Bitcoin Forum

If the value of a dollar is positive, and the total number of dollars is negative, then the total value of all dollars is negative.

Is there a total negative number of dollars in the world?

If so, then maybe everyone should put them in the garbage since the total value in the world would be higher, if their total value is actually negative.

At the rate that the deficit is increasing, it's very probably that dollars are in the negative. When money is exchanged using something other than physical currency it's a lot more easy to rack up negatives.

The only prominent reason why the world is forced to value US is because it is the currency used to buy petrol, no other currency could be used in exchange, its called petrodollar. The reason why US is still considered to be the #1 country in the world is solely because they are widely involved in global exchanges, they have a strong military army and nice allies for resources. That's the reason why dollar is where it is.

Nonsense, all of that.

To address the OP, one could of course look at published M0 numbers, for a traditional answer of a few trillion or so.  

However, we have another method here to estimate M0.  Take the inverse of the highest price ever to be paid for a USD (they currently sell for a few millies), multiply it by 21 million, and you will have your estimate.  

It's hard to find the total amount of dollar, it's not like there's a chart showing the market cap hanging everywhere.

Search for "M0 USD" you will find plenty of charts and people making up nice numbers.  However, none of these are public and verifiable like they are for bitcoin. 

Wow that is such a stupid logic I can't believe someone would write it and not feel embarrassed lol

If there is a negative number of something, throwing them away would cause a greater negative...

BenRayfield,


Looking at the bank loan-to-deposit ratio, if that is more than 1.000 then there are more loans out than deposits.  The last time I looked it was about 9 for the US $.


Disregarding all of the "negative dollars" in the world is to "default" on all mortgages, business loans, bank overdrafts ...
Spenders with a big debt, and the boss of the Greek Traffic Wardens' department, would be very happy.  Retired Greek Traffic Wardens would not be happy, because their pension is entirely comprised of negative nonsense which someone promised to pay them in future.  Savers would be downgraded to junk bond holders, and there would be no reward for a lifetime of prudent living within your means and working hard to pay for what you consume.  The wasters would probably have a big party with loud music, flashing lights, leave the place with needles and excrement all over the floor, and when sent the bill say that it violates their human rights to be expected to pay for the damage.

Well if the only goods saved are foregeable notes, we have hardly to expect a reward for this lifetime of "prudent living".  Indeed, how is it "prudent" to expect a corrupt institution to look after your families finances? 

The problem is that the US has a large 'negative' number of US dollars, while the rest of the world has a 'positive' number. So what you suggest would only help the US government, while punishing foreign governments. Not in the best interest of the whole world, is it?

Is it not in the interest of every living thing in the whole world for the value of a US dollar to be recognized as nil as soon as possible? 

Of course not. I actually own 0 USD at the moment, so I wouldn't be DIRECTLY affected, but what do you think would happen to the world economy if USD suddenly became worthless? It would go haywire. You would NOT benefit from it, and neither would anyone else.

But do you really think that people would want to lose all of their life savings just so that the world has no USD debt? That is the stupidest thought ever.

First of all, nobody has *all* their life savings as USD.  It just isn't possible.  Most of the value we can draw on is social connections, skills, of course food clothing and shelter, and we haven't even gotten to standard investments like stocks yet or things like coin, gold, cars, furniture, children, books, etc. 

Valuing something that costs zero to create is, to put it tactfully, not very bright, and most certainly has caused things to go totally haywire.  Ending that nonsense will be ending the haywire, perhaps even people will act a bit more sanely?  I know that sounds impossible now but I think in the future it will become more of a requisite.  The way I see it even those who are heads of fiat producing cartels will benefit in terms of their productivity and enjoyment of life, and of course they will still be the richest.  Sure the value of their London properties might go down a tad but hey.. these folks know EXACTLY why they shouldn't be keeping much value in fiat balances.   

There are no negative dollars. If you are thinking of debt - they are not negative.

Someone has some dollars - he has a positive amount - he lends them out - he has zero, but the other guy has the dollars, the number of dollars is the same. In fact, the loan expands the quantity of money, because both act like they have the money, regarding their holding preferences.

Explanation: Someone has saved 100000 and is happy with his holdings, he stops saving at that point. He lends out the money, but he still feels content with having the whole sum as a claim, and he will not try to replenish his cash balance, the dollars were saved for later anyway. The other guy, on the other hand, who was broke, but maybe expected some good wage payments the coming year, now has the money and feels he can spend them on a new car. Meaning, he reduces his holdings. That means that in total, the demand to hold money in reserve is reduced, and the money value goes down. The same effect as printing some additional money, maybe not the full 100 K, but maybe the same effect as printing 80K. When the loan is paid back (or written off) the money expansion effect also disappears.

tl;dr Lending expands the money quantity, not only government loans, but also private loans.

Note: quantitative easing starts off as electronic money printing, not lending. They just write a larger number into their own account.

there can't be such construction as "negative" dollar, simply because even debt is always owned by somebody. and because debts rising, it basically means, that amount to dollars also raising (and they have to print more and more of them) to balance the situation..

Well, if you are like me and think the dollar is a joke post-nixon detachment with the gold standard, then something like 90% of dollar out there is not "owned" by anyone. I can't say I own my dollars, I don't know what will happen to them, but I know I own my Bitcoins, I know the private keys will stay with me for life and beyond, until the end of the universe. 1BTC = 1BTC.

banks continue to print money, so do not think you can estimate a precise amount of dollars in circulation

It's an imaginary number.

US dollar has a value until there is no need for petrol. There are lot of alternative fuels but US isn't letting that into the market. If some good alternative fuel comes to the market, United States and Arab countries won't be rich countries anymore.

To get the rather droll humour in this, some of you might want to ask an A-level maths teacher, or anyone who knows what Euler's theom is.

If all of the rich people have borrowed money and then tried to assert that their borrowings are imaginary, then the effect of that is like multiplication of the balance sheet by i
If all of the workers have saved money in a bank, and are now being told that their money is not available, that is also multiplication of the balance sheet by i

One way to set those two faults right is to "unmultiply by i" which as any advanced further-maths schoolboy knows is accomplished by multiplying the (imaginary) balance sheet by -i to get it back to real again.




Such would represent the present situation only if loans and bad debts were funded from savings.
Since the loans/deposits ratio is about 9, counting all loans as "not bad debt" and subtracting from "all the money in the world"x1 would be "all the money in the world"*-8
So if somebody sends you a wire transfer worth "all the money in the world", you should ignore it because so could another eight or so other groups.

How can you have a negative number of a physical object? I'm confused by the premise you've taken as a given. Is it possible for there to exist negative 11 apples in the world? Of course not, there are either some number of apples in the world, or there are 0 apples in the world. There cannot be negative numbers of physical objects.

Negative value, on the other hand, is another matter.

Money is not a countable physical object like an apple.  The economists have made sure that properly counted book keeping is circumvented whenever a big bank or a country runs out of money.  If you got one apple at market and issued nine "iou one apple" notes, then that would be more like what seems to happen with money.  Now which useless administrator told you that there would be a recession because your first six "iou one apple" notes were not enough so you must issue three more ?  And what gets traded at market for iou notes?
You might even get away with charging interest on all nine notes, and you'll be ok unless two noteholders return on the same day demanding to exchange their note for your apple.

In a village market which has one apple and nine "iou one apple notes", how many apples do they have in total?

An IOU for an apple is not a negative apple. A negative physical object logically cannot exist. You can owe someone an apple, but that doesn't mean there are negative 1 apples in the world because you cannot have less than zero apples. Furthermore, he said dollars (a specific physical object), not money (an abstract concept which can include negative values).