5 Types of money
One of the most interesting facts we discovered in our research - is that there is more than one form of money in Australia. To the average Australian there is only the "Australian dollar". However this is not the whole truth - since there are 5 different types of money and each has a different origin and function. These are:
- Currency coins - created by the Royal Australian Mint for the Treasury.
- Currency notes - created by the RBA and sold to the commercial banks.
- Digital money - created by commercial banks as "credit".
- Reserve Bank money - created by the RBA and used in Exchange Settlement accounts.
- Gold coins - created by the process of mining, and is legal tender.
Each type of money given above is detailed in our "resources" section.
Money used by the public
In this section we are only going to look at the total amount of money that is used by the public for their everyday transactions. To do so - we examine what is called Broad Money (i.e. currency coins, currency notes and digital deposits). Note that the RBA lumps currency coins and currency notes together - and calls it "currency".
In order to understand the magnitude of the amounts of money used by the public - we refer to the Money Aggregates spreadsheet from the RBA. The figures for May 2012 are:
- Broad money = $1,467.2 billion.
- Currency (i.e. notes and coins) = $50.5 billion
Hence the amount of digital money (which is created by the banks as "credit") is $1,416.7 billion. Currency notes and coins comprise a mere 3.4% of the total broad money supply. The adjacent graph should give you an appreciation of the figures.
96.6% of our money in Australia is created from debt. The ASP believes that all forms of money used by the public should be created by the government and spent into circulation - for the benefit of all Australians.
Resources
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- Introduction
- Defining money
- Monetary inflation
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- Unsecured creditor
- Monetising debt
- Banks lend credit
- Monetisation at work
- Money is debt
- Result of monetising debt
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- The Chicago Plan
- Debt free money
- Taxes are obsolete
- Monetary policy cuts taxes
- A practical example
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