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[martinuzz]

So, how do you couple money with supply and demand? One might think barter, but that doesn't work for mass scale economies.

I dunno. Global planned economy and resource management perhaps.

[Sergarr]

The gist of it is that currency as a means to accomodate trade has become so decoupled from supply and demand that it has become a commodity of itself, with it's own supply and demand, not based on natural occurance, but on greed.

Money is always a commodity, it's just a special kind of commodity that is optimized for financial/trading needs.

So money having its own supply and demand is nothing unusual, in fact, it wouldn't really work without such things, especially in modern debt-based economies, which practically revolve around manipulations with money supply/demand over time via various financial instruments.

So, how do you couple money with supply and demand? One might think barter, but that doesn't work for mass scale economies.

I dunno. Global planned economy and recource management perhaps.

That would not work, because humanity would NOT be able to agree on a single plan for the entire world.

EDIT: wow that was a stupid mistake.

[Frumple]

So, how do you couple money with supply and demand? One might think barter, but that doesn't work for mass scale economies.

Well, there's this thing where the strength of the currency is more or less based on the power and reliability of what ensures it, or something fairly close to that. Like, say. A country's government or somethin'. Oddly enough, it's one of the more economically stable ways of going about things, particularly if managed correctly.

[Rolepgeek]

I would not characterize it as greed.

Not that greed isn't involved, it just seems to miss the point.

Currency has become so universally trade-able, and everything so reliant upon it, that it has become capital in and of itself, and the potential for it to be used (invested) has become it's principal value, which results in people trying to create value by allocating it to the right places (and capture the created value for themselves, obviously). The issue arises when the whole process is so obscure and hard to figure out that it becomes a breeding ground for people who are effectively swindlers. Moreover, when money=power=status, the typical means of correcting defective behavior, from an evolutionary standpoint, fails, as reputation losses can be overcome easily as long as you retain wealth. Likewise, as it serves as a lever for power, and is a more effective lever the more different types of power it can be translated into, wealth sustains itself and tries to prevent it's own confiscation. Add to that the 'taxation market' that drives taxes down on the rich who can move at leisure, and you have issues for anyone who isn't already there. It is not impossible to become rich, it's just really hard, and requires more than just work; it needs luck. Luck for something to not go wrong as much as luck for something to go right.

It's a cultural construct I suppose, but so are group dynamics and familial interactions. I look at it like an ecosystem or organism or what-have-you. It follows certain laws as a tendency (not a hard rule), but these laws interact with themselves and each other and are complex enough that it can be really difficult to figure out which levers to push and how hard they need to be pushed, especially with how intimately it interacts with human psychology.

It's meant to serve as a way of allocating resources effectively when there's not enough to go around perfectly. Which means when there is enough, and it's a necessity, it runs into problems.

We do have wage caps on CEOs, I believe, there's just no cap on bonuses. I figure that past a million dollars a year, personal income can be taxed around 95%, and that bonuses shouldn't be higher than your annual salary.

Debt-based economies are rather fragile, unfortunately. >.> I would very much like to see several aspects of Islamic banking practice become the norm.

[martinuzz]

There is no "No, you cannot pay yourself more than this amount for running a business.", which is the part we sorely need right now.

Over here, there's some trends developing in that direction. A recent law forbade CEOs and board members of semi-public services (that's how we call former public works that have been privatized), and CEOs and board members of companies that recieve government subsidies from earning more than our PM (which is a modest sum of 'only' about 175k euros a year).
And more and more banks are preparing to get rid of their bonus-culture, or in some cases, already have. Still long ways to go though. And overall, the gap between workfloor and management income has never been as high as it is.

[wierd]

Particularily the top-most wages, which is where the gap is running away from itself. Though I can't see people neccesarily agree on where such a max wage cap would be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_wage Cuba is kind of the only one with one (Egypt did recently though), and it's pretty draconian.

The criticisms of the article are correct. In and of itself, a max wage does not solve the problem, because the wealthy will move to non-direct payment methods, such as capital gains, and stock options.

It would require comprehensive reform, that limits capital gains income per year, limits how you can be paid for a vocation to financial transactions of currency only (No stock options, or other forms of indirect remuneration) and would need to be on a level so high that ordinary people would never get paid that much anyway per year, coupled with a low min wage.

Say, 1mil every year-- total income. (Includes capital gains).  Anything over is immediately confiscated for the public coffers for necessary infrastructure.

[smjjames]

Debt-based economies are rather fragile, unfortunately. >.> I would very much like to see several aspects of Islamic banking practice become the norm.

Such as....?

Particularily the top-most wages, which is where the gap is running away from itself. Though I can't see people neccesarily agree on where such a max wage cap would be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_wage Cuba is kind of the only one with one (Egypt did recently though), and it's pretty draconian.

The criticisms of the article are correct. In and of itself, a max wage does not solve the problem, because the wealthy will move to non-direct payment methods, such as capital gains, and stock options.

It would require comprehensive reform, that limits capital gains income per year, limits how you can be paid for a vocation to financial transactions of currency only (No stock options, or other forms of indirect remuneration) and would need to be on a level so high that ordinary people would never get paid that much anyway per year, coupled with a low min wage.

Say, 1mil every year-- total income. (Includes capital gains).  Anything over is immediately confiscated for the public coffers for necessary infrastructure.

The last bit sounds a little like communism, or maybe socialism.

[martinuzz]

Debt-based economies are rather fragile, unfortunately. >.> I would very much like to see several aspects of Islamic banking practice become the norm.

Such as....?

Not being allowed to charge interest on loans. In practice though, modern islamic banks don't adhere to it, and circumvent it in many ways.

[wierd]

Lender banks are different from western usery banking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking_and_finance

It is similar to jewish banking, except traditionally jews only offered this to each other and charged everyone else usery.


Under the rules of the US's federal reserve system, a bank can lend out 9X the amount deposited there. Even when no interest is paid on deposit, or charged on loans, a bank can thus accumulate absurd volumes of wealth, without harming its clients.

EG, Urist deposits 10 urists of coins in Armok's Bank and Trust.  Ducim, the banker, can then lend Atir, and his 8 buddies 10 urists each, and the government is OK with this.  Atir must repay the full 10 urists that Ducim loaned him, but does not have to pay any interest. Ducim has turned 10 urists of deposit into 90 urists of bank liquidity after all repayments are made.

He can then turn around and lend THAT out 9x, and so on, and so forth. It is geometric growth.

As a consolation, the debt that Atir owes Ducim is non-dischargable. He MUST pay Ducim that money back, as agreed.

[smjjames]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/13/politics/donald-trump-60-minutes-first-interview/index.html?adkey=bn  He supports ditching the electoral college, or in favor of getting rid of it, which is cool. No surprise that he is trending more liberal.

Of course though, so many people on both sides of the aisle hate the EC that it wouldn't matter whether he favored getting rid of it or not, though getting rid of it would actually be a political plus most likely.

[wierd]

Debt-based economies are rather fragile, unfortunately. >.> I would very much like to see several aspects of Islamic banking practice become the norm.

Such as....?

Particularily the top-most wages, which is where the gap is running away from itself. Though I can't see people neccesarily agree on where such a max wage cap would be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_wage Cuba is kind of the only one with one (Egypt did recently though), and it's pretty draconian.

The criticisms of the article are correct. In and of itself, a max wage does not solve the problem, because the wealthy will move to non-direct payment methods, such as capital gains, and stock options.

It would require comprehensive reform, that limits capital gains income per year, limits how you can be paid for a vocation to financial transactions of currency only (No stock options, or other forms of indirect remuneration) and would need to be on a level so high that ordinary people would never get paid that much anyway per year, coupled with a low min wage.

Say, 1mil every year-- total income. (Includes capital gains).  Anything over is immediately confiscated for the public coffers for necessary infrastructure.

The last bit sounds a little like communism, or maybe socialism.

That depends on the method of seizure.

If you say "YOu must reinvest in your business's core infrastructure, such as training, or premises", you are still doing exactly what I said-- all the extra must be paid to infrastructure, and is decidedly "not communist" in its nature. The business owner/admin gets to pick what infrastructure he invests in.

If you say "Nope! Uncy sam will take all that, and use it to (insert social program here)", THAT is communism.

In the former, it is functionally equal to paying it to the government, because the government does not have to pay for it, where otherwise they would.

In the latter, you just remove the business owner's accumen for business, and put it in the hands of dangerous elected officials on how to use the money.

In both cases, it is functionally exactly what I said--- however, the former is significantly more free market in nature than the latter.

[Rolepgeek]

Debt-based economies are rather fragile, unfortunately. >.> I would very much like to see several aspects of Islamic banking practice become the norm.

Such as....?

Not being allowed to charge interest on loans. In practice though, modern islamic banks don't adhere to it, and circumvent it in many ways.

Well, not exactly. Or rather, that's not exactly the part I like.

A lot of islamic banking has the lender and borrower sharing risk, rather than all of it falling on the borrower, essentially. They also don't do debt/credit with interest rates, they do flat deals where the bank makes a predetermined profit; which also makes it harder for the bank to gouge borrowers with fees and the like.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/13/politics/donald-trump-60-minutes-first-interview/index.html?adkey=bn  He supports ditching the electoral college, or in favor of getting rid of it, which is cool. No surprise that he is trending more liberal.

Of course though, so many people on both sides of the aisle hate the EC that it wouldn't matter whether he favored getting rid of it or not, though getting rid of it would actually be a political plus most likely.

Watch in wonder, awe, and no small amount of fear as Donald does a complete 180 on almost all his shitty platform ideas over the next 18 months and truly manages to make America Great Again, while keeping the views that everyone mostly agrees on

And the only thing he leaves us to regret is how much we spent on the fucking wall

[wierd]

iirc, his pan for making Mexico pay for it goes like this:

The USA pays X$ every year to Mexico for aid, and other programs.
Trump witholds Y% of X$ every year, and uses it to build the wall.

This is functionally equivalent to making mexico pay for the wall.

[smjjames]

I don't think he even HAS a plan, or his plan is just to wing it.

Though it would be completely within his past practice to find some financial loopholery to 'extract' the money from Mexico.

It would have to be some lucrative loopholes though as I heard that building the wall would cost several billion.

[wierd]

He'll just find some sort of chicanery where he can turn for profit business ventures into aid orgs, so he can monetize their suffering, to extract the funds needed.

Or, find some way to make other people hold the bag.