SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Great. Antisemitic troll is now joined by really fucking tedious and obvious troll.
critique of loon theories around banking/money creation/the federal reserve
- Thread starter SpineyNorman
- Start date
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Jazzz isn't a troll.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Nope. Unlike phil he actually believes everything he posts
Exactly. People have got to move beyond the idea that money has some kind of natural or physical existence.
This is what I meant when I asked Spiney what he thought it meant to say that money is "in" a certain bank account. It isn't. It never exists anywhere outside the human mind.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
That's the tangible symbol of a concept. None the less powerful for that though as anyone without any will find out.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
There's nothing mystical about that, though, nothing metaphysical. It's a record of an obligation, that's all - if money is 'in a certain bank account, that's a record of an obligation the bank has committed to wrt the person who deposited the money. It's worth something if it is believed that the obligation will be honoured, worth nothing if it isn't.
It's a measure of value. There is x amount of stuff in the economy, and this stuff's value is abstracted and quantified, allowing people to exchange one thing for a different thing. It's a system of equivalents: £1 equals 5 eggs equals a can of beer equals a litre of milk, etc. And the process by which this system of equivalents is agreed upon is the system of exchange itself - the process of millions and billions of transactions. That number can be written down, recording an obligation (that crucial two sides of the balance sheet), creating a credit and a debit. That's all money is - a record of a credit and a debit of an abstracted, quantified measure of value in which people have sufficient confidence that the credit side of the record can be transferred between people.
I think money is one of those things that people can get into a tangle trying to define, but people understand very well what money is even if they can't define it. A little like the way that people can speak perfectly grammatically without being able to tell you a single rule of grammar.
It's a measure of value. There is x amount of stuff in the economy, and this stuff's value is abstracted and quantified, allowing people to exchange one thing for a different thing. It's a system of equivalents: £1 equals 5 eggs equals a can of beer equals a litre of milk, etc. And the process by which this system of equivalents is agreed upon is the system of exchange itself - the process of millions and billions of transactions. That number can be written down, recording an obligation (that crucial two sides of the balance sheet), creating a credit and a debit. That's all money is - a record of a credit and a debit of an abstracted, quantified measure of value in which people have sufficient confidence that the credit side of the record can be transferred between people.
I think money is one of those things that people can get into a tangle trying to define, but people understand very well what money is even if they can't define it. A little like the way that people can speak perfectly grammatically without being able to tell you a single rule of grammar.
It's not that good article. Talks a lot about Keynes, Steve Keen and the endogenous creation of money. Stuff that has been covered by love detective and others.
There are some sensible moments.
Seriously, how stupid is this Scandinavian?
What you have in your pocket is a symbol of human activity. It is not real, it is a symbol. It has been represented in symbolic form so that it can be separated from the person who performed it, and placed in your pocket.
Is that clear enough for you now Olaf?
That's an excellent article, thanks.
I'm still a bit puzzled as to why Spiney Norman "liked" it so much, when it argues the precise opposite of what I assume he thinks he's been saying, but it seems that we're going to be left in the dark with regard to that one.
TruXta
tired
Symbols are real too jackass. I get the type/token distinction and all that, fuck you very much. I suppose you don't believe flags are real either then? Nor pointing fingers? They're only signs and symbols anyway, right? Right? Witchesusurywitches?
First of all, please control your language. You do yourself no service with this constant stream of obscenity. In fact it makes you look a bit mad.
Secondly, I'm glad you now acknowledge that money is only a symbol. Easy and obvious as it seems, this is a point that 99% of "economists" have yet to grasp, as we have clearly seen here on this very thread.
So having accepted this truth, we are inevitably led to ask these questions: what sort of symbol is it? What sort of symbol should it be? And above all: what does it symbolize?
Needless to say, you will not hear any "economists" discussing these questions, for it is the function of their discipline to exclude them. But they are nevertheless the questions we ought to be asking.
TruXta
tired
Symbols and any number of real things together make up money. Also, symbols are real. They effect changes to the material, social and mental worlds, doesn't get much more real than that. Dickhead.
You've inadvertently stumbled upon an important truth here.
No-one who accepts the premises of neo-classical economics can understand the nature of money. For neo-classical economics is premised on the falsehood that money is naturally efficacious. That's why Marx calls his theory "a critique of political economy."
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I agree with the Pettifor article. As Steve Keen says in it,
This is indeed crucial to understanding how credit bubbles can form and why actions such as quantitative easing have such a marginal effect. The driver behind the creation of money is demand for loans. The fractional reserve lending and money multiplier models are a fiction. If you look through the numbers Keen crunches on his website, it's a pretty convincing case in my mind that his ideas about the endogenous creation of money - the 'loan-first' model - are essentially correct.
However, as Keen himself says, the banks do have to look for those reserves later. They do need to find the reserves to back the loans to remain solvent. That's not a side-story. It's an essential part of the story.
This is indeed crucial to understanding how credit bubbles can form and why actions such as quantitative easing have such a marginal effect. The driver behind the creation of money is demand for loans. The fractional reserve lending and money multiplier models are a fiction. If you look through the numbers Keen crunches on his website, it's a pretty convincing case in my mind that his ideas about the endogenous creation of money - the 'loan-first' model - are essentially correct.
However, as Keen himself says, the banks do have to look for those reserves later. They do need to find the reserves to back the loans to remain solvent. That's not a side-story. It's an essential part of the story.
Once again, you need to control your abuse. It serves only to turn people against you.
So symbols are real, you say. And yet they are clearly different from things, such as chairs or tables. And they are also different from concepts, such as love or God.
So we have three different levels of reality (not one): things, concepts and symbols.
Once we have all accepted that, we will need to determine the proper relations between these three human realities.
Some people might find it interesting. You know, brainy people and them.
Capitalism (and postmodernity in general) is the rule of symbols over both concepts and things.
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
Don't rise to him, ye big eejit.
TruXta
tired
Just wasting a few minutes whilst waiting for the OH to get ready to leave. It's all rote by now anyway, if anything I'm just mildly amused with that idiot.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
You ask me if I'd like to meet up at The Philosopher's Arms at 9pm and you'll buy me a drink. I say, 'Yes, I'd love to, see you there at 9pm.' You say 'Great, see you there.'
That is an agreement between you and me.
On the basis of the agreement, I turn up at The Philosopher's Arms at 9pm and you buy me a drink.
If your side of the agreement is broken, I turn up at the bar and nobody is there. I'm skint so I can't have a drink. I go home sober.
This agreement has had a real effect. It only exists in our heads. But crucially, it must exist in both heads to be an agreement. The existence of an agreed idea in two heads has led to a particular form of behaviour in both parties. You can't just think 'I'll go to The Philosopher's Arms tonight and buy lbj that drink I owe him' and expect me to be there. You have to tell me first and get me to agree to come.
Money is no different. It may only exist in our heads, but it represents an agreed idea inside more than one person's head. It represents a promise. That promise can only exist if both sides to it agree to what the promise is. And it can be broken, just like any promise. The nature of money is that the symbol represents a promise that can be transferred. That's its job. So money only remains effective for as long as promises are kept, and it is believed that promises will be kept.
What is it about this process that you find so astounding, phil?
That is an agreement between you and me.
On the basis of the agreement, I turn up at The Philosopher's Arms at 9pm and you buy me a drink.
If your side of the agreement is broken, I turn up at the bar and nobody is there. I'm skint so I can't have a drink. I go home sober.
This agreement has had a real effect. It only exists in our heads. But crucially, it must exist in both heads to be an agreement. The existence of an agreed idea in two heads has led to a particular form of behaviour in both parties. You can't just think 'I'll go to The Philosopher's Arms tonight and buy lbj that drink I owe him' and expect me to be there. You have to tell me first and get me to agree to come.
Money is no different. It may only exist in our heads, but it represents an agreed idea inside more than one person's head. It represents a promise. That promise can only exist if both sides to it agree to what the promise is. And it can be broken, just like any promise. The nature of money is that the symbol represents a promise that can be transferred. That's its job. So money only remains effective for as long as promises are kept, and it is believed that promises will be kept.
What is it about this process that you find so astounding, phil?
It is disturbing to see how any display of erudition, however rudimentary, immediately reduces you to this. You must find the world an intimidating place.
Anyway, by some process or other, doubtless having nothing at all to do with my arguments, you seem to have happened upon a truth you formerly denied: that money is a symbol.
Since you now accept that money is a symbol, I suppose you will not object if the rest of us discuss that symbol's nature.
Is it for example a denotative or a performative symbol?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Hmmm.
Problem is that both you and Jazzz think you have understood something deep and important that the rest of us have missed. I think the truth is something far more mundane - that far from not understanding that thing, they understand it full well; they just don't see anything remarkable, deep or important about it.
I agree, in the sense that people don't understand the implications of what I'm saying.
Those that do either keep quiet about it, since they are the beneficiaries of the entire fraud, or they get killed or put in prison, or (and I suppose we must be thankful for small mercies) they get dismissed as loons by half-educated geeks like Truxta.
For example, we've just seen that Truxta now admits money is a symbol. With a bit of prodding, we could probably get him to admit that this symbol rules the world, dictating the actions of the people whose activity it represents.
But what will be difficult is getting him to see that there is anything wrong with a symbol ruling the world. And he can't understand that because he isn't aware of the philosophical objections that have historically been raised to a symbol ruling the world.
If you're asking (as I think you are) why I find the process objectionable, I think it's because I see it in historical perspective. If you can't do that (and it isn't an easy thing to do) then obviously the system is going to seem not just rational, but natural, and thus inevitable.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
If Jazzz were posting from an anti-Capitalist perspective I doubt we'd have the boring arguments about the minutiae of the process.
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