What I am getting to is that what's important to workers, currency, is not that important for entertaining distractions, keeping people ignorant about history's complexity of money and trade. That if by pointing out that media stories are not only entertainment, serious looking entertainment are distracting prediction, fictional story examples of past history made up character of past economically imposed, god's end of time suffering.
That both Mad Max futuristic no police society prediction we all want to avoid and that past fur trappers were hiding away from an “end of time” “Judgement day” bad economic environment. In a no police society fur trappers were hunting each other. Allowing people to easily understand once after being attracted to a radio media program, to hear a radio guest speaker state that the long awaited Apocalypse is about to happen. That radio listeners should sell all property and head North to where fewer police are present. That in time, nothing happens.

My idea is if by watching such movies Mad Max and Leonardo Di Caprio Titanic, wilderness survival movies, that as movies aren't that entertaining, movies do have a survival of the fittest message.

more ideas on economy booms and busts cycles.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7117&page=8

page 9 works as well.

Dear Yuyutsu,

Newton's laws were based on observation. Karma (beyond people's reactions based on what they know of others' behaviour) is not.

Gifts and liabilities are seldom a factor in why people choose life or death.

Complaining's probably much more effective (and certainly not less effective) than doing nothing. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. And a choice to identify with your own body isn't much of a choice when the alternative option is to identify with nothing.

The poor-and-wise would lovingly accept their situation, they'd try to do something about it.

"How could banks collapse unless they failed to back up their depositors' money with actual goods?"
Liquidity crises: there'd be a run on the bank and it would run out of money. Also the value of the actual goods might decline.

Anyway, banks wouldn't be much use if they backed up their depositors' money with actual goods. Their main function is to lend money.

"The people of the time were speculating. They did not use what they actually had as securities, but rather the airy-fairy profits which they hoped to gain."
The businesses of the time were overwhelmingly profitable... until the banks stopped lending and the people stopped spending.

"Whether or not it is OK for governments to intervene in the economy is a discussion for another day,"
The fact that you have any doubt about it whatsoever shows you're driven by anti-government ideology at the expense of practicality.

"but on the assumption that it is OK, all they need is to levy taxes, openly."
Rubbish! Levying taxes will not result in people spending more money. It will not result in more employment. It will not result in lower costs for business, nor a lower cost of living (apart from the short term effect of things being nominally cheaper but less affordable).

Governments do levy taxes, and they do so openly. But when an economy's stagnating, governments need to spend more then they collect in taxes. And for best results, they need to spend that money on things that make the economy more productive.

"Cowards that they are, they collect 'inflation tax' instead, so that most people will not notice the theft."
Spoken like a true Austrian School economist: ignoring the facts because they don't fit your blinkered ideology!

Inflation is a phenomenon not a tax. It is never regarded as an alternative to taxation, and not since the Weimar Republic hyperinflation has it been primarily the result of a lack of taxation (though taxing more has been part of the solution of every hyperinflation episode).

However that's of little relevance to our current situation, as Australia does not have hyperinflation and never will. Normal inflation is not so destructive to the economy. Indeed a small amount of inflation is beneficial - partly because without it some workers would have to settle for pay cuts, making it harder to pay off their debts. And that's likely to cause a lot of industrial relations problems. Hence the RBA aims for an inflation rate between 2% and 3%.

"<<Some people who were in debt got richer and happier as their debt was inflated away>>
Yes, in the short term, but it made them feel guilty and to, consciously or otherwise, desire to suffer from it."
Most people do not feel guilty about benefitting from circumstances that are beyond their control.

Dear Aidan,

It was not my intention to expand this discussion into the legitimacy or otherwise of the state. As it currently stands, I consider the state illegitimate because it is a coercive body of people that imposes itself on others involuntarily. However, if done differently then potentially there would be nothing wrong with states, including their intervention in economies, so whether we agree or not about the legitimacy of existing states, we can still continue this discussion on the presumption that state intervention is OK.

On that assumption, governments would be doing something good (without any cynicism) by collecting taxes and diverting wealth into infrastructure that would also support future generations, including health, education, roads, bridges, dams, power-stations, medical-research, etc.

Yes, there is a culture of debt. That is a fact, but it doesn't make it right. The only justification you have for preserving existing structures (including inflation and banks as we currently know them) is that "it's practical". In other words, had the scaffolding been removed, the building would collapse. It may be so, but what about asking oneself whether it was right to have that building there in the first place?

The king is naked and debt is wrong: debt means that people live beyond their means, that is beyond what they physically earned, which in turn means that other people are bound to lose some or all of what they rightfully earned. If that's done consensually, than while I have every contempt for this practice, I have no right to forbid others from doing so. But when people are unwillingly forced into this debt-culture, then it's a serious crime.

Currently in Australia, people ARE forced into the debt-culture against their will. This is because the Australian government deliberately creates inflation (by printing more money that is paid to banks through the RBA), then taxes people for "investing" their savings merely in order to preserve their value. Even if one tries to keep their savings outside the debt-system (say in gold or foreign currency), they are taxed on the increase of their savings in nominal dollars.

(continued...)

(...continued)

Whether or not poor-and-wise people who lovingly accept their situation would seek to do something about it, depends on many factors which I think go beyond this discussion. Suffice that nothing should prevent them if they, being wise, found it wise to do so. Complaining is always about the past and would reduce the complainer's self-esteem while asking without blame to be oiled is about the future and stems from a very different attitude.

Is it true that most people, like the famous three monkeys, do not feel guilty about benefiting from circumstances that are beyond their control, even at the expense of others? That would only indicate the fragility of contemporary morals.

In the face of greed, morality is next to impossible unless people have either spiritual values, or in the least an understanding of spiritual principles. Newton's laws are observed by those scientists who care to look outside at the objective world, while the law of karma is observed by those scientists who care to look inside and investigate the subjective experience, of which our conscious conscience is but the tip of the iceberg.