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Where has all the money in the world gone?

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Re: Where has all the money in the world gone?

#181

Post by eli_gottlieb »

losvedir wrote: post #166
davidgraeber wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point that the morality of debt is based on the fact that it's a promise already appears on page 4. Similarly the very last paragraph, begins "What is a debt, anyway? A debt is just the perversion of a promise. It is a promise corrupted by both math and violence..." And so on. Might want to read more than "chunks" of a book before lecturing the world on what's not in it.

Cool, are you the author? If so, thanks for joining in on the discussion. I hadn't heard of your book before people brought it up on here, but I just added it to my Amazon wishlist and plan to get it soon. The extent of my knowledge of your book (I'm assuming you are the author), is only what people are discussing here, but my quick impression was that the person you responded to characterized your view of debt prett…

Debts for investment are mutually beneficial. However, history shows it has all too often been in the interests of society's upper class to create lots and lots of debt that was not for investment and is thus very difficult to pay back.

Re: Where has all the money in the world gone?

#182

Post by calibraxis »

planetguy wrote: post #169
davidgraeber wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point that the morality of debt is based on the fact that it's a promise already appears on page 4. Similarly the very last paragraph, begins "What is a debt, anyway? A debt is just the perversion of a promise. It is a promise corrupted by both math and violence..." And so on. Might want to read more than "chunks" of a book before lecturing the world on what's not in it.

Dave, Dave, don't be so defensive! I mean, I spend time googling for my name too, but I manage to resist the temptation to throw myself into any discussion of my work, it just comes across badly. I mean, I did go and buy a copy of your book, hardback too, and I did just go and give you a semi-positive review in which I heartily recommended large chunks of it. I really did enjoy quite a lot of it. You're right, page 4…

Hopefully "Dave, Dave" will ignore this (maybe unwitting) trolling.

There's many ways where those with surplus wealth can give it to those with insufficient wealth. Anyone here on HN can name multiple forms of investment/subsidy (such as venture capital, or the goverment subsidy which led to computers and the internet), and some may even be at work at more advanced forms of credit unions (such as Mike Leung's work on participatory credit unions).

Furthermore, anyone who's skimmed the book's first chapter can see that this poster's original post was beyond uninformed, taking a point _Debt_ carefully discusses in the first few pages, and presents it as if the author never anticipated it. Same with the book's discussion of commercial reciprocity vs. mutual aid in chapter 5.

David just helpfully posted here to point out the obvious...

Re: Where has all the money in the world gone?

#183

Post by kbolino »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #177
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about the health care system, but the non-socialist portion of the US education system is the best in the world, and only the socialist portion of it is terrible. I find those to be reasonable grounds to dislike socialism.

Major public universities in the United States, known world-over for their excellence: * University of California, Berkeley * University of Washington, Seattle * University of Massachusetts, Amherst * Texas A&M * University of Wisconsin, Madison Shall I go on?

To call any of those "socialist", when the paid-by-the-student cost has skyrocketed and the paid-by-the-government cost has plummeted, is a bit of a stretch.

Re: Where has all the money in the world gone?

#184

Post by eli_gottlieb »

kbolino wrote: post #183
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major public universities in the United States, known world-over for their excellence: * University of California, Berkeley * University of Washington, Seattle * University of Massachusetts, Amherst * Texas A&M * University of Wisconsin, Madison Shall I go on?

To call any of those "socialist", when the paid-by-the-student cost has skyrocketed and the paid-by-the-government cost has plummeted, is a bit of a stretch.

Fair point, but they were world-class universities when the government subsidized them, too. There's no inverse correlation between government support of a university and academic quality, being my point.

Re: Where has all the money in the world gone?

#185

Post by kbolino »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #184
kbolino wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To call any of those "socialist", when the paid-by-the-student cost has skyrocketed and the paid-by-the-government cost has plummeted, is a bit of a stretch.

Fair point, but they were world-class universities when the government subsidized them, too. There's no inverse correlation between government support of a university and academic quality, being my point.

Agreed, and I think KaoruAoiShiho's original "socialist" comment was about K-12 anyway.

Re: Where has all the money in the world gone?

#186

Post by richcollins »

nhaehnle wrote: post #129
richcollins wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the fed printed 10x the current money supply in dollars and handed them out to everyone, prices wouldn't change?

Clearly in this scenario, people would have more available money and therefore likely spend more. This additional spending could cause inflation. This is very different from what InclinedPlane was talking about, namely paying back the debt by just printing money. And I'm not just talking theory here, but empirical observation, because this has already happened ! That's what QE is all about. The Fed creates a lot of m…

OK so by your logic everyone in my scenario that would have received the cash could instead create pieces of paper that are promises to pay back the money and sell them to the fed. Would this still constitute an "asset swap" that doesn't create inflation.

The problem is that new money was created to buy relatively worthless assets, increasing the money supply and decreasing the relative wealth of dollar holders to those that the fed bought "assets" from. Once the banks spend this money, the latent inflation occurs and prices increase, making everyone that had dollars poorer relative to those that received the fed bailout.

Re: Where has all the money in the world gone?

#187

Post by aaronasterling »

zanny wrote: post #142
aaronasterling wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One doesn't have to buy into the system you describe. I basically sleep on the beach on Maui and mostly eat for free. In many ways, it's a good life :)

I want in on this free food! Living on the beach doesn't sound like it has good internet connectivity though.

Internet connectivity is over rated. I bet my wall paper is swanker than yours.

Re: Where has all the money in the world gone?

#188

Post by Esteanil »

lsc wrote: post #107
bergie wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, the original point of EU was to disincentivize France and Germany from going into yet another war on resources. Lots of other good (but sometimes confusing) structure has since been built on that foundation, but to me that original point is already enough for keeping the Union around. Disclaimer: some of my current open source work is supported financially by the EU

For context, I'm an American; I've read a bit of history, and I have a very American perspective on the last two world wars; Like most people my age, both of my grandfathers fought in world war two, and like most people, I place more emotional weight on stories told me by family members than accounts written by people on the other side, so my view of European politics is biased in a certain direction, and I don't hav…

I don't think europeans in general believe this, but opinion in Greece is (perhaps understandably) somewhat worse.

69% of surveyed Greeks strongly agree that Germany wants to build a Fourth Reich. Ref: http://www.vprc.gr/uplds/File/banners/Diagrammatic%20Present...

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