Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: A Resource Based Economy
by
d'aniel
on 30/08/2011, 18:56:18 UTC
Yes, you can create such examples. If the profits are greater than the interests, the debt doesn't have to grow. But when there's losses, someone will eventually buy the failing business with its debts. Well, or it can go bankrupt. It is hard to prove.

Just think this. If a single family would have saved an ounce of gold and lent it with 5% compounding interest (the father gives the gains to the son, etc) since the year 0, their wealth would be right now 4.08959621 * (10 ^ 42) ounces =  1.15938102 * (10 ^ 41)  kilograms.
The total mass of the earth is 5.9742 * (10 ^ 24) kilograms.
So their wealth would be (1.15938102 * (10^41)) / (5.9742 * (10^24)) = 1.94064648 * (10 ^ 16) times the total mass of the earth in gold. Obviously there's not that quantity of gold, so their compounding loan would be eventually unsustainable. Note that the borrowers could have payed back their loans and then the family lent to other people, but the total level of debt to the family would be always increasing.

My argument shows that systematic bankruptcies aren't an inevitable result of compounding interest with a fixed base money supply, not that they aren't ever ensured, even in the most absurdly unrealistic cases.

That businesses which can't turn enough of a profit to finance their debts get new management or go bankrupt is a good thing, as the supply of credit is finite, and this process optimizes its allocation for economic efficiency.  But it's not as though there must exist indebted businesses in the economy that aren't profitable enough to finance their debts.