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The Invention of Money

newyorker.com

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Re: The Invention of Money

#5

So if gold is the only real money (and everything else is just debt)... What does gold’s year-long rally this year tell us?

I'd say about the same as what the inverted yield curves say (i.e. the rally on long term, high quality bonds). That the market expects growth to tighten:

The Economist | Curveball https://www.economist.com/node/21767839

Gold is not "the only real money", though. There is no such thing as "real money":

> Law thought that the important thing about money wasn’t its inherent value; he didn’t believe it had any. “Money is not the value for which goods are exchanged, but the value by which they are exchanged,” he wrote.

Re: The Invention of Money

#6
post #3

For a huge (huge!) fictionalized (but very entertaining) account of the invention of money & modern markets, read the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson.

Doesn't the Baroque Cycle have two approaches to banking in England - the Whig Bank of England and the competing Tory Land Bank (which used land rather than gold as the underlying asset)?

Re: The Invention of Money

#8
post #5

So if gold is the only real money (and everything else is just debt)... What does gold’s year-long rally this year tell us?

I'd say about the same as what the inverted yield curves say (i.e. the rally on long term, high quality bonds). That the market expects growth to tighten: The Economist | Curveball https://www.economist.com/node/21767839 Gold is not "the only real money", though. There is no such thing as "real money": > Law thought that the important thing about money wasn’t its inherent value; he didn’t believe it had any. “Money i…

Even beyond that, there's an argument to be made that money (and debt) are at their core quantified and malleable representations of social relations.

Re: The Invention of Money

#9
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say about the same as what the inverted yield curves say (i.e. the rally on long term, high quality bonds). That the market expects growth to tighten: The Economist | Curveball https://www.economist.com/node/21767839 Gold is not "the only real money", though. There is no such thing as "real money": > Law thought that the important thing about money wasn’t its inherent value; he didn’t believe it had any. “Money i…

Even beyond that, there's an argument to be made that money (and debt) are at their core quantified and malleable representations of social relations.

Isn't that stretching "social"? The money I hold is not tied to the yet unknown individual or group with with whom I will exchange it for goods or services, the person might not even be born yet.

Re: The Invention of Money

#10
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say about the same as what the inverted yield curves say (i.e. the rally on long term, high quality bonds). That the market expects growth to tighten: The Economist | Curveball https://www.economist.com/node/21767839 Gold is not "the only real money", though. There is no such thing as "real money": > Law thought that the important thing about money wasn’t its inherent value; he didn’t believe it had any. “Money i…

Even beyond that, there's an argument to be made that money (and debt) are at their core quantified and malleable representations of social relations.

> representations of social relations

What Nick Szabo would call reciprocity, or the delay thereof.

https://nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/

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