Money as Debt III - Evolution Beyond Money
Evgeni Pandurski
(or parts -- it is separated in segments)
Preview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAg4wZSkHL4
Examining the Problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2LjbBfh7Ug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlwQJSLPqD0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHg0n6r6hzA
Monetary Reform Movements:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z0V6vb_ayw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJKYHTkLMS0
I think this is the best movie of all the three. This is pretty amazing,
considering how exceptionally good the previous two movies were!
Jorge Timón
They have a forum too.
http://digitalcoin.earthsociety.org/forum/index.php
http://digitalcoin.info/
I think ripple could be the main part of an implementation of their
"digital coin" but I need to read the proposal more carefully.
Basically I interpreted their "perpetual coin" as Riegel's "valun" and
their "credit coin" as ripple, something similar or equivalent, or
that ripple could substitute.
I thought I made a post but it seems that it failed or something.
2011/12/21, Evgeni Pandurski <epand...@gmail.com>:
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Jorge Timón
Daniel Reeves
worry that Ripple folks could spin off into batshit crazy conspiracy
theory [http://xkcd.com/258] mode.
Maybe the way to see what's wrong with the videos is to keep in mind
the difference between money and wealth: wealth is the actual stuff we
want (goods and services) and money is just a mechanism to transfer
wealth. So the video wants to conjure outrage over banks creating
money from nothing. But there's nothing outrageous or unfair about
that per se. They obviously aren't creating *wealth* out of nothing.
And they aren't actually stealing wealth from anyone (except with the
usual sociopathic hidden fees and whatnot that we've come to expect in
many industries).
I'm not sure if that suffices to derail the whole premise of the videos.
Then there's the "debt monster" part. I always thought it was bizarre
that world GDP has been growing at a consistent (and exponential) rate
of a couple percent per year since the industrial revolution. Even the
Great Depression is a mere blip in that uncannily steady growth. I
don't understand that very well but I suspect it's mainly a function
of population growth. I don't think it's fundamentally tied to
environment-raping, as claimed in the videos. There's no reason we
can't grow exponentially richer and richer using nothing but solar
power.
There is, of course, plenty to be outraged about, like banks getting
free money in the recent financial fiasco. But, perhaps confusingly,
the fact that banks create money when they loan it does *not* equate
to "free money", as the "money as debt" videos want you to believe.
Here's an attempt to distill what's going on there to a hypothetical
moneyless world:
You want to borrow a painting from Alice but she doesn't trust you
enough. So you ask me to vouch for you, and maybe you carve me a duck
(or something) in exchange for my vouching. Now Alice lends you the
painting because she believes me that I'll replace it if you disappear
with it. And it's reasonable for her to believe that, even if I don't
currently have one. I can, for example, earn a painting later the way
I earned the wooden duck.
I'm the bank in that analogy and I've conjured "money", and it's a
little meta, I suppose, but there's no hanky-panky in it. And look at
the value I'm adding, enabling trade between you and Alice that there
otherwise wasn't enough trust for.
So, yeah, the video pisses me off a little, making something ingenius
and wonderful (at least in its fundamentals) out to be a vast and
literally evil conspiracy! :)
The whole premise of Ripple, in fact, is to take that ingenius idea to
its logical conclusion, letting anyone and everyone inject trust into
the system to facilitate exchange.
It's also annoying how the videos treat debt as fundamentally bad when
debt is just the flipside of credit which, as everyone here knows, is
just another name for trust. And remember that total world debt is
always exactly zero! There's no debt monster, as the videos describe,
poised to devour the world.
On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 11:19, Evgeni Pandurski <epand...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just noticed that the last part of the trilogy is there:
> (or parts -- it is separated in segments)
--
http://dreev.es -- search://"Daniel Reeves"
Melvin Carvalho
I see where you're coming from, but it's difficult to argue debt
saturation, and over leverage (due to banks creating money as debt)
are just theoretical problems.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 11:19, Evgeni Pandurski <epand...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I just noticed that the last part of the trilogy is there:
>> (or parts -- it is separated in segments)
>
> --
> http://dreev.es -- search://"Daniel Reeves"
>
Jorge Timón
> These videos are all wrong and seeing them advocated here makes me
> worry that Ripple folks could spin off into batshit crazy conspiracy
> theory [http://xkcd.com/258] mode.
I think the videos just try to be educational. I think the producers
could change it if you convince them they're being inaccurate.
But they'll want to keep each part simple.
> Maybe the way to see what's wrong with the videos is to keep in mind
> the difference between money and wealth: wealth is the actual stuff we
> want (goods and services) and money is just a mechanism to transfer
> wealth. So the video wants to conjure outrage over banks creating
> money from nothing. But there's nothing outrageous or unfair about
> that per se. They obviously aren't creating *wealth* out of nothing.
> And they aren't actually stealing wealth from anyone (except with the
> usual sociopathic hidden fees and whatnot that we've come to expect in
> many industries).
Banks don't create wealth. But they transfer it by creating money.
When monetary inflation is created, wealth is being stolen indirectly
from all the rest of money owners.
> I'm not sure if that suffices to derail the whole premise of the videos.
>
> Then there's the "debt monster" part. I always thought it was bizarre
> that world GDP has been growing at a consistent (and exponential) rate
> of a couple percent per year since the industrial revolution. Even the
> Great Depression is a mere blip in that uncannily steady growth. I
> don't understand that very well but I suspect it's mainly a function
> of population growth. I don't think it's fundamentally tied to
> environment-raping, as claimed in the videos. There's no reason we
> can't grow exponentially richer and richer using nothing but solar
> power.
If the debt growths faster than the economy (say 5% versus 3%), that
debt monster grows exponentially when compared to the economy.
Also, why do you assume that the world economy can grow exponentially forever?
I guess you would call the peak oil proponents "conspiracy theorists",
so let's not enter there if you don't want.
GDP and CPI growth calculations depend on the metrics you're using.
And they've changed multiple times, so its hard to say that you can
measure growth accurately.
Look at some statistics using "some old metrics" compared to the new
official ones in the US.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/gross-domestic-product-charts
I guess this is more conspiracy theory.
And we should take into account not only the public debt, but also the
private one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Components-of-total-US-debt.jpg
It seems that that debt monster exists after all.
But yes, the monster can be destroyed easily by hyper-inflation of the
world reserve currency so, yes, I guess we have nothing to worry
about.
> There is, of course, plenty to be outraged about, like banks getting
> free money in the recent financial fiasco. But, perhaps confusingly,
> the fact that banks create money when they loan it does *not* equate
> to "free money", as the "money as debt" videos want you to believe.
Is not free money, but their sector certainly has privileges and
conflicting incentives.
> Here's an attempt to distill what's going on there to a hypothetical
> moneyless world:
Yes. Probably they should not omit the services banks provide. I'm not
sure that they do.
> The whole premise of Ripple, in fact, is to take that ingenius idea to
> its logical conclusion, letting anyone and everyone inject trust into
> the system to facilitate exchange.
>
> It's also annoying how the videos treat debt as fundamentally bad when
> debt is just the flipside of credit which, as everyone here knows, is
> just another name for trust. And remember that total world debt is
> always exactly zero! There's no debt monster, as the videos describe,
> poised to devour the world.
The videos don't criticize debt per se, but how it works in the current system.
I think they even explain your point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2LjbBfh7Ug&feature=player_detailpage#t=174s
2011/12/28, Melvin Carvalho <melvinc...@gmail.com>:
--
Jorge Timón
Evgeni Pandurski
I think this is one of the ingenious decisions of the producer -- the narrator talks to your left brain-hemisphere, while the animation appeals to your right-hemisphere. The wonderful result is that you can interpret the whole movie as extremely radical and emotional, or as purely intellectual, depending on the current balance between hemispheres of you brain, as well as and your mood.
Josef Davies-Coates
And remember that total world debt is always exactly zero!
How did you work that one out? That would be the case if the whole global economy was one big mutual credit network, but it isn't. Have you forgotten about interest?
I think this is a good intro to how banking works (and it is not a mutual credit network):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBZWw1DG8zU
Josef.
Josef Davies-Coates
07974 88 88 95
http://uniteddiversity.com
Together We Have Everything
Jorge Timón
to the whole amount creditors are owed.
That's true with interest too.
Also mutual credit systems can have interest, look at ripplepay or
ROCS with negative interest.
Also the credit relationships of the banks BETWEEN THEM looks a lot
like a ripple network:
2012/1/26, Josef Davies-Coates <jdavie...@gmail.com>:
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Jorge Timón