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Doom
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### The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by Doom » Wed May 11, 2011 10:08 pm

> Frank wrote:Doom, making a moral argument against inflation is just... that's really weird. I don't think anyone on this forum is going to take that argument seriously. You need to drop that entire line of argument if you want to not get regarded as a crank.

To reiterate: inflation is justified because it's good for the economy, which, in turn, is good for society. In other words, it was claimed that inflation is morally good. If others bring up a moral argument, I'm not a whacko for responding to it. But let's get to hoarders, where similar thinking prevails as well.
I apologize for the filibuster, but here goes:
Part 1:

> So let's go to the practical side. Hoarding: it's bad.

Ok, so hoarding is 'bad'. Let's get a definition of 'bad'. (I'm speaking of generalities past this point, so please refrain from pointing out Charles Manson says otherwise, or obsure African tribes live differently, and go with the flow a bit.)
First, good and bad are concepts in morality, and society determines what is moral (I'll use 'bad' for 'immoral'). For example, indiscriminate killing is considered bad (I take this as an axiom); societies generally determine that such killing makes it difficult for societies to function smoothly.
Killing of children is considered especially bad--society values children, without with there is no future for the society. Quite a bit of behavior for adults that might be a little bad is considered especially bad with children.
Theft is also considered bad, as are a great many other behaviors that inhibit smoothly functioning society. In all cases, bad behavior is behavior that makes it difficult for society to function.
Generally, our laws correspond to our morality, but not always. For example, adultery is considered bad, but is legal now (there were laws against it in the past). Other behavior, like prostitution, is often considered bad, but legal some places and illegal elsewhere.
Moral can absolutely be in the eye of the beholder, but, ultimately, 'bad behavior' is behavior that does harm to society (it need not be much harm, such as loud children, of course).
So, when you're saying hoarding is bad, you're saying that it is a detriment to society. You're making a moral claim about the behavior of hoarding.

> Even the Romans understood that hoarding was bad for the economy.

Absolutely correct the Roman government hated hoarders, and considered them bad. But let's investigate this, rather than simply accepting Roman morality and blind hatred.
In times past, the Roman government got into financial difficulties, and debt. Rather than deal with the debt in a prudent manner, they devalued the currency, tainting the 'pure' coins with coins of lower precious metal content.
Hoarders would certainly use the new money, but they would not turn in the more pure, older money to the government, instead just keeping the money. The government hated them, and called them bad (but they did get to keep their money, since it was, indeed, their money).
Then, as now, devaluation of the currency led to price inflation (formerly 90%+ pure coins were down to 2% purity, by the end). This, of course, completely defeated the purpose of devaluing the currency, and debts spiraled, then as now. The Roman government, as clever as governments tend to be, passed laws establishing price controls--"let's keep the price from rising by forcing them not to rise!".
Trouble was, these controls put producers (including farmers) in a bad position: they could only sell their wares at prices LOWER than it cost to produce. So, the evil, evil, hoarders, especially farmers, said "Fuck it, I'll just keep my stuff", rather than go along with the government's price controls and sell, which would force them into bankruptcy and starvation. The Romans called these people, that did not want to starve to death, 'hoarders'. Bad, bad, hoarders, wanting to live. Naturally, with farming no longer profitable, people began to leave the profession, causing critical shortages.
The Roman government responded with more amazing intelligence, passing a law forcing sons to follow the profession of their fathers, on penalty of death (I'd like to remind the reader here: perhaps Roman morality is not a perfect model for modern morality).
When faced with the no-win situation of continuing to work for less than nothing (and eventually being overwhelmed by debts and/or starving to death) or death, quite a number of hoarders took the only way left: sold themselves into slavery. The selfish bastards!
So, keep this in mind, this early hatred of hoarders comes from the Romans, who used it to describe people that chose "hoard and live" over "not hoard and die".
Part 2:

> . So given that society wants to limit hoarding because it is destructive to GDP in an extremely measurable way:

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, I've certainly never seen any even remotely precise measurements, but first things first:
The hoarder owns the fruits of his labor, and that includes money. If you don't believe you own your money, we've got a problem, but I'm going to assume, as an axiom like "murder is bad", you concede you own your things.
So, he can do whatever he wants with it, and it pleases the hoarder to save. Is it bad for society? All you've ever been told, for very biased reasons, is that hoarders are bad. Let us point out some benefits (again, thanks to Walter Block, Defending the Undefendable, who looks at things without the biases and prejudices we've all been raised with...there's much here, and I'm paraphrasing).
The hoarder saves, and that's what he does. It pleases him to save his things. While Keynesians insist saving is bad, there are many benefits to saving. Ever since the first caveman decided to SAVE seeds for future planting, humans have profited from this 'bad' behavior. By saving, capital is built, which allows for ever more advanced production. Saving builds capital.
The major reason America has so much is the greater amount of capital stored up (and eventually used, true) by Americans.
Now, of course, comes 'what about money?', as though money were not a form of capital as well. You claim, of course that the hoarder reduces the money received by retailers, forcing them to fire employees and reduce job orders, yes? This leads producers to reduce their staff, and process continues, all because some miser decided to keep his money, the bastard.
This argument is plausible but for an important detail they never mention when they teach it in schools: prices can change. Before a retailer fires his employees, he could just cut prices. Before a producer reduces production, he could just cut prices.
I'm sure you're aware: reduced prices INCREASE sales. The miser is actually making it easier for everyone else to buy things. By hoarding his money, he's helping you. And you've been trained to hate him for it.
But wait, there's more! In withholding money from the consumer's market, and NOT making it avaiable for purchases, the miser cuases a decrease of the money in circulation. The amount of goods and services is the same, but money has decreased. Thus, the miser has succeeded in lowering prices simply by taking money out of circulation. Your money is now more valuable. This is helping you, there's no need for the hatred.
The only people who suffer from the miser are the people who do not lower their prices....oh well, nobody's forcing them not to lower prices.
The miser enjoys holding his money, it makes him happy. You can complain that the money is sterile, not contributing, but so what? People buy artwork for the pleasure of owning it, and they are not hated. It makes him happy to save his money as money, instead of as artwork. It's his money, so not anyone else's concern. I've seen money pissed away on million-dollar artworks...there's no accounting for taste, and it's not my business if it's not my money.
The miser's hoarding of cash is heroic. We all benefit from lower prices. The money we have becomes MORE valuable because of the miser, enabling us to buy more. Instead of being harmful to society, the miser is benefactor, helping society...let him use his money as he will.
And, please, consider all the other types of people you've been trained to hate...it's quite possible you've only heard one side of the story there, too. I very much advocate less hatred.
(Edit: clearly labelling a part 1 and part 2, deleting a paragraph that fits in neither and it of no particular relevance..PM if you really want to see it)
Last edited by Doom on Fri May 13, 2011 6:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Ancient History
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Post by Ancient History » Wed May 11, 2011 10:43 pm

Hoarders take money out of the circulation of the economy. When the money is sitting under your mattress, instead of in a bank or any other form of loan, you are artificially constricting the money supply. This does not make money worth more, it makes money more scarce. The Romans (and about every other human society) routinely ran into the problem of not having enough coinage for the lowest level of society to actually operate. Because when a silver coin is worth a mule, it's not very handy to the farmer that just wants a loaf of bread or an ewer of wine. The lack of money stifles the economy because transactions literally have more difficulty happening: people have to resort back to bartering or say to hell with this hard cash nonsense and go to a credit economy. Both situations that have historically occurred.
And hoarding doesn't help the hoarders either, because while their personal money supply may not shrink, it is worth less, because more gold is being mined, captured from enemy cities, or coming in from trade. The overall money supply continues to grow (barring extreme circumstances), so the overall value of a given hoard will tend to shrink in worth.
Does that mean there is never a reason to hoard? No. In some cases, to control the money supply, the government (or equivalent institution) would hoard money to control how much was available. Usually, this was right before a redenomination, by doing a recall of the currency - literally, taking every coin in and recoining them with less precious metal. The difference in number of coins represented the government's profit on the operation, which it could use to pay its debts or other ventures.
But is something that a government does good for an individual to do? Not always. Case in point: hoarding pennies. Pennies are worth very little individually, but remain an essential part of the American economy. If someone hoards pennies, they become scarce, and the economy stutters a little because local businesses that rely on cash have less to work with to make change. Some banks, in a shortage, even off more than the face value of pennies - a $1.25 for 100 pennies, I've seen. In this case, an individual hoarder who turns in their copper hoard makes a profit - but the profit is an unfair one, because the hoarder has contributed nothing of value to society. Despite their intentions, from an economic viewpoint the hoarder is no different than someone determined to hold the pennies hostage until their price is met.
Last edited by Ancient History on Wed May 11, 2011 10:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Doom » Wed May 11, 2011 10:50 pm

I suppose, how many such hostage situations have you seen in the news?
Hoarders might not be perfectly good...but they're not perfectly bad, either.

> Kaelik, to Tzor wrote: And you aren't shot in the face?

> Frank Trollman wrote:A government is also immortal ...On the plus side, once the United Kingdom is no longer united, the United States of America will be the oldest country in the world. USA!

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Post by Ancient History » Wed May 11, 2011 11:27 pm

It is impossible to intuit a hoarder's intentions; all we have to see are the effect of their actions. Why do people hoard? Four reasons present themselves:
1) Because they seek an advantage
The penny-hoarders noted above, these individuals hold onto something specifically to restrict access and seek an advantage on it. In commodity trading, this is called "cornering the market," and it is a selfish and self-serving economic activity that enriches one individual and impoverishes others while adding no value to the economy. When someone corners the market on gold, they have created no good, performed no service, they have simply made some material more scarce, and profit from it.
2) Because they do not trust banks
There is a risk in lending. Any sort of lending. You may not be repaid the total amount, you may not be repaid at all. Savvy businesspeople have worked for centuries to secure their investments - through insurance, the weight of law, harsh penalties, and restricting their investments to "sure things." Even so, there are some that become consumed by fear, and refuse to entrust their money to anyone else. Instead of giving it an opportunity to grow, they let their money rot under the mattress as inflation ticks on, steadily decreasing the value of their hoard, while depriving others of the use of their money - but hey, it's their money. The epitome of this idea, of course, are criminals that either cannot move their money into legitimate accounts, or insist on having it liquid and always available. Many banks are happy to see drug dealers, because it refreshes their stock of low-denomination bills.
3) Because they require a reserve
Some individuals and institutions, because of the nature of their business, require a certain amount of capital on hand. Businesses have cash reserves, you have a twenty in your wallet you keep for emergencies, governments have supplies of specie. Often, this money is used as leverage - the ability to repay a loan is the insurance they use to secure a loan. Russia or China, when faced with severe economic hardship, might use part of their gold reserves to buy grain, but the primary purpose of their gold reserve is to have assets to mortgage when they need to borrow money from others. The money is immediately available to put in play, but generally kept separate for emergency use. Unlike other examples of hoarding, the emergency fund generally does not grow beyond a set limit, though if spent it may be replenished.
4) Numismatic Interest
Some people collect money as a hobby. The face value, or even the metal value, of the material means very little to them comparative to their personal value as part of their collection. Often, these type of hoarders are seen as relatively harmless, either because it is widespread or because the hoarder restricts themselves to a few specimens of every available type of currency. A man that collects one of every type of dollar bill is harmless; a man that collects a million one dollar bills may create a shortage. On the great scale, this sort of numismatic speculation can produce significant economic impact: the general failure of circulation of Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea dollars is attributed to the fact that people will accept them, but rarely spend them.
All bad? No. But good? Some of these are relatively harmless, but most contain at their core a degree of self-interest beyond what most people engage in.
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Sashi
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by Sashi » Thu May 12, 2011 12:07 am

> Doom wrote:The miser's hoarding of cash is heroic. We all benefit from lower prices. The money we have becomes MORE valuable because of the miser, enabling us to buy more. Instead of being harmful to society, the miser is benefactor, helping society...let him use his money as he will

You are a crank. It is official.

> Doom wrote:This argument is plausible but for an important detail they never mention when they teach it in schools: prices can change. Before a retailer fires his employees, he could just cut prices. Before a producer reduces production, he could just cut prices.

Why would he do this? If money is getting continuously more valuable, why pay people to build anything with a profit margin lower than that increase in value, such as food, or clothing?

> Doom, proving himself wrong, wrote:Trouble was, these controls put producers (including farmers) in a bad position: they could only sell their wares at prices LOWER than it cost to produce. So, the evil, evil, hoarders, especially farmers, said "Fuck it, I'll just keep my stuff", rather than go along with the government's price controls and sell, which would force them into bankruptcy and starvation. The Romans called these people, that did not want to starve to death, 'hoarders'. Bad, bad, hoarders, wanting to live. Naturally, with farming no longer profitable, people began to leave the profession, causing critical shortages.

If a farmer has to pay $1000 to grow wheat, but the value of currency is rising such that he'll only be able to sell the resulting wheat for $990, then was better off not growing the wheat. This is what deflation does: it requires that sale prices drop lower than production costs by turning pickle jars full of currency into the most sound investment, so nobody grows grain. Hoarding isn't bad because it's unproductive, it's bad because it stops other people (who don't have the hoarded item) from producing, too.
If you truly want to treat currency as a commodity (it's not) then you have to look at it entirely as a commodity.

> But wait, there's more! In withholding iron from the consumer's market, and NOT making it available for purchase, the miser cuases a decrease of the iron in circulation. The amount of currency is the same, but iron has decreased. Thus, the miser has succeeded in raising iron prices simply by taking iron out of circulation. Your iron is now more valuable. This is helping car manufacturers go bankrupt because they can't afford to buy Iron.

Last edited by Sashi on Thu May 12, 2011 12:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Doom
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by Doom » Thu May 12, 2011 12:51 am

> Sashi wrote: Why would he do this?

I don't know, but people lower prices to stimulate sales all the time. You've never seen such a thing?

> Doom, proving himself wrong, wrote:Trouble was, (stating historical facts)

Edward Gibbon, anyone? You're actually disputing whether the Romans devalued currency, people sold themselves into slavery, that Rome had serious food shortages, or that it became Roman law that sons had to follow the profession of their fathers?
These are historical facts, I don't see how I can prove myself wrong, but do let me know if you need help looking them up.

> stops other people (who don't have the hoarded item) from producing, too.

You honestly believe that if one farmer has a silo full of grain, it keeps other farmers from growing grain?

> If you truly want to treat currency as a commodity (it's not) then you have to look at it entirely as a commodity.

You'll that that I changed from commodities to currency well before you switched.
Yes, you're right in your hypothetical argument if a single person can completely control all of a commodity it can cause problems. How often has this happened? What normally happens, of course, is the hoarder has a pile of iron, and everyone else that has iron to sell makes more money. Even in the (theoretical) case of a single hoarder owning all iron, this would simply motivate new exploration for iron reserves (keep in mind, the price of iron is high in your theoretical example, and that's powerful motivation, as happens in the real world whenever a commodity gets high), as well as experimentation in using alternate methods of construction (once again, this is what happens in the real world).
So, even in this hypothetical example unlike what I addressed, we can see that in the real world, the hoarder is causing more exploration and innnovation.
Last edited by Doom on Thu May 12, 2011 1:19 am, edited 10 times in total.
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Sashi
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by Sashi » Thu May 12, 2011 1:17 am

> Doom wrote:I don't know, but people lower prices to stimulate sales all the time. You've never seen such a thing?

A sale is not the same thing as deflation. I was just going to pass over this because it diluted my original point. But you really just don't understand economics at all. If $100 today has the same purchasing power as $90 tomorrow and you sell something that cost you $100 to produce for $95 tomorrow, you have made a profit. You have lowered the numeric cost of the item, but you haven't lowered the price of the item.
Do you see what's really, really weird, there? If I spend $100 to make something today and sell it for $95 tomorrow, I make money. But if I just sit on my hands and don't make anything, I make more money.

> Doom, digging himself deeper, wrote:Edward Gibbon, anyone? You're actually disputing whether the Romans devalued currency, or people sold themselves into slavery, that Rome had serious food shortages, or that it became Roman law that sons had to follow the profession of their fathers?
> These are historical facts, I don't see how I can prove myself wrong, but do let me know if you need help looking them up.

You truly are an idiot. In part one you declare that hoarding is good because it will force people to lower the cost of the goods they produce. In part two you say that people go bankrupt and sell themselves into slavery when forced to lower the cost of the goods they produce.
Which of those is true?

> Doom wrote:Yes, you're right if a single person can completely control all of a commodity it can cause problems. How often has this happened? What normally happens, of course, is the hoarder has a pile of iron, and everyone else that has iron to sell makes more money. So, yeah.

Two things:
1) I dearly hope you noticed that I literally took your own words and just replaced the flow from "hoard currency -> lower commodity prices" to "Hoard commodity -> lower value of currency to buy commodity"
2) The entire hoarding scenario only benefits the people who have the thing being hoarded. Hoarding cash only benefits people with fat stacks of cash. The value of currency rises, so the cost of goods falls but so does the cost of labor. Bread costs $0.90/loaf instead of $1/loaf, but you're being paid $.90/hour instead of $1/hour so it's a wash. On the other hand, the guy paying you has to weigh paying you $.90/hour today, or sitting on his cash and paying two people $.50/hour in a year (while you starve)
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by Orion » Thu May 12, 2011 1:30 am

> Doom wrote:
> there are many benefits to saving. Ever since the first caveman decided to SAVE seeds for future planting, humans have profited from this 'bad' behavior. By saving, capital is built, which allows for ever more advanced production. Saving builds capital.
> Now, of course, comes 'what about money?', as though money were not a form of capital as well

Money is *not* normally considered a form of capital. If you're going to claim that it is, I need you to give me a fairly complete definition of "capital" as you understand it. Last I checked, capital meant land, machines, education, and anything that allows you to *build* things. Money just lets you *exchange* things.
For that reason, saving seeds is not like saving money. Seeds are a thing which is useful, and sometimes the best use comes from using them later instead of now. So saving seeds could be good. But in order to save seeds, you have to buy them first (or grow them and choose not to sell them). So you actually have to *spend* money in order to *save* a commodity. Saving money means commodities are wasted.
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by Doom » Thu May 12, 2011 1:49 am

> Sashi wrote: A sale is not the same thing as deflation.

Let me go over it more carefully: the miser, by not spending money, is supposedly cutting into sales. Retailers, when they see sales dropping, lower prices to attract higher sales.
Retailers lower prices to increase sales all the time.

> If $100 today has the same purchasing power as $90 tomorrow and you sell something that cost you $100 to produce for $95 tomorrow, you have made a profit. You have lowered the numeric cost of the item, but you haven't lowered the price of the item.

It's interesting that the mirror image of this argument for inflation is considered a-ok, even though it hurts consumers, because we're all part of the same economy, producers and consumers. But it's bad for deflation because it hurts producers, even though we're all part of the same economy, producers and consumers. But let's take this at face value.
Cost of the item in this context refers to cost to produce, which you've stated is the same in both cases.
If you haven't lowered the selling price from the only price you give of $95, you've already screwed yourself. Why one earth were you planning to sell an item that costs you $100 to produce for $95, even without deflation? That's a horrifically bad business model.

> Do you see what's really, really weird, there? If I spend $100 to make something today and sell it for $95 tomorrow, I make money. But if I just sit on my hands and don't make anything, I make more money.

Well, yes, because your initial business plan is a money-losing plan, you're selling at less than the cost of production, even without deflation. Deflation is the only thing making you profitable. Under this plan, yes, you're better off not producing. The only reason you're making money at all is your scenario is in hyperdeflation--that's pretty neat, even a bad business plan works in hyperdeflation. Are you trying to say hyperdeflation is a good thing with this?
Good observation, although I'm not convinced it would work in the real word (assuming hyperdeflation ever even occurs).

> You truly are an idiot. In part one you declare that hoarding is good because it will force people to lower the cost of the goods they produce. In part two you say that people go bankrupt and sell themselves into slavery when forced to lower the cost of the goods they produce.

Dude, you ok?. Seriously, I'm not even sure what you're calling part 1 and part 2. What you're calling part 2 comes before part 1, and is a statement of historical facts. What you're calling part 1 (although it comes after part 2) is talking about how hoarders can actually help everyone else by saving. You're tying the two together in a bizarre fashion.
Where, in what you call part 1, do I indicate government involvement of any form of price controls?

> 1) I dearly hope you noticed that I literally took your own words and just replaced the flow from "hoard currency -> lower commodity prices" to "Hoard commodity -> lower value of currency to buy commodity"

Yes, noted, and even with the switcheroo, it still works. You could also put the word 'snot' in there, and it might still make grammatical sense, for what it's worth. When I was a kid, there were these things, called "Mad Libs", that have lots of fun with that.
But in this case, it's not just amusing gibberish, the hoarder ends up giving up his profits to others. I'm hard pressed to hate him for that.

> 2) The entire hoarding scenario only benefits the people who have the thing being hoarded. Hoarding cash only benefits people with fat stacks of cash.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. In another thread, there's a guy that repeatedly said hoarding fat stacks of cash is actually hurting himself. Even in THIS thread is a guy saying this.
I think he is, myself. But what of it? Why are you so jealous of this man, he's not harming you with his piles of cash. It's his money.

> The value of currency rises, so the cost of goods falls but so does the cost of labor. Bread costs $0.90/loaf instead of $1/loaf, but you're being paid $.90/hour instead of $1/hour so it's a wash.

Ok, so under this belief system, the hoarder is STILL not hurting you.

> On the other hand, the guy paying you has to weigh paying you $.90/hour today, or sitting on his cash and paying two people $.50/hour in a year (while you starve)

Ok, this getting a bit ridiculous with the hypotheticals. Where do these people come from? How do you know these prices? Let me throw in my own hypotheticals.
The guy that didn't pay you $.90/hour today, loses you to a guy paying $.95 an hour for work that needs to be done today. And so all is good.
Last edited by Doom on Thu May 12, 2011 1:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by Doom » Thu May 12, 2011 1:54 am

> Orion wrote: Money is *not* normally considered a form of capital.

I respect that opinions vary, but here's a crackpot website says it is.
Since clicking on links can be iffy at times, I include the relevant thing:
Financial capital or just capital in finance and accounting, refers to the funds provided by lenders (and investors) to businesses to purchase real capital equipment for producing goods/services. Real Capital or Economic Capital comprises physical goods that assist in the production of other goods and services, e.g. shovels for gravediggers, sewing machines for tailors, or machinery and tooling for factories.
Financial capital generally refers to saved-up financial wealth...
Humble request for just a little slack here...
Last edited by Doom on Thu May 12, 2011 2:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by Sashi » Thu May 12, 2011 3:02 am

> Doom wrote:The guy that didn't pay you $.90/hour today, loses you to a guy paying $.95 an hour for work that needs to be done today. And so all is good.

Nope. The job you're now doing would have been done by someone else, but the job you were doing is gone. That's unemployment.
I know there's going to be a fundamental amount of disagreement between you and I, because I'm a Keynesian and you're an asshole. But it's still amazing at how exactly backwards your arguments are.
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by violence in the media » Thu May 12, 2011 3:15 am

> Doom wrote: The hoarder owns the fruits of his labor, and that includes money. If you don't believe you own your money, we've got a problem, but I'm going to assume, as an axiom like "murder is bad", you concede you own your things.

I don't know that I can actually agree with that. I mean, it's not some sort of inalienable right or natural law or anything. The earth won't explode if someone manages to divest you of some goods that happen to exist in your general proximity that you lay claim to, or if they compel you to work for their benefit. Even if we were somehow to live forever, entropy would eventually conspire to steal our Precious. That fucking communist.
Further, you can only really claim to own the entirety of the fruits of your labor in a desert island situation where there's no one else around to make a case that they contributed to your success. You may want to negotiate every toll, purchase, and other transaction individually, but society has elected to shorthand some of that crap with things like taxes for public infrastructure.
Now, before you start in with some bullshit about coming to my house and taking my truck, I will tell you right now that the answer is "no." Not because I have any unbreakable claim to my truck, but because I'm under no ethical obligation to renounce my society-defined and enforced claim of ownership. Not only that, but then I won't have it when I need it and I'm unable to continue our new property paradigm (where you and I just make use of whatever happens to be around) in our society without incurring inconvenient legal troubles for myself.
Now, I apologize for getting off on some philosophical tangent about property, as I do understand what you meant here in the general sense of the social agreements regarding work and reward and definitions of who owns what. However, I will put this forward: I won't support your right to property to facilitate your ability to cause harm to others with it.
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by PoliteNewb » Thu May 12, 2011 3:33 am

> violence in the media wrote:Now, before you start in with some bullshit about coming to my house and taking my truck, I will tell you right now that the answer is "no." Not because I have any unbreakable claim to my truck, but because I'm under no ethical obligation to renounce my society-defined and enforced claim of ownership. Not only that, but then I won't have it when I need it and I'm unable to continue our new property paradigm (where you and I just make use of whatever happens to be around) in our society without incurring inconvenient legal troubles for myself.

You can make a claim that ownership of property is a societ-defined and enforced privelege. But that claim is equally valid for Doom's premise. Either you believe in ownership or you don't. You don't get to define it as "yes" regarding your truck and "no" regarding someone else's cash...unless you want people to call you a hypocrite and an asshole.

> I will put this forward: I won't support your right to property to facilitate your ability to cause harm to others with it.

Then you don't believe in private property. If you want to claim that "you can own stuff, as long as I don't disagree with what you want to own and why you want to own it", then you don't believe in ownership of property.
Serious, "facilitate your ability to cause harm to others"? That can be defined by various people as applying to literally anything. You can't have a free society with rules like that, because that can apply to things like "a printing press" or "an automobile".
I am judging the philosophies and decisions you have presented in this thread. The ones I have seen look bad, and also appear to be the fruit of a poisonous tree that has produced only madness and will continue to produce only madness.
--AngelFromAnotherPin
believe in one hand and shit in the other and see which ones fills up quicker. it will be the one you are full of, shit.
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### Re: The Miser and Morality, an examination.

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Post by violence in the media » Thu May 12, 2011 3:47 am

> PoliteNewb wrote: You can make a claim that ownership of property is a societ-defined and enforced privelege. But that claim is equally valid for Doom's premise. Either you believe in ownership or you don't. You don't get to define it as "yes" regarding your truck and "no" regarding someone else's cash...unless you want people to call you a hypocrite and an asshole.

I equate it more to voting and supporting higher taxes without paying them before they're enacted.

> Then you don't believe in private property. If you want to claim that "you can own stuff, as long as I don't disagree with what you want to own and why you want to own it", then you don't believe in ownership of property.
> Serious, "facilitate your ability to cause harm to others"? That can be defined by various people as applying to literally anything. You can't have a free society with rules like that, because that can apply to things like "a printing press" or "an automobile".

How about this, you tell me what way to properly or concisely phrase the concept that I will not defend your right to keep your silo full of grain for the express purpose of starving people right outside your door?
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Post by RadiantPhoenix » Thu May 12, 2011 3:58 am

Doesn't believe in *private* property, or doesn't believe in *personal* property?
Some people make a distinction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_p ... e_property
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Post by DSMatticus » Thu May 12, 2011 4:13 am

> Doom wrote:The hoarder owns the fruits of his labor, and that includes money. If you don't believe you own your money, we've got a problem, but I'm going to assume, as an axiom like "murder is bad", you concede you own your things.
> So, he can do whatever he wants with it, and it pleases the hoarder to save.

@The Moral Part
Society takes the things you own all the time. We call that taxes. Nobody thinks taxes are wrong (except anarcho-capitalist crackpots, I guess?). It isn't morally wrong for the society to take things from the member of the society, because if it was, the concept of society wouldn't exist. It's a beneficial relationship, society takes your shit and in turn gets stronger. Which is good for you because you live in that society. It's also a mandatory relationship, which seems unfair but we don't care, because individuals are greedy and rarely understand that self-sacrifice will improve the collective, and in turn the collective will serve them better than their self-interest would, so it turns out literally not to be self-sacrifice at all. See Game Theory, it's a well-established phenomenon with extensive study in this area. It's trivially easy to construct games where when everyone plays to win, everyone loses. Or in real-life terms, you'd be living off turnips in your yard if it weren't for the success of the society you are a part of. Society taking your stuff has improved everyone's life significantly greater than self-interest ever would have.
So, we don't care that a miser owns his money - it's morally fine for society to encourage the miser to part with his money, IF encouraging the miser to part with his money helps the society collectively. Ownership rights are commonly violated for the social good, and as long as they're violated in predictable, consistent ways, i.e. taxes and inflation, we can call that 'fair.'
Which brings us to the FAR more relevant debate and the far more relevant debate is, "does mising(?) hurt the economy, compared to spending?" So let's talk about that, because that really is the only part that matters compared to the wishy-washy moral part.
@The Practical Part
Doom's position, as far as I can tell, is that mising reduces the total volume of bills in circulation, so it must therefore increase the value of dollars in circulation proportionally, and therefore each of those dollars can do more, so overall demand is completely unaffected. This is not true under a gold-backed economy, because dollars can't change in value like that. They are, by definition, tied to gold. Which is ironic, because Doom likes gold-backed economies, and mising very, very mathematically clearly removes value from a gold-backed economy and therefore hurts demand. It isn't clear if this happens in a fiat economy (discussed later).
Or maybe he made the argument that prices will lower to stimulate demand, but that's just saying, "mising will lower prices until misers are tempted into stop mising." Which is a very volatile market, and we consider that sort of volatility bad (because one day turnips will be cheap, and then the next they will be expensive). Also, prices also have an absolute floor - things have a very real cost to manufacture, and you cannot lower prices below that to stimulate demand without losing money. At which point, most people just close their doors or switch over to goods with either higher prices or lower manufacture costs, in an attempt to re-widen that profit margin. Again, we're losing productivity here, pretty clearly. Why have demand later, when you can have demand now? Mising hasn't done anything here except turn six months of good demand into one month of possibly massive demand. This is very, very volatile. We don't like this. (And yes, the misers will 'purge' all at once, because this is the winning move - as one miser spends, prices go back up, and other misers, noticing the buying power of their hoard has changed from increasing to decreasing, will begin spending to cut their losses and get the maximum profit off their hoard).
The far more mainstream position is that mising reduces the total volume of bills in circulation, but it does not increase the value of dollars in circulation proportionally, and therefore the overall demand is reduced.
So we've already debunked most of these claims, but there is one left: "in a fiat economy, does removing currency from circulation cause the value of the remaining dollars to proportionally increase?" In a rough sense, probably yes. But let's analyze what happens if it does and if it doesn't.
If it does: Misers remove some large portion of currency from the economy, collectively, and the remaining currency picks up the slack (this is a gradual process, because prices are sticky, so the economy is 'bad' for awhile when this happens). Then things normalize, and the misers see: "the buying power of my hoard has stopped increasing. This means it is time to expend my hoard." The misers then all collectively spend their money (as I described before), because this is the financially winning move - if your investment is at its maximum value, you cash it in. (In this case, you're cashing in cash for stuff you want). Prices instantly spike back up to where they were before when all that money was in circulation, but misers have got the absolute MOST out of the economy because they "bought low, sold high."
This encourages an economy that saves for extended periods of time, then spends all at once. This is volatile and bad. Very, very bad. Again, you're trading six months of stable demand for one month of massive demand (which is not an optimum solution).
If it doesn't: If the value of the remaining currency does not rise to compensate for the value of the missing currency, then you have in fact reduced demand, and caused problems, as described above.
@Summary
I apologize for the giant wall of text, but I believe I've covered pretty much every possible case of 'mising.'
Essentially, mising either really does reduce overall demand, OR mising encourages demand to happen in volatile spikes (if you didn't like the housing bubble...).
In all cases, mising is the economically winning move for the individual, so we're rewarding people for hoarding money and then coming back later to spend it when either the value of that money is higher or the lack of demand has lowered prices.
Last edited by DSMatticus on Thu May 12, 2011 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Doom » Thu May 12, 2011 4:20 am

Oh no, I don't want you tainting this thread also with your manifestos. I thought you had the decency to stay out as it was, but I'll start with a polite request: Stay out, please, and I politely ask you to take your wall of text with you.
Last edited by Doom on Thu May 12, 2011 4:26 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by DSMatticus » Thu May 12, 2011 4:30 am

Well, that's a dick move, but I suppose you are the thread-starter, and it is a rule somewhere, if I'm recalling correctly? Though, it does seem somewhat weird to say, "I am going to make the following empirical, logical claims. But I don't want you here, because you might empirically, logically refute them."
I'll restrain myself. But you are seriously making claims about the real world and economics that I can point out to be empirically wrong, and I for some reason find it incredibly rude to ask me to sit by quietly while you claim objectively false things because you don't like me telling you why they're false.
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Post by Kaelik » Thu May 12, 2011 4:56 am

> DSMatticus wrote:Well, that's a dick move, but I suppose you are the thread-starter, and it is a rule somewhere, if I'm recalling correctly? Though, it does seem somewhat weird to say, "I am going to make the following empirical, logical claims. But I don't want you here, because you might empirically, logically refute them."

It has to be in the thread title. If it isn't, you can whine and waste time as much as you want.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by DSMatticus » Thu May 12, 2011 5:25 am

> Doom wrote:I thought you had the decency to stay out as it was, but I'll start with a polite request: Stay out, please, and I politely ask you to take your wall of text with you.

Well, I'm responding again because you've apparently edited your post since my previous response. I said I would bail and I totally will, I just wanted to voice a little bit of discomfort at the concept of you starting a thread "to discuss the reality of mising," which is a discussion on concrete facts, testable theory, empirical observations, blah blah blah... And then saying, "you can't bring any of those things, because I disagree with/don't like the things you'll bring."
But you are the thread-starter, and you asked me to leave as soon as you saw me here and I'm going to do that. I would rather not delete the wall of text, though - I'd rather my ideas were out there, at least, on the off-chance they contribute to the discussion. But I won't be here to defend them, so tear them apart all you want.
And I am out.
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Post by Username17 » Thu May 12, 2011 5:57 am

Equating something being "good for society's continued functioning" with being "morally good" is fine. It means you're using a results based utilitarian ethical system. Something is good because it works. But if you then turn around and claim a priori private property rights and that the disruption of those is a moral wrong, you are being incoherent. A priori rights do not exist in a results-dependent utilitarian ethical system. You can't derive anything from what natural rights (or natural law, or natural anything) if you have a results-based ethical system.
So if you concede that things functioning in practice is a moral good, you can't derive a moral wrong from what rights you think people should have. You have to go the other way: derive a list of "rights" based on what actually works in practice.
And since it's not even possible to keep relative value of the medium of exchange from changing with respect to individual goods and services, you are up a creek trying to demonstrate that things would function better if you gave people some right or another that precluded such value shifts. The moral argument against inflation is sunk before it even begins to get tested in reality.
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Post by Doom » Thu May 12, 2011 6:31 am

> FrankTrollman wrote:Equating something being "good for society's continued functioning" with being "morally good" is fine. It means you're using a results based utilitarian ethical system. Something is good because it works. But if you then turn around and claim a priori private property rights and that the disruption of those is a moral wrong, you are being incoherent.

So if I establish for you that property rights are good, that will be sufficient? I just want to make sure that is the requirement you're setting.

> So if you concede that things functioning in practice is a moral good, you can't derive a moral wrong from what rights you think people should have. You have to go the other way: derive a list of "rights" based on what actually works in practice.

Fair enough, let me come back later with discussion of why property rights are good for society.

> And since it's not even possible to keep relative value of the medium of exchange from changing with respect to individual goods and services, you are up a creek trying to demonstrate that things would function better if you gave people some right or another that precluded such value shifts. The moral argument against inflation is sunk before it even begins to get tested in reality.

I'm sorry, you've lost me here. Can you clarify this position? If it can be shown that a man has a right to own the things he owns, where does 'relative value' come in as far as whether or not this right should be infringed, for whatever reason? I'm just not seeing what relative values have to do with anything.
And why is it an assumption that inflation is the best possible thing, so that all other possibilities must be compared to this standard of assumed perfection? I mean, from a societal standpoint I can accept this, but only in a society where pretty much everyone agrees this is the case (much as in Aztec society, most everyone agreed human sacrifice was necessary, so it would be ridiculous for me to argue there).
Last edited by Doom on Thu May 12, 2011 6:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 » Thu May 12, 2011 6:49 am

> Doom wrote:

> > FrankTrollman wrote:Equating something being "good for society's continued functioning" with being "morally good" is fine. It means you're using a results based utilitarian ethical system. Something is good because it works. But if you then turn around and claim a priori private property rights and that the disruption of those is a moral wrong, you are being incoherent.

> So if I establish for you that property rights are good, that will be sufficient? I just want to make sure that is the requirement you're setting.

There are property rights and property rights. You would have to establish that whatever version of property rights you imagine were good. Which being effects based, is not a short cut to anything. Because for every version of property rights that somehow includes having a right to constant value of things you "own", there are a thousand versions that don't. For fuck's sake, Adam Smith doesn't believe you have a right to constant value of property.
So in order to prove that constant value was a good thing, you'd have to prove that constant value is a good thing. The issue of "rights" is totally a distraction and assists your argument in no way. In fact, discussing morality at all is a distraction that makes your argument less convincing. At the core, you are talking about a results-based argument, in order to prove that your position is good you would have already had to prove that it was right. So let's skip it entirely: if you can show that society without inflation works better than society with inflation, we'll just concede all the moral rightness of the position. If you can't, then your harpings on morality make you morally wicked in addition to an economic sciences crank.
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Post by sabs » Thu May 12, 2011 1:12 pm

The Value of Goods change. There is no 'standard' you can use that won't fluctuate.
Hypotheses: Printing more money is the same as stealing money from the pockets of people who already have 'money'
This is what you are stating? Yes?
Counter Hypotheses: Printing money is just that, printing money, done carefully, with an eye out for inflation and hyperinflation, it is not stealing.
1) When more gold is found, it devalues the gold other people have.
2) When more silver is mined, it devalues the silver other people have.
3) Both of these have happened in the Paltry 230 years of the existence of the United States of America.
4) If grain is the standard, and we set a dollar to be equal to 1 pound of rice (whole, brown, unprocessed). Then if more people begin farming rice to 'have more wealth' then the value of everyone else's dollar goes down, because who needs that much rice.
5) Pick /any/ standard you want, and the same applies. Unless you want to use Latinum, and even then the mining of more Latinum would still effect the value.
Money is a short-hand for bartering. I provide a good or service, instead of paying me with goats milk, and chicken eggs. Or by offering to do some carpentry. Money doesn't need to have an INTRINSIC value, and really it should /not/ have intrinsic value. Money should have perceived societal value.
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Post by Doom » Thu May 12, 2011 3:13 pm

> FrankTrollman wrote: There are property rights and property rights.

I acknowledge that if you don't accept that people own their things, everything past that point in the OP is meaningless.
By way of apology, I mention I was raised in American society; the primary religion here has a specific moral injunction against theft ("Thou shalt not steal") and the legal system here has a truly frightening array of laws regarding theft. From these I infer that this society has determined people have property rights here (with no such rights, there can be no theft).
I realize that these don't prove property rights are good for society, and merely estabablish this society thinks such rights are good, but, much like the Aztecs and human sacrifice, society thinking something is good doesn't make it good (well, assuming human sacrifice is not good...morality is such a sticky thing).
Anyway, I just assumed you came from a similar background, and I apologize.

> constant value of property (etc)

We seem to have another axiom conflict.
1) Do you assert then, that "inflation is good" is an axiom (so that discussion of anything bad about inflation is irrelevant)?
2) Do you assert that misers are bad, because they impede inflation (again, by axiom 1, arguments about how much are irrelevant)?
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