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Optimal Money Flow addresses the pile up of money at the top of the wealth pyramid which has driven up stock and bond prices and driven down interest rates toward zero. The low interest rates have discouraged savings and encouraged a large build up of debt for middle class and working class households. With high debt and little savings, a job loss, accident or illness can throw a household into financial distress with a sudden drop in consumption creating, in the aggregate, economic instability.
In an economic downturn the Fed’s response of buying Treasury securities in financial markets boosts stock and bond prices but does little to stimulate investment in the real economy when businesses already cannot sell all they are producing in existing lines of production. The additional money flows into stock buybacks and dividends with little trickling down to the real economy.
The money flow paradigm views the flow of money to the top of the wealth pyramid as inherent, inevitable, and inexorable to the free enterprise system. This paradigm requires that government assume its rightful responsibility to direct sufficient money flow from the top to the bottom (like a heart pumping blood throughout the body) in order to maximize employment, economic growth, and efficient resource allocation. In a healthy economy, the money then flows naturally back up to the top in a circulatory flow.
Thus, the money flow paradigm that sees government as the heart of the free enterprise system where it does and should play an active part. Previous economic paradigms such as the neoclassical, Keynesian and monetarist paradigms saw government as an external, alien force outside of the system that was only called upon in response to an unexpected breakdown in the free market system.
Optimal Money Flow calls for the creation of Federal Reserve smartphone bank accounts for every American, where the Fed can give money directly to consumers. Using algorithms from machine learning and artificial intelligence the Fed can vary the amount of money flowing to consumers based on current and developing economic conditions.
Conservatives appreciate that consumers, not government, will decide how to spend the money, which will not require an increase in taxes or add to the national debt, and will involve a lot less money to stimulate the economy, because the average consumer has a much higher marginal propensity to consume that the average Wall Street banker, who is more likely to put additional money right back into the financial markets or buy exclusive properties, rare paintings or expensive jewelry with little increase in new products or services. With more bang for the buck, much less money is needed to keep unemployment low without triggering excessive inflation.
The author has agreed to forgo book royalties so that the entire book price will go for student scholarships when Optimal Money Flow is purchased through the Avila University Press website at: https://www.avila.edu/aupress/optimal-money-flow-by-lawrence-c-marsh