That is one of the things I will consider in this paper. But I will also follow Callon’s advice to “…explore the diversity of calculative agencies forms and distributions, and hence of organized markets. … [the market] is a many-sided, diversified, evolving device which the social sciences as well as the actors themselves contribute to reconfigure.” The central question is how are calculative agencies equipped, by economics and otherwise to carry out their calculations and thus establish the markets we see every day?

The approach is diagnostic, not prescriptive. I hope that readers will understand that I eschew the standard reflex reactions of the political Right and the Left as they – like the system they criticize – fail to deal with the problems they purport to confront, and crucially do not understand the nature of the banking industry today.

In analysing the banking industry as it actually operates in the West, my agenda is to begin a discussion on the real nature of that industry-if we do not understand it properly, our proposals on its restructuring, reform, and regulation will be at best misplaced.

I begin by drawing attention to the fact that the banking industry no longer belongs in the public or private sectors, but is a uniquely powerful hybrid of both, and its multi-faceted activities reach directly into core activities of government. As in all human endeavours, villains occur from time to time, but my purpose is get beyond the sterility of the “blame game” to initiate a meaningful discussion on the first steps to a New Banking Order which is robust, responsible and accountable. My belief is that this first step is a dispassionate factual examination of where that industry is today. I hope this essay will be understood as an attempt to move in that direction.

All private and business bank accounts retain the exact same amount of cash, but by placing individual serial numbers on these electronic dollars they become “real” in the same sense that paper ones are. Trillions of “derivative dollars” currently present on large investment banks Off Balance Sheet books become worthless because they are derived and by definition, not real. The remaining pool of money is clean, reliable and transparent. Since this new pool of money is much smaller, the value of each individual dollar is greatly increased.

In order to protect the purity of this new pool of money, the Federal Reserve will no longer be able to arbitrarily create money. The majority of Americans would be outraged to learn that the Federal Reserve Bank is actually a private corporation, owned and operated by twenty one, MOSTLY FOREIGN banks. These banks currently use the Fed to create cash for themselves while paying interest to themselves. The Fed operates cloaked in secrecy, with total autonomy, creating money with no oversight from the Federal Government. Serial numbers would make the 7.7 trillion dollars the Fed fabricated out of thin air for their 2008 bailout disappear, restoring the value of the dollar to its pre-crash levels. Serial numbers wrest control of the American Dollar from the clutches of unregulated foreigners and places it back in the hands of the American people whom it is supposed to represent. When banks need more cash they would now petition Congress. Bankers would present their case for a cash auction and it would be put to a vote. Banks would now pay interest to the government for their cash, lessening the burden of the American Taxpayer. The economy will be well served by having a static amount of cash to represent the goods and services it has the ability to produce. As the capacity of the economy grows, more money would be injected into the system by Congress reflecting an increase.

Banks’ secret electronic trading platforms now would be replaced by open outcry trading pits, effectively ending backroom market manipulation. A system of three main pits where brokers openly trade equities, debt and commodities would be outfitted with cameras broadcasting real time, worldwide for free. This will ensure all market participants equal access to information. Imagine the world’s greatest reality show that everyone can bet on from home.

Politician’s campaign dollars serial numbers will make all of their allegiances instantly visible. Regardless of where on the
political spectrum they lie, every American has a right to know what his candidate is going to do once elected. A politician’s true agenda is shaped in the interests of their contributors, not their constituency. Democracy is muddled into a sham when it lacks this transparency.

Serial numbers will cripple the finances of terrorist and criminal organizations by stopping electronic black money flows. Any illegal activity would become an all cash business. While this would not end crime, it would destroy enterprise criminal corruption, while at the same time making money real for honest people who really work for their money.

This new form of naked capitalism will insure pure liquidity through pure transparency. Regulation will come about organically, based on the simple fact that everyone can see what everyone else is doing. Serial numbers enable the American economy to work the way it was intended, honestly, transparently and with equal access to information.

The American Dollar is based on accountability whether it is on a computer server, or printed on a bill in your wallet. No institution should have the power to create, manipulate and devalue the dollar bill for which millions of people have put in an honest day’s work. A true American, capitalist democracy demands its financial, political and criminal framework to be illuminated by serial numbers.

We shall start with the most typical and important of financial phenomena, money, thereby illuminating various crucial traits and characteristics relating to the subject matter of this conference. It will be shown that the changeable role and meaning of money over time has had a strong impact upon the overall financial landscape, primarily by way of the weakening of the working and interactions of various financial activities. This analysis makes evident both the difficulty but also the urgency of restoring the exogenous character of the money supply.

We further focus upon the interest rate, underlining the nonessential role of this variable that, nevertheless, stands at the root of so many exasperating and destabilizing speculations.

Finally, we face the problem of how to bring into being a financial market that does not strive for mastery over production but is rather content to work in the service of production; we face the problem, that is to say, of how we can foster simpler and more transparent financial markets that are able to reconcile efficiency with social justice.

The intent of Dodd-Frank was to prevent the occurrence of these sorts of events again, but the key driver of the effectiveness of the Dodd-Frank Act will not be known until there is another financial disaster. To at least have an idea as to its effectiveness, it is important to examine some key features of the law including: orderly liquidation authority; the Volcker rule; data standardization; derivatives; and international regulatory impacts.

Even if all of the rules are implemented in accordance with the law, it would not likely prevent another crisis as there are areas not addressed by the law, such as: housing; tri-party repos; cyber-security; and high speed trading, which need to be addressed.