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What if money expired?

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Re: What if money expired?

#31

Post by brookst »

Retric wrote: post #24
brookst wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not seeing the difference. If I have $1 that’s worth $1 today and $0 in one year, doesn’t it stand to reason that in 6 months I could exchange it for $0.50 with a one year expiration? Taken further, every day I could exchange all of my wealth which now has 364 days left for slightly less wealth with 365 days left. That sure sounds like inflation.

The important difference is the inflation rate could differ from its current value. Money 200 months left is unlikely to be worth exactly 10x as much as money with 20 months left. That difference may not be meaningful on its own but could have interesting knock on effects depending on how money enters the system.

That’s true, but how is it different from nonlinear rates of return on bonds of varying lengths?

Changing the way money enters the system is interesting for sure, but orthogonal to whether expiring money is just inflation by another name.

Re: What if money expired?

#32

Post by jmclnx »

In a way we kine of have it, it is oil or really energy. And inflation is a factor of energy supply.

But if money expired, I think people would go back to Gold and Silver as a base of wealth with "money" being worthless.

Re: What if money expired?

#33

Post by OscarCunningham »

The article is just making stuff up here:

> Total U.S. bank deposits are around $17 trillion. Meanwhile, total wealth in this country, including nonmonetary assets, is around $149 trillion, more than 63 times the total available cash. The gaps between these numbers are like dark matter in the universe — we don’t have a way to empirically account for it, and yet without it our understanding of the universe, or the economy, would collapse.

There's no reason you would expect these numbers to be the same, and nothing relies on them being the same.

Re: What if money expired?

#34

Post by Jevon23 »

Complete insanity.

Don’t plan for the future. Don’t delay gratification. Never save up enough money that you’re allowed to have a taste of true freedom. Always be precarious, always be dependent on your boss for the next handout, lest your food and shelter be in jeopardy. Don’t step out of line, lest that handout be jeopardized.

Keep your hands off my bank account.

Re: What if money expired?

#36

Post by Zigurd »

Might be the wrong question. Humans expire. Inheritance taxes, and shorter copyright expiration would solve many of the same problems that expiring money claims to address. As many others have noted, inflation already is a strong disincentive for hoarding money.

Re: What if money expired?

#37

Post by argiopetech »

Jevon23 wrote: post #34

Complete insanity. Don’t plan for the future. Don’t delay gratification. Never save up enough money that you’re allowed to have a taste of true freedom. Always be precarious, always be dependent on your boss for the next handout, lest your food and shelter be in jeopardy. Don’t step out of line, lest that handout be jeopardized. Keep your hands off my bank account.

Too late - these ideas have, in a backward sort of way, been implemented in the form of quantitative easing, aka inflating away your savings.

Re: What if money expired?

#38

Post by genman »

Throwfi44 wrote: post #14

Money do expire! There is inflation... I would like similar system for land ownership and buildings. Property taxes at level of 5%. In China land can not be owned, but only leased for 70 years.

Actually no. Expiration of money and inflation can exist simultaneously.

Expiration of money is an end of life cycle event of individual bills - it affects certain lump sum of money that will become void in corpore. The nominal value of the money will remain the same.

Inflation is continuous devaluation of nominal value of all the money regardless of individual bills.

If we discuss expiration of money then we should consider what constitutes as money creation - when will the countdown start.

Is the money created when it is issued by a (central) bank or is created when an exchange (for value) takes place?

With the first idea a single transaction can contain money with multiple expiration dates and as such the money with longer expiration date will immediately become more valuable and the nominal value of the money is not universal anymore.

The second approach avoids this problem - the nominal value of the transaction is always the same. This has an other interesting side effect as it would incentive to make transactions legal.

But what Gesell describes is mandatory deflation of value of money by insisting a tax on money - a monetary money holder tax, kind of. Whoever holds the money is obliged to pay the tax - if you put your money into bank then it would be the bank. So his idea is considerably different.

Re: What if money expired?

#39

Post by mikewarot »

Throwfi44 wrote: post #14

Money do expire! There is inflation... I would like similar system for land ownership and buildings. Property taxes at level of 5%. In China land can not be owned, but only leased for 70 years.

I carry around a piece of hard currency (1901 Silver Dollar) to remind me of what real money is like... it's always been worth about 4 retail gallons of gasoline. I expect that trend to continue for at least another decade.

Soft money, tends towards zero, as you said.

Re: What if money expired?

#40

Post by lotsofpulp »

Jevon23 wrote: post #34

Complete insanity. Don’t plan for the future. Don’t delay gratification. Never save up enough money that you’re allowed to have a taste of true freedom. Always be precarious, always be dependent on your boss for the next handout, lest your food and shelter be in jeopardy. Don’t step out of line, lest that handout be jeopardized. Keep your hands off my bank account.

>Keep your hands off my bank account.

Your bank account balance is of little importance with a fiat currency. Banks themselves are superfluous now that money does not have to be represented by cash and thus needs no vault.

Maybe you mean “Keep your hands off the purchasing power of the currency in my bank account”.

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