Bizarre Shadowy Paper-Based Payment System Being Rolled Out Worldwide

Re:Bizarre Shadowy Paper-Based Payment System Being Rolled O... by anigbrowl on Wednesday February 19, 2014 @01:22AM (#7262141)

I picked my terms carefully. Investment and spending are absolutely not the same; investments can certainly go bad (although even bad investments generate some economic activity), just as spending can be misappropriated. But the main difference is that while you may get some utility from spending, you do not anticipate any kind of future return.

As for saving and hoarding, those are not the same either. If someone saves they typically do so via a savings account or a CD at an institution engaged in fractional lending but (within the US and within limits) a government backstop to prevent loss of savings. Hoarding is putting your money under the mattress where it's absolutely not doing anything.

The fact that your argument requires redefining basic economic terms should be a clue that there is something terribly wrong with your priors.

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Re:Bizarre Shadowy Paper-Based Payment System Being Rolled O... by lexcorvus on Friday February 21, 2014 @05:05PM (#7279760)

I looked into it, and you're right; I was sloppy in my terminology, and will be more careful in the future. I appreciate the correction.

In this light, let's consider four activities: spending, investing, saving, and hoarding. Currency dilution encourages the first two and discourages the second two. It also systematically transfers purchasing power from savers/hoarders to spenders/investors. Can you build a case that the benefit from dilution outweighs the costs? Dilution certainly encourages "economic activity" (for certain values of "activity"), which you seem to regard as axiomatically good. What is your justification for this?

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