As an aside: the local prefix for quoting is “>” at the start of the line, not the pipe character.
I think you do, you just don’t know it yet :) Your choice would be between more than what you get now or way more than you get now.
I think you’re mistaken about my preferences.
You point out yourself that money is (in this context) is just a measure, an medium of exchange. It is NOT the same thing as the underlying value. Now, to “get more” I would want to get more value and you’re promising me just more money. The point is that an economy produces some amount of value and that’s all you have to redistribute. You can make money spin faster, but that will not increase the value produced—all you’ll do is increase inflation.
Essentially, if I buy a loaf of bread from a baker and the baker knows he’ll have to pay me “dividends” in the future, the baker will raise the price of bread to compensate for these future dividends. Your hopes remind me of “free energy” mechanisms in physics—if only we could set up sufficiently clever loops we can get more energy that we put in! Um...
My current understanding of your idea is that you basically want a tax on wealth (or, specifically, on money wealth) with a very complicated scheme to distribute its proceeds directly to the population bypassing the government. Is that a reasonable approach?
I would also like to point out that I think your fears of wealth accumulation are overblown. Look at empirical data. Is there, in reality, old old money dominating everything? Does the Medici family rule Europe? What happened to the Vanderbilts? The oldest rich family I can recall offhand is the Rothschilds and while they are not poor by any means, how do they do compared to Gates or Brin or Musk?
All those things are subject to entropy and have a natural carrying cost.
What about the traditionally most valuable kind of capital—land, also known as real estate? What about technology? or non-agricultural commodities like oil, coal, copper, etc?
controlled inflation(demurrage) is better than the random inflation we deal with now.
The current inflation is controlled to best of central banks’ abilities. You are not controlling it any better, you’re just setting a floor as to how low can it go.
As good a value as a $1 shirt made by a robot down the block?
I’ll take the standard capitalist approach—if the robot down the block can sell me the same shirt cheaper, I’ll buy it from the robot. If it can’t, I’ll buy it from the Vietnamese. I am not willing to pay extra for feel-good fluff.
You point out yourself that money is (in this context) is just a measure, an medium of exchange. It is NOT the same thing as the underlying value. Now, to “get more” I would want to get more value and you’re promising me just more money. The point is that an economy produces some amount of value and that’s all you have to redistribute. You can make money spin faster, but that will not increase the value produced—all you’ll do is increase inflation.
Do you think that the current economy is ginning at an optimal output? How much slack would you guess there is? How much GDP is currently left ‘on the shelf’? Maybe you think we are very close to optimal. If that is the case then I’m tilting at windmills. If it is suboptimal, the the next questions is ‘why?’ Is it a lack of tech. A lack of resources? A lack of time? I’m not sure but I think it is very sub optimal.
If increasing the flow of money would not bridge the missing value, what would? I think that a lot of actors in our economy get stuck ‘waiting for the check’ to get started on production, finish production,procure the capital necessary to build, etc.
Is there some data/study you can point to that says that faster velocity doesn’t increase production? Maybe I should run the model with mv > 1 transaction a month and see what happens.
Essentially, if I buy a loaf of bread from a baker and the baker knows he’ll have to pay me “dividends” in the future, the baker will raise the price of bread to compensate for these future dividends. Your hopes remind me of “free energy” mechanisms in physics—if only we could set up sufficiently clever loops we can get more energy that we put in! Um...
The difference is that there isn’t a law of conservation of value. We regularly see massive exponential movements in the ability of human beings to produce amazing things. Would you argue that we should go back to barter because money is just a clever way of abstracting away coincidence of wants? Energy is physics. Money is an artificial construct.
Also don’t ignore the fact that a consumer may be willing to pay the increased price charged because the consumer will be getting that value back in the future. I understand that this may seem like a clever loop, except that people die. So the loop breaks down and you have to have a system for legacy. The system has a consequence of corporate death as well so you don’t end up with supercorps sucking in all the economic decay. Legacy and transition are in the details of the book, but basically, this isn’t a system that jives with immortality...it is a system to get us there.
My current understanding of your idea is that you basically want a tax on wealth (or, specifically, on money wealth) with a very complicated scheme to distribute its proceeds directly to the population bypassing the government. Is that a reasonable approach?
It isn’t really much more complicated than the fractional reserve system we have now. I have no delusions about the ease of bootstrapping such a system, but it really can be a fairly straight forward and simple system.
I would also like to point out that I think your fears of wealth accumulation are overblown. Look at empirical data. Is there, in reality, old old money dominating everything? Does the Medici family rule Europe? What happened to the Vanderbilts? The oldest rich family I can recall offhand is the Rothschilds and while they are not poor by any means, how do they do compared to Gates or Brin or Musk?
What about the traditionally most valuable kind of capital—land, also known as real estate? What about technology? or non-agricultural commodities like oil, coal, copper, etc?
Certainly somethings have more or less carrying costs. The closer you get to stable elements, the more you can decrease these (Gold, Silver). Carbon is an element but tends to be a slippery beast that takes all kind of crazy forms that break down or change in some way. Land does have a carrying cost of some form of maintenance and most has an artificial carrying cost in the form of property taxes. Gesell had some pretty crazy ideas about land that I don’t exactly buy into. I don’t have many super strong ideas about it because I think(hope) we are going to be moving past the point where land is that big of a deal for most of us.
The current inflation is controlled to best of central banks’ abilities. You are not controlling it any better, you’re just setting a floor as to how low can it go.
Actually the theory is that we can hold inflation at 0 by printing decaying dollars when we need them and decaying them faster when there is too much. Tech is always going to bring about some deflation, but the general goal is for there always to be enough money to buy all the things that are being produced.
I’ll take the standard capitalist approach—if the robot down the block can sell me the same shirt cheaper, I’ll buy it from the robot. If it can’t, I’ll buy it from the Vietnamese. I am not willing to pay extra for feel-good fluff.
I’m a humanist...I guess you are not...agree to disagree? We can’t do that on a rationality discussion board can we? If you aren’t willing to pay for the feel good fluff, do you at least want it to happen? By what means if so. If not, are you cool with the status quo going forward as long as prices always get smaller?
Do you think that the current economy is ginning at an optimal output?
I don’t know what “optimal output” is. Can the economy produce more? Of course it can. What’s stopping it? Ah, an interesting and complicated question. There are a lot of constraints, both local and global—I would say the biggest is the level of technology—and they are binding in different places. As I mentioned earlier, I do not think that the availability of capital is a major constraint at the moment. In fact, we have a glut of cheap money.
I think that a lot of actors in our economy get stuck ‘waiting for the check’ to get started on production
That’s possible, but why do you think these actors would generate value? It’s entirely possible for them to just waste resources. The fact that they have not been able to secure financing indicates that they do not have a convincing plan of creating value.
s there some data/study you can point to that says that faster velocity doesn’t increase production?
Just get yourself a plot of GDP and a plot of money velocity over time. See how correlated they are and whether you think there is a causal connection.
In any case, velocity is a calculated number—it’s just GDP divided by money supply (and you can use different money supplies—the monetary base, M2, M3, etc. to get a velocity for each of them).
a consumer may be willing to pay the increased price charged because the consumer will be getting that value back in the future
That’s the financial equivalent of lending money to the seller. Why would a consumer be interested in becoming a creditor for all purchases?
I think the empirical data is there for the r > g problem
I think that’s not quite true. Yes, Piketty has written a book. Not everyone agrees with its conclusions.
I think doing something is better than nothing.
Really, you don’t think there is a good chance to royally screw things up if you make radical changes with uncertain consequences?
Actually the theory is that we can hold inflation at 0 by printing decaying dollars when we need them and decaying them faster when there is too much.
So what’s stopping the current central banks from easily controlling inflation now in this way? Japan, for example, have been trying to get out of deflation for many years. It printed a lot of yen. Inflation is still negligible.
agree to disagree?
Sure. As long as your proposals are not mandatory :-)
If you aren’t willing to pay for the feel good fluff, do you at least want it to happen?
Depends on what. For some things I don’t care and for some things I expect voluntary consumer choice to be not an effective method to achieve anything useful.
If not, are you cool with the status quo going forward as long as prices always get smaller?
Status quo as in what we have now? I would prefer things to get better, of course, but I’m not holding my breath :-) I am a social pessimist—I believe people have a vast capacity to fuck things up…
As an aside: the local prefix for quoting is “>” at the start of the line, not the pipe character.
I think you’re mistaken about my preferences.
You point out yourself that money is (in this context) is just a measure, an medium of exchange. It is NOT the same thing as the underlying value. Now, to “get more” I would want to get more value and you’re promising me just more money. The point is that an economy produces some amount of value and that’s all you have to redistribute. You can make money spin faster, but that will not increase the value produced—all you’ll do is increase inflation.
Essentially, if I buy a loaf of bread from a baker and the baker knows he’ll have to pay me “dividends” in the future, the baker will raise the price of bread to compensate for these future dividends. Your hopes remind me of “free energy” mechanisms in physics—if only we could set up sufficiently clever loops we can get more energy that we put in! Um...
My current understanding of your idea is that you basically want a tax on wealth (or, specifically, on money wealth) with a very complicated scheme to distribute its proceeds directly to the population bypassing the government. Is that a reasonable approach?
I would also like to point out that I think your fears of wealth accumulation are overblown. Look at empirical data. Is there, in reality, old old money dominating everything? Does the Medici family rule Europe? What happened to the Vanderbilts? The oldest rich family I can recall offhand is the Rothschilds and while they are not poor by any means, how do they do compared to Gates or Brin or Musk?
What about the traditionally most valuable kind of capital—land, also known as real estate? What about technology? or non-agricultural commodities like oil, coal, copper, etc?
The current inflation is controlled to best of central banks’ abilities. You are not controlling it any better, you’re just setting a floor as to how low can it go.
I’ll take the standard capitalist approach—if the robot down the block can sell me the same shirt cheaper, I’ll buy it from the robot. If it can’t, I’ll buy it from the Vietnamese. I am not willing to pay extra for feel-good fluff.
Do you think that the current economy is ginning at an optimal output? How much slack would you guess there is? How much GDP is currently left ‘on the shelf’? Maybe you think we are very close to optimal. If that is the case then I’m tilting at windmills. If it is suboptimal, the the next questions is ‘why?’ Is it a lack of tech. A lack of resources? A lack of time? I’m not sure but I think it is very sub optimal.
If increasing the flow of money would not bridge the missing value, what would? I think that a lot of actors in our economy get stuck ‘waiting for the check’ to get started on production, finish production,procure the capital necessary to build, etc.
Is there some data/study you can point to that says that faster velocity doesn’t increase production? Maybe I should run the model with mv > 1 transaction a month and see what happens.
The difference is that there isn’t a law of conservation of value. We regularly see massive exponential movements in the ability of human beings to produce amazing things. Would you argue that we should go back to barter because money is just a clever way of abstracting away coincidence of wants? Energy is physics. Money is an artificial construct.
Also don’t ignore the fact that a consumer may be willing to pay the increased price charged because the consumer will be getting that value back in the future. I understand that this may seem like a clever loop, except that people die. So the loop breaks down and you have to have a system for legacy. The system has a consequence of corporate death as well so you don’t end up with supercorps sucking in all the economic decay. Legacy and transition are in the details of the book, but basically, this isn’t a system that jives with immortality...it is a system to get us there.
It isn’t really much more complicated than the fractional reserve system we have now. I have no delusions about the ease of bootstrapping such a system, but it really can be a fairly straight forward and simple system.
I think the empirical data is there for the r > g problem(http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/r). I think most of use here probably fall on the side that assumes technology will keep g > r, but with no promises, I think doing something is better than nothing.
Certainly somethings have more or less carrying costs. The closer you get to stable elements, the more you can decrease these (Gold, Silver). Carbon is an element but tends to be a slippery beast that takes all kind of crazy forms that break down or change in some way. Land does have a carrying cost of some form of maintenance and most has an artificial carrying cost in the form of property taxes. Gesell had some pretty crazy ideas about land that I don’t exactly buy into. I don’t have many super strong ideas about it because I think(hope) we are going to be moving past the point where land is that big of a deal for most of us.
Actually the theory is that we can hold inflation at 0 by printing decaying dollars when we need them and decaying them faster when there is too much. Tech is always going to bring about some deflation, but the general goal is for there always to be enough money to buy all the things that are being produced.
I’m a humanist...I guess you are not...agree to disagree? We can’t do that on a rationality discussion board can we? If you aren’t willing to pay for the feel good fluff, do you at least want it to happen? By what means if so. If not, are you cool with the status quo going forward as long as prices always get smaller?
I don’t know what “optimal output” is. Can the economy produce more? Of course it can. What’s stopping it? Ah, an interesting and complicated question. There are a lot of constraints, both local and global—I would say the biggest is the level of technology—and they are binding in different places. As I mentioned earlier, I do not think that the availability of capital is a major constraint at the moment. In fact, we have a glut of cheap money.
That’s possible, but why do you think these actors would generate value? It’s entirely possible for them to just waste resources. The fact that they have not been able to secure financing indicates that they do not have a convincing plan of creating value.
Just get yourself a plot of GDP and a plot of money velocity over time. See how correlated they are and whether you think there is a causal connection.
In any case, velocity is a calculated number—it’s just GDP divided by money supply (and you can use different money supplies—the monetary base, M2, M3, etc. to get a velocity for each of them).
That’s the financial equivalent of lending money to the seller. Why would a consumer be interested in becoming a creditor for all purchases?
I think that’s not quite true. Yes, Piketty has written a book. Not everyone agrees with its conclusions.
Really, you don’t think there is a good chance to royally screw things up if you make radical changes with uncertain consequences?
So what’s stopping the current central banks from easily controlling inflation now in this way? Japan, for example, have been trying to get out of deflation for many years. It printed a lot of yen. Inflation is still negligible.
Sure. As long as your proposals are not mandatory :-)
Depends on what. For some things I don’t care and for some things I expect voluntary consumer choice to be not an effective method to achieve anything useful.
Status quo as in what we have now? I would prefer things to get better, of course, but I’m not holding my breath :-) I am a social pessimist—I believe people have a vast capacity to fuck things up…