Quote from: Rassah on July 13, 2011, 07:35:47 PM

Quote from: jtimon on July 13, 2011, 06:55:25 PM

Quote from: Rassah on July 13, 2011, 05:20:07 PM

Quote from: jtimon on July 13, 2011, 04:25:10 PM

Money return is interest.

Can you elaborate on this a bit? In my understanding, interest is a return on productive business, and money can only return interest if invested in a productive business. It can't return interest just by itself, and banks/owners of money won't loan it to anyone unless they expect that someone to be productive, and thus provide the "money interest" through their own work.

I should have been more specific. I meant basic interest (or liquidity premium) as described by Gesell, that is, the interest of money when you subtract the risk and inflation premiums to the gross interest.
Money doesn't produce anything by itself, that's why it shouldn't be capital. It "steals" this basic interest from the financing costs of all other capitals.

Sorry, I tried reading that, but it's rather convoluted. It sounds like it's "interest" that the lender charges only because they expect the borrower's product prices to grow, so the lender wants a chunk of that profit, too? Can you maybe give a simpler example of this interest?
From my perspective (and I guess biased business college training), I charge interest for taking on risk and for selling my money's time (money worth more in my hands now than later), and I'm competing with others based on their level of risk tolerance and worth of money. So... I am just having a really hard time wrapping my head around this.

The text you tried to read assumes you've read the whole book.
Maybe you should read this (skipping the first two parts about land) to understand it properly.
I think you're confusing the basic interest with the inflation premium (Hausse-premium).
The basic interest would be, on your words, selling your money's time, which is only possible because money never rots (nominally).
My point was that basic interest puts an upper limit to capital accumulation by putting a lower limit in real capital yields. For Crussoe that lower limit is zero, but with non free money, that lower limit is the basic interest. Also the yield of money (not a real capital) is this basic interest and is subtracted from other capitals yields and from wages, because money doesn't produce anything on its own, it's just a symbol of value.
Anyway, I'm sure Gesell can explain you this better than me. I hope you read the book.