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Bringing back the Somali shilling

jpkoning.blogspot.com

111–120 of 170 posts

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#111
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words a faith-based ideology, where markets cannot fail by definition

No, what they say is, failures will occur but markets can heal themselves better than government intervention.

But that is pretty much an unfalsifiable claim, which puts it quite strongly into the "faith-based ideology" category.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#112
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't agree with you per-se, there's a lot of inherent survivorship bias in your sample group.

If it's survivor bias, wouldn't that make the Somali classmates' opinions even more valid (their contemporaries being dead and all)? Or did you intend to say selection bias?

Indeed.

It's kind of amazing that around here when someone says "yeah my Libertarian Paridise home-country is actually a shithole because people keep getting machete'd to death by roving gangs", someone else strokes their chin and thinks "hmm, I'm not sure I buy it, maybe there's a survivorship bias in there"

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea is an absolut monarchy not a communist country, even if they say so, they also say they are a people's democratic republic and it's clear they're not.

You're implying that there's a possibility for a regime that starts from commumist ideas not to become a monarchy or oligarchy. Can you point out a real-life example where that didn't happen, please?

I'm not implying it, i'm just stating that North Korea is not a communist country, even if they say so. I'm not english native but i thought that my writing was quite straight and clear in this case , but well you can try and twist it to suit your ideology all you want.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea is an absolut monarchy not a communist country, even if they say so, they also say they are a people's democratic republic and it's clear they're not.

Just like Somalia isn't a libertarian country, which was parent's point.

I didn't say the contrary or at least i can't read it in my words, maybe there's some hidden meaning in my words i can't see but you can.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#115
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What many libertarians want is decentralization. As much as possible. They probably want to get rid of all powerful Federal Government but local governments (as small as possible) and confederations are usually fine.

And now we will soon have "separate but equal" restrooms in Texas. I find state rights advocates to be the worst™ people in the world. They advocate for state rights when it suits them. Absolutely hypocritical bunch. We've decided as a nation that there are some rights and responsibilities that we have regardless of where we live within this nation. How many times do we have to fight for civil rights?

You're making the strange assumption that the federal government will always be be more in line with your own political views than your state government. After all, at the end of the day a hard-right state is less bad for liberals than a hard-right country, because only in the first case can they try to find a job in California.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea is an absolut monarchy not a communist country, even if they say so, they also say they are a people's democratic republic and it's clear they're not.

You're implying that there's a possibility for a regime that starts from commumist ideas not to become a monarchy or oligarchy. Can you point out a real-life example where that didn't happen, please?

What about revolutionary Catalonia? Besides that, I think it's disingenuous to claim that it is a problem with the Communist idea; Marxism is a method of analysis, and that analysis can be applied to itself to find out what the problems were, and what is necessary to move past them.

It's also worth noting that almost all the states you are referring to as monarchies or oligarchies are founded on the principle of Marxism-Leninism. Perhaps this isn't the best way. Left-Communists agree with that idea. Or perhaps anarcho-Communism is a better idea.

There are many schools of thought within Communism. It's unwise to dismiss it, in my opinion.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#117
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somaliland has a government though.

Fair, but I would argue that the Somaliland government is about as existent as the one Somalia also technically has. It exists, but doesn't do anything. But please correct me if you disagree! I really appreciated your comments down below, particularly your question about whether re-introducing bank notes is an effort to diminish the influence of the Telcos.

A Somalilander here, Somaliland has a fully established government which is elected by popular vote. In fact, it has one of the most sophisticated and modern voter registration system which uses bio-metric data to detect double voters. Something a number of other African or even first world (i.e. US/EU) can't guarantee.

Somaliland is extremely safe, you can go about your daily life without a hint of any problem. You can walk down the street in the middle of the night without worrying for your safety.

Keeping peace is everyone's business, citizens take ownership of it.

Aside from that, it is a very poor country, but everyone is happy with what little they have.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#118
> As I pointed out in my old post, there's an old and nagging question in monetary economics that has never been satisfactorily answered: why is fiat money valuable?

I've always been surprised by questions like this. Why is (say) gold valuable? The gold supply fluctuates unpredictably depending on gold strikes and without any consideration for creation of underlying economic value (so is inherently inflationary, except for gold strikes). The big gold strikes of the 19th century were each associated with economic boom/bust. But the underlying utility of gold is low.

Some people complain about a central bank "controlling" the money supply (let's not forget that you "create" money when you use your credit card and "destroy" it when you pay your bill), so monopoly there. That's a fiat too.

In terms of value, the shilling case makes more sense if you think of money in its role of signalling (there are lots of bananas available right now so the price is going down -- don't bother to go harvest some more until the price goes up) rather than as a store of value. That's why people don't worry about counterfeits. Presumably the actual measure of wealth there is not monetary -- perhaps land, more likely some kind of family/community strength.

As robots drive the marginal price of goods and services very low and humans live on UBI, the signalling role will become more significant than the wealth role.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#119
Money as a concept is interesting, and many of our conventions for thinking about it don't stand up well to scruitany. A few realisations I've had over the past few years:

1. Prices are ratios. A price is the ratio of how much X you will exchange for some Y. "Two dollars per dozen eggs" is the ratio of dollars to eggs. (William Stanley Jevons observed this in the 19th century.)

2. Money is, generally, the most universal exchange medium, within a given region. In this article, Somalia utilises both US dollars and Somali shillings.

3. Most currencies take their names from either units of weight or of quality: Weight: Pound, peso, mark, shekel, livre, penny, denarius (and dinar, dinero, etc., subdivision of 10), dirham (also drachma, from dram). The Japanese ryo.

For quality: dollar (referring to the high-quality silver of Jochimstaller, Germany), franc (Francorum Rex), ducat (from ducato, related to duke). References to royal imprimateur are common: royal, real, crown, kron, kroner, etc. Guilder, Guinea, gineih, zloty (from gold). Toponyms (afghani, bolivar, etc.) are also common, and refer to the authority of the issuing nation. Sterling (star-like silver). Ruble and kopek both refer to the cutting off of slivers of silver from a bar. Rupee again refers to silver.

There are some exceptions, of course. Scudo and piaster refer to shape, as do yuan and yen. Florin refers to the flower inscription (arguably a mark of quality or merit).

4. Whilst Gresham's Law applies -- poorer quality coin of a given denomination will drive out higher quality, there is also quite frequently a flight to higher-quality alternative currency. So: in Somalia, the Shilling is used for general trade, but dollars for larger transactions, where both value and acceptability matter.

5. Many regions and periods have seen what were effectively multi-currency systems. With stable rates of exchange between copper, silver, and gold, the English currency Adam Smith describes (at ... great ... length) in Wealth of Nations is actually one of three independent currencies largely used for different types of transactions: copper for retail, silver for wholesale, and gold for finance. The farthing (four-thing -- one fourth of a penny) was nearly 1/1000th the value of a pound sterling (240 pennies, or 960 farthings). Twenty pounds was a good income for a labourer. If you consider a farthing as essentionally a dollar, then those 20 pounds are an annual income of about $20,000.

6. There are multiple drivers for currency value. Clamshells (the origin of "clams" as a term for money) were used in the US for small transactions. Obtainable (with some work), exchangeable, relatively easily accounted for. Convention, agreement, assurances of legal currency, mandates for tax payments in currency, standards for international exchange, commodities trade (think oil), etc., all play a part.

7. Virtually all currencies, specie or fiat, devalue over time. Again, Smith addresses this ... at length.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#120
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never quite understood why libertarians think that is the precise optimum for the amount of government activities and their "theft" of my money via taxation. Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? Or do they think that in every case government makes more bad than good when trying to solve market failures? Or is it just that freedom of individu…

Libertarians don't posit a precise optimum. They are generally of the opinion that the optimum is quite a bit lower than what we have right now. > Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? The only credible "failure" I'm aware of is the need to internalize of public externalities, which can be achieved in a number of liberty-friendly ways. See, for exam…

Pricing of information goods. See Robert Nozick.

Gresham's Law -- race-to-the-bottom markets.

The price of extractive resources.

Rents, generally.

The fact that wealth is power.

Totally drug-resistant tuberculosis.

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