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Inflation Churning Factories

Inflation Churning Factories
Inflation Churning Factories

It’s years now that two major inflation churning factories, run by the Central Bank of Iran and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, have been established in Iran, Bahaeddin Hosseini Hashemi, the former head of Saderat Bank of Iran, said in a note for the Persian daily Jahan-e Sanat. A translation of the text follows: 
Whenever the Plan and Budget Organization reports on the government’s budget deficit, the Economy Ministry borrows from the CBI that finances the deficit by printing money. This is while banks overdraw their accounts with the CBI and participate in the money creation process.
Policymakers knowingly engage in money creation, but the question is what is the main hurdle in the way of changing the current approach? 
The government requires banks to grant huge loans whereas banks’ resources are not sufficient to meet all its financial needs. On the other hand, the government’s operating expenses are high, as it must pay the salaries of employees and pensioners. But as it does not have adequate resources, it tasks CBI with financing its bad checks. 
Maintaining financial discipline is the solution to this problem; the government needs to finance the budget deficit via tax and issuance of bonds. Improving CBI’s supervision over the performance of banks (their loaning process) might turn off the money creation machine. However, this supervision would be effective only when the government finances its budget deficit through sustainable income. But the government’s inability to pay its debts to the banking system leaves no option for the banks but to overdraw from their CBI accounts.
Bank-accumulated debts are also to blame on the huge loans they grant for earthquake, flood, druught, marriage and no-interest loans. Therefore, the government’s budget deficit and high current expenditures are the main causes of money creation.  

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