The Secret of Oz

[chr5648]

Re: The Secret of Oz

There are two crucial differences.

If the government taxes or inflates your income stream to near worthlessness, you will likely vote the bastards out of office.

At that point its too late, everything is worthless unless you hedged with gold, other PM, other commodities, or physical assets, your screwed. Its being ready before hand and having a system with a structure that will prevent these situations from occurring. Putting trust in politicians is too much of this hope and change crap.

I also tend to see a similarity with the bush/greenspan regime, the inflation over the 8 years was about 25% official, with even higher rates when using data from shadowstats or other proprietary sources. Obviously, things got bad and people voted bush out and greenspan left. Now we have bernanke and the obama regime, different faces, same policies maybe even worse, its like they are competing with bush for the worst presidency/administration award. The metrics don't lie.

[Fiat Currency]

Re: The Secret of Oz

Why?

Risk, Trust, Obfuscation, Malfeasance, Perception, and all the usual suspects.

The ROTW (Rest Of The World) was woken up to the USA printing its money at free will and using it to build up a massive military that it has to feed on bases all around the World. Don't get me wrong - the USA has contributed much to the Globe. Heck, other countries have been supporting it by buying up US debt. That is changing.

But, when money is power, that power needs to be reigned in, as absolute power corrupts. Who's going to trust another currency that can be printed at will by all Countries in the Trillions (or will it be Quadrillions by then) ?

It might go another way - but I still see the emergence of the gold gram as a unit of measure for Finance/Capital as the most likely path for now.

[Rajiv]

Re: The Secret of Oz

Sapiens comments section has a ton of information on chartalism, some interesting viewpoints there.

There are problems with Chartalism and MMT. They have some of the answers, but are unable to deal with some of the problems of Fiat money. This was an issue that Sapiens and I discussed. I think the answer was found in the writings of Tom Greco, Margrit Kennedy and Silvio Gesell. The problems come from the dual role of money (medium of exchange and store of value,) and how to keep them separate.

See Sapiens comment - Money and Debt - Part III - Segregated Monetary Functions

Magnificent, magnificent, magnificent!!!

This is it Rajiv! By Golly, you found it man!!!

Thank you, again.

Cheers!

-Sapiens

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Secret of Oz

Who's going to trust another currency that can be printed at will

I asked why you said we needed a global anchor currency. You replied explaining why a fiat currency would not suffice for that anchor.

I agree a fiat anchor is no anchor. I was recommending no anchor (floating Forex instead.) You're explaining why gold is a better anchor than fiat.

Anyhow a gold anchor doesn't work either. Whichever nations end up on the short end of the golden stick starve. See further the Great Depression.

Perhaps we have reached a rather common sort of impasse. You're saying we need A because B and C suck. I'm saying we need B because A and C suck. Someone else no doubt is saying we need C because A and B suck. We're all 2/3's right. They all suck.

[Fiat Currency]

Re: The Secret of Oz

Thanks for digging those up Rajiv - I enjoyed reading them.

[Fiat Currency]

Re: The Secret of Oz

Peace TPC. You might want to read the 3rd part of the post Rajiv linked to ...

It basically speaks to currencies fracturing via their "unit of account", "medium of exchange", and "store of value" functions.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Secret of Oz

Peace TPC. You might want to read the 3rd part of the post Rajiv linked to ...

Your suggestion led me to the book The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, by Thomas Greco (June 2009). It looks quite interesting. Thanks. Peace.

[LargoWinch]

Re: The Secret of Oz

This thread in the span of only 48hrs contains excellent viewpoint and arguments. Gotta love it!

I emailed Bill Still yesterday and he recently reply, being thankful his clip has been posted on iTulip.

Perhaps he might be inclined to comment as well?

[dummass]

Re: The Secret of Oz

Sapiens comments section has a ton of information on chartalism, some interesting viewpoints there.

I think you may have made a grammatical error in putting government and honesty in the same sentence. Too bad the masses are too dumb to vote politicians out, all they politicos do is promise more crap, bread, and circuses to the people which may increase under the system proposed.

The current, debt based ponzi scheme, is predicated upon governments' inability to spend within their means. The bankers' business model is front running government irresponsibility. They know, as do most iTulipers, that governments will always spend beyond their means. There is no deterrent to guard against this behavior; the legal system is designed to encourage irresponsibility. Voting out the incumbents, year-after-year, simply creates a revolving door of corruption. There needs to be oversight and there must be consequences; otherwise, there is no deterrent and irresponsibility is rewarded.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Secret of Oz

Voting out the incumbents, year-after-year, simply creates a revolving door of corruption.

+1

[LargoWinch]

Re: The Secret of Oz

I understand this, but with the proposed solutions they could hypothetically print into oblivion. whats to stop them? voters? hope and change? My point is that the printing and spending would get even worse and worse, further compounding current problems.

If you really look at it closely, the current system is no different than what is being proposed, we don't actually pay interest it continues to be added to the principle. Like a ponzi scheme, with no intention of ever paying back the principle. Which is abstractly similar to what is proposed in the video.

Are you assuming or is anyone is this thread assuming that the actual debt will ever be repaid, or that even a small amount will ever be repaid? Almost every metric and action of the .gov seems to signal no repayment.

chr5648, I agree with you with the fact that debt-free or not, money as a store of value is difficult to imagine when the government under fiat can create it or borrow it.

That being said, the later is immensely worse as TPC pointed out in this thread.


I have yet to read the material posted by Rajiv, but by judging from Sapiens' reaction, the concept(s) put forward by Tom Greco, Margrit Kennedy and Silvio Gesell certainly sound very promising.

[Chomsky]

Re: The Secret of Oz

I finally watched this last night -- the entire movie is on YouTube for free. Such an important piece, everyone ought to watch it. Throws a wet blanket all over any notion of a gold standard being the right basis for a currency.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Secret of Oz

I finally watched this last night -- the entire movie is on YouTube for free. Such an important piece, everyone ought to watch it. Throws a wet blanket all over any notion of a gold standard being the right basis for a currency.

+1.

We need to remove from the Banksters the ability to cause booms and busts. If they have only that ability, then they can force their way into having control over whatever they want.

The money supply ideally would not centrally controlled by anyone, but especially by unelected holders of great wealth and power.

The money supply should especially not be conditioned on generating matching debt that offers unparalleled wealth and power to the debt holders.

A gold standard would fix the debt problem, but not the other problems. A few large bullion banks can control the gold supply, cause booms and busts, and we're back where we were, just as happened a century ago.

The return of control over the money supply to our elected representatives fixes more of this, not only getting fixing the debt problem, but also moving control of the money supply back closer to the control of our ballot box.

Ideally we could invent and adopt a self-regulating endogenous money supply. That is, a system in which the money supply automatically expanded and shrank with economic activity so as to maintain price stability, with some other mechanism that provided full employment, earning at least minimum wages, to anyone who was ready, willing and able to work. This would mean removing any central control over the money supply, hence would require amongst other things an alternative way for governments to "stimulate" slow economies, rather than the tax less, spend more "Keynesian" tactics of the last half century.

It's not clear that such a scheme is even theoretically possible, much less politically achievable.

[Fiat Currency]

Re: The Secret of Oz

Eventually - no Nation's currency with a border will be currency #1 or the World's Reserve Currency again. That's where the fracturing will most likely begin.

Great American Disaster: How Much Gold Remains In Fort Knox? - by Chris Weber

I think we are at the point that if honest money is ever to be seen, we will have to see also a complete separation of money and state.

The State has had its chance to control money: It has made a mess of it.

[Chomsky]

Re: The Secret of Oz

I think we are at the point that if honest money is ever to be seen, we will have to see also a complete separation of money and state.

It really doesn't matter, right? At the end of the day, the best we can hope for is a benevolent controller of the currency - whether public or private. Why is a third-party actor any less corruptible than an elected government?