Banking and Lending/Investment. How Monetary Policy Becomes Decisive? Some Branching Rumination.

Among the most notoriously pernicious effects of asset price inflation is that it offers speculators the prospect of gain in excess of the costs of borrowing the money to buy the asset whose price is being inflated. This is how many unstable Ponzi financing structures begin. There are usually strict regulations to prevent or limit banks’ direct investment in financial instruments without any assured residual liquidity, such as equity or common stocks. However, it is less easy to prevent banks from lending to speculative investors, who then use the proceeds of their loans to buy securities or to limit lending secured on financial assets. As long as asset markets are being inflated, such credit expansions also conceal from banks, their shareholders and their regulators the disintermediation that occurs when the banks’ best borrowers, governments and large companies, use bills and company paper instead of bank loans for their short-term financing. As long as the boom proceeds, banks can enjoy the delusion that they can replace the business of governments and large companies with good lending secured on stocks.

In addition to undermining the solvency of the banking system, and distracting commerce and industry with the possibilities of lucrative corporate restructuring, capital market inflation also tends to make monetary policy ineffective. Monetary policy is principally the fixing of reserve requirements, buying and selling short-term paper or bills in the money or inter-bank markets, buying and selling government bonds and fixing short-term interest rates. As noted in the previous section, with capital market inflation there has been a proliferation of short-term financial assets traded in the money markets, as large companies and banks find it cheaper to issue their own paper than to borrow for banks. This disintermediation has extended the range of short-term liquid assets which banks may hold. As a result of this it is no longer possible for central banks, in countries experiencing capital market inflation, to control the overall amount of credit available in the economy: attempts to squeeze the liquidity of banks in order to limit their credit advances by, say, open market operations (selling government bonds) are frustrated by the ease with which banks may restore their liquidity by selling bonds or their holdings of short-term paper or bills. In this situation central banks have been forced to reduce the scope of their monetary policy to the setting of short-term interest rates.

Economists have long believed that monetary policy is effective in controlling price inflation in the economy at large, as opposed to inflation of securities prices. Various rationalizations have been advanced for this efficacy of monetary policy. For the most part they suppose some automatic causal connection between changes in the quantity of money in circulation and changes in prices, although the Austrian School of Economists (here, here, here, and here) tended on occasion to see the connection as being between changes in the rate of interest and changes in prices.

Whatever effect changes in the rate of interest may have on the aggregate of money circulating in the economy, the effect of such changes on prices has to be through the way in which an increase or decrease in the rate of interest causes alterations in expenditure in the economy. Businesses and households are usually hard-headed enough to decide their expenditure and financial commitments in the light of their nominal revenues and cash outflows, which may form their expectations, rather than in accordance with their expectations or optimizing calculations. If the same amount of money continues to be spent in the economy, then there is no effective reason for the business-people setting prices to vary prices. Only if expenditure in markets is rising or falling would retailers and industrialists consider increasing or decreasing prices. Because price expectations are observable directly with difficulty, they may explain everything in general and therefore lack precision in explaining anything in particular. Notwithstanding their effects on all sorts of expectations, interest rate changes affect inflation directly through their effects on expenditure.

The principal expenditure effects of changes in interest rates occur among net debtors in the economy, i.e., economic units whose financial liabilities exceed their financial assets. This is in contrast to net creditors, whose financial assets exceed their liabilities, and who are usually wealthy enough not to have their spending influenced by changes in interest rates. If they do not have sufficient liquid savings out of which to pay the increase in their debt service payments, then net debtors have their expenditure squeezed by having to devote more of their income to debt service payments. The principal net debtors are governments, households with mortgages and companies with large bank loans.

With or without capital market inflation, higher interest rates have never constrained government spending because of the ease with which governments may issue debt. In the case of indebted companies, the degree to which their expenditure is constrained by higher interest rates depends on their degree of indebtedness, the available facilities for additional financing and the liquidity of their assets. As a consequence of capital market inflation, larger companies reduce their borrowing from banks because it becomes cheaper and more convenient to raise even short- term finance in the booming securities markets. This then makes the expenditure of even indebted companies less immediately affected by changes in bank interest rates, because general changes in interest rates cannot affect the rate of discount or interest paid on securities already issued. Increases in short-term interest rates to reduce general price inflation can then be easily evaded by companies financing themselves by issuing longer-term securities, whose interest rates tend to be more stable. Furthermore, with capital market inflation, companies are more likely to be over-capitalized and have excessive financial liabilities, against which companies tend to hold a larger stock of more liquid assets. As inflated financial markets have become more unstable, this has further increased the liquidity preference of large companies. This excess liquidity enables the companies enjoying it to gain higher interest income to offset the higher cost of their borrowing and to maintain their planned spending. Larger companies, with access to capital markets, can afford to issue securities to replenish their liquid reserves.

If capital market inflation reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy against product price inflation, because of the reduced borrowing of companies and the ability of booming asset markets to absorb large quantities of bank credit, interest rate increases have appeared effective in puncturing asset market bubbles in general and capital market inflations in particular. Whether interest rate rises actually can effect an end to capital market inflation depends on how such rises actually affect the capital market. In asset markets, as with anti-inflationary policy in the rest of the economy, such increases are effective when they squeeze the liquidity of indebted economic units by increasing the outflow of cash needed to service debt payments and by discouraging further speculative borrowing. However, they can only be effective in this way if the credit being used to inflate the capital market is short term or is at variable rates of interest determined by the short-term rate.

Keynes’s speculative demand for money is the liquidity preference or demand for short-term securities of rentiers in relation to the yield on long-term securities. Keynes’s speculative motive is ‘a continuous response to gradual changes in the rate of interest’ in which, as interest rates along the whole maturity spectrum decline, there is a shift in rentiers’ portfolio preference toward more liquid assets. Keynes clearly equated a rise in equity (common stock) prices with just such a fall in interest rates. With falling interest rates, the increasing preference of rentiers for short-term financial assets could keep the capital market from excessive inflation.

But the relationship between rates of interest, capital market inflation and liquidity preference is somewhat more complicated. In reality, investors hold liquid assets not only for liquidity, which gives them the option to buy higher-yielding longer-term stocks when their prices fall, but also for yield. This marginalizes Keynes’s speculative motive for liquidity. The motive was based on Keynes’s distinction between what he called ‘speculation’ (investment for capital gain) and ‘enterprise’ (investment long term for income). In our times, the modern rentier is the fund manager investing long term on behalf of pension and insurance funds and competing for returns against other funds managers. An inflow into the capital markets in excess of the financing requirements of firms and governments results in rising prices and turnover of stock. This higher turnover means greater liquidity so that, as long as the capital market is being inflated, the speculative motive for liquidity is more easily satisfied in the market for long-term securities.

Furthermore, capital market inflation adds a premium of expected inflation, or prospective capital gain, to the yield on long-term financial instruments. Hence when the yield decreases, due to an increase in the securities’ market or actual price, the prospective capital gain will not fall in the face of this capital appreciation, but may even increase if it is large or abrupt. Rising short-term interest rates will therefore fail to induce a shift in the liquidity preference of rentiers towards short-term instruments until the central bank pushes these rates of interest above the sum of the prospective capital gain and the market yield on long-term stocks. Only at this point will there be a shift in investors’ preferences, causing capital market inflation to cease, or bursting an asset bubble.

This suggests a new financial instability hypothesis, albeit one that is more modest and more limited in scope and consequence than Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis. During an economic boom, capital market inflation adds a premium of expected capital gain to the market yield on long-term stocks. As long as this yield plus the expected capital gain exceed the rate of interest on short-term securities set by the central bank’s monetary policy, rising short-term interest rates will have no effect on the inflow of funds into the capital market and, if this inflow is greater than the financing requirements of firms and governments, the resulting capital market inflation. Only when the short-term rate of interest exceeds the threshold set by the sum of the prospective capital gain and the yield on long-term stocks will there be a shift in rentiers’ preferences. The increase in liquidity preference will reduce the inflow of funds into the capital market. As the rise in stock prices moderates, the prospective capital gain gets smaller, and may even become negative. The rentiers’ liquidity preference increases further and eventually the stock market crashes, or ceases to be active in stocks of longer maturities.

At this point, the minimal or negative prospective capital gain makes equity or common stocks unattractive to rentiers at any positive yield, until the rate of interest on short-term securities falls below the sum of the prospective capital gain and the market yield on those stocks. When the short-term rate of interest does fall below this threshold, the resulting reduction in rentiers’ liquidity preference revives the capital market. Thus, in between the bursting of speculative bubbles and the resurrection of a dormant capital market, monetary policy has little effect on capital market inflation. Hence it is a poor regulator for ‘squeezing out inflationary expectations’ in the capital market.

Stock Hedging Loss and Risk

A stock is supposed to be bought at time zero with price S₀, and to be sold at time T with uncertain price S_T. In order to hedge the market risk of the stock, the company decides to choose one of the available put options written on the same stock with maturity at time τ, where τ is prior and close to T, and the n available put options are specified by their strike prices K_i (i = 1,2,··· ,n). As the prices of different put options are also different, the company needs to determine an optimal hedge ratio h (0 ≤ h ≤ 1) with respect to the chosen strike price. The cost of hedging should be less than or equal to the predetermined hedging budget C. In other words, the company needs to determine the optimal strike price and hedging ratio under the constraint of hedging budget. The chosen put option is supposed to finish in-the-money at maturity, and the constraint of hedging expenditure is supposed to be binding.

Suppose the market price of the stock is S₀ at time zero, the hedge ratio is h, the price of the put option is P₀, and the riskless interest rate is r. At time T, the time value of the hedging portfolio is

S₀e^rT + hP₀e^rT —– (1)

and the market price of the portfolio is

S_T + h(K − S_τ)⁺ e^{r(T − τ)} —— (2)

therefore the loss of the portfolio is

L = S₀e^rT + hP₀e^rT − (S_T +h(K − S_τ)⁺ e^{r(T − τ)}—– (3)

where x⁺ = max(x, 0), which is the payoff function of put option at maturity. For a given threshold v, the probability that the amount of loss exceeds v is denoted as

α = Prob{L ≥ v} —– (4)

in other words, v is the Value-at-Risk (VaR) at α percentage level. There are several alternative measures of risk, such as CVaR (Conditional Value-at-Risk), ESF (Expected Shortfall), CTE (Conditional Tail Expectation), and other coherent risk measures.

The mathematical model of stock price is chosen to be a geometric Brownian motion

dS_t/S_t = μdt + σdB_t —– (5)

where S_t is the stock price at time t (0 < t ≤ T), μ and σ are the drift and the volatility of stock price, and B_t is a standard Brownian motion. The solution of the stochastic differential equation is

S_t = S₀ e^σB_t + (μ − 1/2σ²)^t —– (6)

where B₀ = 0, and S_t is lognormally distributed.

For a given threshold of loss v, the probability that the loss exceeds v is

Prob {L ≥ v} = E [I_{X≤c1}F_Y(g(X) − X)] + E [I_{X≥c1}F_Y (c₂ − X)] —– (7)

where E[X] is the expectation of random variable X. I_{X<c} is the index function of X such that I_{X<c} = 1 when {X < c} is true, otherwise I_{X<c} = 0. F_Y(y) is the cumulative distribution function of random variable Y, and

c₁ = 1/σ [ln(k/S₀) – (μ – 1/2σ²)τ]

g(X) = 1/σ [ln((S₀ + hP₀)e^rT − h(K − f(X))e^{r(T − τ)} − v)/S₀ – (μ – 1/2σ²)T]

f(X) = S₀ e^{σX + (μ−1σ2)τ}

c2 = 1/σ [ln((S₀ + hP₀)e^rT − v)/S₀ – (μ – 1/2σ²)T]

X and Y are both normally distributed, where X ∼ N(0, √τ), Y ∼ N(0, √(T−τ)).

For a specified hedging strategy, Q(v) = Prob {L ≥ v} is a decreasing function of v. The VaR under α level can be obtained from equation

Q(v) = α —– (8)

The expectations can be calculated with Monte Carlo simulation methods, and the optimal hedging strategy which has the smallest VaR can be obtained from (8) by numerical searching methods.

Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act

The Government appointed a five-member Committee in May 2016, to review the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act and to examine a changed format including flexible FRBM targets. The Committee formation was announced during the 2016-17 budget by FM Arun Jaitely. The Panel was headed by the former MP and former Revenue and Expenditure Secretary NK Singh and included four other members, CEA Arvind Subramanian, former Finance Secretary Sumit Bose, the then Deputy Governor and present governor of the RBI Urjit Patel and Nathin Roy. There was a difference of opinion about the need for adopting a fixed FRBM target like fiscal deficit, and the divisive opinion lay precisely in not following through such a fixity in times when the government had to spend high to fight recession and support economic growth. The other side of the camp argued it being necessary to inculcate a feeling of fiscal discipline. During Budget speech in 2016, Mr Jaitley expressed this debate:

There is now a school of thought which believes that instead of fixed numbers as fiscal deficit targets, it may be better to have a fiscal deficit range as the target, which would give necessary policy space to the government to deal with dynamic situations. There is also a suggestion that fiscal expansion or contraction should be aligned with credit contraction or expansion, respectively, in the economy.

The need for a flexible FRBM target that allowed higher fiscal deficit during difficult/recessionary years and low targets during comfortable years, gives the government a breathing space to borrow more during tight years. In it report submitted in late January this year, the committee did advocate for a range rather than a fixed fiscal deficit target. Especially, fiscal management becomes all the more important post-demonetisation and the resultant slump in consumption expenditure. The view is that the government could be tempted to increase public spending to boost consumption. but, here is the catch: while ratings agencies do look at the fiscal discipline of a country when considering them for a ratings upgrade, they also look at the context and the growth rate of the economy, so the decision will not be a myopic one based only on the fiscal and revenue deficits.

Fiscal responsibility is an economic concept that has various definitions, depending on the economic theory held by the person or organization offering the definition. Some say being fiscally responsible is just a matter of cutting debt, while others say it’s about completely eliminating debt. Still others might argue that it’s a matter of controlling the level of debt without completely reducing it. Perhaps the most basic definition of fiscal responsibility is the act of creating, optimizing and maintaining a balanced budget.

“Fiscal” refers to money and can include personal finances, though it most often is used in reference to public money or government spending. This can involve income from taxes, revenue, investments or treasuries. In a governmental context, a pledge of fiscal responsibility is a government’s assurance that it will judiciously spend, earn and generate funds without placing undue hardship on its citizens. Fiscal responsibility includes a moral contract to maintain a financially sound government for future generations, because a First World society is difficult to maintain without a financially secure government.

But, what exactly is fiscal responsibility, fiscal management and FRBM. So, here is an attempt to demystify these.

Fiscal responsibility often starts with a balanced budget, which is one with no deficits and no surpluses. The expectations of what might be spent and what is actually spent are equal. Many forms of government have different views and expectations for maintaining a balanced budget, with some preferring to have a budget deficit during certain economic times and a budget surplus during others. Other types of government view a budget deficit as being fiscally irresponsible at any time. Fiscal irresponsibility refers to a lack of effective financial planning by a person, business or government. This can include decreasing taxes in one crucial area while drastically increasing spending in another. This type of situation can cause a budget deficit in which the outgoing expenditures exceed the cash coming in. A government is a business in its own right, and no business — or private citizen — can thrive eternally while operating with a deficit.

When a government is fiscally irresponsible, its ability to function effectively is severely limited. Emergent situations arise unexpectedly, and a government needs to have quick access to reserve funds. A fiscally irresponsible government isn’t able to sustain programs designed to provide fast relief to its citizens.

A government, business or person can take steps to become more fiscally responsible. One useful method for government is to provide some financial transparency, which can reduce waste, expose fraud and highlight areas of financial inefficiency. Not all aspects of government budgets and spending can be brought into full public view because of various risks to security, but offering an inside look at government spending can offer a nation’s citizens a sense of well-being and keep leaders honest. Similarly, a private citizen who is honest with himself about where he is spending his money is better able to determine where he might be able to make cuts that would allow him to live within his means.

Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) became an Act in 2003. The objective of the Act is to ensure inter-generational equity in fiscal management, long run macroeconomic stability, better coordination between fiscal and monetary policy, and transparency in fiscal operation of the Government.

The Government notified FRBM rules in July 2004 to specify the annual reduction targets for fiscal indicators. The FRBM rule specifies reduction of fiscal deficit to 3% of the GDP by 2008-09 with annual reduction target of 0.3% of GDP per year by the Central government. Similarly, revenue deficit has to be reduced by 0.5% of the GDP per year with complete elimination to be achieved by 2008-09. It is the responsibility of the government to adhere to these targets. The Finance Minister has to explain the reasons and suggest corrective actions to be taken, in case of breach.

FRBM Act provides a legal institutional framework for fiscal consolidation. It is now mandatory for the Central government to take measures to reduce fiscal deficit, to eliminate revenue deficit and to generate revenue surplus in the subsequent years. The Act binds not only the present government but also the future Government to adhere to the path of fiscal consolidation. The Government can move away from the path of fiscal consolidation only in case of natural calamity, national security and other exceptional grounds which Central Government may specify.

Further, the Act prohibits borrowing by the government from the Reserve Bank of India, thereby, making monetary policy independent of fiscal policy. The Act bans the purchase of primary issues of the Central Government securities by the RBI after 2006, preventing monetization of government deficit. The Act also requires the government to lay before the parliament three policy statements in each financial year namely Medium Term Fiscal Policy Statement; Fiscal Policy Strategy Statement and Macroeconomic Framework Policy Statement.

To impart fiscal discipline at the state level, the Twelfth Finance Commission gave incentives to states through conditional debt restructuring and interest rate relief for introducing Fiscal Responsibility Legislations (FRLs). All the states have implemented their own FRLs.

Indian economy faced with the problem of large fiscal deficit and its monetization spilled over to external sector in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The large borrowings of the government led to such a precarious situation that government was unable to pay even for two weeks of imports resulting in economic crisis of 1991. Consequently, Economic reforms were introduced in 1991 and fiscal consolidation emerged as one of the key areas of reforms. After a good start in the early nineties, the fiscal consolidation faltered after 1997-98. The fiscal deficit started rising after 1997-98. The Government introduced FRBM Act, 2003 to check the deteriorating fiscal situation.

The implementation of FRBM Act/FRLs improved the fiscal performance of both centre and states.

The States have achieved the targets much ahead the prescribed timeline. Government of India was on the path of achieving this objective right in time. However, due to the global financial crisis, this was suspended and the fiscal consolidation as mandated in the FRBM Act was put on hold in 2007- 08.The crisis period called for increase in expenditure by the government to boost demand in the economy. As a result of fiscal stimulus, the government has moved away from the path of fiscal consolidation. However, it should be noted that strict adherence to the path of fiscal consolidation during pre crisis period created enough fiscal space for pursuing counter cyclical fiscal policy.the main provisions of the Act are:

1. The government has to take appropriate measures to reduce the fiscal deficit and revenue deficit so as to eliminate revenue deficit by 2008-09 and thereafter, sizable revenue surplus has to be created.
2. Setting annual targets for reduction of fiscal deficit and revenue deficit, contingent liabilities and total liabilities.
3. The government shall end its borrowing from the RBI except for temporary advances.
4. The RBI not to subscribe to the primary issues of the central government securities after 2006.
5. The revenue deficit and fiscal deficit may exceed the targets specified in the rules only on grounds of national security, calamity etc.

Though the Act aims to achieve deficit reductions prima facie, an important objective is to achieve inter-generational equity in fiscal management. This is because when there are high borrowings today, it should be repaid by the future generation. But the benefit from high expenditure and debt today goes to the present generation. Achieving FRBM targets thus ensures inter-generation equity by reducing the debt burden of the future generation. Other objectives include: long run macroeconomic stability, better coordination between fiscal and monetary policy, and transparency in fiscal operation of the Government.

The Act had said that the fiscal deficit should be brought down to 3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and revenue deficit should drop down to nil, both by March 2009. Fiscal deficit is the excess of government’s total expenditure over its total income. The government incurs revenue and capital expenses and receives income on the revenue and capital account. Further, the excess of revenue expenses over revenue income leads to a revenue deficit. The FRBM Act wants the revenue deficit to be nil as the revenue expenditure is day-to-day expenses and does not create a capital asset. Usually, the liabilities should not be carried forward, else the government ends up borrowing to repay its current liabilities.

However, these targets were not achieved because the global credit crisis hit the markets in 2008. The government had to roll out a fiscal stimulus to revive the economy and this increased the deficits.

In the 2011 budget, the finance minister said that the FRBM Act would be modified and new targets would be fixed and flexibility will be built in to have a cushion for unforeseen circumstances. According to the 13th Finance Commission, fiscal deficit will be brought down to 3.5% in 2013-14. Likewise, revenue deficit is expected to be cut to 2.1% in 2013-14.

In the 2012 Budget speech, the finance minister announced an amendment to the FRBM Act. He also announced that instead of the FRBM targeting the revenue deficit, the government will now target the effective revenue deficit. His budget speech defines effective revenue deficit as the difference between revenue deficit and grants for creation of capital assets. In other words, capital expenditure will now be removed from the revenue deficit and whatever remains (effective revenue deficit) will now be the new goalpost of the fiscal consolidation. Here’s what effective revenue deficit means.

Every year the government incurs expenditure and simultaneously earns income. Some expenses are planned (that it includes in its five-year plans) and other are non-planned. However, both planned and non-planned expenditure consists of capital and revenue expenditure. For instance, if the government sets up a power plant as part of its non-planned expenditure, then costs incurred towards maintaining it will now not be called revenue deficit because it is towards maintaining a “capital asset”. Experts say that revenue deficit could become a little distorted because by reclassifying revenue deficit, it is simplifying its target.

 

access to reserve funds. A fiscally irresponsible government isn’t able to sustain programs designed to provide fast relief to its citizens.

Bataille and Solar Anus Economy/Capitalism: Note Quote

Focusing on Bataille as a pivotal point, his take on Solar Economy is a bit weird to begin with, but, then I do see its relevance to accelerationism. The take on political economy is driven by excess, rather than scarcity, a plethora of energy (like that from the sun) that would not just facilitate growth, but would be vulnerable to expenditure in a purely apathetic manner as well. That is how he differentiates the general from the restricted economy. I am keen to note how accelerationism, if guarded by the normative (I understand the term to carry a baggage of strictures) dromos (dromocracy), would shift the balance of the economic towards the general rather than the restricted. I think, if capitalism gets overridden by the belief in this economic, a probable fracture within it could be affected. Bataille, then would make his presence felt even more crucially for the ultimate eschatology of capitalism.

Bataille provides a premonitory text relating the energy of the sun, the sexual movements and excitements of the cosmos and of terrestrial life, and the anus of an eighteen-year-old girl. Operating at the intersection between his sexually explicit literary works – think here especially of Madame Edwarda, whose eponymous hero demonstrates that her labia are the copula of God: “Madame Edwarda’s old rag and ruin leered at me, hairy and pink, just as full of life as some loathsome squid. […] “You can see for yourself,” she said, “I am GOD.” – and his later development of a theory of a general economy of expenditure in La part maudite, “The Solar Anus” provides a rich but conceptually underdeveloped reading of the cosmic and terrestrial with regard to their potency, fertility, and fundamental antagonism.  Bataille writes,

Disasters, revolutions, and volcanoes do not make love with the stars. The erotic revolutionary and volcanic deflagrations antagonize the heavens. As in the case of violent love, they take place beyond fecundity. In opposition to celestial fertility there are terrestrial disasters, the image of terrestrial love without condition, erection without escape and without rule, scandal, and terror. […] The Sun exclusively loves the Night and directs its luminous violence, its ignoble shaft, toward the earth, but it finds itself incapable of reaching the gaze or the night, even though the nocturnal terrestrial expanses head continuously toward the indecency of the solar ray.

In La part maudite, Bataille goes on to develop his argument against scarcity, which contends that, from the point of view of a general economy, the key problem on the tellurian surface is not the conservation of energy, but its expenditure [depenser].  Bataille offers the following reversal of the political economy of scarcity:

I will begin with a basic fact: The living organism, in a situation determined by the play of energy on the surface of the globe, ordinarily receives more energy than is necessary for maintaining life; the excess energy (wealth) can be used for the growth of a system (e.g., an organism); if the system can no longer grow, or if the excess cannot be lost without profit; it must be spent, willingly or not, gloriously or catastrophically. (The Accursed Share)

The “curse” of the accursed share is disturbingly simple: the earth is bombarded with so much energy from the sun that it simply cannot spend it all without disaster. Over the course of millions of years of solar bombardment, the creatures enslaved to this “celestial fertility” by way of photosynthetic-reliant metabolic systems are forced to become increasingly burdensome forms of life. By the end of the Ediacaran period, we find the emergence of animals with bones, teeth, and claws, and eventually even more flamboyant expenditures like tigers and peacocks, and later still, tall buildings. Or, as Bataille suggests in his short text “Architecture,” for the surrealist Critical Dictionary: “Man would seem to represent merely an intermediate stage within the morphological development between monkey and building.” With this morphology of expenditure in mind, let us now return to the anal image of thought.

What the theory of expenditure calls into question in its most precise philosophical reading is the division between useful and wasteful (flamboyant) practices; this is because in order for any theory of use value to be coherent, it must first restrict the economy, or field of operations, within which it is operating. The restriction of this field of energy exchange is a moral action inasmuch as it sets up the conditions for any action in the field to be read as either productive or wasteful. For Bataille, the general economy permits us to evaluate the terms of restriction as a means to call into question the cultural values and forms of social organization they engender. Because of this, the “anus of her body at eighteen years old” must be intact: as a potential for pure loss, pure expenditure of energy without reserve and without reproduction, Bataille is transfixed by the analogy of glorious or catastrophic expenditure in relation to the energy of the sun and the potential for escaping this curse as much as the curse of the intact anus.