Video: Money As Debt Unleashed

I authored this article on Fascist Soup.com:


I’ll wager a good number of the visitors to this site have seen Money as Debt; here is the second installment of that feature.

Money As Debt Unleashed

(click here to watch the full video and reference the article)


I don’t agree with the “government creation” electronic gold idea at the end, but I do agree with their description of how the monetary system loots the public. They present a very accurate description of how the monetary system works and why it is unsustainable.

The reason why I think the electronic dollar idea is ultimately bad is that government cannot spend money into a system without distorting the market prices of that system, for instance take healthcare and education today, both are heavily subsidized by government. Because of this subsidization we see massive price inflation in these markets.

When government spends money into a system it is ultimately diverting resources that could be more efficiently allocated by the private market. It is also picking winners and losers, which distorts competition. Without competition, prices always increase. Solving this necessitates the creation of currency by the private market itself. What makes gold so attractive as a currency is that it’s creation is based on its price in the private market. As gold becomes more expensive, mining operations will increase as the profits that can be made by mining gold increase, due to gold’s price. This naturally expands the money supply at a rate determined by the market.

Where the electronic gold idea has some merit is that if you could exchange real mined gold into an electronic gold piece, then destroy the real gold piece, you could have the best of both worlds. You simply declare a new electronic gold piece can only be created upon the destruction of a real gold piece.

As insane as it sounds, taking all the gold that’s created and dumping it in the Marianas trench then creating a virtual gold piece based on that destroyed gold would actually be a very healthy way to base the foundation of a modern currency system.

Video games have been using similar mechanisms of monetary creation and destruction for a long time now with remarkably stable results within virtual economies. The key foundational principle behind these virtual gold economies is that money must take effort to produce and that its destruction and creation must be balanced so as not to cause inflation. Today, the cost of mining and the rarity of gold is what determines its price, and the “sink” is not the physical destruction of the gold, but the productive expansion of the economy which produces the same effect.

As the economic productivity of an economy expands, its money becomes more valuable, thus essentially acting like a virtual “sink”, increasing the value of money by increasing its scarcity to necessitate the expanded number of transactions taking place.

Ultimately the creation of currency, be it backed by gold, silver, a mix of metals, or some other hard commodity, must arise out of the private markets and also be competitive in itself. Currencies should not be the exclusive domain of government. As with all things, the best results will be achieved in currencies through competitive private markets.




[edit on 23-1-2010 by mnemeth1]

Just to add historical perspective, I would invite anyone interested in the subject material to review the original "Money as Debt" video.

Way to keep our eyes open.

MONEY AS DEBT

Google Video Link

By the way, the Marianas tench idea is .... inviting!

[edit on 23-1-2010 by Maxmars]

reply to post by Maxmars


I don't know if the trench idea would work.

I can build just about anything. Now where did I put my sub plans?

I will set aside some time later tonight to watch both.

The old, print up enough money to buy back all debt won't work huh? Wouldn't it just lower the value of the money directly proportional to the increase in the number of dollars. Isn't that pretty much what we just did to supposedly keep the economy going? Why not just print up another 12 Trillion? It is only 12 Trillion. I have always had a hard time putting together real world economics and all of the different theories behind economics.

In macro in college I just could not follow Keynes theories.

I think my major in engineering and minor in bus admin threw me too many curves so to speak. Real math vs economic math.

Thanks for the OP and S&F