I prefer Wampum and songs.
REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 7:23 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION; michael gurstein Subject: Re: [Futurework] Arthur's 5th belief The sophistry is in your mind, not mine. As to your: "of course the physical form of money doesn't matter. It never has." doesn't appear in the history books I've ever read. Gold, silver, copper and bronze coinages (valuable metals for other purposes, too) were the physical means by which huge merchant networks (Chinese, Indian, Islamic, European) traded within and between themselves in pre-capitalist eras. K At 07:56 18/08/2012, Michael G wrote: That kind of sophistry is beneath you Keith. of course the physical form of money doesn't matter. It never has. It is a medium of exchange/symbolic and if folks recognize it as such it is (and if not not. whether in bits or dirty pieces of paper.. As for the money "in" the Cayman's that other nest of symbolic representations i.e. laws/tax codes recognize another set of symbolic representations national boundaries and sovereignty and allow folks like Mitt (and his ilk) to use their very high priced lawyers and accountants to manipulate the various symbol systems to avoid paying their fair share (of taxes. The issue of "propping up" doesn't really apply to those banks (their liquidity so far as I know apart from various frauds and ponzi's has never been in question. Making the world (even a wee bit safe(r)) for the rest of us through trying to stimulate demand/thus employment seems to me to be a not unreasonable approach to economic policy if only as a counterweight to the quite unreasonable sending boxcar loads of digital bits encoded as various currencies to banksters and (then indirectly) to their political, academic, and governmental lackeys. M From: [email protected] [ mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 6:54 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; D & N Subject: Re: [Futurework] Arthur's 5th belief At 22:53 17/08/2012, Natalia wrote: snip---> The New York Times reports there's more money in the banks of the Cayman Islands than in all the banks of New York City combined. What's it all doing there? Avoiding taxes for one. But perhaps even more seriously, offshore banking starves the world's economy of cash at a time when it could really use a few extra bucks. (KH) There's hardly any money in its true sense (a consumer commodity) in the Cayman Islands at all. There are only electronic representations, of which every last digit has a physical counterpart sitting on the ground somewhere in the world or flying in the air or floating on the sea. Every last square inch of these items that are visible to the public (and owe their value to the public) is taxable. Offshore banking itself doesn't starve anybody. What starves us are onshore banks which are given special privileges by governments and which ought, when necessary, to be forced into bankrupt like every other business. Instead, they are propped up by the taxpayer by quantitative easing and other dodgy devices. If they weren't propped up, then every single unproductive, overvalued collateral would quickly find its true market price and productiveness. Keith Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com <http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/> Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com <http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/>
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