>book and market value--a financial and a nonfinancial asset respectively.
Interesting. That distinction is confused in G&L/SNAs because those two components are not treated separately. Total market cap is treated as "just another liability" for firms, resulting in negative firms' "NW."
Your approach makes sense because shares' book-value component is represented by an equal offsetting entry on the righthand side of firms' balance sheets. The very definition of a "financial asset." This treatment makes Financial Assets = Liabilities (almost) come true.
But it is not offset by a *liability* on firms' BSs. It's offset by a remainder or righthand-side residual called shareholders' equity (As - Ls). Which is part of *HHs'* net worth. Again, fussy terminology; but...different words for very different things...
Treating shares' (market cap value - book value) discrepancy as a NFA makes some sense, because it is *not* offset on firms' BSs. It's like a NF asset in that sense. It purely arises from accounting markup events external to the firms' BS, based on observed asset market prices. It's unrelated to firms' BSs, in accounting terms.
>book and market value--a financial and a nonfinancial asset respectively.
Interesting. Because shares' book-value component is represented on the righthand side of firms' balance sheets. The very definition of a "financial asset." This treatment makes Financial Assets = Liabilities (almost) come true.
While shares' (market cap value - book value) discrepancy is not offset on firms' BSs. It's like a NF asset in that sense; it purely arises from accounting markup events, based on observed asset market prices. It's unrelated to firms' BSs, in accounting terms.
But to reiterate, the book value component is an asset on shareholders' balance sheets, but it is not offset by a *liability* on firms'. It's offset by a remainder or residual called shareholders' equity. Which is part of HHs' net worth. Again, fussy terminology; but...different words for very different things...
Nice exegesis. Your "nonfinancial assets of the country" is actually synonymous with what C. H. Douglas referred to as "our cultural heritage of productive capabilities" in explaining the basis for being able to distribute his universal dividend policy in his Social Credit movement between the two world wars.
Now if Douglas had not been born into the classical economic view of general equillibrium and had not pre-dated Kuhn he may have come up with a monetary paradigm changing high percentage Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale instead of a percentage that simply matched the rate of inflation...and we would have had a century to hopefully self actualize the new monetary paradigm of Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting which mimics and utilizes the private banks' means of creating new money ONLY AS DEBT but instead does so with equal debited and credited gifts of money.
Paradigm changes are entire pattern changes, not just a gaggle of aligned reforms that can't or won't integrate and unite because they're unconscious of the precise new paradigm concept and how to most efficaciously implement it in the temporal universe. Too bad, because the clock is ticking and the time is nigh.
May seem fussy terminology but I think super-important for understanding:
"The gap between **your** financial Assets—which are your claims on other people—and your financial Liabilities—which are other peoples' claims on you—is known as your Equity"
Not really. For households, As - Ls = Net Worth
For firms it's different! As - Ls = Book Value (of unencumbered As), shareholders' equity. The possessive apostrophe there is key: all that equity is part of *HH* assets. Firm's don't have net worth.
It's an asymmetric ownership relationship: HHs own (shares in) firms, but (since 1865 in the US) nobody including firms owns (shares in) households.
Takeaway: Firms' SH equity cannot be coherently treated as "just another liability." Corp balance sheets are labeled "Liabilities *and* Shareholders' Equity" for a reason.
Even worse is doing that but using *market-cap* value of firms' equity shares as a just another corp liability.
Firms' "Net Worth" at the bottom of that table is actually just the discrepancy, Book Value - Market Cap. Almost always negative! When share prices rise, firms' NW decline. Pretty wacky...
Obviously true on the accounting. Here though there's a reason for Minsky's usage to differ: trying to code that into each row operation would be a nightmare, and would add nothing that we can't acknowledge in a different fashion--for example by having a class of shareholders who receive all the distributed profits of the firm (acknowledging the ownership aspect), and separating a firm's worth into book and market value--a financial and a nonfinancial asset respectively.
>book and market value--a financial and a nonfinancial asset respectively.
Interesting. That distinction is confused in G&L/SNAs because those two components are not treated separately. Total market cap is treated as "just another liability" for firms, resulting in negative firms' "NW."
Your approach makes sense because shares' book-value component is represented by an equal offsetting entry on the righthand side of firms' balance sheets. The very definition of a "financial asset." This treatment makes Financial Assets = Liabilities (almost) come true.
But it is not offset by a *liability* on firms' BSs. It's offset by a remainder or righthand-side residual called shareholders' equity (As - Ls). Which is part of *HHs'* net worth. Again, fussy terminology; but...different words for very different things...
Treating shares' (market cap value - book value) discrepancy as a NFA makes some sense, because it is *not* offset on firms' BSs. It's like a NF asset in that sense. It purely arises from accounting markup events external to the firms' BS, based on observed asset market prices. It's unrelated to firms' BSs, in accounting terms.
>book and market value--a financial and a nonfinancial asset respectively.
Interesting. Because shares' book-value component is represented on the righthand side of firms' balance sheets. The very definition of a "financial asset." This treatment makes Financial Assets = Liabilities (almost) come true.
While shares' (market cap value - book value) discrepancy is not offset on firms' BSs. It's like a NF asset in that sense; it purely arises from accounting markup events, based on observed asset market prices. It's unrelated to firms' BSs, in accounting terms.
But to reiterate, the book value component is an asset on shareholders' balance sheets, but it is not offset by a *liability* on firms'. It's offset by a remainder or residual called shareholders' equity. Which is part of HHs' net worth. Again, fussy terminology; but...different words for very different things...
Nice exegesis. Your "nonfinancial assets of the country" is actually synonymous with what C. H. Douglas referred to as "our cultural heritage of productive capabilities" in explaining the basis for being able to distribute his universal dividend policy in his Social Credit movement between the two world wars.
Now if Douglas had not been born into the classical economic view of general equillibrium and had not pre-dated Kuhn he may have come up with a monetary paradigm changing high percentage Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale instead of a percentage that simply matched the rate of inflation...and we would have had a century to hopefully self actualize the new monetary paradigm of Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting which mimics and utilizes the private banks' means of creating new money ONLY AS DEBT but instead does so with equal debited and credited gifts of money.
Paradigm changes are entire pattern changes, not just a gaggle of aligned reforms that can't or won't integrate and unite because they're unconscious of the precise new paradigm concept and how to most efficaciously implement it in the temporal universe. Too bad, because the clock is ticking and the time is nigh.
May seem fussy terminology but I think super-important for understanding:
"The gap between **your** financial Assets—which are your claims on other people—and your financial Liabilities—which are other peoples' claims on you—is known as your Equity"
Not really. For households, As - Ls = Net Worth
For firms it's different! As - Ls = Book Value (of unencumbered As), shareholders' equity. The possessive apostrophe there is key: all that equity is part of *HH* assets. Firm's don't have net worth.
It's an asymmetric ownership relationship: HHs own (shares in) firms, but (since 1865 in the US) nobody including firms owns (shares in) households.
Takeaway: Firms' SH equity cannot be coherently treated as "just another liability." Corp balance sheets are labeled "Liabilities *and* Shareholders' Equity" for a reason.
Even worse is doing that but using *market-cap* value of firms' equity shares as a just another corp liability.
That's what both G-L and the SNA-based IMAs do. You'll see: click the "Corporate equity" link under BS Liabilities, here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?rid=52&eid=810656
Firms' "Net Worth" at the bottom of that table is actually just the discrepancy, Book Value - Market Cap. Almost always negative! When share prices rise, firms' NW decline. Pretty wacky...
Obviously true on the accounting. Here though there's a reason for Minsky's usage to differ: trying to code that into each row operation would be a nightmare, and would add nothing that we can't acknowledge in a different fashion--for example by having a class of shareholders who receive all the distributed profits of the firm (acknowledging the ownership aspect), and separating a firm's worth into book and market value--a financial and a nonfinancial asset respectively.