Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: Growth, Interest and Wage Inequality - To the austrian economists here
by
jtimon
on 18/07/2011, 17:58:10 UTC
You have not answered why you think its ok to earn a profit by renouncing to use a car (f.e.) for some time but its not ok if its money.

Is not immoral to charge interest on money lending, is just the way money works as it is today.
But money is not a product, is more like a contract between all its users. And that contract can be flawed and lead to undesirable effects.

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Just enough houses to meet demand. Just enough houses to drop the capital yields to zero like profits do naturally.

They dont drop to cero naturally. They tend to zero because of competition, but then new products or improvements on previous products appear which allow someone to charge more for a while... and again and again.

Exactly. And the same could happen with happen with capital yields. Only when some lack of a certain capital good is in place can that capital produce yield.
If the demand for that capital was fully satisfied, the capital yield would tend to zero.
By competition between the capitals of the same type, the yield would drop to zero, but capital not only has to compete with the capitals of its same type, but with all the capital.
Money is artificially scarce and is the only capital whose yields cannot drop to zero by competition. Ironically is also the only capital that doesn't produce anything of value.

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With freicoin, for example, you would still have interest rates and information, but they would be around zero instead of around 3, 4, 5 or whatever you consider natural.

But I though interest rates were bad? Anyway, freicoin would not have low interest rates. While it lasted the lack of demand for the money would push price inflation up thus interest rates up. Then freicoin would disappear as people choosed another currency.

Freicoin would start with no value at all, just like bitcoin did. I don't believe you can expect inflation from there.
You believe that no one would accept it, but if some people did; How would it produce poverty?
Why demurrage is not producing poverty in the communities that operate with it? 

Ripple is fine. Its a system that monetizes real goods. I have not followed the project and I dont know why it has not developed more but its a shame that it hasnt.

Ehm...It's a system that monetizes mostly debt, but everyone can do it to the extend their partners trust them, not only banks.
I hope I can contribute with the implementation soon.

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Why was good in Worgl during the great deppression and many neighboring villages wanted to copy the system (until the central bank prohibited it)?

2 issues. 1) During the Great Depression there was a contraction on credit and alternative currencies help mitigate the lack of cash. Almost any alternative method of payment would have helped. 2) It did not last. Monetary events take years and decades to develop.

Fair enough, but there's examples of free money operating right now, look at how many times "Liquidity Tax", "Circulation Incentive", "Demurrage" or "circulation-protection fee" appears in this list.

You can not judge a currency for a few years opperating, dont you think?

You're judging freicoin without having even started so I guess that we can.

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The idea of Gesell wasn't the more money circulation the more wealth. His idea was "what goes to interest and capital yields doesn't go to wages and profits"

Why? The same could be said from any kind of activity that produces profit.

The difference is that profits disappear by competition and capital yields are artificially maintained "high" by the current design of money.

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and "Interest artificially limits capital accumulation".

Why? Im guessing he will say that it pushes money into a few hands thus money does not circulate and the economy does not perform good enough.

Simply by competing "dishonestly" with other capitals. The accumulation of every type of capital stops when that type of capital yields less than money itself (which as said doesn't produce any good or service on its own).