Thread by @NathanTankus

Finally got around to listening to this and it is excellent. The discussion of the community reinvestment act you never realized you needed.

https://twitter.com/moneyontheleft/status/1311709857796554753

What I especially appreciated about @rmarchiel's analysis is it shows why a digital fiat currency is politically so important. A point that strangely @BCoeure made with @TheStalwart @tracyalloway on oddlots.

That is, people's ideas about what money is and what they can demand of money design, in the absence of intense historicized monetary education, is often determined by the immediate materiality of money. When money is a bank deposit, it is seen as inherently private.

The only claim that @rmarchiel's CRA activists thought they could make was as depositors. They "deposited" community funds, and thus there should be community lending. This was a limited political vision, destroyed by volcker.

If instead they encountered the currency as simply a government liability and banks as franchises delegated the authority to authorize the creation of new digital fiat currency, their experience would be completely different even without the deeply historicized monetary education

This is why "it would work the exact same way" misses the point completely. Even if it were true, which it's not, that fact is politically important. The pedagogy of money matters to the democratization of money. @rmarchiel's work is part of that growing scholarly tapestry.

And ofc- read my colleagues @RaulACarrillo @rohangrey on fintech and public options for money as well as digital fiat currency.