Wealth distribution

[HoreTore]

All "money" is ultimately fiat money.

Indeed.

Gold is only marginably more valuable than the cotton in our current bills. Arguing a return to the gold standard is missing the point completely. Especially if you then believe that the value of money will be based on something other than what it is currently based on.

Money has always been and will always remain based on the production value of work. That's the basis of it, gold and cotton is simply the way we represent that value, and we do so because it's a lot easier to carry around a few bills than it is to carry around 2-3 cows.

[Fisherking]

All "money" is ultimately fiat money.

You are basically correct.

Indeed.

Gold is only marginably more valuable than the cotton in our current bills. Arguing a return to the gold standard is missing the point completely. Especially if you then believe that the value of money will be based on something other than what it is currently based on.

Money has always been and will always remain based on the production value of work. That's the basis of it, gold and cotton is simply the way we represent that value, and we do so because it's a lot easier to carry around a few bills than it is to carry around 2-3 cows.

You are totally incorrect.

This is how money used to act.

If you pay attention this may teach you something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_IgcmsqnVM


Reforms would also make wealth redistribution possible.

[Lemur]

Related, and interesting:

Why do the Super-Rich Feel so Persecuted?

The extremely wealthy are objectively far wealthier, far more politically powerful and find a far more indulgent political class than at any time in almost a century—at least. And yet at the same time they palpably feel more isolated, abused and powerless than at any time over the same period and sense some genuine peril to the whole mix of privileges, power and wealth they hold.

There is a disconnect there that is so massive and glaring that it demands some sociocultural explanation. [...]

I saw several years ago that many of the wealthiest people in the country, especially people in financial services, not only didn't support Obama (not terribly surprising) but had a real and palpable sense that he was out to get them. This was hard to reconcile with the fact that Obama, along with President Bush, had pushed through a series of very unpopular laws and programs and fixes that had not only stabilized global capitalism, saved Wall Street but saved the personal fortunes (and perhaps even the personal liberty) of the people who were turning so acidly against him. Indeed, through the critical years of 2009, 10 and 11 he was serving as what amounted to Wall Street's personal heat shield, absorbing as political damage the public revulsion at the bailout policies that had kept Wall Street whole.

Let's start by stipulating that no one expects the extremely wealthy to react happily to mounting discussion of wealth and income inequality or left-wing diatribes about "the 1%." But again, the reaction is extreme and excessive and frequently runs into less comical versions of Perkins' screed, with weird fears of persecution and threat from the folks who quite truly rule the roost.

Also: The Cognitive Dissonance Of The One Percent

[M]any of these extremist plutocrats must surely know, somewhere in their psyches, that they collectively failed—and failed terribly—in self-regulating and thereby protecting the very capitalist system they depend on for so much.

These masters of the universe had to go cap in hand to the federal government to bail out their sorry, incompetent asses. They were revealed not as brilliant engineers of our collective wealth, but as enablers of the debt-mania, tech-hubris and bubble-creating that destroyed so much from 2007 onwards. They were exposed as something much worse than greedy; they were revealed as incompetents whose mistakes and over-reach created untold misery and hardship for countless millions. Their own self-image—again, somewhere deep down—must have shattered a little.

People respond to revelations of their own incompetence in different ways. But the proudest—and this group of people are not exactly renowned for humility—can sometimes respond by internalizing an ever more extreme version of their own previous mindset. They cannot compute the fact that they failed, and so they have to construct a version of reality that insists it was all someone else’s fault, and then build on that an ideology of their own unrelenting heroism, which is now, on their minds, unfairly impugned. And the only target of blame that can plausibly fill the gap is the federal government.

[Fisherking]

lol.

Yes, very funny. Norway uses the same system. Fractional Reserve Lending.

You money is created from debt just like everyone else’s.

[HoreTore]

Yes, very funny. Norway uses the same system. Fractional Reserve Lending.

You money is created from debt just like everyone else’s.

Youtube University strikes again!

Try offering someone with actual knowledge as opposed to a dimwit activist with no qualifications beyond high school next time.

This is your source:

I soon caught the Mother Earth News bug, started doing yoga at 4 am with people in white turbans, chanting with Krishnaites and then suddenly got the urge to go West.

Now that's an authority on world economics if I ever saw one!!

[gaelic cowboy]

Why is everyone on the tinterweb mad about fractional reserve lending when its bloody central bank interest rates that cause more harm.

That blooming Zeitgeist crowd has a lot to answer for

[HoreTore]

Why is everyone on the tinterweb mad about fractional reserve lending when its bloody central bank interest rates that cause more harm.

That blooming Zeitgeist crowd has a lot to answer for

Fractional reserve lending has been the way banks have functioned since paper money was introduced back in the 18th century. And to top it off, the bank informs you of it every time they send your statement. Why on earth would banks give you interest on deposits if they didn't lend it out again? The reason why the tinfoil crowd throws a hissyfit over it, is because it:
a) is a suitably technical term
b) can be made to look suitably evil by playing around with motives and other nonsense
c) is not something the average tinfoiler knows about, since the tinfoilers knowledge of economics in particular and how the world functions in general, is close to zero

There are plenty of other completely mundane things conspiracy nutters twist into something horrible. Fluoride water immediately pops into mind, as well as GMO.

[Myth]

The quality of discussion has dropped dramatically.