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Can you outline a scenario in which there exists no central bank? While everything you have said is true, I feel as though there exist giant icebergs gliding s

Can you outline a scenario in which there exists no central bank? While everything you have said is true, I feel as though there exist giant icebergs gliding silently past your watertight steel hull.

AmericanChopper 8y ago
A central banks job is really only to control the flow of money. There’s a few decentralized alternative models out there. That’s what bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies are. I really don’t know what the second part of your comment is getting at though...
- bachbach 8y ago
  Cryptocurrencies are not used directly in the purchase of stock, real estate or consumer transactions - this isn't an attack on them - just an observation that private banks used to issue money before central banks existed - and those monies would have been used for those sorts of purchases. Presently cryptocurrencies in use look more similar to those tokens/vouchers companies offer except with a secondary market, esp. the ICO model. I was pondering at the idea that central banking or any regulation of capital flow in society is a strange topic. Central banks are these organizations - people dressed in suits, they have office chairs and receptionists - but this window dressing as corporation or government office distracts us from what is a very strange topic. You have this complex network represented by a number. What is being said by this? That the Federal Reverse is economic homeostasis and the interest rate represents the equilibrium? Half the time I think central banks make sense and the other half of it I think everybody must be insane. Seems like we could use the rationale for central banking to perform other activities, like population control. Nobody makes the case for something like that but how is it crazier? They're different forms of capital, right?
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    Perhaps your error is thinking of currency as a part of the natural world, rather than what it really is, an invented medium of exchange. In order for it to work in its intended fashion, it must have some scarcity. It can’t be so scarce that it hinders growth, and it can’t be so abundant that it causes too much inflation. It’s not the only means of exchange, it’s simply the most efficient one, and the role of the central bank is primarily to maintain appropriate balance between the forces that push and pull on the money supply.
    - bachbach 8y ago
      I realize money is an abstraction - what I'm saying is that the model - its mapping onto real activity is questionable to people besides hippies. Usually when a small town or community provide their own currency there is an surge of economic prosperity. Eventually central banks act as a leveler and the connection between small businesses like startups and the macroeconomy is so attenuated it might be compared to those projects in physics to reconcile small physics and big physics. The topic is much more mysterious than you're allowing for!

Can you outline a scenario in which there exists no central bank? While everything you have said is true, I feel as though there exist giant icebergs gliding silently past your watertight steel hull.

AmericanChopper 8y ago

A central banks job is really only to control the flow of money. There’s a few decentralized alternative models out there. That’s what bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies are. I really don’t know what the second part of your comment is getting at though...

bachbach 8y ago
Cryptocurrencies are not used directly in the purchase of stock, real estate or consumer transactions - this isn't an attack on them - just an observation that private banks used to issue money before central banks existed - and those monies would have been used for those sorts of purchases. Presently cryptocurrencies in use look more similar to those tokens/vouchers companies offer except with a secondary market, esp. the ICO model. I was pondering at the idea that central banking or any regulation of capital flow in society is a strange topic. Central banks are these organizations - people dressed in suits, they have office chairs and receptionists - but this window dressing as corporation or government office distracts us from what is a very strange topic. You have this complex network represented by a number. What is being said by this? That the Federal Reverse is economic homeostasis and the interest rate represents the equilibrium? Half the time I think central banks make sense and the other half of it I think everybody must be insane. Seems like we could use the rationale for central banking to perform other activities, like population control. Nobody makes the case for something like that but how is it crazier? They're different forms of capital, right?
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  Perhaps your error is thinking of currency as a part of the natural world, rather than what it really is, an invented medium of exchange. In order for it to work in its intended fashion, it must have some scarcity. It can’t be so scarce that it hinders growth, and it can’t be so abundant that it causes too much inflation. It’s not the only means of exchange, it’s simply the most efficient one, and the role of the central bank is primarily to maintain appropriate balance between the forces that push and pull on the money supply.
  - bachbach 8y ago
    I realize money is an abstraction - what I'm saying is that the model - its mapping onto real activity is questionable to people besides hippies. Usually when a small town or community provide their own currency there is an surge of economic prosperity. Eventually central banks act as a leveler and the connection between small businesses like startups and the macroeconomy is so attenuated it might be compared to those projects in physics to reconcile small physics and big physics. The topic is much more mysterious than you're allowing for!