Wow it's been a year since the last one because I struggled so hard to try to refine this and every time I debated it I couldn't put it to words ayyyy okay let's go
Forewarning: DO ASK QUESTIONS. The purpose of these is to help me figure out how to explain it to even people without economic backgrounds, BUT THAT SAID: I have no intention to re-prove economics that OTHERS ALREADY PROVED. Those books exist, they're not mine, I'm not interested in arguing/defending them.
Last plurk was to try to help people understand that the US $ is backed by its faith from the people, rather than the gold standard. -> I think I did a terrible job of that so I'm going to try to be clearer and feel free to ask about it here because I need to refine my own explanation still but
TL;DR, The purpose of a gold standard is (as I said) as with physical money (have spoken about elsewhere, but will re-explain upon request) to help remind people not to run out.
=> Expanding on that. One of the biggest problems in true communism (not just Marxist communism, but other forms as they have been historically attempted whether large or small) is it accidentally BY DESIGN inhibits individuals for achieving excellence -> going back to the risk/reward ratios, it encourages neither and only encourages "bare minimum" if that
In creating things like Debt Ceilings and tying that which is a unit of measurement not meant to be applied to only physical units: ie "saying inches can only measure people from now on" you inhibit growth of ALL.
it is a measurement of numbers. We give it physical existence, historically trying to use something that would otherwise only be viewed as shiny bling/status. SUCH AS: Native American tribes and wampum, most of the world and gold.
the way I think of the gold standard and similar historical standards was trying to tie the arbitrary (not the best word but I'll run with it) value of currency to the intrinsic value of scarce resources
-> The US $ bond went from AAA+ down because of the threat to default, again, I could talk a lot about that, but other books do it better, but the reason for this and why I bring it up is that they threatened not to continue paying their bills, so basically their credit rating went down
Please call anyone who says we should be on a gold standard hilariously living in the past and that the 1600s called and said they should catch up because even Columbus knew that money is so much more than gold
Which... I can see that the gold standard would make the value of the dollar more secure, but it makes sense that it would be both less flexible, and less able to grow freely
2) you have to then want the gold for that OH SO COMPLICATED war because gold will survive the dollar WHICH IS ALSO IN ITSELF NOT TRUE BECAUSE EVEN IF WE HIT THAT BREAKING POINT I GUARAN-FUCKING-TEE YOU NO ONE IN THE US WILL BE ACCEPTING GOLD > PAPER DOLLARS
hoarding and deflation are DISASTROUS for a country and all macro-economically! INDEED these led to: the great Depression, the great Recession, and Multiple MULTIPLE crashes
Because they had no need to bother doing anything and could expect others to do it for them and no, societal and religious pressure alone was not enough motivation because who the fuck wants to Garden in MA I mean have you seen the weather? Also they were trying weird shit like pumpkin ale instead of pumpkin pie so yeah. You're gonna fucking fail as a
They were saved because their governor was basically like "OH FFS D:<" and started offering land in exchange for bringing in extra food. Suddenly everyone was like "oh snap Imma have the most!! CATCH YOU LATER LOSERS!!!" and was super motivated and productive.
there's melting shops, investment shops, those who ACTUALLY USE IT, jewelers, hoarders (you will find hoarders of everything, especially if no one slaps their hands to say "STOP IT")
Likewise you could indeed make it nuclear reactive which honest to god I hope they do if the Gov. reaches a point where the dollar is no longer worthwhile because we went insane (it will not reach that, period. People always hyperventilate, and it's just a basic instinct like hoarding, stop it)
HOWEVER and I forget if I talked about this before, it DOES need its own plurk so NEXT ONE: Investment vs. taxation -> When you reach a point of exorbitant amounts of tally marks
You have what's called "seed money" or "seed capital." And it's just like it sounds. In farming you set aside a certain amount of crop annually for see next cycle, and in economics, seed money is what lets you start up your business.
it's shorthand so you farmers can focus on growing instead of haggling and let people who ONLY WANT TO HAGGLE BECAUSE THAT IS THEIR JOY AND PASSION AND THEY'RE KIND OF CRAZY LIKE THAT -> do just that and nothing else
Investments aren't kept as physical money, they're bought up as physical desks, office supplies, buildings, RENT, etc. all that they need to do their business. (which gets hilarious and wonky for thinks like yanno tech companies and websites and basically then is more like computers or salaries etc.)
We do not have a Democratic Capitalism but we could. In a snap. Literally people just have to will it. I know that sounds unbelievable but it's 100% true.
Right now we exist in a state of capitalist chaos --> Marx argued such as is the nature of all Capitalism and it's TRUE AND ONLY FORM but No, this is very incorrect.
In capitalist chaos, opportunists and the corrupt can finagle the entire market to work for them at the cost of others. this is also 100% how Marxist communism works so by no means will I ever say "that's better."
(because by Law, you must accept the American dollar, but if you all just agreed at once "yes Pepe is fine" and no one even bothered paying with $ because Pepe is funnier)
Now that said, I'm certain most of the holdings of US bonds/treasury is oligarchs and not someone say, living on SSI (iirc: you even can't have things like bonds / stocks or at least they count against you because it means you're not basically starving)
we do not currently invest directly in people. We do it very vaguely and indirectly with so much chaos that it's very easy to manipulate. BUT WE COULD. WE COULD DO IT RIGHT NOW.
There's a lot of argument about whether it's possible to do it through the stock market as it exists in its current corrupted form wherein it's highly manipulated and not primarily used for seed money at all but mostly for racehorse gambling by the second using computers and algorithms and artificially conning one another
I'mma suggest we just bypass all that shit because we literally fucking can and it's so much god damn easier and better and gives the stock market incentives to restructure on its own
Democractic Capitalism is literally using the people's choice to empower the people's will from the dollar up. What do you want to be valuable, invested, empower, see more of, grow, flourish, DO, how?
Wow it's been a year since the last one because I struggled so hard to try to refine this and every time I debated it I couldn't put it to words ayyyy okay let's gowhich doesn't mean "the value is intrinsic" but value is a convolution of factors, and scarcity is an at least quasi-intrinsic factorI'm not just saying things at random I'm tossing out analogies to test if I'm on the same pageyes Paul you're keeping up ^_^ Good job <3 also on both of us. because I worry I lose everyone
there is only about $10 Trillion printed.
I'm sitting here making plasma physics analogies that would mean nothing to anyone elseI'm thinking of the comparison between tokamaks and stellarators, but that would probably just make things more confusingXD-> When you reach a point of exorbitant amounts of tally marks
I feel like we need a better way of expressing Marxist vs. Things Marx Saidlike Hellenic vs. HellenisticMarxist vs. Marxistic?Irdgaf