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I agree with you whole-heartedly that money is a social contract. I did disagree with how you’ve formed your argument: The credit crises is not a issue of mone

I agree with you whole-heartedly that money is a social contract. I did disagree with how you’ve formed your argument: The credit crises is not a issue of money, it's an issue of confidence in the system. Money is a social contract... You wouldn’t enter into a contract with someone you had no confidence in that they would uphold their end. Money is credit is debt is a social contract. I think that maybe you’ve gone slightly too far in the opposite direction of money being some fixed thing. It represents confidence, and we can’t just make it whatever we want, although we can bend it in a lot of ways. Interestingly enough, with this view of money, it does make sense that at the pinnacle of failure of regulated, government-sanctioned contracts, you might find people (in aggregate) turning their confidence towards organized crime, with a proven record of organizing massive operations to move products.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
We can make money whatever we want. Fixed currencies that are backed by gold, surely, we can't 'make' gold ... but that's an artificial limitation. I'm not saying we should make it what we want, but we have to remember that's what's at stake. Organized crime may have the advantage that contracts are ruthlessly enforced ... so you can't have the totally corrupt value chain as you had with housing, wherein there was fiction from the house buyer, to the lender, to the VP of mortgages, to the bundlers, to the buyers of said bundlers, and to all the people trading on top of that. Also, there are no derivatives or complex financial instruments riding on top of the drug trade, so the 'house of cards' would have a lot less falling to do if it were to come apart. But you can't build an economy of killing people who don't pay you or sell to your customer ...
- acct1771 8y ago
  Are you sure? History calls b.s.
- hndamien 8y ago
  The "artificial" or rather "natural physical" limitation on gold is what give it value in the social contract in the first place, so you can't just make it what you want. If you remove the limitations, its very hard to form the contract - but not impossible.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

We can make money whatever we want. Fixed currencies that are backed by gold, surely, we can't 'make' gold ... but that's an artificial limitation. I'm not saying we should make it what we want, but we have to remember that's what's at stake. Organized crime may have the advantage that contracts are ruthlessly enforced ... so you can't have the totally corrupt value chain as you had with housing, wherein there was fiction from the house buyer, to the lender, to the VP of mortgages, to the bundlers, to the buyers of said bundlers, and to all the people trading on top of that. Also, there are no derivatives or complex financial instruments riding on top of the drug trade, so the 'house of cards' would have a lot less falling to do if it were to come apart. But you can't build an economy of killing people who don't pay you or sell to your customer ...

acct1771 8y ago
Are you sure? History calls b.s.
hndamien 8y ago
The "artificial" or rather "natural physical" limitation on gold is what give it value in the social contract in the first place, so you can't just make it what you want. If you remove the limitations, its very hard to form the contract - but not impossible.