Exactly Carver, you got it, very good explanation.
For example in Sparta in ancient greece there was a time when money consisted of iron bars - now think of if, would you prefer to hoard it in some chest with the risk that one day you are left with at pile of rust, or invest it in the economy and buy stuff with it?
The reason why money became so powerful is that it has so many advantages over all other forms of wealth. This allows to charge a fee for borrowing it, and get something for nothing.
This leads to two effects:
Deflation, money gets sucked out of the economical cycle because it gets hoarded - what would you rather do, buy a cow which has the risk to die or keep the gold coins which will always be there?
And inflation, because money is looking for the biggest returns, constantly looking for investment opportunities, creating bubbles and instability.
Now one might think that one effect defuses the other - but that's exactly not the case.
This is where the big economical problems today come from. We are incredibly wealthy in total terms, but the money concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the masses left with less and less money to spend and at the same time more interest to pay (even if you have no debts you pay interest massively - on every product you pay for, in the price there is interest included the corporation has to pay...)
PeakOil is You
Delphi Debacle: workers must work for 1/3 pay!
Re: Delphi Debacle: workers must work for 1/3 pay!
by Free » Wed 19 Oct 2005, 13:19:43
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Re: Delphi Debacle: workers must work for 1/3 pay!
by jaws » Wed 19 Oct 2005, 14:30:13
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Free', 'Y')ou are a very smart guy jaws, much smarter than me, but the smartest guys have one weak spot: they trust their judgement too quick, because they experience it too often that they are right with their judgements. That's a reason why so many smart people don't get peak oil by the way.
What do you know about the middle ages? The common word of the "dark ages"? Some movies about guys in funny pants? I didn't say middle ages, I said a short period in the middle ages.
How about this: In the middle ages even royalty had to settle for crude hand-made pottery, while a thousand years earlier in the Roman Empire manufactured pottery was widely available to the lower classes. The Middle Ages were a primitive time following an economic collapse. It is not a model for anything.What do you know about the middle ages? The common word of the "dark ages"? Some movies about guys in funny pants? I didn't say middle ages, I said a short period in the middle ages.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')f course interest is very much connected with growth, and the desire to get something for nothing (as in social welfare). Of course this is "natural" in a way. But that doesn't mean we can't try to control it, to channel it. Yes competition is good, if it's fair. It's not fair if you get something for nothing.
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Re: Delphi Debacle: workers must work for 1/3 pay!
by Free » Wed 19 Oct 2005, 14:58:33
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Interest has nothing to do with growth. It is simply the consequence of humans demanding things now and not later. Because the supply of goods today is scarce the interest rate emerges to restrict the demand for goods.
')Interest has nothing to do with growth. It is simply the consequence of humans demanding things now and not later. Because the supply of goods today is scarce the interest rate emerges to restrict the demand for goods.
I am sorry I don't understand how interest is connected to the scarcity of goods? I rather think it is connected to the scarcity of money - this is not the same?
Here is an excerpt from the book I mentioned, about the middle ages, it's a horrible babelfish-translation but I hope you still can understand what it means...
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Were there interest-free times?
Whether the interest connected with the coins was completely insignificant in history once, is not delivered. There were however times of small interest height, with reduced negative consequences.
That applies e.g. to certain times in the Greek antiquity. Thus it is delivered that the spartanian statesman Lykurg outlawed gold and silver and introduced iron money. That made Sparta independent of the precious metals. This iron money had however still another another effect: It was not any more, how gold and silver, superior to the goods they payed for!
Who hoarded iron money, pulled it thusly from traffic, risked similar losses as the owner of goods. In extreme cases he found a heap rust in the treasure chest after some time only.
Well-known one and verifiable is the culture and blooming in the Staufer period.
"A gift of the monetary system", as Hans Weitkamp in the sub-title of its book writes "the high Middle Ages". In this time there was likewise a money, which was not from duration: the on one side coined/shaped so-called Brakteaten. That were coins from thin silver, which did not obtain their value by the mass of the used metal, but by the coinage.
The special about the Brakteaten however was that they were declared twice annually "of ill repute", i.e. for invalid and had to be exchanged against a smaller number of new coins.
One also before already knew the money disrepute with obligation conversion and anticipated payment in the early Middle Ages with the normal coins. It took place at that time however only at the installation of a new ruler.
Archbishop Wichmann of Magdeburg however made this disrepute the rule as the first with the introduction of the Brakteaten in the year 1154. Whether it happened from lack on precious metals or over over the conversion anticipated payment the national budget to finance, is not well-known.
The latter the reason was probable. But this Brakteatengeld, which under that Muenzherren themselves in Central Europe very fast spread, had certainly not taken into account benediction-rich side effect: This money rotated! Hardly one still collected it in chests, because with each accumulation of money one risked higher losses with the next exchange of money. Thus one continued to give its money in the same rhythm as as possible, as one received it. If one did not have any use, one lent it gladly, because in this way one knew to lose the "black Peter" of the conversion loss, which was connected with the money. Because the Geldleiher had then the risk and the lender the right of repayment of the full amount.
In a study of Harvard University this time of the high Middle Ages is called the probably happiest of mankind.
Several hundred cities developed alone in the German linguistic area. The Hanse had its bloom. For the first time there was a broad citizen wealth, which one can among other things still recognize in the few intact cities remained such as Dinkelsbuehl, Rothenburg, Luebeck. Never again it gave as many artists and craftsmen as in these centuries. Nearly each bar at the community centres and even the last stone on the points of the churches and cathedrals were artfully decorated.
The cathedrals put today still certification off from the wealth this time. They were established not - like the pyramids - by forced laborers, but by highly-paid craftsmen and building masters.
And this broad-steered prosperity was not the result of a constant increase in output or an economic growth in our sense. It was completely simply the result of a long epoch of managing without becoming impoverished economic situation break-downs, the consequence of a circulating money without an exploitation character.
To a large extent there were already five-days a week, because "blue Monday" was work-free in most guilds. This connection between blooming economics and money also the end of this era confirms in 15. Century, which coincides with the re-establishment of the "thick Pfennig" or the "eternal Pfennig", thus those solid gold and silver coins, which were not subject to no more the disrepute.
It came to this probably because some Muenzherren too often repeated the calling. Possibly increasing precious metal finds also played a role.
Anyhow the solid money disappeared again rapidly from the economic circulation. Surpluses of money were again hoarded and given change only at high interest. The money lenders, like the Fugger or the Welser, became rich, all others, the debtors, poor, up to the archbishops, the princes and the emperor.
Cathedrals weren't completed, stopped semifinished. "It was no more money there", explained a tourist guide once this phenomenon, because he did not know anything about the actual conditions.
The book: (in german)
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/ ... ldsyndrom/
The first chapters in english translation (no babelfish
)
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/ ... m/english/
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