Political & socio-economic nerd-rage thread. page 34

[Grok]

Even if you didn't charge any interest, if you practice fractional reserve banking, you still have inflation which is theft.

His video talks about usury and is focusing on interest payments as the source of all power which is completely off base.

In the very beginning he defines money as being debt which is also a fallacy. Money is not debt, money is simply a medium of exchange.

[Grok]

money is bullshit. In the future if man is liberated from bullshit, NJ currency will be e pills.

money isn't bullshit. someone putting a gun to your head and forcing you to use a certain kind of paper issued by a single bank for money is bullshit.

As I said before, money can be anything any merchant wants to accept as money.

In Pakistan, if you want bread, you simply take your grain to the bread maker and she makes the bread with your grain, but keeps 10% of the grain for herself. No money involved at all.

[js290]

Even if you didn't charge any interest, if you practice fractional reserve banking, you still have inflation which is theft.

His video talks about usury and is focusing on interest payments as the source of all power which is completely off base.

In the very beginning he defines money as being debt which is also a fallacy. Money is not debt, money is simply a medium of exchange.

money isn't bullshit. someone putting a gun to your head and forcing you to use a certain kind of paper issued by a single bank for money is bullshit.

As I said before, money can be anything any merchant wants to accept as money.

In Pakistan, if you want bread, you simply take your grain to the bread maker and she makes the bread with your grain, but keeps 10% of the grain for herself. No money involved at all.

You're conflating what money is in the system as it exists today and what you believe money should be. I agree with you on what money should be. Vrabel didn't define money as debt. In fact, in his Renaissance 2.0 series he talks a lot about sovereign money. But, that's not what we have. Vrabel is simply reiterating what money in the current system is, and that is a marker of debt. If you back off on the zealotry and be a bit more open minded, you'll probably appreciate what he has to say more.

[Grok]

yeah interest itself is not bad in principle;

Yeah, you have to charge interest on money you loan out because you are taking a risk of not being paid back in full, or at all.

The free market will determine how much interest you can get away with charging based upon how much people are saving within the economy. If a lot of people are saving money, then interest rates will be low, if very few people save money then interest rates will be high. The high interest rate will encourage people to loan out their savings.

What we have today is nobody saving and interest rates as low as they can possibly be. The government is trying to encourage people to spend their money instead of saving it because they believe that demand creates economic growth. However there is always infinite demand. There is always something you want. The Keynesians have the cart before the horse, it is actually savings which creates economic growth. That growth increases the value of your money which allows you to buy more things which is where the demand comes from.

Simply printing money for people to spend only works if you have a world reserve currency and the greatest producing nation on the planet is pegging their currency to yours. In other words, no single American needs to work at all as long as China maintains their currency peg to the US dollar. We could all simply buy Chinese products with the money The Fed prints for us.

If China decoupled the Yuan with the US dollar and let it float freely in the open market, Americans would be dirt poor overnight. Nobody would be able to afford gasoline.

[Grok]

You're conflating what money is in the system as it exists today and what you believe money should be. I agree with you on what money should be. Vrabel didn't define money as debt. In fact, in his Renaissance 2.0 series he talks a lot about sovereign money. But, that's not what we have. Vrabel is simply reiterating what money in the current system is, and that is a marker of debt. If you back off on the zealotry and be a bit more open minded, you'll probably appreciate what he has to say more.

Money in the current system is not a market of debt. That is the fallacy.

If everybody who owes something in US dollars all defaulted on their debt tomorrow, I would still have US dollars in my checking account.

According to Vrabel, that cannot be possible. According to Vrabel, someone has to be in debt in order for me to have money. This is a complete fallacy.

[Grok]

He also argues in his video that government spending has to increase exponentially as a result of this debt-money system which is another big whopper.

[js290]

He also argues in his video that government spending has to increase exponentially as a result of this debt-money system which is another big whopper.

Has it not? Government Debt Chart: United States 1900-2017 - Federal State Local Data

[Grok]

Has it not? Government Debt Chart: United States 1900-2017 - Federal State Local Data

The fact that it has doesn't mean that it is required to, or that the politicians were forced to.

The Fed simply acts as enabler for government to act irresponsibly, it doesn't force them to act irresponsibly.

In his video he acts as if the bankers (think free market capitalists) have complete and total control over the government (the statists). Sounds like OWS gibberish to me.

[js290]

The fact that it has doesn't mean that it is required to, or that the politicians were forced to.

The Fed simply acts as enabler for government to act irresponsibly, it doesn't force them to act irresponsibly.

In his video he acts as if the bankers (think free market capitalists)

You equivocated right into a straw man, LOL. Where are these so called free markets with a central banking soviet controlling the money supply? Capital cannot be printed.

...have complete and total control over the government (the statists). Sounds like OWS gibberish to me.

No, it sounds like fascism to me.

[Grok]

No, it sounds like fascism to me.

All corporations and limited liability companies are fascist because they are using the state to limit the owner's liability.

I will watch the rest of the series of videos, but they are painful to watch. I'd much rather learn from Rothbard than from Vrabel.