Could I call up a pizza-car dealership and ask for a new car, with a pizza ? Yeah ! Gold we don’t have is now money ! I will tell them to bring it right over, and I will pay for it with gold I don’t have. I like pizza. Order a cooler of beer in the trunk. Sweet.
When you buy a car, do you pay with cash? Most people don’t now days. You’d likely set up some digital transaction between your bank and the car dealer’s bank. That transaction could happen in anything, and the banks will negotiate what is transfered. You don’t care what they transfer as long as whatever is taken out of your bank account is equal in value to whatever you agreed to buy the car for. So, maybe the car is priced in gold ounces, but all you have in your bank account is silver ounces, but the car dealer really wants it put into it’s account as platinum ounces. The banks would transfer between them some asset equivalent to the value being paid, and this could be yet another asset, such as apple stock. So here’s what happens: your bank takes your silver, then transfers apple stock to your car dealer’s bank, and the car dealer’s bank puts platinum it owns into the car dealer’s account. Everyone is happy. No gold ever changed hands, it was simply the index used for pricing the car that you purchased. In today’s digital age, that transaction would all happen automatically and pretty seamlessly.
Your fantasy would work if commodity values were fixed. I want my contract paid in dollars, not whatever commodity you can come up with. When KH sells a unicycle lot, he want’s to know what he paid for them, and what $ he can sell for , without tracking the value of numerous commodities. You miss the whole value of a single currency. Your system is radically more complex, and adds no value. KH, and all other businesses, prefer to conduct business in one currency. Can’t always be done ( KH must deal with Taiwan money), it is just a pain. I can’t speak for KH, just saying that gambling on the exchange value change of money is an added confusion to his business. Not everyone wishes to have to track relative commodity values as well. In fact, besides you, no one ever says "I wish this contract was more complex, with the changing values of stuff ". "Instead of me owing you 350, "could I have a debt that is more confusing ? " Why not throw is 17 different kinds of money ? I bet KH often requests to have some of his contracts written in Korean Won, you know , because confusion and economic doubt is so fun. Wouldn’t it be more exciting to have no clear idea if he can make a profit or not ?
Again, …the barn is this way Gilby. There is a reason businesses prefer the dollar or Euro. Certainty of profit is kinda their job. Commodities investor is not.
OK, so you want your transaction to be in a certain asset. Dollars is the “commodity” you can come up with. No problem. That changes nothing. Commodities values do not need to be fixed. No assets need to be fixed, at a single point in time, you just need to know what the relative value is between your chosen asset and the unit of payment. In a free market, we would likely have a unit of value that is commonly used. Your salary, your mortgage payment, your prices at the grocery store, would all likely be in the same unit. The free market would likely take on a common unit as it’s unit of value. Historically, gold was chosen as the index. That might not be the case today. Gold was chosen because it was durable, easily transportable and retained it’s value over time. When I was in China recently, I needed to know what the exchange rate was between the assets in my bank account and the unit of value used there. It’s really not that difficult.
So, you are advocating for a single unit of value used to price things. And, you even made the point of why it should be global, which today’s money is not. That does not change my example at all. I own several assets. Right now, it’s mostly in a business, that I do not want to sell shares of (ie. if I sell it, it would probably be all/most of it at once), but what I could use now to spend on my daily living needs is in several places. I have “money” in my bank, which right now is probably some money market account that is set up to maintain it’s value close to the dollar’s buying power. It’s not actually holding dollars. The bank instead holds something that it believes will maintain that value. The whole point of it is to maintain it’s buying power to the common unit of measure. I also own several stocks and such which could also be used to clear my purchases. If we had a free market in money, I would have a bank account (or several) and when I made a digital purchase it would be set up to sell a certain asset according to whatever I configured it to sell. Likewise, if I receive a payment, it would buy whatever I wanted to add to my portfolio. What you are paid in or what you pay in is up to you and whoever you transact with.
Just to bring things back towards the original topic: am currently on the steps of St Pauls cathedral surrounded by many folks but perhaps slightl more cops. Not too confident of holding the space tonight.
St. Paul’s London? I hope the night went well. I know how you Brits like to get R-O-W-D-I-E that’s the way we spell rowdie. Rowdie. (clap) Yeah, yeah rowdie. (clap) WHOA!
No, I think it’s St. Paul’s, Funkytown. How many cities don’t have a St. Paul’s church?
At some point between the public sidewalk and the steps of the building, public property becomes private. So there could be legal grounds to oust people (non-violent protesters or not) from the cathedral steps.
The only rowdiness that occurred was by the cops. Their tactic seemed to be to antagonise to provoke reaction in order to give justification to clear us out by force. Initially this was largely concentrated at the point they were allowing people in and out of the “containment” where I saw a senior cop shove a girl back who was trying to leave in case her placard caused a breach of the peace.
Surreally, Jesus saw this occurr and objected only for him to be shoved about too.
Later the TSG cops (meat-head bully boy types) decided they needed to clear us from the top step to prevent us knocking the building over with the Sellotape being used to put up signs. This led to a fairly large group of us sitting on the steps just below to try and prevent them from shoving us down further.
I’m fine n dandy. Had to come back to Oxford to get some stuff done but plan on returning soon. My other half took some video that she’s currently editing.
Hilariously enough the senior clergyman from the cathedral arrived yesterday morning and said to the cops guarding the cathedral that he had no problem with people exercising their right to protest but what he did have a problem with was large numbers of police on the steps of his church. At which point the majority of the cOps had to bugger off.
The guy yelling “I am not moving”, was in the middle of the street, so of course the cops were going to arrest him. It’s simple logic – if you block the street, you will get arrested. Duh! Those protesters are perfectly welcome to protest on the sidewalk where they belong, but I guess it doesn’t lead to news coverage if they did that.
The idea that this “Occupy” movement compares with the Arab Spring is ludicrous. Many of those protesters voted for Obama. If they’re the 99%, then they can easily kick Obama out of office in 2012. Those people in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt didn’t even have the option of voting. The comparison is completely wack.
I just can’t get over how self-righteous, hypocritical, and ignorant some of these Occupy protesters come off. They helped create the current economic mess, and now they’re complaining? Cry me a river.
Swung by OWS on the way to the 9/11 Memorial. Couldn’t find anyone on Wall Street so had to settle for Zuccotti Park.
Drummers were out in force. Cool rhythms, but they need to deepen their repertoire.
I think one of the big reasons they’re coming is this is a big blue tarp blanket fort; how fun is that! And the police brought their portable tree house too!!
Lots of other interesting signs and sights, including this guy. Took me three tries to take the pic because people just kept walking in front of him.
The most straight forward demand I’ve heard, and one that I can see no downside to, is to ban corporate political donations and limit personal donations to a reasonable amount.