[Disclaimer: I am writing this article as a method of personally improving my own SFC techniques. (Over the years, I find that new material is understood much quicker and with more comprehension if I first try to put-it-together myself. It's kind of a 'put-it-together first, then read the instructions' approach.)]
The Stock-Flow consistent (SFC) model technique is a method students and thinkers can use to build models by using consistent money flows and stocks. Accounting principals are followed by ensuring that all monetary trades are balanced with an exchange of product and monetary equivalent.
SFC models can be built to display the NIPA sectors and GDP, or they can be built to display other economic events. The focus here will be to build two progressively more detailed SFC models, thereby preparing the reader for the next step of understanding the yet more detailed models found in 'beginning' texts.
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Two Intuitive Conflicting Models of Money
Money is quite a puzzle to economist. They can't quite figure it out. For sure, it's not exactly the 'stable' medium of exchange that people think of when they consider their 'cash'. Stability is fleeting at best.
'Value stability' is the issue we will consider. We are not going to worry about the size of money or whether it is backed by gold. We will be thinking about paper money as commonly used. (An economist would call it fiat money.) We're going to think about how this money gets value and holds it.
Now, I am not a trained economist. What you will be reading is meant to be intuitive and logical, not quotes from a text book or academic article. The goal is to meld everyday observations about money into a coherent framework.
So what is money? In this post, we are going to look at money from two perspectives, one stable and one unstable. Paradoxically, they both must be true. Coherent logic convinces us the we must have two models of money. The real macro economy must operate with effects from both models contributing to the maelstrom. Our task is to match components with models.
'Value stability' is the issue we will consider. We are not going to worry about the size of money or whether it is backed by gold. We will be thinking about paper money as commonly used. (An economist would call it fiat money.) We're going to think about how this money gets value and holds it.
Now, I am not a trained economist. What you will be reading is meant to be intuitive and logical, not quotes from a text book or academic article. The goal is to meld everyday observations about money into a coherent framework.
So what is money? In this post, we are going to look at money from two perspectives, one stable and one unstable. Paradoxically, they both must be true. Coherent logic convinces us the we must have two models of money. The real macro economy must operate with effects from both models contributing to the maelstrom. Our task is to match components with models.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
A Micro-Economic Analogue for MMT
MMT describes how modern governments can create money at whim and goes on to describe how government can give everyone a job. This attractive theory lacks a micro-economic analogue which hinders in understanding the implications of MMT. This post will outline a micro-economic analogue to complement macro MMT.
First the Similarities
Our analogue model will be a small business whose owner has the ability to offer price relief by making valuable coupons available to customers. Coupons are redeemed in the issuing store for merchandise whose price is effectively reduced by the value represented by coupon. The use of coupons is a common practice in the retail sector.
We now claim that a small business which offers discount coupons is effectively creating a locally-valuable money. This locally created, locally valuable money is used to discount posted prices in hope of improving sales. A customer in possession of locally produced money takes it into the issuing store and receives credit as if he was bringing in normal money. Intellectually, both customer and store owner know that the effective price-at-time-of-sale has been reduced to the extent that a coupon has been presented and accepted.
Crucial to understanding the implications of this model is the realization that locally created coupons are created without expenditure of meaningful amounts of labor or resources. Equally crucial is the observation that two customers, one with coupon in hand and one with only normal money, will pay the same price for an item. That noted, the one with a coupon will receive the item with less actual effort having been expended in acquiring money for purchase. The coupon owner comes into the store in a wealth enhanced position when compared to the no-coupon buyer.
A fundamental nexus of unequal pricing has been created to the extent that the store owner has given coupons to some buyers and not to others.
When government issues new money (whether created by actual new printing or by borrowing without intent to reduce total borrowings) government is acting as if it were the owner of a national store who elects to issue coupons. Similar to the small business owner, government is looking for enhanced product movement. For example, government can borrow money and give it to people needing health care. Health care sales should improve which would be the desired outcome. The customer would be indifferent to the actual cost to the extent that part of the cost is a gift. Government knows (or should know) that the macro economy has actually collected less money than was received because some fraction of the collected money was first produced locally at no cost in labor or resources expended.
A fundamental nexus of effort-exchanged-for-effort has been broken when government prints money as if it were a coupon to be used to reduce prices to improve sales.
When a store prints coupons, the printing store will have some estimation about how the local money will be used. The net effect will be to reduce gross-retail-valuation by the amount of local money redeemed. Merchandise will leave the store in exchange for a reduced collection of base money. This will obviously have serious implications for a store's cash flow position and net wealth position, implications which the merchant will certainly take into consideration.
Merchants create coupons for a number of different purposes just as government may create base money intended for a variety of economic enhancements. The exact micro or macro-economic effect of each enhancement would depend upon the circumstances surrounding each unique event.
Now the Dissimilarities
While the business enhancement parallels of this analogue fit together well, the duration of the two types of coupons (local and government) are vastly different. A look at the differences is instructive.
Coupons issued by small business have a very limited lifespan. On the other hand, coupons printed by government are not redeemed or canceled when they are used, giving them unlimited longevity. First we look at the balance sheet implications for small business.
A small business owner who considers offering a discount coupon must remember that he is about to give away some part of the gross value of his store. No longer will the apparent value of merchandise be calculated by multiplying posted prices times stock numbers. The existing apparent gross value will be reduced by the expected return of valuable coupons. The act of offering valuable coupons increases the wealth of customers at the expense of the merchandise owner. The same thing occurs when government prints coupons.
When government prints money, the measurable monetary wealth of the nation must instantly increase. The individuals receiving this money will have a wealth increase that comes at the expense of those who do not get a direct payment. One group receives a printed-money enhanced government check while the second group must both work to achieve the same monetary position and endure increased competition for available goods.
General Comments
There is no reason that either small business or government needs to limit coupon issue to a one-time event. Both can issue coupons repeatedly.
In the case of repeated coupon offers, small business simply builds a probability based coupon-return-rate into it's business model. The gross value of merchandise would be reduced by the value of expected coupon return. Additionally, knowing that coupons are coming, customers routinely wait before buying until the coupons arrive. Coupon practices get built into the economic environment. The same thing happens when government repeatedly issues coupons.
When government routinely, repeatedly, increases the wealth of the nation by sequentially issuing more money, the economy creates a business model built around that expectation. A central bank expectation of a 2% annual inflation rate is a good example of a national business plan built around continued coupon issue.
Conclusion
MMT describes how government can issue money pretty much at whim. Small business can do the same thing by issuing coupons.
Small business is careful to not 'give away the store' by unlimited coupon issue. Government needs to be equally careful.
(c) Roger Sparks 2019
First the Similarities
Our analogue model will be a small business whose owner has the ability to offer price relief by making valuable coupons available to customers. Coupons are redeemed in the issuing store for merchandise whose price is effectively reduced by the value represented by coupon. The use of coupons is a common practice in the retail sector.
We now claim that a small business which offers discount coupons is effectively creating a locally-valuable money. This locally created, locally valuable money is used to discount posted prices in hope of improving sales. A customer in possession of locally produced money takes it into the issuing store and receives credit as if he was bringing in normal money. Intellectually, both customer and store owner know that the effective price-at-time-of-sale has been reduced to the extent that a coupon has been presented and accepted.
Crucial to understanding the implications of this model is the realization that locally created coupons are created without expenditure of meaningful amounts of labor or resources. Equally crucial is the observation that two customers, one with coupon in hand and one with only normal money, will pay the same price for an item. That noted, the one with a coupon will receive the item with less actual effort having been expended in acquiring money for purchase. The coupon owner comes into the store in a wealth enhanced position when compared to the no-coupon buyer.
A fundamental nexus of unequal pricing has been created to the extent that the store owner has given coupons to some buyers and not to others.
When government issues new money (whether created by actual new printing or by borrowing without intent to reduce total borrowings) government is acting as if it were the owner of a national store who elects to issue coupons. Similar to the small business owner, government is looking for enhanced product movement. For example, government can borrow money and give it to people needing health care. Health care sales should improve which would be the desired outcome. The customer would be indifferent to the actual cost to the extent that part of the cost is a gift. Government knows (or should know) that the macro economy has actually collected less money than was received because some fraction of the collected money was first produced locally at no cost in labor or resources expended.
A fundamental nexus of effort-exchanged-for-effort has been broken when government prints money as if it were a coupon to be used to reduce prices to improve sales.
When a store prints coupons, the printing store will have some estimation about how the local money will be used. The net effect will be to reduce gross-retail-valuation by the amount of local money redeemed. Merchandise will leave the store in exchange for a reduced collection of base money. This will obviously have serious implications for a store's cash flow position and net wealth position, implications which the merchant will certainly take into consideration.
Merchants create coupons for a number of different purposes just as government may create base money intended for a variety of economic enhancements. The exact micro or macro-economic effect of each enhancement would depend upon the circumstances surrounding each unique event.
Now the Dissimilarities
While the business enhancement parallels of this analogue fit together well, the duration of the two types of coupons (local and government) are vastly different. A look at the differences is instructive.
Coupons issued by small business have a very limited lifespan. On the other hand, coupons printed by government are not redeemed or canceled when they are used, giving them unlimited longevity. First we look at the balance sheet implications for small business.
A small business owner who considers offering a discount coupon must remember that he is about to give away some part of the gross value of his store. No longer will the apparent value of merchandise be calculated by multiplying posted prices times stock numbers. The existing apparent gross value will be reduced by the expected return of valuable coupons. The act of offering valuable coupons increases the wealth of customers at the expense of the merchandise owner. The same thing occurs when government prints coupons.
When government prints money, the measurable monetary wealth of the nation must instantly increase. The individuals receiving this money will have a wealth increase that comes at the expense of those who do not get a direct payment. One group receives a printed-money enhanced government check while the second group must both work to achieve the same monetary position and endure increased competition for available goods.
General Comments
There is no reason that either small business or government needs to limit coupon issue to a one-time event. Both can issue coupons repeatedly.
In the case of repeated coupon offers, small business simply builds a probability based coupon-return-rate into it's business model. The gross value of merchandise would be reduced by the value of expected coupon return. Additionally, knowing that coupons are coming, customers routinely wait before buying until the coupons arrive. Coupon practices get built into the economic environment. The same thing happens when government repeatedly issues coupons.
When government routinely, repeatedly, increases the wealth of the nation by sequentially issuing more money, the economy creates a business model built around that expectation. A central bank expectation of a 2% annual inflation rate is a good example of a national business plan built around continued coupon issue.
Conclusion
MMT describes how government can issue money pretty much at whim. Small business can do the same thing by issuing coupons.
Small business is careful to not 'give away the store' by unlimited coupon issue. Government needs to be equally careful.
(c) Roger Sparks 2019
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Finding a Justifiable Tariff Rate in a Floating Currency World
President Trump recently announced a tariff increase from 10% to 25% on a basket of Chinese products with American officials charging "backtracking on commitments". This seems to be a political reason, not an economic reason, to raise tariff rates. That said, can we find an economically justified tariff rate for products in a floating exchange rate world? We will try to find a logical answer to that question over the course of this post.
The political backdrop
Trade between nations with different currencies is essential to solve resource unbalances on a world wide basis. If this trade is roughly financially equal, there is little long term concern. Political concern develops when the financial trade is unequal for long periods of time. The cumulative American trade history with China yields one such example.
When we see every modern industrial nation spending far more than possible with taxation alone, we can deduce that, world-wide, we live in a subsidized economy. This subsidized macro-economic environment includes a subsidy enhanced export environment characterized by floating currency relationships. Having created imbalances that have gone on for many years at an increasing pace, the political climate has reached a point in time where finger-pointing has been replaced by real actions to change perceived imbalances, primarily job displacement. Tariffs are the tool of choice now being used by the American government.
National resource imbalances
Not only are there wide differences in resource bases between nations (some have oil, some have iron, some have labor, etc), there are wide differences of willingness to expend national resources to keep people working productively. A strong case can be made that export industries will be economically favored when a currency is weakened, putting people to work at the cost of an internal shift in the distribution of wealth. Of course, increased exports from one nation will likely result in increased competition with reduced prices and jobs in the importing nation.
A strong argument can be made that China (as a nation) has subsidized it's labor and absorbed the results of a currency mismatch, enabling China to export into America and maintain an unhealthy trade imbalance over a period of many years. In the process, America has exchanged paper money for goods. China has built a cash investment exceeding $1 trillion in the U.S. while the U.S. has enjoyed consumption of perishable goods (as seen from a longer perspective). The Chinese earned their money fair and square, but at the same time, this trade has come at the cost of American job loss.
Job losses means fewer people working to pay taxes. This is a real problem for a share-the-wealth, semi-socialist economy. When taxes fail to pay the cost of government, government borrows and increases benefits! The alternative to borrowing, increased taxes on domestically produced products, makes products more expensive, thus increasing the attractiveness of foreign production, such as those from China. A vicious circle develops and we are seeing the advanced results after some 40-50 years of expanding effect.
A philosophy of taxes
The link between taxes and products is inescapable. Taxes are levied so that real physical products and valuable productive time can be purchased by non-producers (whose services may or may not be needed to keep the economy running). Producers are taxed so that they will share the products they make by fruitful utilization of their time and materials.
Taxation on production begins at the very roots of production. Materials coming from the ground first pay property taxes (which can be considered as rental fees conferring conditional ownership). Labor used in extracting and building product pays employment taxes before sale of the product, and later, income taxes. These tax sequences do not occur when the finished product is imported. Granted, foreign producers also pay taxes on production using a foreign currency but none of these taxes come into the coffers of the importing nation. Not a problem when trade is balanced but a huge problem when a trade unbalance exists for many years.
The General Effect of Taxes by Type
We will not try to broadly examine the economics of taxation here but we need to do at least a swipe at the issue to even start finding a economically justified tariff rate. We will limit our examination to sales taxes and income taxes.
We can easily see that a tariff is a sales tax levied on a selected product that originated outside of local tax control. General sales taxes are a levy on goods of any source, locally paid when the product is purchased. Payment of a tariff is unlikely to result in avoidance of an additional general sales tax.
Income taxes are taxes on the income stream of citizens. They are commonly graduated and partially excused following a general pattern of improving income distribution and encouraging economic behavior.
Subsides are an inversion of taxes
Subsidies are an enhancement of income in some fashion, often hidden for political reasons. A good example of hidden subsidy is found in the expenses of the U.S. Government. Government spends far more than it has available from tax revenue, balancing it's annual budget with borrowed money. This borrowed component can only be viewed as a massive macroeconomic subsidy benefiting with full effect those getting payments directly from government. Citizens not getting direct payments from government benefit indirectly from a macro-economic money flow that is larger than could be sustained by tax revenues alone.
A favorite tactic of governments trying to improved exports is to under-tax the favored industry. A very subtle way of doing this is to reduce the purchasing power of the exporting currency, thus increasing the purchasing power of the targeted importing nation. This action favors exporters and their workers at the expense of the broader domestic economy.
Impossible to tax imports until they are under local control
Imports yield in no government tax income until they enter local control. As a consequence, we can say that imports as tax generators have not contributed to the local tax base via production taxes in all their local forms. Foreign workers do not pay income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes on raw materials, or any of the taxes on production that serve to sustain a local economy. The first local tax on imports is often a local sales tax.
Without full taxation on production, we can easily see that imports have the potential to completely destroy a narrowly based local economy.
An initial attempt to find a fair import tax rate.
In the United States, federal government tax revenue is roughly 19% of GDP. On an individual basis, the income tax rate graduates into the 35% range, but is near zero for a high percentage of the working population. Not usually considered an income tax, Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes are income based and functionally flat at about 15% (when employer and employee taxes are combined). Of course, workers building imports pay no share of this.
Based on Social Security taxes alone, we might agree that a 15% tariff on all imports would be reasonable. Finding few exceptions to paying FICA taxes, we would have no favored products.
FICA taxes are not part of the revenue stream resulting in a tax rate calculation of 19% of GDP. We should be able to add a lost tax component approaching 19% to the FICA justified tariff rate. We could modify this by adding the avoided taxes replaced by borrowing. The income tax rate component would approach 25% if we took this approach. [This is a VERY rough estimated tax rate component.]
We could combine the FICA component and income tax rate components to conclude that a tariff rate of 40% on all imports is not unreasonable.
Wow! The American economy would certainly feel the distributional effects of the implementation of that kind of tariff rate, but we would be making a economically justified rate choice!
The effect of foreign local taxes on exports.
It is logical for the reader to say "Whoa! Foreign workers making export products pay their own local taxes. Why should we double tax them?"
My answer is bound to be controversial. When two currencies are involved, with product made using one currency and sold to a second currency, we have no natural value adjustment mechanism to use. All values are relative, which explains why currencies have floating value relationships. A full application of the lost tax rate is the most severe economically justifiable rate possible.
A less severe tariff rate could be negotiated in an effort to find an average of the two country tax rate. The idea would be that each nation will charge tariffs on imports, with the goal to be an average rate representing the expected loss income to each entity. I would suggest that the relative amount of government funding imbalance should also be a factor. It seems to me that avoiding double taxation would be a very desirable economic enrichment necessity.
(c) Roger Sparks 2019
The political backdrop
Trade between nations with different currencies is essential to solve resource unbalances on a world wide basis. If this trade is roughly financially equal, there is little long term concern. Political concern develops when the financial trade is unequal for long periods of time. The cumulative American trade history with China yields one such example.
When we see every modern industrial nation spending far more than possible with taxation alone, we can deduce that, world-wide, we live in a subsidized economy. This subsidized macro-economic environment includes a subsidy enhanced export environment characterized by floating currency relationships. Having created imbalances that have gone on for many years at an increasing pace, the political climate has reached a point in time where finger-pointing has been replaced by real actions to change perceived imbalances, primarily job displacement. Tariffs are the tool of choice now being used by the American government.
National resource imbalances
A strong argument can be made that China (as a nation) has subsidized it's labor and absorbed the results of a currency mismatch, enabling China to export into America and maintain an unhealthy trade imbalance over a period of many years. In the process, America has exchanged paper money for goods. China has built a cash investment exceeding $1 trillion in the U.S. while the U.S. has enjoyed consumption of perishable goods (as seen from a longer perspective). The Chinese earned their money fair and square, but at the same time, this trade has come at the cost of American job loss.
Job losses means fewer people working to pay taxes. This is a real problem for a share-the-wealth, semi-socialist economy. When taxes fail to pay the cost of government, government borrows and increases benefits! The alternative to borrowing, increased taxes on domestically produced products, makes products more expensive, thus increasing the attractiveness of foreign production, such as those from China. A vicious circle develops and we are seeing the advanced results after some 40-50 years of expanding effect.
A philosophy of taxes
The link between taxes and products is inescapable. Taxes are levied so that real physical products and valuable productive time can be purchased by non-producers (whose services may or may not be needed to keep the economy running). Producers are taxed so that they will share the products they make by fruitful utilization of their time and materials.
Taxation on production begins at the very roots of production. Materials coming from the ground first pay property taxes (which can be considered as rental fees conferring conditional ownership). Labor used in extracting and building product pays employment taxes before sale of the product, and later, income taxes. These tax sequences do not occur when the finished product is imported. Granted, foreign producers also pay taxes on production using a foreign currency but none of these taxes come into the coffers of the importing nation. Not a problem when trade is balanced but a huge problem when a trade unbalance exists for many years.
The General Effect of Taxes by Type
We will not try to broadly examine the economics of taxation here but we need to do at least a swipe at the issue to even start finding a economically justified tariff rate. We will limit our examination to sales taxes and income taxes.
We can easily see that a tariff is a sales tax levied on a selected product that originated outside of local tax control. General sales taxes are a levy on goods of any source, locally paid when the product is purchased. Payment of a tariff is unlikely to result in avoidance of an additional general sales tax.
Income taxes are taxes on the income stream of citizens. They are commonly graduated and partially excused following a general pattern of improving income distribution and encouraging economic behavior.
Subsides are an inversion of taxes
Subsidies are an enhancement of income in some fashion, often hidden for political reasons. A good example of hidden subsidy is found in the expenses of the U.S. Government. Government spends far more than it has available from tax revenue, balancing it's annual budget with borrowed money. This borrowed component can only be viewed as a massive macroeconomic subsidy benefiting with full effect those getting payments directly from government. Citizens not getting direct payments from government benefit indirectly from a macro-economic money flow that is larger than could be sustained by tax revenues alone.
A favorite tactic of governments trying to improved exports is to under-tax the favored industry. A very subtle way of doing this is to reduce the purchasing power of the exporting currency, thus increasing the purchasing power of the targeted importing nation. This action favors exporters and their workers at the expense of the broader domestic economy.
Impossible to tax imports until they are under local control
Imports yield in no government tax income until they enter local control. As a consequence, we can say that imports as tax generators have not contributed to the local tax base via production taxes in all their local forms. Foreign workers do not pay income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes on raw materials, or any of the taxes on production that serve to sustain a local economy. The first local tax on imports is often a local sales tax.
Without full taxation on production, we can easily see that imports have the potential to completely destroy a narrowly based local economy.
An initial attempt to find a fair import tax rate.
In the United States, federal government tax revenue is roughly 19% of GDP. On an individual basis, the income tax rate graduates into the 35% range, but is near zero for a high percentage of the working population. Not usually considered an income tax, Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes are income based and functionally flat at about 15% (when employer and employee taxes are combined). Of course, workers building imports pay no share of this.
Based on Social Security taxes alone, we might agree that a 15% tariff on all imports would be reasonable. Finding few exceptions to paying FICA taxes, we would have no favored products.
FICA taxes are not part of the revenue stream resulting in a tax rate calculation of 19% of GDP. We should be able to add a lost tax component approaching 19% to the FICA justified tariff rate. We could modify this by adding the avoided taxes replaced by borrowing. The income tax rate component would approach 25% if we took this approach. [This is a VERY rough estimated tax rate component.]
We could combine the FICA component and income tax rate components to conclude that a tariff rate of 40% on all imports is not unreasonable.
Wow! The American economy would certainly feel the distributional effects of the implementation of that kind of tariff rate, but we would be making a economically justified rate choice!
The effect of foreign local taxes on exports.
It is logical for the reader to say "Whoa! Foreign workers making export products pay their own local taxes. Why should we double tax them?"
My answer is bound to be controversial. When two currencies are involved, with product made using one currency and sold to a second currency, we have no natural value adjustment mechanism to use. All values are relative, which explains why currencies have floating value relationships. A full application of the lost tax rate is the most severe economically justifiable rate possible.
A less severe tariff rate could be negotiated in an effort to find an average of the two country tax rate. The idea would be that each nation will charge tariffs on imports, with the goal to be an average rate representing the expected loss income to each entity. I would suggest that the relative amount of government funding imbalance should also be a factor. It seems to me that avoiding double taxation would be a very desirable economic enrichment necessity.
(c) Roger Sparks 2019
Thursday, April 11, 2019
A Travelers Definition of Infinity
Now I am not a mathematician nor is the upcoming subject the usual fare for this blog, but here goes anyway.
The concept of infinity has bothered me for a long time. It first really bothered when I was learning calculus and heard that there is always a very small remainder in the typical calculus answer. I foolishly allowed this trivial observation to undermine my confidence in the mathematical strength of calculus. In my mind, I was learning a failed technique that was not perfect. Now, some sixty years later, I am confident that any calculus calculation can be as accurate as we desire, despite being incapable of achieving absolute perfection.
So what might an infinitely small error look like?
The concept of infinity has bothered me for a long time. It first really bothered when I was learning calculus and heard that there is always a very small remainder in the typical calculus answer. I foolishly allowed this trivial observation to undermine my confidence in the mathematical strength of calculus. In my mind, I was learning a failed technique that was not perfect. Now, some sixty years later, I am confident that any calculus calculation can be as accurate as we desire, despite being incapable of achieving absolute perfection.
So what might an infinitely small error look like?
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Basic Elements of Mechanical Economics
[The discipline of Economics attempts to bring coherence to exchanges of products, labor and money. Coherence is impossible without some commonality in understanding the interrelationships of three exchanged groups. The following examples attempt to provide insight into the interrelationships.]
When a foreign producer markets a product in the USA, he finds himself selling the product for American dollars. When the sale is completed (no matter what the actual original product cost as measured in any currency), the foreign producer has exchanged ownership of a product for ownership of dollars. In this way, the foreign producer has become an owner of dollars which places him in the same position as all native American owners of dollars.
Welcome to America!
When an American citizen exchanges his labor for money, this citizen finds himself selling ownership of labor hours in exchange for ownership of American dollars. In this way, the American laborer has become owner of dollars which places him in the same position as all other owners of dollars.
It great to be an American!
Now we should ask what is so nice about owning American dollars? Possession of dollars gives access to future ownership of any asset for sale in the dollar economy. Access is bounded/restricted only by the number of dollars available.
Hooray for the free market!
Fortunately for some, money can be given away as if it were a Christmas gift certificate. In this way, the recipient becomes an owner of dollars which places him in the same position as all other owners of dollars.
Hooray for giving!
The difference between money and gift certificates is that money is accepted everywhere while gift certificates are accepted only in the store that created them. The key concept is that both money and certificates can be (within their respective limits) traded for anything for sale. The environment surrounding creation of gift certificates will provide a useful backdrop once we overcome the misleading circumstance that certificates are commonly purchased for cash.
What a convenient parallel!
We have here the basic elements of micro and macro economics. A change of ownership is an exchange. Products, labor and money exchange mechanically as directed by their owners. Exchanges between few owners is micro economics, Interactions between many owners is macro economics. Parallels between money and gift certificates provide a generally unrecognized link between micro and macro economics.
Let's tie these basic elements together!
The mechanical money blogging effort (found on this site) is focused on building coherent relationships between products, labor and money. The above examples display basic mechanical interactions found in past postings and expected future posts. These relationships will continue to underlay future mechanical economic logic until (or unless) better basic relationships are found.
When a foreign producer markets a product in the USA, he finds himself selling the product for American dollars. When the sale is completed (no matter what the actual original product cost as measured in any currency), the foreign producer has exchanged ownership of a product for ownership of dollars. In this way, the foreign producer has become an owner of dollars which places him in the same position as all native American owners of dollars.
Welcome to America!
When an American citizen exchanges his labor for money, this citizen finds himself selling ownership of labor hours in exchange for ownership of American dollars. In this way, the American laborer has become owner of dollars which places him in the same position as all other owners of dollars.
It great to be an American!
Now we should ask what is so nice about owning American dollars? Possession of dollars gives access to future ownership of any asset for sale in the dollar economy. Access is bounded/restricted only by the number of dollars available.
Hooray for the free market!
Fortunately for some, money can be given away as if it were a Christmas gift certificate. In this way, the recipient becomes an owner of dollars which places him in the same position as all other owners of dollars.
Hooray for giving!
The difference between money and gift certificates is that money is accepted everywhere while gift certificates are accepted only in the store that created them. The key concept is that both money and certificates can be (within their respective limits) traded for anything for sale. The environment surrounding creation of gift certificates will provide a useful backdrop once we overcome the misleading circumstance that certificates are commonly purchased for cash.
What a convenient parallel!
We have here the basic elements of micro and macro economics. A change of ownership is an exchange. Products, labor and money exchange mechanically as directed by their owners. Exchanges between few owners is micro economics, Interactions between many owners is macro economics. Parallels between money and gift certificates provide a generally unrecognized link between micro and macro economics.
Let's tie these basic elements together!
The mechanical money blogging effort (found on this site) is focused on building coherent relationships between products, labor and money. The above examples display basic mechanical interactions found in past postings and expected future posts. These relationships will continue to underlay future mechanical economic logic until (or unless) better basic relationships are found.
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