LVT, MMT, UBI & BTC: THE ALPHABET SOUP OF ECONOMICS

[Frank de Jong]

Here's my attempt to connect some of the dots...  Frank

LVT, MMT, UBI & BTC: THE ALPHABET SOUP OF ECONOMICS

[John Riviere-Anderson]

Frank, a remarkable synthesis! Please help me understand how the current upheaval/transition in energy economics fits into the picture you paint. I believe I have some grasp of the LVT appropriate land use part.

My best,

John

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Earthsharing Canada" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to earthsharing-ca...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/earthsharing-canada/CA%2BM9nn-56v-Tg7mcJRdqtBtnCwCB7ThypPstWvWHeq01csg_kw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Frank de Jong]

Yea, John, I think the eco benefits of LVT are many, it's the brains behind ecological economics. It sends feedback loops which bias economics toward sustainability. 

Collecting the rent of virgin resource extraction (full royalties above operating profit) creates a level playing field with recycling, reuse, recovery. Untaxing labour incents employing more people to do value added and discourages resource waste. It doesn't burden jobs, business and sales with deadweight taxes. LVT disincents urban sprawl, farming sprawl, mining sprawl, forestry sprawl by incenting best use of existing land and resources. LVT breaks up large farms and multinationals by rewarding labour intensive and resource intensive production. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/earthsharing-canada/kbr8lugfh9qvfki5hn0jhk5m.1612110496260%40gmail.com.

[BGHearns]

Finally got around to reading through my pile of email backlog, got to this and the point that struck me was that Bitcoin is likely not an answer to anything, simply because it can only work when there is plenty of energy to power the computers that run the various and sundry crypto-currencies. Right now, the processing requirement just for Bitcoin alone exceeds the power requirement for the Republic of Ireland. The more bitcoin gets used, the power demand grows exponentially and the earth just doesn't have enough power (unless someone has found a cache of magic dilithium crystals of infinite power somewhere). Right now, it looks good, but in short order, as global energy supplies continue to become increasingly constrained as they already are, bitcoins are likely going to disappear, along with much wealth associated with them, simply because the machines won't be able to run to process the transactions.

Technophiles and those worshippers of the God of infinite Progress are singing praises of bitcoin right now, and they are singing from exactly the same hymn-book that was used just before the great crash of 1929... the great tech-implosion of 2000...the great mortgage swindle of 2008. In fact, the worth of these ephemeral entities looks exactly like a bubble.

(Furthermore, there is the case of the "programmer" who had a heart attack and several billion dollars in putative wealth exists on a laptop that no one can get to because he didn't tell anyone his password. Many of these extra-judicial monies are just as shakey.)

A point about UBI is that a good portion of people really would stop working at crappy jobs. We saw that with the CERB last year, when small business owners, in particular food services, found they could not staff their businesses when they wanted to re-open because the people who would be economically desperate enough to do those jobs suddenly found they didn't have to and certainly didn't want to. (Also, if they had worked, it would have messed up their CERB.) If UBI were to be implemented, the entire economy would be scrambled like an egg as much of the workforce would simply refuse to work at their existing jobs. It would ultimately function to increase wealth across the population in general, but those in power and the tame intellectuals of the managerial caste will never implement it because they would find themselves significantly poorer as a result and lose a significant portion of their power and leverage over the populace. LVT, as we know, has a similar effect, but milder, without scrambling the economic and socio-political structure.

Your main point about these various ideas (except for BTC) being mutually supportive, or at least not mutually disruptive, seems reasonable. If they were all implemented, they would work together, but if only one or two could be put into place, then MMP is already there, the next part to work on would have to be LVT.

Bruce G. Hearns

On Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 9:41 AM Frank de Jong <fde...@earthsharing.ca> wrote:

Here's my attempt to connect some of the dots...  Frank

LVT, MMT, UBI & BTC: THE ALPHABET SOUP OF ECONOMICS

[Polito]

The outlier in this very interesting item is BTC.  The history of money shows the state eventually must get involved and control and issue the public utility of money. Free banking ( which is what Cryptos want) is the territory of the type of libertarians who want less regulation, less taxes and smaller government. They are ideological rather than focused on serving the people which Frank wants to do. Furthermore money is an extension of the legal system. It is legal tender, and the banking system is backed by the Central Banks which came into existence in America in 1913 after repeated disasters from free banking, in particular the 1907 panic. 

The Bank of Spain had a good paper showing what Central Bank Digital Currency could mean., most importantly for Frank, it would permit directing resources into addressing climate change. Crypto currency would do the reverse.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346060311_The_Future_of_Money_and_the_Central_Bank_Digital_Currency_Dilemma

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/earthsharing-canada/CAEduF1V0U4pukoJyLcKr4qHTA_zWx27HaT707%2Bat8mcpsd_USQ%40mail.gmail.com.

--

“Salus populi suprema lex - the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law"