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1. Naturalizing Cash > "What does it mean to naturalize cash? It means that cash must also suffer from entropy." Cash already suffers from entropy. One of the

1. Naturalizing Cash > "What does it mean to naturalize cash? It means that cash must also suffer from entropy." Cash already suffers from entropy. One of the fundamental concepts of finance is the Time Value of Money (TVM) which (in layman's terms) states that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar tomorrow due to its potential to earn a return over that time period. If you don't put your money to work earning a return, you are losing value. Inflation is another force that devalues the real value cash. Even if we take the author's unsubstantiated claim that we have "managed to control [inflation] well in the last couple of decades" as a truth (which is clearly refuted by the current deflation in parts of the Eurozone and Japan as well as the inability of the Federal Reserve to consistently hit a target of 2% inflation), inflation still reduces the purchasing power of cash. 2. Economic Rent as Theft > "Economic rent is the amount charged for a good or service above and beyond the cost of creation." AKA profit. Generating profit is not immoral, nor is it theft. The only way that I could partially agree with the author here is in the case of an oligopoly or monopoly forcing consumers to pay exorbitant prices for some necessary good. This is why we have the government, laws, regulations, and anti-trust agencies. 3. Making Everyone a Capitalist > "∑bT must be established so that it supersedes the value of the labor at the time the laborer gets paid. To do this we need to make everyone a capitalist. When one account pays cash to another account, we keep track of this and give the paying account a ‘share’ of preferred stock in the paid to account equal to the dollar amount paid." So basically hypercapitalism is a way to make every person into a corporation with dividend-paying equity. People contribute their own labor in order to obtain equity shares in other people. I think this is a cool idea. As long as the number of people in the economy increases without bound, then this idea could work. See the transition from PAYGO to fully-funded social welfare [0] as an example of another system that only works as long as the population is growing. [0] https://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/1997/97-022.pdf https://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/1997/97-022.pdf

skilesare 12y ago
1. There is a difference between the unit of a dollar and a value of a dollar. I think we need to degrade the units. Re:Inflation, it would be better to control this then to just let inflation take it's course. 0% inflation is the target. 2. I agree with you, but is it a black and white distinction or a gradient of gray? The truth is some rents are good and some are bad and it is very very hard to separate them...so instead we overwhelm them from elsewhere and make them matter less. 3.Yes. And the theory relies on the long term increase in human productivity. In the event of a near extinction event you're going to have bigger problems than the economy not working. It can endure short term bumps in the road and actually has anti-fragile properties when it encounters volatility.
- roymurdock 12y ago
  1. Moving from a relatively non-degradable substance such as gold or an easily-replaceable substance such as paper to a degrading unit of exchange completely conflicts with one of the major functions of money: a store of value. Fine, it can work for things such as cattle and if we accept your argument, humans. But one of the fundamental reasons paper currency exists is for small cash transactions. Are you going to exchange some of your equity for that weekly bag of groceries? How about that tank of gas? How much equity is that cup of coffee worth to you? I'd be interested to see how hypercapitalism could deal with these simple transactions. As for inflation: is it as simple to control inflation as you suggest? Why is 0% the target? Inflation is a terrifically complicated subject. While there is agreement that inflation is costly and should therefore be minimized, for a number of reasons policymakers nevertheless aim for an inflation rate above zero. First, available measures of inflation are imperfect and tend to overstate “true” inflation. Second, a little inflation may make it easier for firms to reduce real wages—without cutting nominal wages—when necessary to maintain employment in an economic downturn. Third, a negative inflation rate—deflation— could be even more costly than a similar rate of inflation, suggesting that a low rate of inflation might be desirable to insure against falling prices. Finally, at very low levels of inflation, nominal short-term interest rates may be very close to zero, limiting a central bank’s ability to ease policy in response to economic weakness. Because nominal rates cannot fall below zero, policymakers cannot cut short-term interest rates any further once they have lowered these rates to zero. -George Kahn, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas 2. I'm not sure I understand your argument. What is "overwhelming" them, where is "elsewhere," and how does that make some profits matter more or less than any others? 3. I think your argument would be much stronger if you did away with all of the sections before your last and simply expanded on the possibility of somehow specifying and selling personal equity vis a vis blockchain technology. The rest is 100% going to draw criticisms and does not fully support your interesting and novel idea. Just my opinion though.

skilesare 12y ago

1. There is a difference between the unit of a dollar and a value of a dollar. I think we need to degrade the units. Re:Inflation, it would be better to control this then to just let inflation take it's course. 0% inflation is the target. 2. I agree with you, but is it a black and white distinction or a gradient of gray? The truth is some rents are good and some are bad and it is very very hard to separate them...so instead we overwhelm them from elsewhere and make them matter less. 3.Yes. And the theory relies on the long term increase in human productivity. In the event of a near extinction event you're going to have bigger problems than the economy not working. It can endure short term bumps in the road and actually has anti-fragile properties when it encounters volatility.

roymurdock 12y ago
1. Moving from a relatively non-degradable substance such as gold or an easily-replaceable substance such as paper to a degrading unit of exchange completely conflicts with one of the major functions of money: a store of value. Fine, it can work for things such as cattle and if we accept your argument, humans. But one of the fundamental reasons paper currency exists is for small cash transactions. Are you going to exchange some of your equity for that weekly bag of groceries? How about that tank of gas? How much equity is that cup of coffee worth to you? I'd be interested to see how hypercapitalism could deal with these simple transactions. As for inflation: is it as simple to control inflation as you suggest? Why is 0% the target? Inflation is a terrifically complicated subject. While there is agreement that inflation is costly and should therefore be minimized, for a number of reasons policymakers nevertheless aim for an inflation rate above zero. First, available measures of inflation are imperfect and tend to overstate “true” inflation. Second, a little inflation may make it easier for firms to reduce real wages—without cutting nominal wages—when necessary to maintain employment in an economic downturn. Third, a negative inflation rate—deflation— could be even more costly than a similar rate of inflation, suggesting that a low rate of inflation might be desirable to insure against falling prices. Finally, at very low levels of inflation, nominal short-term interest rates may be very close to zero, limiting a central bank’s ability to ease policy in response to economic weakness. Because nominal rates cannot fall below zero, policymakers cannot cut short-term interest rates any further once they have lowered these rates to zero. -George Kahn, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas 2. I'm not sure I understand your argument. What is "overwhelming" them, where is "elsewhere," and how does that make some profits matter more or less than any others? 3. I think your argument would be much stronger if you did away with all of the sections before your last and simply expanded on the possibility of somehow specifying and selling personal equity vis a vis blockchain technology. The rest is 100% going to draw criticisms and does not fully support your interesting and novel idea. Just my opinion though.