This is the best thing I have read on money in a while. I have said for years money isn't real, it is a symbol for real wealth which is the total output generated by our collective efforts as a species. Calling it informational makes perfect sense to me.
Whats crazy to me is that all the worlds problems are the same today as they were 100 years, 500 years ago, we just have better tech now. We need only to look into history for solutions that other people found the hard way. But alas, as long as greed, selfishness, and the propensity for self delusion continue to be dominant traits of our species we are seemingly doomed to keep making the same mistakes over and over until climate change inevitibly kills us all. Sigh. It was fun while it lasted, I guess.
There is a solution, and a remedy, which is a debt jubilee. The fact that money is informational means you can delete it and create it. You can create it for the purpose of capital investment or for work, and if can be deleted for the purposes of debt retructuring. The reason nothing changes and history keeps repeating itself is because we've been quite literally following the Roman Empire's ideology around debt collection, which is that a contract is a contract, and if people run out of money, they have to hand over their land, or themselves to work it off. The result was an oligarchy that led to Imperial collapse because of debt.
However, other civilizations had different traditions to deal with debt, including the ancient mid east, where they would renew the economy by forgiving debts, because they knew they would always get worse because of interest.
The amazing thing is that the solution is basically a da Vinci code hiding-in-plain-sight, literal reading of the New Testament and the throughline of Christ's teachings from his emergence from the wilderness, where he goes to Synagogue and reads the Prophecy of Isaiah, which is declaring a Jubilee Year - forgiving debts, freeing debt-slaves and also allowing people to return to land they might have lost due to debt. So it combined relief from debt with the gift of a free asset that would allow for self-support and independence.
When you find out about the symbols for debt forgiveness and the jubilee, they are everywhere. And I say that because I think it's something that all these Conservative Christians needed to be challenged to consider. I'm not even religious and I am totally convinced that this literal reading of Christ's teachings is genuinely true, relevant and that could have an incredibly positive impact the world over if people believed it and worked it to make it happen.
I think that they know their options but choose to do what they do because they have to keep debts at par more or less. There is nothing else anymore. There is only asset inflation and looting.
Turchin believes in "cycles" without recognizing that the specific cause is private debt and rentiers, and that there are ways to escape, namely through debt relief.
The final cause of the fall of the Roman Empire is that its "tax spine" was broken.
I must say I’m no more than an “armchair” economist with a mere BA in the discipline from many moons ago. I went for professional degrees after that. Didn’t Obama relieve the commercial banks of their collective debt driven by the mistake of the subprime fiasco and then the Fed provide a backstop with quantitative easing that kept people like me from losing substantial value in our real estate holdings which we certainly benefited from but at a cost to our children? How does a more egalitarian debt relief system work and how is any such plan even conceivable with the kakistocracy that will be in power soon?
This is the best thing I have read on money in a while. I have said for years money isn't real, it is a symbol for real wealth which is the total output generated by our collective efforts as a species. Calling it informational makes perfect sense to me.
Thank you! Apparently Adam Smith said "money is imaginary" somewhere. I should dig it up.
Whats crazy to me is that all the worlds problems are the same today as they were 100 years, 500 years ago, we just have better tech now. We need only to look into history for solutions that other people found the hard way. But alas, as long as greed, selfishness, and the propensity for self delusion continue to be dominant traits of our species we are seemingly doomed to keep making the same mistakes over and over until climate change inevitibly kills us all. Sigh. It was fun while it lasted, I guess.
There is a solution, and a remedy, which is a debt jubilee. The fact that money is informational means you can delete it and create it. You can create it for the purpose of capital investment or for work, and if can be deleted for the purposes of debt retructuring. The reason nothing changes and history keeps repeating itself is because we've been quite literally following the Roman Empire's ideology around debt collection, which is that a contract is a contract, and if people run out of money, they have to hand over their land, or themselves to work it off. The result was an oligarchy that led to Imperial collapse because of debt.
However, other civilizations had different traditions to deal with debt, including the ancient mid east, where they would renew the economy by forgiving debts, because they knew they would always get worse because of interest.
The amazing thing is that the solution is basically a da Vinci code hiding-in-plain-sight, literal reading of the New Testament and the throughline of Christ's teachings from his emergence from the wilderness, where he goes to Synagogue and reads the Prophecy of Isaiah, which is declaring a Jubilee Year - forgiving debts, freeing debt-slaves and also allowing people to return to land they might have lost due to debt. So it combined relief from debt with the gift of a free asset that would allow for self-support and independence.
When you find out about the symbols for debt forgiveness and the jubilee, they are everywhere. And I say that because I think it's something that all these Conservative Christians needed to be challenged to consider. I'm not even religious and I am totally convinced that this literal reading of Christ's teachings is genuinely true, relevant and that could have an incredibly positive impact the world over if people believed it and worked it to make it happen.
https://open.substack.com/pub/dougaldlamont/p/what-would-jesus-do-christs-biblical?r=9gk0j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Central bankers “don’t know” that they have options other than blowing bubbles? This strains credulity.
You’d be amazed at the power of human self deception.
I think that they know their options but choose to do what they do because they have to keep debts at par more or less. There is nothing else anymore. There is only asset inflation and looting.
This article came out after this one but it seems they are two sides of the same coin.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/30/the-deep-historical-forces-that-explain-trumps-win?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Turchin believes in "cycles" without recognizing that the specific cause is private debt and rentiers, and that there are ways to escape, namely through debt relief.
The final cause of the fall of the Roman Empire is that its "tax spine" was broken.
Thank you!
I must say I’m no more than an “armchair” economist with a mere BA in the discipline from many moons ago. I went for professional degrees after that. Didn’t Obama relieve the commercial banks of their collective debt driven by the mistake of the subprime fiasco and then the Fed provide a backstop with quantitative easing that kept people like me from losing substantial value in our real estate holdings which we certainly benefited from but at a cost to our children? How does a more egalitarian debt relief system work and how is any such plan even conceivable with the kakistocracy that will be in power soon?
All of the this could happen under Trump.
Agreed.