is simply a manual for the banking system.

For instance, your descriptive car manual doesn't cover crimes of car theft. That doesn't make the manual incorrect. It simply means that the manual isn't interested in discussing crime.

You have this desire to turn every conversation into a political one. And I just don't care about political conversations that much.

When did I mention politics? Are you telling me if you study/believe MR you can no longer understand the effects of counterfeiting? That last question is really rhetorical.

[Kshartle]

The time to do something about out current system will be when the economy has completely healed and private sector credit is expanding at a healthy rate.  At that point, the Fed should aggressively raise rates to make sure that credit expansion doesn't begin to fuel more speculative asset bubbles.

Do you think it's possible QE is actually hurting the economy? If it is in fact hurting it, will they ever stop and why in your opinion?

[Gumby]

When did I mention politics?

You always mention politics. Every question and retort is setting up another conversation about how bad the government is and how it steals from us and how we are all slaves, etc. Oh the government this and oh the government that. On and on... Who cares? This is an investment forum — we just want to know why the government is able to avoid nominal defaults on LTTs and we'll take care of the inflation with stocks and gold.

Are you telling me if you study/believe MR you can no longer understand the effects of counterfeiting? That last question is really rhetorical.

Look. If this line of questioning about counterfeiting is somehow connected to inflation (what we are really interested in here), then please explain yourself with real data. Show us how massive counterfeiting is supposedly destroying our purchasing power with real data and then we can continue. But, if you'd rather stick to bedtime stories, fairytales and fantasyisland scenarios, then I'm afraid we're done here.

The entire credit-based monetary system is based upon the Credit Theory of Money. You need to learn that theory if you want to understand why everyone on the planet and $14 trillion in S&P 500 market cap can get by with only $3.4 Trillion in base money.

The real world of economics is complex. There is credit, there are banks, there are deposits, there are money market funds, there are Primary Dealers, there are Treasury auctions, there are direct bidders and indirect bidders, there are excess reserves, there's IOR, there's FFR, there's overnight lending, and there are contracts that hold all of those operations together, and so on. Those are our realities — not some silly island with "Pointedstick notes". Trying to boil our economic realities down to fairytales and island bedtime stories will miss the real complexity entirely. And it seems that you are hoping to avoid that complexity so that you can inject your political morals into the conversation.

But, I keep telling you that I don't care about politics. If you have evidence of significant inflationary effects from "counterfeiting," then get on it with already and show us.

[Kshartle]

Eventually there won't be enough gold to pay off all the debt plus the outstanding interest payments.  The lack of the growth of the gold supply would create a market crash, eventually.

The implication of this is that significant resources would have to be expended to dig more gold out of the ground.  This would be incredibly silly.  I can't decide if it would be less or more dumb than financial engineering, though.

Or the price of gold just has to go up. The price in relation to other stuff...if gold is functioning as money.

[moda0306]

Eventually there won't be enough gold to pay off all the debt plus the outstanding interest payments.  The lack of the growth of the gold supply would create a market crash, eventually.

The implication of this is that significant resources would have to be expended to dig more gold out of the ground.  This would be incredibly silly.  I can't decide if it would be less or more dumb than financial engineering, though.

Or the price of gold just has to go up. The price in relation to other stuff...if gold is functioning as money.

There's still not enough gold to sustain the level of debt denominated in gold plus interest to be paid in gold. It's simple math.

[Kshartle]

The implication of this is that significant resources would have to be expended to dig more gold out of the ground.  This would be incredibly silly.  I can't decide if it would be less or more dumb than financial engineering, though.

Or the price of gold just has to go up. The price in relation to other stuff...if gold is functioning as money.

There's still not enough gold to sustain the level of debt denominated in gold plus interest to be paid in gold. It's simple math.

All loans are not due at the same time. Every individual loan can still be paid off if the borrower can provide goods and services required to trade for the required amount. Some will not be able to do this. They will default just like they do in dollars. The total amount of money in circulation does not require expansion to accomodate new production. Prices will fall to adjust. Rapidly moving prices can cause additional confusion in the marketplace and difficulties in planning that reduces efficiency. I think falling prices because money is gaining value causes fewer problems than rising prices due to money losing value.

If you had an island with 100 people, and 10 of them have gold and loan in to the other 90, all payable in 30 days with interest, some will not be able to pay. Those lenders who lent more foolishly will lose. Having someone counterfeit the gold to ensure everyone can pay does not change the fact that there was a loss, it only spreads it around to everyone, rewarding the risky unprofitable lenders at the expense of the prudent intelligent lenders. In that way also it makes us poorer by missallocating resources towards less profitable ventures (guys borrowed gold and bought stuff that had value but combined them and ended with less value than required for the loan to be made good).

Ideally the amount of money in circulation would rise to meet exactly the value of new goods and services. Who on Earth can possibly be in charge of this monumental task and not abuse that power?

[moda0306]

Kshartle,

There is some healthy level of debt given a certain amount of productive investment.  With the same amount of gold servicing an ever-growing nominal debt-base, it will eventually fail to meet those demands.

Unless you're arguing that our total aggregate debt plus interest to be paid should be limited to the amount of gold already in mined existence, which would significantly hamper investment.

Debt may appear an awful thing, but some amazing entrepreneurs depend heavily on debt early on, and never would have been able to bring their innovation to market without that tool.

I'm surprised that people so supportive of "businessmen" want to limit their access to economic tools to bring their ideas to market by limiting our growth to the quantity of a shiny yellow metal.