From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Mar 10 2003 - 09:20:52 MST
--- "Michael M. Butler" <mmb@spies.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 9 Mar 2003 14:58:56 -0800, Reason <reason@exratio.com> wrote:
>
> > The US is aggressively devaluing the dollar by issuing more to pay
> > for trade and other deficits. This affects the world economy.
> >
> I think I follow the model. So what are the effects of zillions of
> dollars in bogus loan guarantees, IMF writeoffs and the
money-creation of the credit card divisions of major commercial banks
in the world? Not asking about the relative scale--I'm asking about the
effects.
The old idea of printing more paper money being inflationary is bogus.
Keeping the M1 and M2 stats stable is what money supply is all about,
and when you have billions of dollars more going toward oil, an import,
and thus money flowing out of the country, you need to keep the
domestic money supply stable or risk a deflationary depression (i.e.
money scarcity). When gas prices return to normal, other means will be
used to rake that excess money back into the reserve system.
>
> PS: I'm still trying to figure out exactly why Moore's Law (and other
> singularity-like stuff) isn't (commonly thought to be) deflationary
> (yet).
>
> I think it has something to do with the time value of technotoys and
> their going out of fashion/obsolescence--an 8-track TASCAM
Portastudio I paid kilobucks for, new, is now basically landfill in the
eyes of eBay... etc., etc.
> It reminds me a little of the idea of issuing money with a "freshness
> date" on it. The toys aren't staple commodities, so their market
value has a first-quadrant-1/x-like curve in many cases. Comment?
If you recall the 'planned obsolescence' outrages of the 1970s, where
the big three manufactured essentially throwaway cars under the theory
that the potential auto market was essentially saturated (every family
had one) and that the makers needed to get these people to come back
and buy another car before their old one wore out. They built them,
therefore, to wear out faster. They didn't expect that the people would
buy more cars per family than one, or even two at best. Today,
generally every licensed member of the family has a car of their own in
most communities, at least all teens in a family have at least one car
of their own to use.
Moore's Law is planned obsolescence embedded into the structure of
technological progress. THe old technotoy doesn't wear out, it just is
superseded by better toys for the same price. New toys are made much
smaller with the same performance of the old bigger technology.
My Handspring Visor Pro has the same processing power of my first
Windows equipped desktop PC and many times the performance of my first
PC. I wonder if I can run Dos on it with a mini hard drive in the
springboard slot? ;)
The desktop computers I still run, which cost me just under $1000 new,
are worth about $100 and are worth more to me as tools than their
resale value, though they are taking up space which I could probably
use better.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
"Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid
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