Money supply, and, money as paper

I'm not denying that money is a potent force. But even if money itself is so powerful (ha ha - little pieces of paper, or worse yet, nothing - are powerful? That sounds like some kind of joke) there are logically speaking, two things you can do with it: put more in or take more out. Money itself is a thing we should always question in a fundamental way.

In the largest sense, then, money has this twofold quality of being both very powerful and of being really very similar to a joke or to being just nothing at all. We should not forget this later aspect: the illusory, fictive side of its nature.

Once we attain this kind of balance in our understanding we can look -- in a reserved, conditional and suspicious way -- at money's apparent power. But if it has this power, the quandry is of what to do. Take it out? Put it in? Redistro? Move it around? That could make a good pop song.

one final comment: conservative will probably suggest that we neither put some in nor take some out but that the money supply should just be fixed and should remain stabilized more or less. This kind of fiscal conservatism was refuted of course by Keynes. But no one was doing that in any case, so it seems like an irrelevant thing to say. Capitalists are generally going to use all of the power they can get from money. Bankers make money from loaning out money, and, from what I understand, they just invent money sometimes in order to make these loans. If these reports are true it seems natural that eventually they could not be repaid, and, at the same time, for an incredibly long time they could be repaid just enough to keep the insane, greedy selfish system going.

Capitalism

Capitalism mixes and shakes and allows people to interact.

Artificial Infusions of Cash

Artificial infusions of cash -- I guess -- stimulate capitalism. What is happening is that the circular movement of money through the economy acts as stimulus in terms of a very simple stimulus-response reaction. Yet, somehow, that is not enough. To create a better, deeper explanation requires an economist. Alas, we have plenty of those.
But they do not seem to be able to provide much of any such -- explanation. They provide mush of such --- such explanation.

Let me just propose the following, until next time.

These monetary, fiscal, financial stimulations are shallow ones. The real stimulus-response situation is that capitalism stimulates human social interaction.

Let's try to state this in different wording for the next post.

Not taking Care of Things

We are just sitting around, not taking care of things. We are not taking care of our economic system, letting it degenerate.

You see, I was reading Tillich, and then this blog entry came...

Paul Tillich's perspective is theologian one. Starting from there, then, Tillich provides, in a 1952 monograph, a discussion of an interesting contrast. This contrast involves the two concepts of individualization, and participation. The monograph is a book, divided into chapters with subsections. In the "participation" subsection there appears also the word "collective." The discussion as we said is from 1952. The fact that it is 1952 means that this is before the words "participation" and "collective," which are examples of words that have long been the subject of a general, sustained cultural onslaught, were successfully driven out of circulation, the results of which are now manifesting as a toothless American culture. Or: tool-less, rule-less and theory-less. That discussion could still be alive -- if the human race were less corrupt!

A truly healthy discussion would present us with both of these concepts, which is to say the very project Tillich was engaged in, and I would like to add here that, just as the ideas of individual and collective will never be (we may add, "collectively") settled, neither can we be successful at putting the individual parts of capitalism permanently together for a theory representing a dead or static capitalism. Because it isn't dead or static. Instead there are a number of considerations at once. There is no way to finally unite all of them in one theory because of the way these variables represent as life itself. Here's an example based on train travel. These considerations are simultaneous and never equate with one another.

Are there any empty seats? (demography or demand)

What exactly is the price? (quantitative)

Which is the quality of the product? (qualitative, not quantitative)

Add to this the existential "to be or not to be" questions (why capitalism at all? Will a terrorist attack come? Will travel even be safe? Why does Amtrak actually exist in that space, and if so, why not privately owned? Why instead government owned?) and I think it irrefutable that no one theory can ever be created as to how all these combine. No way. It cannot be done -- not the way economists do it at any rate. In connection with this consider that in the world everything is in flux, therefore not stable. The mere fact of living in a capitalistic society does not have the power or authority or authority over logic to drive a conclusion that this can be analyzed with the kinds of explanations, theories and conclusions that derive out of the field of economics. This is personal vanity on the part of economists.
Capitalism is in flux, and it is part of a changing, insecure world.

Crashing Economics

My concept in thinking about the future has been that of a complete collapse in either a) the economy or b) the actual society. This is my thinking that I am choosing to share. In my thinking an economic collapse is relatively good because of the alternative. The alternative to economic disaster is a social disaster. Or as the rock band Nig Heist called it, the "fall" of the society ... of the constructed, coordinated social world.

If we lost the ability to coordinate any support services for the population, thousands of persons, most persons will die. This means us; the bankers of course will survive in their bunkers. I guess. Not everyone want to think about this but if you choose to do so, this makes sense: because whereas an economy can be rebuilt using culture, the culture itself cannot rebuild itself ... without itself.
The upshot, in my thinking, is that if something has to fall and the economy does not then it will be the culture, or the social world. You could also call it the social base. (Chomsky has used that term, in his book in conversation with a French lady.) That social base is not something we understand very well at all. But its function seems to be independent of its being the recipient of any understanding. It functions. It has been functioning for - let's use a ballpark figure - a thousand years. I think that we could include two thousand if we want to identify with Romans, or only three or four hundred, to just cover modernity: on the theory that modernity is all we know anyway.
Now how does the social base function? The humans use money to make it function - somehow. Of course, Martians might use something else but humans use money. It's all kind of hard to explain. According to what I call traditional conservative schools of thought (it is social thought; social philosophy) the phenomenon of society relates to a sort of voluntary or given (hmmm..did I mean involuntary or voluntary?) social cooperation, or the "traditional" element of culture. I sure hope this shit makes sense. But, at any rate: It is human. It happens by itself. And therefore it is neither possible nor necessary to rationalize, modify, intervene or in fact even to totally explain it. So they just say "hands off" "don't interfere" "no government interference!" And it makes perfect sense that culture or tradition is one thing that is not amenable to rational explanation.

So, there is something suspect about the govenment (or any force at all) modifying the culture. However it also seems to be true that no one ever thinks deeply about economics. At least linguistically, "economics" is a different word: both as signified and signifier (or sign and signifier or however that stuff goes). Consider now that the basic cultural system and the economic system are today closely related. This, however, does not necessarily mean that economics "takes care of itself," just like it is asserted that society or culture does, since there must be some reason for the introduction for the term "economics," laid over the idea of culture or traditional society. Economics swamps culture and takes it over. They tell us not to see the usurper as a beast, but as natural, as rational, as friendly. There is really no reason to believe it if they tell us that not only that mysterious entity of "culture," but economics as well is by nature not open to any modification, interference, "government interference" and so forth. These are in fact just assertions they make. We may summarize by suggesting that any part of culture is indeed subject to investigation (or intervention, etc.), while it is only "the" culture, as an organic entity, that is not subject to certain interventions, analyses, liberals' interferences and liberal programs, etc. If this were the way we understood the semantic differences between "culture" and "economics," it would upset the conservatives' whole apple-cart.
This brings up an interesting point which is that of the appearance of a contradiction. I mean on my part. This is because on the first posts of this blog it says that capitalism goes down its path regardless --- i.e. of commentator or commentary --- the commentator in this case being F. Hayek (or else Reagan and Thatcher). This would seem to support the view suggested above that conservatives apply to the artificially doubled up category of culture as well as capitalistic free market economic phenomena. One could also, at this point, ask just what we mean by "interference in markets," the result of which is to show that certain interventions go on all the time and are quite necessary, so then I must have meant some kind of larger pre-destination of the overall cultural phenomenon.
But if we accept that I did say in the first posts that capitalism goes on its way, then now I seem to be saying the opposite. Now I am saying we should understand it. (Which is what economists try to do.) I seem to be saying that economics does not go down its own path at all. Rather, we should intervene. We should understand and intervene. So which do I believe? The problem is easily solved. It simply depends on the context. Up until now, capitalism had a path to go down and nobody could have interfered with it. In that part of the blog, there is a criticism of Hayek, it seems, saying that his comments are not really relevant in any profound way at all.
The time to intervene in capitalism has come. There is nothing like an idea whose time has come.
My first two posts give the idea that capitalism goes down its own path regardless of what commentaries persons make. The present post opposes this same belief, this because times have changed. Thus, it is not the case that economics in our day somehow takes care of itself, all by itself (which the reader will note was exactly what Hayek thought).
On the one hand, capitalism has its own path to take; no one can interfere with it. So in that case, we can follow the conservatives' advice and not talk about it at all. On the other, where is the harm in one's attempting to understand one's times? To refuse knowledge is one of the worst sins of all. Because: the time has come to intervene in capitalism, and if we do not investigate we'll never find that out. Now, to say that this matter of understanding economics is only a matter of "understanding" that lasseiz-faire should rule and we should stop "interfering" is completely inadequate. It is of the absurd. It is absurd because it is saying that to understand is to understand the fact that we do not need to understand. No one would go for that. The question, then, is that of where understanding comes into economics at all.
Yet I did say was that the traditional conservative belief that culture takes care of itself, by itself, may have something to it. I just do not believe that we should presume for any reason that what holds for culture in general holds for the application of our minds to the matter of economics --- which our intelligensia today fail to think skillfully about.
The dominance of culture by economics is something quite new. Economics turns out to be an invitation to understand, one that we turn down only in order to prove that we all deserve to perish. That is what we can demonstrate by our failure to understand our world, and that abysmal failure will be merely cheer-led, by the benighted later day followers of Hayek.

Right now, it's true, the economy seems to be collapsing. Better we let it happen; there are plenty of alternatives --- plenty of ways to go about building up a new economy. This is about creativity, and the human capacity. There are already plenty of ideas floating around out there. We can call it the capacity to make money. It is about the capacity to make money doing more than exploring the wacky world of high finance. It is about actually working. Is that offensive? It is an open secret that many persons have been, for the past twenty or more years, making more money doing nothing than people who work.
I think maybe the truth is that it is only persons who have been doing wrong all their lives who fear the changes that would come. We need reassure them and make it so they feel less fear. There will be a place in the new order for them, too. They probably think we are going to come and get them. No, no, no. These freaks should be given small condominium apartments, and taken for walks once a week if they aren't afraid of grass. But why should we fear a bunch of insane persons? We should just let the economy collapse. That's my opinion anyway.

(You might want to look at one of N. Kristoff's Sunday Oct 18 columns, on his NYT blog --oh god I have now mentioned them twice -- for my comment. It comes in on the blog part, not the original column, as number 95)

That blog seems unweildy, so here it is directly:
“… These beneficiaries tend to be low-income families, thus in this respect the poor may benefit. Likewise, a recession lowers prices of gas, oil and food, which disproportionately affect the poor. …”

"That makes sense. If the rich are basically partying on the corpses of the poor, and the party becomes diminished, the poor get a little breathing space — the few that aren’t already dead." You could still read Kristoff's column, of course, on either the NYT website or directly on the NYT Kristoff blog thang.

(Special to NYT: I'm sorry I couldn't force readers to your blogs directly. I'll send you a refund. For now, pout.)

It's Called Cheating and Hypocrisy

The fundamental point the critics are not making concerns the hypocrisy of the top thieves. The human personality is most basically regulated by shame. We may also call that feeling guilt or “face.” The top thieves are not going to admit they are hypocrites - because that would be to lose face.

America, as Britain, is not great or important because corporate executives steal but rather this country becomes great when global regions/countries share much of their incoming or oncoming/developing wealth - their newly developing capitalistic wealth - in the sense of distribution to their own populations. For example, observe Braudel's phrase: "growth of the home market." Capitalist entrepreneurialism should be understood as having nurtured social growth. We should tyr to understand what we mean by "social growth." It's important. The wealth that was coming in or coming on, or being worked up, was, as noted just above, fairly widely distributed, which is to say within certain relative boundaries. It worked this way regardless of whatever low, mean intentions society might have had. So, it worked that way. This wealth gave the contesting reformers and rights advocates and so forth the strength to protect others from the small-mindedness and the greed of the very worst of our sad (arguably)/human race. This helps explain why we became great, or big and powerful. It is not because we were nice – or because we were Christian. But it worked that way.

“Hypocrisy” means these guys prefer stealing. They should be exposed. They are folks who have voluntarily made the decision to steal from their fellows – from others in their own “nations” or home base countries, than do the alternative. The alternative is called honesty and it need not be further clarified. What I mean should be obvious; it demands of no clarification. It is obvious from context alone. These actions of theirs are hypocrisy. It is also called “stealing.” They are hypocrites. They are doing this to us all. They are stealing. They are forwarding invisble, made-up money throught the fractional reserve system. It has a palpable feeling of wrongness but yet they do it. They know very well what they are doing. There is no lack of clarity about it. Yet they will never admit this. This story will not close on them unless some outside factor called las enforcement closes it on them. They know it’s wrong and they do it. They are actively involved in hypocrisy.

They had a choice. They and their financial institutions could have forwarded real money out to the bank (loan) customers, as that money became available to them, and then they could have collected their interest. Perhaps even this kind of money supply creation is not wrong; perhaps it is just the honesty about who, what when, what is the source of the money, etc. is all that was needed. All of that suffices as legitimate. Instead, they chose to steal it. They did so by accepting the creation of phony money – “credit” – and taking their profit in that interest that they received on it. This is what they did. This is how they subsist and how they live.

This is what I understand about it. If I am a small banker, (there are many, many honest small bankers) I have to take that money. I take it to loan it out to yet another creditor/debtor. (These two words function as much the same thing). He repays. I take my money, and now the small banker can pay back the loan to the original lender. That original lender is corrupted, and this false creature with no integrity gets its money – the share of the interest paid back on the made-up money. It is dishonest.
Then the debt piles up. That’s why we have all that debt today, but it’s not real money, anywhere. If it is real – where is it?
The final stage of course is when debtors “renege” if you will. Basically they just cannot pay, for whatever reasons they may have, most of them better than the reasons the lender had for lending out fake money. The economy goes into quasi-real failure. Now you fix it. Don’t you?
The bankers were dishonest. They are intelligent people. They knew. If they had not known, but acted as human “dummies,” then there would remain honest persons next to them. An honest, knowing man would be right next to them, at their elbow, so to speak, and would have said, “oh, no. We must stick to the money supply as it is.” The economy has no requirement that fake money has to be poured into it. That’s fake. It is unnecessary. Fakery is unnecessary. You do create a few thousand (or billion) dollars originally and you can work with that. Where is it that you need invented, extra money? If person “A” invents money to lend this is an immediately unfair act. He gets an immediate advantage as long as the economy itself really works - to give it back. And thus, this is not honest.