Thank you KarlX

Pericles
Either you deny that there is any significant difference between money and other media of exchange, which is what you've been doing; in which case obviously there is no need or purpose for legal tender laws; which is why, when asked what they are, you haven't been able to explain what benefit they are to their intended beneficiaries.

Or you admit that there is; in which case you concede what is in issue between us.

Either way, you're making a fool of yourself.

Wm Trevor
>“If we demolish the government's monopoly on the supply of money and someone else supplies money and I want some of that money? What do I buy it with? Whose money?”

Okay, money is the generally accepted medium of exchange, which means that other things are exchanged against money. So the price of all those myriad goods and services, is expressed in money. But the “price” of the money that is exchange for them, is not expressed in money, it’s expressed in the particular array of those other goods and services which it is able to purchase in a given transaction.

In other words, the “price” of money is the purchasing power of money (PPM). You "buy" money with the goods or services you exchange for it.

>Extremely profitable? How so? What, in the money that they've issued? That can't be right…

Why not?

>Because this good money can't be the same thing as the government's bad money so it must be something different and therefore would not be a lowest common denominated currency.

Why not?

>“Anyway whilst I sort through that, use the benefit of the fact Australia is a participatory democracy.

>“Everything is changeable, up to and including the Constitution – by simply convincing sufficient voters of the efficacy of your concepts, Jardine. Since everyone's supposed to act only in their maximal self-interest this should be pretty simple if it's all as hunky dory as you intimate. Exercising their user preferences as it were.”

That assumes that the State is more representative of the people, or of society, than those people, or society, are of themselves.

It isn’t. If you want to run that argument, you need to refute all these arguments first:
“Unrepresentative government”
http://economics.org.au/2010/08/unrepresentative-government/

That also assumes that there is no conflict of interest, as concerns the supply of money, between the State and the people. But that’s what’s in issue. So you can’t assume it. Prove it?

You yourself recently said words to that effect that the older you get, the more you are inclined to believe that human action is explained by the tendency of people to try to get and hold power, even unjustly if they can get away with it.

If we gave Jones, or Jardine, a licence to print money, you don’t have any problem seeing the risk that they would just print and spend, print and spend, do you, unjustly enriching themselves by the efforts of others based on the force backing that privilege.

Well? What makes you just assume that legal tender laws must be for some unspecified unexplained general benefit?

The line of reasoning seems to be: “The government does it because it’s good, and we know it’s good because the government does it.”

I’ve shown reason why there is a relevant conflict of interest between the State and the people: The self-granted monopoly over the supply of money enables the State, based on the force of law, and the deception of inflating the money supply, to silently transfer *actual* real wealth – earnt by people’s work, risk and enterprise – from its owners and producers – to a class unjustly privileged to live at others’ expense based on force and fraud.

“... the legal tender laws existed in Australia before you did.”

So what? That doesn’t mean that they don’t establish a government monopoly of the supply of money, on which my argument is based.

“It's not as though they were imposed just to get up your nose.”

That is to personalize the argument. The question is whether you can *refute* it.

“I'm not aware that you're being denied the prospect of emigration …”

Why should I? Why don't the monopolists emigrate? No-one has given any justification of their monopoly of the money supply yet.

“Maybe there are some things worse than fiat currency.”

Like what? Your argument seems to be only “might is right”.

No-one has yet tendered any justification of government’s monopoly of the money supply that makes ethical or economic sense even in its own terms.

Way to go, Jardine K Jardine. Let's twist again.

>>Either you deny that there is any significant difference between money and other media of exchange, which is what you've been doing; in which case obviously there is no need or purpose for legal tender laws; which is why, when asked what they are, you haven't been able to explain what benefit they are to their intended beneficiaries. <<

There is indeed a significant difference between money-as-legal-tender and "other media of exchange" - dildos were one of your examples of choice, I recall.

Money-as-legal-tender provides a recognizable, legally-enforceable, convenient means of exchange. The legal tender laws are designed to protect that means of exchange, by surrounding it with strict definitions of who can make it, what is looks like etc. so that you can tell that what you have in your hand is going to be recognized by Harvey Norman as a valid form of payment. You'd look pretty stupid offering them a dildo, wouldn't you?

Well, most people would anyway.

So, once again, very slowly.

The legal tender laws are in place so that the means of exchange offered is instantly recognizable as such. It is bad form to try to pass off a dildo as a twenty dollar bill, so the government provides a convenient guide that allows the shop assistant to discern the difference between money-as-legal-tender and a dildo. And if you try to cunningly disguise your dildo as a twenty dollar bill, you'll be nicked for forgery.

The benefit of these laws should be obvious, as it prevents the natural confusion that might exist if the currency was not so tightly defined in this way. And having the government at its back, in the shape of a court of law to stop you cheating, adds another level of confidence to the transaction.

But all this still does not preclude your offering a dildo - or an i.o.u, as the Irish did, or cowrie shells, or even a Jardinian dollar - as payment for your TV set, just so long as you don't pretend they are legal tender.

I'm not asking about money-as-legal-tender. I'm asking about money-as-money.

In history, logic and economics, money as money must and does come before any question of money as legal tender. So far you haven't conceded that there is any significant difference between money (as money) and other means of exchange.

So ... is there?

Perhaps a little more clarity is needed in your questions, Jardine K. Jardine.

>>I'm not asking about money-as-legal-tender. I'm asking about money-as-money.<<

You kept banging on earlier about legal tender...

>>I think what the legal tender laws do, is establish a government monopoly of the supply of money... what’s the point of legal tender laws?<< etc. etc.

...now you want to know about "money-as-money".

Fair enough. But let us first agree that "money-as-money" has nothing to do with legal tender, or the Currency Act.

Can we do that? Good.

Your fixation appears to be in the area of what you see as the "government monopoly of the supply of money", and your issue with this is that the government then uses this monopoly to force inflation into the economy, for its own purposes.

What you haven't explained is the method by which they achieve this. So I'll take a guess, and suggest that it is their ability to influence the amount of money in the economy, through the process of issuing and redeeming government bonds, that you object to. If it is not this particular practice that upsets you, perhaps you could enlighten me as to what it might be.

It would also help if you were able to find a link between this practice - or whatever activity you see as being the problem - and the "monopoly" over the currency that you identify, and that also offends you in some way.

As far as I can tell, government intervention in the money market is largely dictated by the demand that exists within the economy. After all, no-one is compelled to buy or sell the instruments that they create, unlike centrally-managed economies such as China. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested to hear it.