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2014-05-24 03:45 4927150 Anonymous (expected-further-monetary-easing-keeps-bourse-bull-run-1354478794-1701.jpg 670x502 59kB)
Are there any theorists who have written about a progressive alternative to a monetary system? I'm not interested in what Jacque Fresco's selling, either. Sounds flawed and backwards.

4 min later 4927163 Anonymous
Alternative currencies are the progressive alternative to a monetary system Lietaer

6 min later 4927167 Anonymous
>>4927163 >Alternative currencies Elaborate.

8 min later 4927170 Anonymous (howitworks-graph.jpg 1577x1546 258kB)
>>4927167 They are tenders in a semi closed system, which helps to leverage against the trading currencies

3 hours later 4927559 Anonymous
>>4927170 Explain how it leverages against the trading currencies? It's funny that only today someone posted the Dawkins article about post-modernist use of terminology incorrectly and you come up with this. The image you posted is the exact same thing as a capitalist monetary system except everyone is paid the same hourly wage regardless of job. If you assume they are all paid $1 an hour (hence each service costs $1 an hour), you can substitute $1 for time credit and it's the same thing.

3 hours later 4927562 Anonymous
>>4927150 And in relation to OP, the progressive alternative to a monetary system, whilst I am yet to be graced with such knowledge, will more than likely follow falsely some loose connection to quantum physics to arrive at a conclusion none will understand.

3 hours later 4927570 Anonymous
>>4927559 It leverages because it cannot be traded as a commodity by itself It would be best for you to read up on alternative currency and then tell me that I am not correct In short, they are not the same thing

3 hours later 4927575 Feminister
>>4927170 >Nick spends one hour making semen-art and trades it for one hour of brain surgery

3 hours later 4927580 Anonymous
>>4927570 That's not the correct use of leverage (in any sense of the word) and what's stopping someone from trading a time credit (or alternate currency). Essentially that's what you're doing in the diagram, you do work in return for a time credit (commodity, asset, alternative currency, whatever you want to call it). You then trade your stored time credit in return for services. Yes time credit is not a physical commodity, but it's not an alternative to a monetary system, it is essentially the same as electronic money you have in your bank account.

3 hours later 4927589 Anonymous
>>4927580 The idea is to not allow the trading of trade currency into time credit to avoid speculation

3 hours later 4927608 Anonymous
>>4927589 Yes so all it is a single currency for the entire world. We more or less had that, it was called the gold standard. It failed because the assumption of the diagram's model does not hold in real life (that one hour of service a is always of equal value to one hour of service b and that this will be the same value across regions i.e no imports or exports). What happened was volatility in inflation and deflation. It caused numerous crises (e.g imagine if you borrowed money from the bank today at time credit value A and then the next day prices deflate and your asset is worth half as much time credit and you are being paid half as much time credit). However, a very famous economist Keynes came up with a similar single currency idea, (to avoid price volatility, speculation etc etc) in the form of a single international trade currency bancor. It was nothing like time credit...

3 hours later 4927613 Anonymous
>>4927575 You would have to devise a system to weight value based on time spent in education, training, etc. still retarded, but it could be made less retarded

3 hours later 4927615 Anonymous
>>4927589 Plus even with time credit you could speculate. Say for example you thought the time credit value of a potato was going to rise tomorrow because you got early news of a famine. You could borrow time credits, buy lots of potatoes now, wait for the price to rise, and then sell the potatoes time credits, repay the loan and keep the time credit profit.

3 hours later 4927624 Feminister
>>4927613 Even Marx realized that not all labor is as productive in a given amount of time, which is why he changed Smith's labour theory of value to function off of social average production time instead of individual. So if you spend six hours to mow one lawn, you shouldn't get six fucking hours of lawn mowing labor credit. Education and training are as nothing compared to performance. Some things require intensive learning, but the education itself is not worth anything so much as the scarcity of the skill. The labor of an excellent architect who didn't have formal education, is worth far more than the labor of a formally-educated but shit architect.

3 hours later 4927625 Anonymous
>>4927613 It would be determined by how many hours of brain surgery you would do to receive one hour of semen-art or vice versa, it's the same pricing model we have today. I think one hour of brai surgery would be worth like $5000 and one hour of semen art $10. So 500 hours of semen art for 1 hour of brain surgery

3 hours later 4927635 Anonymous
>>4927608 It is not like that because it is not valued against any commodity but a service, usually that which is need most. It is not always equated to an hour of service = x hour of something else. It could be in transition. The assumption was that time credit can only work locally and is only tradable one way, time credit -> trade currency The other assumption was that after certain time the credits will expire. History proves that it works

3 hours later 4927642 Anonymous
>>4927615 Can't be borrow in mass, and only borrowed from people

3 hours later 4927652 Anonymous
>>4927150 >bitcoin replaces federal reserve >new era of trade commences lead by individuals >liberals/conservatives still arguing about "fixing da system"

3 hours later 4927662 Anonymous
>>4927635 Really what's the historical example? So under a time credit system I would not be able to trade commodities? If I wanted to buy a farmer's potatoes, I would be paying him for the service of farming potatoes. What if I bought too many potatoes and I needed to sell them before they go off. Would I sell them at the market value of the farmer's service and would this be considered selling a service or commodity? If so, what if I knew the market value of x hours of farming potatoes was going to rise in the future (the farmer is sick, less productive, supply down) and I buy the potatoes today and sell them tomorrow. My time credit wouldn't expire because the asset value (potato) holds. This sounds like speculation. Also, a lot like normal currency. The only catch is you can't save. I guess I'm going to find it difficult to pay the builder 3000 hours to make me a house

3 hours later 4927664 Anonymous
>>4927662 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIR_Ba nk

3 hours later 4927667 Anonymous
>>4927662 credit system always rely on trust trying to take advantage of it will break it

3 hours later 4927677 Anonymous
have you read the bitcoin whitepaper?? its not some stupid fad, its the pinacle of human technology and is the largest distributed computing system on the planet. A transparent public ledger of digital cash implemented through open trust networks written in open source code.

3 hours later 4927691 Anonymous
>>4927652 One other guy that is not retarded. I know bitcoin and open trust networks are all that STEM shit that can't be explained in liberal arts speak..... but that is kinda the fucking point.

4 hours later 4927712 Anonymous
>>4927667 It's not untrustworthy it's actually efficient to speculate in this situation. So same story and I'll put numbers to it. Assumption: greater supply means lower time credit value and vice versa Without speculation. Farmer's output pre-sickness = 1000 potato supply in market = 1000 Buyers= 200 (arbitrary) (assume same preference) Each buyer gets 5 potatoes at time credit =5 (arbitrary) Post sickness output = 500 buyer's get 2.5 potatoes at time credit = 10 With speculation Pre-sick output =1000 I buy 100 at market to speculate (I know farmer will be sick, I have expert medical foresight) at tc=6 Therefore people get 900/200 each at p=6 post sickness output=500 + potatoes I sell on the market =100 therefore people get 600/200=300 at tc=8 I make 200 profit but notice that output and time credit (prices) have been smoothed over the period. If people need a minimum three potatoes to survive, I just saved 200 lives. It works extremely well in times of drought or when fertility differs between regions. Hence the importance of merchants.

4 hours later 4927717 Anonymous
>>4927712 on a individual scale yes, speculation can be good but on a macro level, it is quite another story, time credit system will always be close to 1:1 while speculation will always tend to over speculate and inflate the price

4 hours later 4927738 Anonymous
>>4927717 based on what? my point is that time credit and currency are the same. I can still speculate with time credit. What advantage does pricing in terms of time instead of government credit (essentially what our money is, paper you can pay taxes with) give in terms of accurate prices?

4 hours later 4927741 Anonymous
>>4927738 The advantage is that time credit can adjust to local needs of inequality better than currencies. . Accuracy of local prices is better gauged with time credit than with currencies.

4 hours later 4927752 Anonymous
>>4927741 Why? there's absolutely no reason why this would be the case. It's all and good to say it's better but if you can't justify why then you look like an idiot.

4 hours later 4927756 Anonymous
>>4927752 It is because time credits only work well in very poor areas where trade currencies are over inflated. No, I don't look stupid

4 hours later 4927762 Anonymous
>>4927741 thats dumb, its just basic bartering. how do you trade hours? the person would have to need what you have? it would not scale up. and if you are using a 'credit' as a marker for those hours, that is just currency anyway. furthermore everyone places different value in different services. why should someone with no feet have to use a system that ranks pedicures? and besides what technical credit system are you going to use anyway? what you base the currency on makes little difference what matters is that it is not inflationary and is not centralised. or you end up with the mess we have right now. and as far as i know there is no finite and non centralised credit/currency system besides crypto-currencies.

4 hours later 4927768 Anonymous
>>4927762 Except faith in crypto-currencies is extremely volatile. What happens if everyone decides bit-coin is crap (better crypto-currency, realisation that it's worth nothing). If you don't get out quick enough your capital vanishes. I've got more faith that society will continue to pay taxes and so hold government cash (along with other stuff). "the only thing certain is death and taxes".

4 hours later 4927773 Anonymous
>>4927756 Yeah which poor area and how does it work better? Are they rich now? China was a very poor area, so was the US etc etc

4 hours later 4927783 Anonymous
>>4927768 the exact same thing could be said for every single small country on the planet that has its own money. many currencies have actually disappeared from countries disappearing. that is a retarded way to look at it. that is like being on myspace saying im not using facebook because everone isnt on it yet or that everyone might leave. completely ignoring the fact that it is a superior platform in every single way. that as an anti-advancement stance based on risk. the new platform is better. the old platform is obselete, that is a good thing. and what like our current money is actually 'worth' anything anyway? that exact same criticism could be leveled at our current system. currency is a marker for value. people shouldnt be holding excessive 'value' in currencies anyway. that is a hamper to liquidity. currencies are for trading they are not meant to have substantial value. you should buy something of value with it. I would rather property and shares in a business than american dollars or bitcoin that is for sure. but i would rather trade bitcoin to get them thats for sure. bitcoin is simply a superior currency.

4 hours later 4927790 Anonymous
>>4927773 Sub-national only http://www.lietaer.com/2010/09/the- story-of-curitiba-in-brazil/ complementary currencies are only good for extremely effected areas China and the US can benefit from it locally but it would not make them rich as that is impossible. complementary currencies can only bring the poor to a region to a national average level but not beyond

4 hours later 4927794 Anonymous
and besides what is there that actually competes with crypto-currency? this shit? >>4927712 what centralised agency decides all these values? that shit will be illegal/co-opted into reserve banking in no time. many alternative systems and currencies have existed long before bitcoin was invented and all of them got BTFO. bitcoin has survived, flourished and hit every corner of the globe. talk about equality, destroying exchange rates alone makes crypto-currency one of the greatest humanitarian inventions in decades. plus it is completely decentralised i have yet to see any other decentralised system, any system that isnt will not scale up, any system with a central regulation authority will be destroyed before it gains any wide spread adoption.

4 hours later 4927797 Anonymous
>>4927783 First point: The value of our current currency is that I can pay taxes with it. Essentially it is debt held against the government. Only if people lose faith in the government (this happens, i.e south america etc) will my money become worthless. Thankfully I live in Australia. However, people have a much higher chance on losing faith in bitcoin, because it genuinely has no value other than exchange value. Second point: If things start becoming priced in bitcoin and other competing currencies, one day my house could be worth 1000 bit coins, the next 200 if people lose faith in it, and then maybe in a different currency it could be worth 400, how do I know the accurate price. This is the value of a centralised currency, asset price stability. Of course on a worldwide scale this would be difficult (different economic speeds, etc) and also lead to instability. So cenralised currency at a domestic level is optimal. Third point: If you are holding minimal cash just for transactions, the effects of 2-3% inflation is not going to send you broke.

5 hours later 4927812 Anonymous
>>4927790 They could have given them money instead of bus tokens it wouldn't have made a difference. All the government did basically was print money (create bus tokens) and exchange that for a service (pick up garbage). This boosts demand. Evidence: bus tokens are used to exchange goods at market (essentially money). This is basically what the federal government does in a recession. They create money through the fed, borrow it, then spend it. Your example could be used as an alterate way to boost aggregate demand when the local government is unable to control the currency or increase their budget. I actually like the article though, it's a really good example of Keynesian economics and how government spending (garbage pick up) can be used to benefit the environment. One thing worth noting is that the gdp figures quoted are not stated as to whther they are in nominal or real terms. I would assume nominal because traditionally real is written rgdp. This would make sense then that their gdp rose because generally if you create money, inflation rises. That's a risk.

5 hours later 4927815 Anonymous
>>4927812 Government giving stuff will always be reduced somehow down the line before making it to its destination. When working up backwards the people benefit immediately at equal cost to government.

5 hours later 4927817 Anonymous
>>4927794 The price values (trade credit) are arbitrary. They are determined by supply and demand. demand was asusmed to be fixed. When supply was less the price went up. So the lowest supply corresponds with the highest price listed i.e s1=p4 s2=p3. You consider the numbers to be ordinal rather than cardinal, I should have said that. The example given can be used in regard to bitcoin as well. All it did was prove how speculating in commodities can be beneficial to society

5 hours later 4927821 Anonymous
>>4927815 Not if there are people unemployed (which the article notes e.g underutilised bus system). The point is to boost demand and get the juices flowing again.

5 hours later 4927823 Anonymous
>>4927797 When governments start accepting crypto-currencies then you will be able to pay tax directly with it. Crypto currencies and bitcoin are not going anywhere. It is the largest distributed computing system on the planet, it is far more stable than the australian or any other government will ever be. Your faith is misplaced. Come now, not one mention of usury? Every dollar backed by the government is lent to the government at interest. It can never be paid back. All fiat reserve banking currencies are completely unsustainable and are a tool used to enslave the people via debt. When cyrpto-currencies gain more traction the volatility will decrease. I have no doubt when any government floats a currency in the beginning it will be volatile.

5 hours later 4927847 Anonymous
>>4927823 Well so far the total market cap of bitcoin is 0.3% of the m2 money supply of Turkey. I don't think governments will respect this anytime soon. My dollars are not lent to the government at interest. Yes I am effectively holding government debt at -2% real interest rate because of inflation, but this is not a bad thing. 2% inflation is a good amount, when you start getting close to 0 you have problems, deflation crises etc. Even if bitcoin becomes popular, they will also need to manage it for a stable inflation rate as well.

5 hours later 4927852 Anonymous
>>4927847 It is still early days yet. In the beginning facebook had a tiny market share, no one wanted to leave myspace simply because everyone was on myspace. Its the early adopters that are getting on board now, once they are all on the mainstream swing occurs it will be swift and voluminous. Inflation is not a good thing. Stability is what is important. Stuff has value, why would the value increasing for ever be a good thing? all we end up doing is shifting the goal posts, we throw out the 2c coins and shuffle all the notes and coins down... bitcoin is a deflationary currency it has a finite amount of coins. getting rid of inflation and usury is the point.

5 hours later 4927859 Anonymous
>>4927847 and every dollar created is lent to the government by the reserve, so how is it that you dont pay the interest? the government is just the common wealth, the collection of all the people in the country. without reserve banking and central banking authorities our country and our commonwealth would be richer for it, which is us. explain to me what about my understanding is wrong and how it is that paying interest on a debt that can never ever be paid back is a good idea? why is usury a good idea? or what about it do i not understand correctly? surely the cost of usury is that the inflation slowly increases the cost of living indefinitely I mean my grandparents paid their mortgage in dollars a month now it takes two people working full time to pay back the 2,000-10,000 a month it costs to service a house loan. on an interest rate of 7% on something that is half a million dollars, 2% is actually a pretty big deal.

5 hours later 4927871 Anonymous
WHY NOT HAVE INTEREST FREE CURRENCY. LIKE THE GREENBACK THAT LINCOLN AND KENNEDY WERE TRYING TO ESTABLISH BUT WERE ASSASSINATED

6 hours later 4927873 Anonymous
Why not allow banks to issue their own currencies, destroying the governments current monopoly on currency by fiat and allowing the currency from the most successful banks to flourish under free market conditions?

6 hours later 4927881 Anonymous
>>4927852 What incentive do banks/holding companies/whatever have to provide loans, then? You can't build a financial structure without usury.

6 hours later 4927897 Anonymous
>>4927881 I was talking about the interest on the currency itself? not what banks charge to lend. >>4927873 governments do not have a monopoly on currency, the bankers already own the reserve banks. crypto-currency is the flourishing free market currency.

6 hours later 4927903 Anonymous
>>4927897 The point stands. Bitcoins can't move in the same way as fiat currency. How can they be loaned in an effective way?

7 hours later 4927969 Anonymous
>>4927903 bitcoin is in simple terms just digital cash and a public ledger at its core, it is not really any different to cash and a notebook. why exactly can't a bank lend bitcoin? widespread adoption will see more user friendly interfaces. banks will of course start working in bitcoin as there is money to be made in it and they already have the infrastructure to work in the technology, the computers and the bank branches. Once more is mined and millibits are in use there will be more than enough to support real estate transactions and its deflationary shit wont cost stupid amounts anymore the value of everything will stabilize on what its actually worth. I mean some of the traders right now classify as a sort of crypto-currency bank. They are just in infancy, small banks and credit union type organisations are/will all be getting in over the next few years. The big banks wont like loosing market share as soon as one jumps in head first they will all start to follow. At this point fiat is dead man walking.

7 hours later 4927970 Anonymous
Silvio Gesell. It's monetary, but very different.

7 hours later 4927991 Anonymous
>>4927969 >bitcoin is in simple terms just digital cash and a public ledger at its core, it is not really any different to cash and a notebook. >why exactly can't a bank lend bitcoin? the difference is that the banks cannot lend more bitcoins than they have. With normal money, banks don't 'lend money they have', the lend money they don't have (they only have about 10 percent). Fucking 'fiat money', doesn't work with bitcoin.

7 hours later 4927996 Anonymous
>>4927969 >Once more is mined and millibits are in use there will be more than enough to support real estate transactions and its deflationary shit wont cost stupid amounts anymore the value of everything will stabilize on what its actually worth. >I mean some of the traders right now classify as a sort of crypto-currency bank. They are just in infancy, small banks and credit union type organisations are/will all be getting in over the next few years. >The big banks wont like loosing market share as soon as one jumps in head first they will all start to follow. >At this point fiat is dead man walking. Bitcoin doesn't support the business model of banks, as I pointed out: >>4927991 Instead of what you describe, they will just have the lawmakers tax the shit out of crypto-currencies.

8 hours later 4928016 Anonymous
>>4927991 which is exactly the kind of behavior that should be left in the past where it belongs, along with derivatives and all that other stupid made up economic voodoo bullshit. Since the creation of fiat currency everything in society has been inflated to absolutely stupid values. An average house is not worth half a million dollars. It can take 5 men less than a month to build an entire house yet it takes 2 people 35 fucking years to pay that shit off? halve it for land value and that is 17.5 years or 210 months divide that by 5 guys and its 42 months. I mean even estimating for materials the value of a house is over inflated to fuck some 25-50x its actual value. doesn't that strike you as odd??? without inflation everything will have a proper value. and bitcoin can be divided into millionths of a bitcoin, there is more than enough. And even if there isn't it is just the 1st of any number of possible implementations of crypto currency. Bitcoin is gold, there is already a clear silver and there will no doubt eventually be a clear bronze. bitcoin is already taxed under capitol gains tax in america and after that happened the value went up. bitcoin is headless mesh network, it will be like trying to kill bittorent all over again. if you wanted to impress me you should have stated the obvious that the only, the only thing that poses even a slight risk to the inevitable rise of crypto currencies is loss of net neutrality.

8 hours later 4928022 Anonymous
>>4928016 But furthermore open trust networks the technology that bitcoin is based on, have far wider implications than just money. They are a formalization of mesh networks. The dominance of the star network is over. Internet service providers will also find themselves in the obsolete bucket along with fiat currency, the recording industry goons and all the others that sit at the congregation point of a star network and parasitically glut themselves on monopolizing access to the network.

8 hours later 4928024 Anonymous
>>4927150 never heard about barter? it's a truly progressive 5000 BC kind of thing

8 hours later 4928046 Anonymous (Marcel Mauss.jpg 165x240 8kB)
>>4928024 do you even potlatch?

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