- 05 Aug 2021 03:58
#15183985
When the world was on the gold standard it made sense to worry about “money”, or the national debt because money was something real, i.e. gold.
However, the world went off the gold standard back in 1971, and it will only get back into the gold standard after a major crisis like the meteor strike that killed the dinosaurs. This is because, there is not enough gold in the world. Also because, the (functionally) fixed amount of gold in the world didn't allow the “money supply” to grow. Well, it could if promissory notes issued by banks were included. However, such notes (aka bank notes) were not backed by gold and so in a bank panic, many of them became worthless when the issuing bank went out of business. Needing to use bank notes to grow the money supply was a huge flaw in the economic system back before 1913, and the creation of the Fed. Res. Bank.
Today, “money” is totally a human imaginary creation. You can see this more clearly if you imagine a cash-less system, where everyone has a debit card and all “money” is just numbers in the computers that keep track of everyone's money. IMO, such a system makes it clear that money is imaginary.
Decades ago I suggested that money be seen as “Status Points”. I said this because gold was the universal status symbol across most cultures, and all advanced cultures. Humans are social Primates and so humans are very conscious of their and everyone else's status.
If you see that money is status points, then you may be able to see that such points can be created out of thin air. For example, the winner of a Nobel Prize gains status, and this status cost nobody any of their preexisting status. It was created out of thin air. In the same way, a Gov. can create status points without taking them from someone.
In our current system the Gov. of most nations is the issuer of the status points called money, for example US dollars. In the case of the EU & EZ the issuer is the European Central Bank, aka ECB. When the US deficit spends, it is net creating more dollars. If it also sells bonds of equal value, all of the deficit spending goes into buying the bonds (indirectly, at least, but at the macro level it's true). Because it is saved, such deficit spending doesn't cause high inflation.
. . . Because the Gov. issues the status points, it doesn't need status points from the people before it can create more status points. This is just like points on the scoreboard at a sporting event. The person changing the scoreboard doesn't need points (from someone) to change the scoreboard when a team scores 1 or more points.
. . . Because of that, the so-called national debt is not a debt at all. It is status points that previous Govs. have gifted to the people to keep and use later, i.e. it is much of their savings. In fact if you graph US net savings and US Gov. deficit spending, they track exactly. As one goes up the other goes down. The Gov. deficit *is* the private sector's surplus. This is simply the result of the accounting process, although there is some leakage, like the trade deficit.
The Gov. must collect some tax revenues because this is what gives fiat money its value. Also, because otherwise there will be massive inflation. This is because the status points are being used to buy real things, and unlike status points, real things are always finite. Therefore, taxes are one way to avoid inflation from too much Gov. creating of the status points, aka dollars. What matter here is the amount of real stuff & service for sale in the economy. It is flatly impossible to regulate the economy without tracking the amount of real things for sale. All econ. theories that try to do this are on a fool's errand.
When the Gov. buys something like a jet fighter, it uses some status points that it creates, the corp. that makes planes accepts them because it will need to pay taxes and it can use them to pay its workers because they need them to pay their taxes. The workers can also use them to buy food because the owner of the food store needs them to pay their taxes. This is true of everyone, so everyone accepts the Gov. issued status points as if they were gold coins. This will work *totally* fine for everyone in all ways, until the US ceases to exist, when every one of the status points will become without value. This includes all those in Gov. bonds, in paper dollar bills, and in bank accounts. This (the US ceasing to exist) is likely decades or centuries away, though.
. . . Today, the most likely cause for the US ceasing to exist is chaos caused by climate change devastating the grain harvest worldwide.
. . . OTOH, I think that the best way to reduce the chance of the grain harvest failing worldwide, is for the US to deficit spend now like mad. Who cares if there is inflation when all dollars will in months or a year be worthless. To resist this is just a form of climate change denial. It should be seen and treated as such, because that is what it is. All who accept that climate change is real and pretty soon will lead to worldwide failure of the grain harvest need to support deficit spending, now.
I do want to tax the rich, though. IMHO, the way to have equilibrium in the economy is for the Gov. to tax away almost all the excess money that floats up to the top of the income spread. All income levels in the economy must gain equal shares of the increased income to have the economy be in equilibrium. To not do this, is unstable because in the long run, too much money ends up being saved by the rich who can't find a way to spend it. In ancient Rome, the rich got status by building public works, some examples are --- aqueducts and the Colosseum itself. The rich can choose, for example (for the good of the nation) to gain status by bragging about how much they pay in taxes. In any case, they should not compete because of climate change by buying more & more expensive status symbols, like yachts, private jets, or summer homes in 5 locations.
However, the world went off the gold standard back in 1971, and it will only get back into the gold standard after a major crisis like the meteor strike that killed the dinosaurs. This is because, there is not enough gold in the world. Also because, the (functionally) fixed amount of gold in the world didn't allow the “money supply” to grow. Well, it could if promissory notes issued by banks were included. However, such notes (aka bank notes) were not backed by gold and so in a bank panic, many of them became worthless when the issuing bank went out of business. Needing to use bank notes to grow the money supply was a huge flaw in the economic system back before 1913, and the creation of the Fed. Res. Bank.
Today, “money” is totally a human imaginary creation. You can see this more clearly if you imagine a cash-less system, where everyone has a debit card and all “money” is just numbers in the computers that keep track of everyone's money. IMO, such a system makes it clear that money is imaginary.
Decades ago I suggested that money be seen as “Status Points”. I said this because gold was the universal status symbol across most cultures, and all advanced cultures. Humans are social Primates and so humans are very conscious of their and everyone else's status.
If you see that money is status points, then you may be able to see that such points can be created out of thin air. For example, the winner of a Nobel Prize gains status, and this status cost nobody any of their preexisting status. It was created out of thin air. In the same way, a Gov. can create status points without taking them from someone.
In our current system the Gov. of most nations is the issuer of the status points called money, for example US dollars. In the case of the EU & EZ the issuer is the European Central Bank, aka ECB. When the US deficit spends, it is net creating more dollars. If it also sells bonds of equal value, all of the deficit spending goes into buying the bonds (indirectly, at least, but at the macro level it's true). Because it is saved, such deficit spending doesn't cause high inflation.
. . . Because the Gov. issues the status points, it doesn't need status points from the people before it can create more status points. This is just like points on the scoreboard at a sporting event. The person changing the scoreboard doesn't need points (from someone) to change the scoreboard when a team scores 1 or more points.
. . . Because of that, the so-called national debt is not a debt at all. It is status points that previous Govs. have gifted to the people to keep and use later, i.e. it is much of their savings. In fact if you graph US net savings and US Gov. deficit spending, they track exactly. As one goes up the other goes down. The Gov. deficit *is* the private sector's surplus. This is simply the result of the accounting process, although there is some leakage, like the trade deficit.
The Gov. must collect some tax revenues because this is what gives fiat money its value. Also, because otherwise there will be massive inflation. This is because the status points are being used to buy real things, and unlike status points, real things are always finite. Therefore, taxes are one way to avoid inflation from too much Gov. creating of the status points, aka dollars. What matter here is the amount of real stuff & service for sale in the economy. It is flatly impossible to regulate the economy without tracking the amount of real things for sale. All econ. theories that try to do this are on a fool's errand.
When the Gov. buys something like a jet fighter, it uses some status points that it creates, the corp. that makes planes accepts them because it will need to pay taxes and it can use them to pay its workers because they need them to pay their taxes. The workers can also use them to buy food because the owner of the food store needs them to pay their taxes. This is true of everyone, so everyone accepts the Gov. issued status points as if they were gold coins. This will work *totally* fine for everyone in all ways, until the US ceases to exist, when every one of the status points will become without value. This includes all those in Gov. bonds, in paper dollar bills, and in bank accounts. This (the US ceasing to exist) is likely decades or centuries away, though.
. . . Today, the most likely cause for the US ceasing to exist is chaos caused by climate change devastating the grain harvest worldwide.
. . . OTOH, I think that the best way to reduce the chance of the grain harvest failing worldwide, is for the US to deficit spend now like mad. Who cares if there is inflation when all dollars will in months or a year be worthless. To resist this is just a form of climate change denial. It should be seen and treated as such, because that is what it is. All who accept that climate change is real and pretty soon will lead to worldwide failure of the grain harvest need to support deficit spending, now.
I do want to tax the rich, though. IMHO, the way to have equilibrium in the economy is for the Gov. to tax away almost all the excess money that floats up to the top of the income spread. All income levels in the economy must gain equal shares of the increased income to have the economy be in equilibrium. To not do this, is unstable because in the long run, too much money ends up being saved by the rich who can't find a way to spend it. In ancient Rome, the rich got status by building public works, some examples are --- aqueducts and the Colosseum itself. The rich can choose, for example (for the good of the nation) to gain status by bragging about how much they pay in taxes. In any case, they should not compete because of climate change by buying more & more expensive status symbols, like yachts, private jets, or summer homes in 5 locations.
Last edited by Steve_American on 05 Aug 2021 05:39, edited 1 time in total.