Quote from: Rassah on July 01, 2011, 07:21:12 PM

Quote from: jtimon on July 01, 2011, 06:44:14 PM

Also Bernard Liater explains how interest promotes short term thinking.
He states "Short-term thinking is not intrinsic to human nature, but created by todays money system".
I have not read his book "The future of money" but I want to do it (if anyone finds it for free in the web, please give me the link).
I've just read some of his articles and watched some interviews, but he's an interesting man.

Heh, that's a rather weird statement, considering the human lifespan used to be an average of maybe 30 years just a few centuries ago, and considering how comfortable we are with things like apps, podcasts, vlogs, twitters, snacks, and other short-term bits of information and activities.
To me, personally, interest is a guarantee that I will either get paid for use of my resources, or for taking on risk. No different than if I was to charge someone daily rental fee for using my power tools or my car, regardless of what they use it for.

We want to suppress the basic interest, not the risk premium.
When you rent your car, it deteriorates and you get paid for that, but money lasts forever.
When you lend free-money, it deteriorates in the hands of the borrower, but you get payed the same quantity, to compensate you for the inconvenience of non being able to spend it during the loan. If you don't lend your free-money, it rots in your hands, but you can spent it when you want.
In some sense I think holding money is a privilege, because you're asking the society to wait until you decide how you want to be compensated for the value you provided earlier.

Quote from: Rassah on July 01, 2011, 07:21:12 PM

In the long-run, though, if someone has an idea about something we have been using for a very long time, using very old technology, chances are someone else has thought of it hundreds of years ago already, and the idea already failed. I wouldn't be surprised if this stamp or destructive money idea was conceived many times in our past, or was simply destructive by it's nature, such as some culture using something that rots or withers (like tulips!

In fact, in the same pdf, you can find:

Historical Precedents: Dynastic Egypt, Age of Cathedrals, Chinese Ming Period

Maybe not the best of history, because probably there was a lot of coercion and centralization too. But their buildings stand as prove of their long term thinking.

What do you think about the Tree Metaphor?