Money Is Political, Not Technical

[BobK71]

This truth really struck home as I read this piece by Dr. Steven Englander, a big thinker and expert in currencies and macro-investing who has worked in the Fed, Citi, Lehman Bros., the OECD, etc.

At the center of his conclusion that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have no real value proposition is that the top Western currencies have no store-of-value problem.  True, the US is not Zimbabwe, or Venezuela, but is a bright person like himself not aware that a dollar or pound is worth a small fraction of itself decades to a century ago?  Somone else could be forgiven for the oversight, but surely someone of the stature of Dr. Englander should know better.  At least when he writes a long and thoughtful piece like this.

Which brings me to, really, my pet peeve.  We all talk about the technical features of this money or that.  Electronic vs. physical.  Inflationary or deflationary.  Even transactional speed and cost.  But truly, the only things that really matter are political.  (That is, after a money satisfies the basic requirements, which is not a problem here.)

And I'm not even talking about how money affects the distribution of benefits to different political constituents, whether it benefits debtors vs. creditors, etc., etc.  That is a good topic for another time.  I'm talking about something deeper.  Money is political in the truest, most precise, and widest sense of the word.  And the political dividing line is not between left and right, but between the top politicians and bankers, and everyone else.

Money determines how much goes to the elites and their allies, and how much goes to everyone else.  In the service of the political goal of maximizing benefits for the former, all things tend to get distorted.  Not only is the economy twisted into producing too many luxuries for the beneficiaries by providing unstable employment to the rest (because, after all, luxuries are bought, or not, at the whims of the lucky.)  All the mainstream commentary we hear, somehow, only reflects what the elites want us to think.

According to what we now have to call mouth-pieces of the elites, somehow, people always chase bubbles, and always get hurt, because they're irrational, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.  Central-bank money creation is *never* a driving factor.  No, never.

We're living in a lie, and the earlier we wake up to it, the better.  What officials and mainstream media and academics tell us must sometimes be dismissed with: it's just politics.

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[The_Dark_Knight]

Good post but I think you are concentrating too much in the way things work now, if you look at the past you will see that the asset which was selected as a form of money was the one that had the best characteristics, this is why in ancient times gold and silver were chosen by many independent cultures as their form of money, but this has been distorted in recent times, bitcoin is just a way to try to go back to those times in which the superior asset became dominant.

[Anjazvatoni4]

Yes I agree,,
politics now is money, there is no real politics of conscience.
want to be a president, also need money very much.
in many worlds like that. there will be no prosperity for the people.

[Biscutard]

But somehow it can be both but most of the time it is due to political reasons and that's why a lot of people are suffering because of their selfishness that leads them to become a greedy person. How on earth did they manage to eat or sleep like that when everyone is suffering?

[pugman]

Well said! Striking words. I'd seriously suggest you to firstly move this to serious discussion board before people spam the shit out of it.

Moving back on the topic. Money is political, very much agreed. Politics is all that matters now, not only for money but for the survival of the entirety, like say the possibility of the third World War. People want money, leading them to get pride alongside glory and honor to themself. Money makes a person wild.
Technical attributes of money is just for debating and arguing with one another. At the end of the day, if one has huge share or has tie up with higher authorities or if he himself in such a state that he can influence decisions as per his will, then no one actually cares about the technical aspect.

Money determines how much goes to the elites and their allies, and how much goes to everyone else.  In the service of the political goal of maximizing benefits for the former, all things tend to get distorted.  Not only is the economy twisted into producing too many luxuries for the beneficiaries by providing unstable employment to the rest (because, after all, luxuries are bought, or not, at the whims of the lucky.)  All the mainstream commentary we hear, somehow, only reflects what the elites want us to think.

I'd like to contradict this very point for one sole reason, this is totally influential. The purchasing power of people comes to play here. If you're in favor of the political party, then you don't have a problem. You're rich, given other factors obviously. We live in such circumstances where people are producing luxurious goods and inferior goods are becoming costly because of such. Eventually a day shall come where essential and giffen will price the same.

People thought bitcoin would make a difference but think twice its not doing any help. The same is happening over and over. People say gold is not owned by any country specifically, yeah sure why not. Keep telling that to yourself. A day shall come where we will come into a situation where even we would say yeah sure bitcoin is decentralized.

[Bonsaiav]

I believe in what you say, for those who are able to do that I call it the 'Global Elite' and they are people 1% of the total population of people living in the world, they are rich richer than the richest people in the world. Since childhood 'we all' have been poisoned with various 'lies', propagare, and false assumptions, until we believe it more than religion.

[player514]

This truth really struck home as I read this piece by Dr. Steven Englander, a big thinker and expert in currencies and macro-investing who has worked in the Fed, Citi, Lehman Bros., the OECD, etc.

At the center of his conclusion that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have no real value proposition is that the top Western currencies have no store-of-value problem.  True, the US is not Zimbabwe, or Venezuela, but is a bright person like himself not aware that a dollar or pound is worth a small fraction of itself decades to a century ago?  Somone else could be forgiven for the oversight, but surely someone of the stature of Dr. Englander should know better.  At least when he writes a long and thoughtful piece like this.

Which brings me to, really, my pet peeve.  We all talk about the technical features of this money or that.  Electronic vs. physical.  Inflationary or deflationary.  Even transactional speed and cost.  But truly, the only things that really matter are political.  (That is, after a money satisfies the basic requirements, which is not a problem here.)

And I'm not even talking about how money affects the distribution of benefits to different political constituents, whether it benefits debtors vs. creditors, etc., etc.  That is a good topic for another time.  I'm talking about something deeper.  Money is political in the truest, most precise, and widest sense of the word.  And the political dividing line is not between left and right, but between the top politicians and bankers, and everyone else.

Money determines how much goes to the elites and their allies, and how much goes to everyone else.  In the service of the political goal of maximizing benefits for the former, all things tend to get distorted.  Not only is the economy twisted into producing too many luxuries for the beneficiaries by providing unstable employment to the rest (because, after all, luxuries are bought, or not, at the whims of the lucky.)  All the mainstream commentary we hear, somehow, only reflects what the elites want us to think.

According to what we now have to call mouth-pieces of the elites, somehow, people always chase bubbles, and always get hurt, because they're irrational, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.  Central-bank money creation is *never* a driving factor.  No, never.

We're living in a lie, and the earlier we wake up to it, the better.  What officials and mainstream media and academics tell us must sometimes be dismissed with: it's just politics.

I do agree that money is pretty political. In a way, there are whales for bitcoin and they act as the "government." They hold the price and they have the power to change it whenever they want; it just comes from their holding of bitcoin. People do need to wake up from dreams. Cryptocurrency is not a get rich quick idea. It still requires smart investing, and in the worst case, it requires you to stay steady and not give into others; it makes you act on your own beliefs.

[Hydrogen]

At the center of his conclusion that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have no real value proposition is that the top Western currencies have no store-of-value problem.  

Fiat has policies which promote store of value which, I believe, crypto currencies could learn from. There are safeguards in place to automatically shut down stock market trading if markets fall too much(something bitcoin might benefit from). Capital gains taxes promote HODL and long term holding strategies in equities markets by rewarding HODL trading over short term daytrading.

Fiat may have a bad reputation in crypto circles but there may be things which could be learned there.

All the mainstream commentary we hear, somehow, only reflects what the elites want us to think.

According to what we now have to call mouth-pieces of the elites, somehow, people always chase bubbles, and always get hurt, because they're irrational, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.  Central-bank money creation is *never* a driving factor.  No, never.

We're living in a lie, and the earlier we wake up to it, the better.  What officials and mainstream media and academics tell us must sometimes be dismissed with: it's just politics.

I was thinking about this the other day. How the media is prone towards turning every issue into a popularity contest or some type of juvenile drama.

[Sextus]

Fiat is very misunderstood. The best way to explain it is to look at the alternative, the gold standard. Given that gold is in limited supply (2% growth per year, much lower than economic growth) any gold standard will mean deflation when you have economic growth, so the value of gold reflects the new value being created. And deflation is very bad long term. It stifles trade because why buy something today when your money will be worth more tomorrow? Deflation creates a game in which the person who can afford to move last wins, as in very in favor of the ultra wealthy. Which means that with deflation they cannot go bust anymore, all they have to do is keep their money safe and deflation will do the rest, but with inflation they have to move their money otherwise inflation will erode their wealth in time. If you look at US history you'd see deflation causing depression in times where capital was flowing into the economy. Inflation stimulates the economy, the person who moves first has the most to gain because money is losing its value constantly.

Fiat is a very elegant solution to the problem of deflation. When you had a gold standard money was synonymous with value. But Fiat is not just value, fiat also stores debt because a debt is being made every time money is being created and our financial systems are set up in such a way that value rises to the top and debt sinks to the bottom. Bank bail outs meant the people at the top kept the value while the people at the bottom were stuck with all the debt. That is the problem, not fiat per se. But as long as fiat will be controlled by bankers and governments you'll get crap like this.

[pogiparin]

I think for the money per se is not political but the distribution and allocation of resources (including money) is the one that is political. Who gets and by much money he/she will get is the political aspect of distribution. The way in which money is acquired also plays an political role in distribution.

[The_Dark_Knight]

I think for the money per se is not political but the distribution and allocation of resources (including money) is the one that is political. Who gets and by much money he/she will get is the political aspect of distribution. The way in which money is acquired also plays an political role in distribution.

Distribution of wealth is completely political only in a communist regime, where the politicians of the higher positions get the most wealth while everyone else gets nothing, in a true capitalist economy wealth is distributed according to merit, the problem is that we do not have a capitalist economy either, it is a mix between the two systems, you can get more wealth according to your skills but those that are at the top have a huge advantage over everyone else.

[squatz1]

Money is politics, but what isn't? We face the same sorts of things here when it comes to politics, as more people that control the miners, exchanges, and so on and so forth are able to control MANY things when it comes to the community itself. Politics is everywhere, and even though there are some problems that follow that it's not like there's anything we can do about it. That's how the world works.

People still support the traditional system of money because it works, and they don't see any issues with it. Politics isn't an issue to people. Or at least a prevalent one in their entire life is plagued with it.  Different reasoning must be attempted.

[Cosbycoin]

I think for the money per se is not political but the distribution and allocation of resources (including money) is the one that is political. Who gets and by much money he/she will get is the political aspect of distribution. The way in which money is acquired also plays an political role in distribution.

Uhm… I think you are right; money is not just political, it can be anything, as long as it can be used as a means of transactions. But when we talk about currency, as in real currencies, Bitcoin is not part of them, and it can never be, cause it doesn’t have what it takes for a money to become.currency.

[Yakamoto]

But somehow it can be both but most of the time it is due to political reasons and that's why a lot of people are suffering because of their selfishness that leads them to become a greedy person. How on earth did they manage to eat or sleep like that when everyone is suffering?

A lot of existence is the struggle for survival and pushing your own agenda to further your own genetic lineage. At least, that's how it has worked for the entirety of history and likely won't be changing for the rest of it. There are some significant advantages to building an excess of food, money, etc. on the backs of others, and those should be pretty obvious if you think of the implications the surplus would have. There's not a lot to care about when it comes to other people when your own goal is the continuation of your own bloodline.

[joymecoin]

Fiat is very misunderstood. The best way to explain it is to look at the alternative, the gold standard. Given that gold is in limited supply (2% growth per year, much lower than economic growth) any gold standard will mean deflation when you have economic growth, so the value of gold reflects the new value being created. And deflation is very bad long term. It stifles trade because why buy something today when your money will be worth more tomorrow? Deflation creates a game in which the person who can afford to move last wins, as in very in favor of the ultra wealthy. Which means that with deflation they cannot go bust anymore, all they have to do is keep their money safe and deflation will do the rest, but with inflation they have to move their money otherwise inflation will erode their wealth in time. If you look at US history you'd see deflation causing depression in times where capital was flowing into the economy. Inflation stimulates the economy, the person who moves first has the most to gain because money is losing its value constantly.

Fiat is a very elegant solution to the problem of deflation. When you had a gold standard money was synonymous with value. But Fiat is not just value, fiat also stores debt because a debt is being made every time money is being created and our financial systems are set up in such a way that value rises to the top and debt sinks to the bottom. Bank bail outs meant the people at the top kept the value while the people at the bottom were stuck with all the debt. That is the problem, not fiat per se. But as long as fiat will be controlled by bankers and governments you'll get crap like this.

Most politician now they are using money for the fame and power.

[Noctis Connor]

Yeah you're definitely right! Politics now are based on money that you has. If you are too rich, you can handle everything and just pay whatever you wanted to. People's life now are just based on cash. If they want to kill somebody, they just assign someone to do that in exchange of good money.

[Taktiktul]

Analyzing politics and technicalities, called, That is the danger of self-awareness. so that not much in politics,.,. The money he calls is politics, that is not true. Because if money is political, there will be a lot of negative impact.
Then technical, money can also be called technical ... chronologically technical, people are all-apparently in the search for money or spend money in order not to be futile and profitable for him ..
Therefore it is difficult to predict about money. Because every human being has a different analysis.

[Semosuchi Tesongrato]

Of course money is just political!
Money is just a tool to measure the reciprocal relationship of power: actually money is a kind of potential that I have: more money, more potential.
And of course, if I had enormous quantity of money, I had a correspondent level of power.
And politics it's nothing more that power management.

[BobK71]

Thank you for your response.  This will become an interesting discussion since, when I first started studying these things, my thoughts were mostly the same as yours.  Only when I started to reflect on the standard economic curriculum and narratives that I realized that economics, finance and money are very political in nature.

Fiat is very misunderstood. The best way to explain it is to look at the alternative, the gold standard. Given that gold is in limited supply (2% growth per year, much lower than economic growth) any gold standard will mean deflation when you have economic growth, so the value of gold reflects the new value being created.

It's even fairer to say that the gold standard is very misunderstood!

The idea that the gold standard is harmfully deflationary is based on the history of central banks trying to hang on to the gold standard *after* a financial bust -- that is, too much paper wealth had been issued and confidence in the paper was lost.  At the right ratio of gold vs. paper assets, say in the 1860s and 70s, the gold standard was a factor favoring prosperity and stability across the world.

And why was too much paper issued?  It goes back to to the incentives for the financial and political elites to benefit from issuing assets and propping them up with public power.  In this regard, the gold standard is not fundamentally different from fiat money, though its speed of blowing bubbles may be slower.

The humane response, after a financial bust, would be to devalue paper money against gold.  But the top global elites have been very reluctant to do this over the centuries, for the purpose of protecting their long-term prestige and power.  (Thus, the Federal Reserve did nothing in the early 1930s as the Great Depression turned truly ugly -- only in 1934 was the dollar devalued, by only about 50%.)

And deflation is very bad long term. It stifles trade because why buy something today when your money will be worth more tomorrow? Deflation creates a game in which the person who can afford to move last wins, as in very in favor of the ultra wealthy. Which means that with deflation they cannot go bust anymore, all they have to do is keep their money safe and deflation will do the rest, but with inflation they have to move their money otherwise inflation will erode their wealth in time. If you look at US history you'd see deflation causing depression in times where capital was flowing into the economy. Inflation stimulates the economy, the person who moves first has the most to gain because money is losing its value constantly.

This is certainly one of the standard modern economic arguments.  But it's incorrect.  Everyone is eventually incentivized to spend, as their savings get bigger and their days on this earth get fewer.  Money does no good to oneself unless it's spent.

Inflation can be good or bad, and deflation can be good or bad (good as in encouraging future planning, ie thrift and investment as opposed to consumption.)  Inflation and deflation will always be with us.  The key issue is not inflation vs. deflation, but what forces drive each one.  Is it driven by market forces, or by elite central planning which history has shown is always in favor of the elites and at the expense of everyone else?  And fiat money is a major pillar of power for the elites.

Fiat is a very elegant solution to the problem of deflation. When you had a gold standard money was synonymous with value. But Fiat is not just value, fiat also stores debt because a debt is being made every time money is being created and our financial systems are set up in such a way that value rises to the top and debt sinks to the bottom. Bank bail outs meant the people at the top kept the value while the people at the bottom were stuck with all the debt. That is the problem, not fiat per se. But as long as fiat will be controlled by bankers and governments you'll get crap like this.

Since fiat money is controlled by elite members of governments and central banks (which is the definiation of fiat money,) it will only ever push value up and push debt down, as it has done historically.  (In fact the gold standard is basically the same way, though in a less extreme and slower fashion -- after all, it was central banks who designed gold and silver standards.  This is why the gold standard is very misunderstood by everyone!)

A truly just and enlightened system is one where public power has no role to play in the value of money or any other asset.  As soon as government issues money, the prestige and economy of the country is being used to support its value.  Distortion, and every other bad thing, happens from that point on.

[carter34]

Really, you don't talk about politics without talking of money. Sadly so, you debate how much  needed to be able to reach out in different levels of the electionary process as a candidate including organizing delegates to campaigns .

This money politics cuts across all countries from Europe to Asia, from Africa to America to all continent. This is why the masses are suffering because the elected candidate can't be sincere , they would also want to recoup their 'investment '.

The solution is to demonitize elective positions.