Are central banks going bankrupt?

Re:Are central banks going bankrupt? by Pennycade on Tuesday October 11, 2022 @04:19AM (#33160702)

The BoE is independent (in theory) from the government. If the bonds that BoE own go to zero, their entries are effectively just deleted from the database. In the same way that an increase in the number of £ in the database doesn't increase the government's deficit.

It's a very simple concept but can have psychological hurdle to overcome, given the simplicity of it and implications once internalised.

Analogy .. BoE has root admin access to the database of £. Government does not, has read only access.

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Re:Are central banks going bankrupt? by SilverBirch on Tuesday October 11, 2022 @06:48AM (#33161708)

So does this just mean it's inflationary? You borrow money, that means more money in the world (inflation) but it's debt, so it'll be paid back, so in the long run you haven't permanently inflated the currency. But then if you don't pay it back that turns into realized inflation and hurts your currency?

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Re:Are central banks going bankrupt? by amrocha on Tuesday October 11, 2022 @07:34AM (#33162076)

Any spending is inflationary, regardless of how you finance it.

If the spending is financed via taxation it can still cause inflation if it doesn't produce any real resources.

Taxation does create room for non-inflationary spending. That being said, if a government used QE to finance spending that was productive in real resource terms then it would not be inflationary.

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