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The UK banking system

nino_savatte said:
This is nothing more than reification.

Aye, I've read Baudrillard and Jameson...so what?
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no, this is more than reification.

'information and material' are the same.
 
Ok clever clogs

how does Money as Commodity affect capitalism?

no more messing about, post an answer.
 
slaar said:
Quite so. There have been frequent financial collapses in the past, most notably recently in Argentina. But money is almost always an aggrevating factor rather than the trigger (in Argentina it was in part a nation spending far beyond its means over a long period of time).

But these are questions asked by economists and politicians for decades. They're not conspiracies. Jazz's quotes are consistently hugely out of date (like a 19th century quote from a Rothschild, which has about as much relevance to capitalism today as ideas of witchcraft has to modern medicine).
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What do you make of the notion of democratising money creation. For example by local businesses agreeing to underwrite some sort of local currency, enabling an area where at least some people are engaged in productive labour to retain the value of that labour rather than having it devalued by global competition and speculation?
 
zArk said:
no, you are ignoring the point;

To [i will answer again, cause none of you will] place money as commodity within the concept of capitalism results in the initial find that the people/group who own the means of production are the bankers. Now this becomes less clear as we discover that the Bank is a corporation. The Bank owns itself. The investors can never produce more money than the bank, the bank is above and beyond any group or person owning it, through capitalism.
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so you've worked out that capital has logic of it own that defies the subjectivity of individuals, that capitalism is a capital and not about capitalists?

Well done, except everyone knew that already you fucking Baudrillardian misscarriage.
 
zArk said:
. . .
no more messing about, post an answer.
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Pot. Kettle. Black.

I'm still waiting for you to produce some contempory and verifiable sources to back up your "Iranian Oil trading in Eur" assertion btw . . . . :rolleyes:
 
Keynes had some interesting things to say about Gesell:
Gesell's specific contribution to the theory of money and interest is as follows. In the first place, he distinguishes clearly between the rate of interest and the marginal efficiency of capital, and he argues that it is the rate of interest which sets a limit to the rate of growth of real capital. Next, he points out that the rate of interest is a purely monetary phenomenon and that the peculiarity of money, from which flows the significance of the money rate of interest, lies in the fact that its ownership as a means of storing wealth involves the holder in negligible carrying charges, and that forms of wealth, such as stocks of commodities which do involve carrying charges, in fact yield a return because of the standard set by money. He cites the comparative stability of the rate of interest throughout the ages as evidence that it cannot depend on purely physical characters, inasmuch as the variation of the latter from one epoch to another must have been incalculably greater than the observed changes in the rate of interest; i.e. (in my terminology) the rate of interest, which depends on constant psychological characters, has remained stable, whilst the widely fluctuating characters, which primarily determine the schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital, have determined not the rate of interest but the rate at which the (more or less) given rate of interest allows the stock of real capital to grow. But there is a great defect in Gesell's theory. He shows how it is only the existence of a rate of money interest which allows a yield to be obtained from lending out stocks of commodities. His dialogue between Robinson Crusoe and a stranger [177] is a most excellent economic parable - as good as anything of the kind that has been written - to demonstrate this point. But, having given the reason why the money-rate of interest unlike most commodity rates of interest cannot be negative, he altogether overlooks the need of an explanation why the money-rate of interest is positive, and he fails to explain why the money-rate of interest is not governed (as the classical school maintains) by the standard set by the yield on productive capital. This is because the notion of liquidity-preference had escaped him. He has constructed only half a theory of the rate of interest.

The incompleteness of his theory is doubtless the explanation of his work having suffered neglect at the hands of the academic world. Nevertheless he had carried his theory far enough to lead him to a practical recommendation, which may carry with it the essence of what is needed, though it is not feasible in the form in which he proposed it. He argues that the growth of real capital is held back by the money-rate of interest, and that if this brake were removed the growth of real capital would be, in the modern world, so rapid that a zero money-rate of interest would probably be justified, not indeed forthwith, but within a comparatively short period of time. Thus the prime necessity is to reduce the money-rate of interest, and this, he pointed out, can be effected by causing money to incur carrying-costs just like other stocks of barren goods. This led him to the famous prescription of 'stamped' money, with which his name is chiefly associated and which has received the blessing of Professor Irving Fisher.

According to this proposal currency notes (though it would clearly need to apply as well to some forms at least of bank-money) would only retain their value by being stamped each month, like an insurance card, with stamps purchased at a post office. The cost of the stamps could, of course, be fixed at any appropriate figure. According to my theory it should be roughly equal to the excess of the money-rate of interest (apart from the stamps) over the marginal efficiency of capital corresponding to a rate of new investment compatible with full employment. The actual charge suggested by Gesell was 1 per mil. per week, equivalent to 5.2 per cent per annum. This would be too high in existing conditions, but the correct figure, which would have to be changed from time to time, could only be reached by trial and error.

The idea behind stamped money is sound. It is, indeed, possible that means might be found to apply it in practice on a modest scale. But there are many difficulties which Gesell did not face. In particular, he was unaware that money was not unique in having a liquidity-premium attached to it, but differed only in degree from many other articles, deriving its importance from having a greater liquidity-premium than any other article. Thus if currency notes were to be deprived of their liquidity-premium by the stamping system, a long series of substitutes would step into their shoes - bank-money, debts at call, foreign money, jewellery and the precious metals generally, and so forth.
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General Theory: Book 4, Chapter 23
 
Cheers, Bernie. Interesting stuff.

Any of the 'High Priests of the Church of Money' ( ;) ) fancy walking me through 'liquidity-premium' in idiot language?

By the way, Gesell's 'Robinson Crusoe' thing can be found here: http://www.andrewlowd.com/thesis/Appendix2.htm

Well worth a read. :)

I brought Gesell up mainly because he seems (to my addled mind at least) to be the closest I have come across to providing a workable solution to the problem (the problem itself being what zArk is trying to communicate in the face of the usual denials of it's existance! :D )
 
Most things that Keynes had positive things to say on I am in agreement with. I'll have to have a proper look at it Bakatcha, was caught up in semantics previously but it looks interesting. It strikes me as not enormously dissimilar in principle to a Tobin Tax on international speculative 'hot money' FOREX flows, which is an eminently sensible idea which could never happen in practice without huge popular pressure.

This I think is the crucial bit:
In particular, he was unaware that money was not unique in having a liquidity-premium attached to it, but differed only in degree from many other articles, deriving its importance from having a greater liquidity-premium than any other article. Thus if currency notes were to be deprived of their liquidity-premium by the stamping system, a long series of substitutes would step into their shoes - bank-money, debts at call, foreign money, jewellery and the precious metals generally, and so forth.
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All this talk of credit creation assumes cash and cash credit to be the only form of money. As Keynes makes very clear, this is simply not the case. It's possible to have interest without narrow money (cash).

Bernie - My gut feeling is that such a system would be undercut by cheaper competition coming in unless you had some 'artificial' method of stopping market entry. It's quite a sensible idea though.
 
Keynes said:
Thus if currency notes were to be deprived of their liquidity-premium by the stamping system, a long series of substitutes would step into their shoes - bank-money, debts at call, foreign money, jewellery and the precious metals generally, and so forth.
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In other words, if we were to fix the problem with 'money', it wouldn't be 'money' anymore, so we'd end up using something else as 'money'? I'm pondering the significance of this... ;)
 
Oops, cross posted with you there, Slaar. Thanks for the comments. Yes, 'Tobin Tax' was what came to mind when I first came across Gesell's ideas.
 
Backatcha Bandit said:
In other words, if we were to fix the problem with 'money', it wouldn't be 'money' anymore, so we'd end up using something else as 'money'? I'm pondering the significance of this... ;)
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Yes, but, and this is a big but, that doesn't matter as long as the proposed currency tax or wedge was small enough that cash did not become less liquid than the next available substitute. The beauty of the Tobin Tax is that it would be a huge revenue raiser, potentially for funding aid flows to the Third World, as well as cutting down the global stock of money and the volatility associated with global speculative flows. That's what Keynes proposed, but Harry White won out at Bretton Woods.

There's loads of definitions of money, it's not just cash. M0 and M4 are the two main Bank of England definitions, and as you go up the M numbers less and less liquid assets (like 3 month time deposits or government bonds) are counted too. Even further up you get things like gold. So it's quite a complex system.
 
slaar said:
an eminently sensible idea which could never happen in practice without huge popular pressure.
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Heh. Ain't that the truth - I'd file it with the rest of those sorts of things if that wing of the building wasn't full already.

I'll try not to mention simpol... :oops:
 
Backatcha Bandit said:
Would it be true to say that money is basically whatever we agree it is?

Or should that be 'they'? ;)
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Heh.

Acceptability is indeed one condition but there are others, scarcity being an obvious one. If money was limitless, prices would just fly through the roof, like it did when the Nazis printed money like it was going out of fashion in the 1930s and you ended up needing a wheel-barrow of money to buy a loaf of bread.

This is taking me back to GCSE Economics now, nearly eight years ago. Acceptability, portability, scarcity, durability, seperability and uniqueness, off the top of my head but I think there were seven, so I must have missed one.
 
My Grandfather grew up in 1930s Germany, one of his favourite jokes is about taking a wheelbarrow full of money to the shops and leaving it unattended, finding upon his return the money on the ground and the wheelbarrow stolen.

'Scarcity' - an aspect Gesell appears to see as an 'unnecessary evil' (?)

If you have time, do you fancy having a crack at explaining 'liquidity-premium' to me?

Cheers.
 
It is funny in hindsight, but I bet it wasn't a joke at the time!

I haven't read enough of Gessell to comment on that, but it strikes me that if the world's resources, natural and produced, are limited, then any notion that money should not be scarce leaves a fundamental disconnect between the two concepts.

As for the liquidity premium, in simple terms it just means that people value more liquid assets in direct proportion to their liquidity, on top of their use value. So if you have two bonds that are identical in every way in terms of yield, but for the fact that one of them is redeemed in 1 day and the other in 1 week, the first is more valuable simply because it is more liquid, and hence the risk of keeping the money in a stock that will lose value is lower. That's why the yield curve for interest rates is typically upward-sloping with regard to time. There are also technical financial market definitions, but those are even more dull.
 
Cheers for that, slaar. :)
slaar said:
if the world's resources, natural and produced, are limited, then any notion that money should not be scarce leaves a fundamental disconnect between the two concepts.
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I think I'm probably not putting it across very well...

What Gesell appears to suggest is that the 'scarcity' is artificial, caused by 'hording'. As we all know, once you have a fat wad, making it 'grow' an accumulaing more is easier. This has always struck me as morally abhorent.

By making money 'rust', there is no longer any point in hording it, thus it all flows more freely and once again becomes a mere 'medium of exchange' representing the real goods and services, rather than an abstract, tool of political control or whatever.

I better get on before I veer off into 'Islamic Economics'... :D
 
In Bloom said:
What utter bollocks. Capitalism is very, very real and whether or not you feel it makes sense doesn't have any impact on the negative effects capitalism has on real life.
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Capitalism is real, but capital is purely imagiñary. Añd Bloom is a wanker.
 
zArk said:
Ok clever clogs

how does Money as Commodity affect capitalism?

no more messing about, post an answer.
Click to expand...

This wasñ´t addressed to me, but siñce you seem so exercised by it añd ño-oñe else is replying, I´ll give you an answer. Wheñ the *medium* of exchange becomes an *object* of exchange, money breaks free of any material or external referent and becomes self-referential and thus añ autonomous power. Now I have a question for you--¿so what?
 
Backatcha Bandit said:
Columbiañ keyboard? Not a 'Wañker', then? ;)
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Hee, yes, I{m in the Bogota airpórt, waitiñg for my connection. It usually takes me a day or two to adapt to the fporiegn keyboards. This place is bloody *swarming* with military, you{d think there was a war on or somethiñg...
 
slaar said:
Heh.

Acceptability is indeed one condition but there are others, scarcity being an obvious one. If money was limitless, prices would just fly through the roof, like it did when the Nazis printed money like it was going out of fashion in the 1930s and you ended up needing a wheel-barrow of money to buy a loaf of bread.

This is taking me back to GCSE Economics now, nearly eight years ago. Acceptability, portability, scarcity, durability, seperability and uniqueness, off the top of my head but I think there were seven, so I must have missed one.
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This is trotted out again and again, but frankly it's more or less untrue.. The problem in the Weimar republic, (not nazi germany- your grasp of history is poor for a cambridge economist, ) was not only that the government printed a lot of money, but also that there was a massive shortage of essential commodities, like bread..

If there is no shortage of a commodity, then it doesn't really matter if the money supply is infinite, the price of the commodity doesn't need to go up..
 
phildwyer said:
Hee, yes, I{m in the Bogota airpórt, waitiñg for my connection. It usually takes me a day or two to adapt to the fporiegn keyboards. This place is bloody *swarming* with military, you{d think there was a war on or somethiñg...
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why do not i believe you.
:rolleyes:
 
ZWord said:
there was a massive shortage of essential commodities, like bread...
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..and wheelbarrows, apparently.

True what you say, tho... due to the terms of the Versailles Treaty, no? It was the shortages that Hitler promised a solution to - that's why people voted for him.
 
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