The Gods Among Us

In the beginning there was Money.  Well, not exactly.  There was barter.  There was a high degree of vertical integration, which is a fancy way of saying if you wanted something back then, it was pretty much up to you to grow it or make it yourself.  What trade existed was largely between members of the tribe or village or group.  If some guy made a pretty cool hunting knife, and his wife was nagging him for a deer to butcher and eat, a trade of the knife for the deer (or parts of it) might take place.  Trading was simple, uncomplicated, and very very slow.  Life was brutal and short.  At the end of the day, when you had run out of you, you had also run out of future.  You aged quickly and died young.  When groups of nomads found a place to their liking, they sometimes stayed, settled in, and became agrarian.  Society became more complex, and slightly greater specialization of labor became possible.  One family could grow things from the soil; another could domesticate animals as a source of meat.  There was still no Money.

Trading in this primitive context was still taking place among the so-called Indians on this North American continent when the first Europeans arrived.  The native Americans were fascinated with some of the baubles brought over by the Europeans and willingly traded furs for them.  Eventually some commodities became so commonplace and essential to daily life in primitive societies that they took on new importance as a means of facilitating trade.  Salt, because it was needed by everyone for daily purposes, came to assume more importance as a form of “money” than it formerly had as just salt.  Since everyone had salt, and used salt, goods and services were traded using salt as the store of value and medium of exchange between trading partners.  The same was true of other things of universal value, including furs.  Because of their prized ornamental value and scarcity, gold and silver  became universally accepted as Money. 

The term store of value is very important.  Without some universally accepted warehouse of value that had been produced, all exchange was limited to what could be immediately produced and immediately consumed.  No long term planning was possible, and without long term planning, the Industrial Revolution with its complex machines and processes was impossible.  Modern society was impossible.  The invention of Money was a prerequisite to all the amenities of life as we know it.  Without the invention of Money, we would all still be primitives.  In spite of Rousseau’s idealization of the Noble Savage, the Garden of Eden it was not.  Man was the victim of ignorance, superstition, disease, and unmitigated natural disaster the likes of which are only occasionally experienced today in the poorest parts of the world.

In primitive society, wealth was limited to whatever a person could produce in a day, or a month, or a year of his own individual effort.  All other wealth was acquired by confiscating the values produced by others at the point of a spear, or in time, at the end of a gun.  All great monuments of history were made possible by the confiscation, not only of others wealth, including their grain, their herds, their tools, but also the confiscation of the people themselves, physically.  People became property, to be used and exploited by their conquerors.  When Rome was starving because of crop failure, their solution was to conquer Egypt with their legions, make that part of North Africa a vassal state and require them to ship their grain to Rome at prices Rome dictated.  You might say that Rome “nationalized” Egypt;  Cleopatra, in name at least, still “owned” the means of production, but the prices were dictated by Rome, her Master.  For a while, she was able to continue her pretense of being in charge of her country, of being Queen.  Then one day Caesar extended an invitation she could not refuse:  to come to Rome to visit, as his “guest”.  The dress code for the event was a little intimidating–naked, in shackles, to be paraded as the spoils of war through the crowds of Roman rabble and oglers, the nobility and the great unwashed.  Cleopatra committed suicide.

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The Global Poker Playoffs: a short story about Money Supply

Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the godfather of modern banking, purportedly said “Give me control of a nations money supply and I care not who makes the laws.”  What did he mean by that?  Is it true?  Since the Federal Reserve Bank controls the money supply of the United States as the world’s largest and most influential Central Bank, does this mean that this institution is more powerful than Congress, more powerful than the Executive Branch of the government, that it operates above and beyond the control of the Republicans or Democrats?  Is the Federal Reserve above the law?  Was Rothschild right?  What exactly is the money supply, anyway?

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Financial Literacy: When a Bank Collapses

There has been so much debate about bank bailouts, and most people have nothing more than uninformed, generalized opinions on the subject, usually based on personal philosophies about the proper role of government in our nation’s economy. Bernanke and the Fed have maintained that the bailout was absolutely necessary in order to stop the economy from charging over a cliff. Is this what really happened? Or are the big banks an informal extension of the government already, and the taxpayers are routinely called upon to bail them out due to their poor business judgments? And if the latter is true, then surely such government “protection” creates a moral hazard in that the banks know  no matter how foolhardy or careless they may be,  when push comes to shove their survival is assured, i.e.  Big Business always gets saved by Big Government! Exactly how did the banks, particularly the Big Banks, get in so much trouble? How exactly was this related to the real estate bubble? Get part of the picture in this short video: Financial Literacy: When a Bank Collapses at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG0ry145ymc.

Financial Literacy: Deflation: When an Economy Implodes on Itself

As I have discussed in other posts, every good, service, and commodity has a value, and that value is denominated, or measured in terms of the national currency; in our case the value of anything is measured in dollars.  (Go to Billionaires Who Can’t Afford a Loaf of Bread:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGfsQimC0mw)  Even money has a value that fluctuates, and there are events that trigger changes in the value of money.  Money is measured by it’s purchasing power, and economists spell this with capital letters Purchasing Power (PP).  Money by itself has no value; it is only a symbol and a medium of exchange, so the real question is how much of anything can you exchange a dollar for??  I have covered what happens during a period of inflation, and the costs of everything as measured in dollars goes up, which means the value of the dollar (or its purchasing power) goes down.  People think they are better off with rising wages, but factoring in the decreased ability of those wages to purchase, they are actually worse off. 

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Financial Literacy: Measuring the Mood of the Mob by the Price of Gold

At various times throughout history money, or currency, has been based on metals, usually silver or gold.  This created an objective value to the currency of the period.  A dollar, for example, was worth an ounce of gold, or 1/10 of an ounce of gold, or 1/20 of an ounce of gold.  Governments and rulers, who always want to spend more money than they take in, either for their own enrichment or in order to bribe voters, usually try to debase their currency.  Kings about once a generation used to re-mint their coins (paper currency wasn’t invented yet), using the need to have their own image on the coin as the excuse, and they would dilute the gold content by mixing other metals with the gold, or slightly downsize the coin itself, but calling it by the same name as its predecessor.  When governments became well established, they usually did a ‘bait and switch’ routine and substituted printed money for metal coin, and again called it by the same name attached to a unit of its metal predecessor.  So a gold dollar was now called a paper dollar, as if their value were the same!

Once governments discovered the delights of the printing press, they would print as much money as they felt they could slip past their gullible and unaware subjects.  Acceptance by the herd was essential, and when the debased currency was widely rejected, it was not uncommon for a ruler to create stiff penalties, including the death penalty, for not accepting the paper currency as legal tender.  The reason governments prefer to print money is first of all so they are not bound by the usual principles of fiscal discipline (Don’t spend more than you make) but also every time they print money, they are actually lowering the unit value of that currency, reducing its purchasing power.  They are actually picking the pockets of their citizens, especially the most conservative ones who save.  The money these citizens save will not buy as much when it is finally spent as it would have immediately upon their having received it.

When citizens get nervous about the stability of the banking system, their political system, or their own personal safety, they are inclined to buy gold.  Gold does not pay interest, and it is still only worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it, but because there is a fixed quantity of it at any given point in time, its value tends to be very stable.  This is why nervous people buy gold as a hedge against inflation.  Gold is not without risk, however.  At times when the madding crowd is enamored of another of its periodic manias, interest in gold will wane as the herd stampedes in a new direction.  When demand falls off, the price of gold drops, like anything else.  Even in times of rising price of gold, there is always the possibility of the government confiscating it (that has been done by OUR government, as well as many others.)  Ultimately the government has the guns, and whatever we have is pretty much by permission.  A democracy, as I have written many times, is no guarantee of anything more than mob rule.  All people, in any period of history, need protected most from those they elect over themselves.  Inevitably their public servants become their masters.  Even here, the freest nation on earth, the Constitution guaranteeing both individual rights and the limitation of government’s powers, has been under steady attack for well over a hundred years by many activists who resent its restrictions.  They want to harness the coercive power of government to an endless list of programs to protect us from ourselves, and of course, with them at the levers of distribution and power.

For a short video on how the price of gold is a measure of the mood of the mob, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuDZQFPgXCw

Financial Literacy: Why Governments Secretly Like Inflation

The dirty secret of all governments is that contrary to popular opinion, they do not hate inflation.  All governmental corruption begins when they discover the power of the purse, and that they can use the public purse to perpetuate their power, privilege, and benefits.  Over time all legislators and power brokers arrogate to themselves the means to stay in office and the luxuries it affords at the general taxpayer’s expense.  So of course we hear how the purpose of the Federal Reserve and Congress is to maintain a strict control over inflation, that the Fed is independent of the government, and that it is immune to political influence.  At best this is a Trojan horse.  Inflation is the primary tool used by every government to live beyond its means, and by its “means” we mean its ability to tax.  For taxation is the Achilles heel of all governments, for carried to excess it inspires armed revolution and fall from power.  Governments raise taxes at their peril.  Inflation, however, is a hidden tax, for it is how the government spends and borrows beyond its ability to repay.  By printing money and increasing credit, thereby increasing the money supply, the government creates inflation.  How does this happen?

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Financial Literacy: How Fractional Reserve Banking Multiplies the Money Supply

One of the reasons why so few people show an interest in economics is that in today’s world the subject is complex and defies simplistic definitions.  But that is so true of much of our modern society.  It is not uncommon these days for older folks to refuse to learn e-mail and to shake their heads in wonderment at their grandchildren deftly manipulating electronic hand-held games totally beyond the grasp of their elders.  What IS of grave concern is the fact that the achievements of our scientists and engineers have aided and abetted the dumbing down of successive generations.  We have heard much of the income gaps in our society; we hear much less about the widening chasm between the educational level of the designers and engineers of our world and the end-users of our world.  Not to mention the grade inflation of our educational system.  Hence we sometimes find students in Advance Placement who still cannot read and write well.  I would be remiss in my duty to you, my reader, to imply that you can understand the economic world you live in without effort.  There are times when you will still have to reach for the dictionary, and hopefully you have several in your home, and even more hopefully, they are well worn and used!  Or more likely, you have an online dictionary marked as a favorite.  Even though I exert considerable effort to simplify and clarify an otherwise arcane and difficult subject, I would suspect that my articles have little appeal to those addicted to instant gratification.  I simply do not know how to reduce some concepts to a sound byte level.  Take for example, the concept of the money supply. 

The money supply is a very important concept with those entrusted with the well-being of our macro-economy (the BIG picture).  There are, for example, endless arguments among economists about what properly constitutes the money supply.  We’ll skip most of that stuff and stick to essentials.  Let’s start with the fact that in the profession and in the media, the money supply is referred to as M.  Yep, that’s it, M as in Mickey Mouse, Mars bars, or of course, M&Ms.  To me, the latter connotes Money and Masochism, which sort of go together.  Of course, economists talk of M1, M2, M1a, etc.  That is largely to impress us.  Or maybe to impress themselves.  It has absolutely no effect on the accuracy of their predictions.    But it seems to be a requirement imposed upon all financial advisors and analysts to use jargon composed of largely a minimum of four or more syllables per word to convince us that, like all priesthoods, they know what we cannot possible grasp with our feeble minds.  But let us bravely press on . . .

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Financial Literacy: The Origins of Banking

Financial Literacy: The Origins of Banking

Financial Literacy: Billionaires who can’t afford to buy a loaf of bread.

Everything has a “trading value” and it is expressed as a price.  This includes the value of human labor, regardless of whether it is of the menial type, such as hammering nails, or intellectual labor, such as a performing rock star or a concert pianist or a novelist or a scientist.  The value of any given labor is determined by those who purchase the product of that labor, i.e. a newly constructed house, a repaired dishwasher, going to a movie, or a new prescription drug developed through scientific research.  The value of all labor is expressed as a price.  The price of labor is its compensation, whether in the form of hourly wages, salary, commissions, royalties, percentages of sales or profits, or whatever.

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Financial Literacy: The Money Supply and Inflation

Financial Literacy: The Money Supply and Inflation

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