RE: NOTHING TO SUBTRACT

Dear Tony and all:
I am stuck in a snowstorm outside Philly and cannot open Tony's attachment, but will do so when I finally get back to KC in a few days. However, I do have two general comments I can make without seeing his models.
1. As Tony is well aware, the conclusions reached from formal modeling are contained in the assumptions. My reservations about his ROPE models are not about the conclusions--his maths are fine. It is his beginning assumptions.
2. And in this regard, so long as the govt offers HPM (USA$ or OZ$) and finds willing sellers, Tony's assumptions about portfolio preferences simply are irrelevant. Can we imagine a situation in which $ are offered, but there are no sellers? Can we imagine a situation in which $ are offered, but output does not increase (only prices rise--Keynes's true inflation)? CERTAINLY. But they ar not relevant to any developed country any of us is currently analyzing.
 
We do not need to get hung up on govt budget contraints, portfolio preferences or any of the other Tobin-esque mainstream hang ups. They simply begin from the wrong place for any modern sovereign nation. This is the point Bill and I are trying to make. All of these are simply ex post identities. Throw out everything you know about Tobin and try to think about this in an entirely different manner.
 
Once we start from the same place, then we can go forward and understand that the bond sales have nothing to do with a GBC, but are simply monetary policy to keep overnight rates on target.
Randy

        -----Original Message-----
        From: Trond Andresen [mailto:trond.andresen@itk.ntnu.no]
        Sent: Mon 2/17/2003 2:17 AM
        To: Tony Aspromourgos; Warren Mosler; she_forum@adam.itk.ntnu.no
        Cc:
        Subject: RE: [HE] NOTHING TO SUBTRACT
        
        

        At 13:49 17.02.03 +1100, Tony Aspromourgos wrote:
>Colleagues,
>
>I think the attachment I referred to im my email of
>yesterday went missing in transit
>......
        
        The ATTACHMENT came through OK. It was also archived, see
        below the garbled text part of his mail, at the bottom of
        http://www.itk.ntnu.no/pipermail/she_forum/2003/000076.html
        As you see, the link to his Word document is
        http://www.itk.ntnu.no/pipermail/she_forum/attachments/f137111f/euthanasia_section_4.doc
        
        The text part of his message also came through OK to the _subscribers_
        (to me at least, tell me privately if others didn't receive it), but it was
        garbled in the archive. To set the archive right, I sent the text part of
        Tony's message again, and now it is correctly archived, at
        http://www.itk.ntnu.no/pipermail/she_forum/2003/000077.html
        
>......
>-- presumably when Trond Andresen did something or other
>[that I do not understand] with my communication.
        
        NO, it was not me but some "Murphy" type software glitch that I have no
        responsibility for, and no idea about.
        
        --o0o--
        
        To sum up: The text part of Tony's message, which should be read first,
        is archived at
        http://www.itk.ntnu.no/pipermail/she_forum/2003/000077.html
        
        His attached Word document is archived at
        http://www.itk.ntnu.no/pipermail/she_forum/attachments/f137111f/euthanasia_section_4.doc
        
        Cheers,
        
        Trond Andresen
        technical list manager
        
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Received on Mon Feb 17 15:19:42 2003