Back to your dirty tricks and evasions Pericles? You answered Arjay with irrelevant fallacies about other people’s personalities. I asked you a straightforward question on the issue, which is whether we can increase net wealth by inflating the currency. So you answer by assuming bad faith, assuming what is in issue, and obfuscating, ready in advance to scurry away into personal argument when you are thrashed in the substantive argument, as you are about to be.

>…[T]he latter [increasing money supply] can be a simple and straightforward fiscal strategy.

What’s that supposed to mean? If you mean it’s a simple and straightforward strategy to raise money, then why would governments not raise the money by levying taxes? Answer the question, fool.

> … "no, not if that's all you do", or "yes, if the new money is put to productive use", or "maybe, given favourable international terms of trade". In technical terms, "that depends".

My question is not whether *a part* of the increased supply of money can realize a profit on investment. A bank robber can realise a net increase in wealth on investment, by taking the capital from other people.

Obviously the government can confer a net increase in wealth on someone by giving him someone else’s wealth – idiot.

That‘s not the issue, which is, whether increasing the money supply *as a strategy in itself*, is able to realize a net increase in wealth for society considered as a whole, not for the privileged recipients of a political handout.

> The answer can be yes, no or maybe.

Well what’s an example of where the answer is yes, fool?

> …What I fail to see is how using the value of a mineral instead of the value of a piece of paper will impact inflation.

People only acquire money, and only try to use it as a store of value, because they intend to use it later on as a medium of exchange, otherwise there’d be no point in acquiring or storing it.

The primary function of money is as a medium of exchange. All other monetary functions are secondary. Your and Yabby’s argument only addresses a secondary function.

> Would not the underlying "store of value" fluctuate in the same manner as currency?

No. What makes gold valuable as a medium of exchange is precisely the fact that people in general, and governments in particular, can’t just produce it by fiat. Now can you see how that will impact inflation?

The problem with paper money isn’t that its value *fluctuates*, it’s that it’s constantly *going down*. By contrast, the value of gold in real terms has gone up.

> Should government have a "monopoly" on money supply in the first place? If it should, then it is responsible for the efficient management of that supply.

Don’t make me laugh.

You haven’t established that government *should* have a monopoly of the supply of money in the first place. Because? So it can hand out billions to private corporations and banks? So it can fund aggressive wars in foreign military adventures? Because it lost 97% of value since 1913? Because its money supply management within 16 years produced the Great Depression?

>If you believe it shouldn't, I'd love to hear an alternative.

Private competing currencies.

>Make certain you include schools, [etc.] since they all rely upon taxation …

You are confusing taxation with the money supply, fool.

> Unless of course you believe that these can all be supplanted by private enterprise, in a pure "user-pays" paradise.

User-pays has nothing to do with it. Public schools, etc. should be funded by taxation. The money supply is not there so government can debauch it to supplement its revenues by deception because it’s too dishonest to levy taxes. So much for the government’s "efficient management" of the money supply, you clown.

> Which would be ok as far as it goes,... so long as you implement a Soylent Green solution alongside it.

The fraudulent warfare state social engineer has the gall to accuse a libertarian of a Soylent Green solution?

Peter, people can store their wealth, in any form that they like.
They only need to convert it back to a common currency, when ready
to spend it. So the amount of ready cash on hand, affected by
inflation, need only be a tiny % of their assets. That is their
choice.

The money supply will increase, by the very nature of bank borrowing
and lending. Overall, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think
its a good thing, for it limits the power of those with money and
makes starting a business, buying a house or car, possible for
anyone, not just those born from a rich set of testicles.

Yes Govts benefit from inflation, in terms of fiscal drag, in
taxing things like interest and not allowing for inflation. It
is up to us electors to make them accountable for these actions,
if we don't, we only have ourselves to blame. If it were up to
me, they would all be major election issues.

*People only acquire money, and only try to use it as a store of value, because they intend to use it later on as a medium of exchange, otherwise there’d be no point in acquiring or storing it.*

In that case Peter, the real fools are those who try to use money
as a store of value, when there are limitless other options out there.

My head is starting to hurt ... but I love it!

I do confess to a quiet chuckle when I am accused of "ad hominem" attacks, by people who end each sentence with "fool". Makes me all warm and gooey to realize that my contributions have made them so uncomfortable.

>>You answered Arjay with irrelevant fallacies about other people’s personalities<<

I prefer to think of it as "check the credibility of your sources carefully". But, whatever.

>>What’s that supposed to mean? If you mean it’s a simple and straightforward strategy to raise money, then why would governments not raise the money by levying taxes? Answer the question, fool.<<

(There you go. That "fool" thing I was talking about.)

In what sense do you equate increasing the money supply with taxation? One puts money into the economy, the other takes it out.

>>Obviously the government can confer a net increase in wealth on someone by giving him someone else’s wealth – idiot.<<

Not too sure about that. Sounds like a zero-sum game to me. Please explain.

>>Well what’s an example of where the answer is yes, fool?<<

(Are you by any chance channelling the A Team? Just asking)

You probably missed it in all the excitement, but I did actually give you an example.

"yes, if the new money is put to productive use"

Which after all, was the whole idea behind "quantitative easing".

>>No. What makes gold valuable as a medium of exchange is precisely the fact that people in general, and governments in particular, can’t just produce it by fiat. Now can you see how that will impact inflation?<<

But they can dig it out of the ground. Or they can refrain from digging it out of the ground, as a deliberate fiscal policy. If they did the latter, what would happen to the price of gold, do you think?

>>You are confusing taxation with the money supply, fool.<<

(Perhaps it's a mild form of Tourettes Syndrome?)

I thought we established earlier that it is you who fails to make this distinction?

On the topic of "Private competing currencies", would they be allowed to declare bankruptcy?

If not, why not?

Yabby
What you say goes only to the question of store of value.

The effect of increasing the money supply is to dilute the value of the money held by everyone else: that’s why they do it. And whenever any given store of value is converted into a medium of exchange - money - you’ve got the government doing its counterfeiting operation – printing new dollars. Far from being insignificant because it doesn’t affect the store of value :
a) it affects the entire supply of money in circulation at any given time,
b) it affects the value of the real goods against which that money is being exchanged at any given time.

And the store of value is still degraded because of the indirect effects of inflation – capital consumption and economic destruction, which make everyone poorer, not richer.

And still, even if what you say were conceded, which it’s not, that would only go to say that inflating the currency is not bad, or not so bad. But the question is, what good is it? The idea that it is, depends on the idea that we can create real wealth by printing paper. We can’t. And it doesn’t matter how much, or how strongly people believe we can – we still can’t. It’s rubbish. And it just happens to function to give credibility to a gigantic racket of fraud and exploitation.

If people understood it, they would abolish it immediately. The reason the government does it, is precisely because only one person in a thousand understands it. And one of the main reasons most don’t is because of an entire industry of government-funded cheerleaders and charlatans aka academic and central bank economists.

But no-one will answer the question: *how* do we create net real wealth by printing pieces of paper?

Pericles

> (Perhaps it's a mild form of Tourettes Syndrome?)

LOL. Look you’re getting hit all over the park, but I’ll do you a deal. Whoever uses personal argument loses. Qanda, Yabbay and Arjay can be the referees. Otherwise why should I argue mannerly while you argue unmannerly?