<quote name="Nicholas Leippe" date="Fri, 5 Dec 2008 at 09:56 -0700"> > On Friday 05 December 2008 09:18:21 am Von Grant Fugal wrote: > > How do you propose to distribute this new money in lockstep with capita > > changes? > > Perhaps you could give each newborn an average savings worth of > > money in a trust fund. Anything less than this is redistribution of > > wealth and is abhorrently immoral. > > Let's not get into the subject of individual's differring morals. > > You are suggesting here that there is no other way to increase the supply in > a > fair manner. It's simple really. The purchase of goods and services by the > government would be done with newly minted/printed currency as opposed to > currency already in the budget. As opposed to being done by fractional > reserve > banking as it is done today. To decrease the money supply, currency collected > from the sale of public goods and services can simply be withheld from > circulation, and taken off the books. Ok, there are probably other ways to fairly distribute new money, but centralized injection is not one of them. How does the government not benefit by having brand new money? You say "well the government is the people." Nice try. Power corrupts. Money is power. Giving the government the power to print more power is corruption in the extreme.
> > The capita increases and so does the > > money supply. What then? The printers of the money benefit first, then > > the first receivers of that money, and so on, until the average American > > is just completely screwed over because he doesn't see that new 'per > > capita' money until it's value AND the value of the money he already had > > AND his paycheck are ALL devalued! > > No. The printers of the money benefit, yes. But, the first receivers do not, > except for the fact that they are compensated at fair-market value for their > goods and/or services--they do not get any unjust benefit. No one else will > notice any change whatsoever--no price inflation or deflation would occur-- > this in fact prevents that--everyone's buying power remains the same. The printers benefit (the government gets more power, more pet projects, hidden taxation). The first receivers benefit. This is demonstrable in several ways. First, they get to sell more of their product than they would normally. They get more business. More business for any business is good business and most certainly a benefit. Secondly, and highly related, they experience an increased demand for their product. Supply/demand dictates that with an increased demand comes an increased cost. They not only get to sell more of their product, they get to do so at a higher charge. Lastly, they get to use all this extra money they got from doing extra business at extra charge to increase demand at the next level of the chain. If you somehow manage to keep the money supply/capita ratio constant, then yes, overall prices don't go up. But prices DO go up on that first step, then of necessity prices drop elsewhere. Where? Most likely in wages and compensation, small businesses, etc. I maintain that: > > Inflation is theft any way you look at it. > > Are you talking about monetary inflation or price inflation? In some ways, > yes. In all ways, no. Price inflation IS monetary inflation. The only other way to get price inflation is with severe economic downturn. That is to say, a pronounced decrease in production, in wealth. > Well, it's theft if done by private individuals for private gain. If the > government (we'll pretend a government that's by and for the people, assuming > one exists), then no private individual gains anything by doing so--it is a > benefit to _all_ of the people by maintaining a stable per-capita money > supply. Because the government is in essence the collective of the people-- > thus the people are the ones printing the new money. As I said above, however good your intentions are in giving anyone the power to inflate, that power will be abused, eventually, at some point. > OTOH, what we have today, is exactly what you say. Theft. *Private* banks, > benefiting *private* interests control the money supply by central banking > (debt-backed currency) and fractional reserve lending. Case in point. > > You mention austrian economics. I haven't delved to deep into it myself, > > but from most of my conversations with other subscribers to austrian > > economics, I was under the distinct impression my views were highly > > aligned with austrian economics; maybe I was wrong? > > I am not in a position to classify your views. I'll be more specific. Is it a staple of austrian economics that inflation is good? I thought that was a keynesian idea. You still haven't said why exactly exchange would suffer as a result of a constant supply of money. Von Fugal -- Government is a disease that masquerades as its own cure -- Robert Lefevre
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