National Debt And Stuff

[laughing dog]

This is one starting point for seriously addressing such an issue. Straight talk rather than riddles or poetry.

If you took your prescription seriously, you'd have no posts on this topic.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Can you express why higher debt is necessary?
other than thru metaphor? word puzzle? hyperbole?

This is one starting point for seriously addressing such an issue: Straight talk rather than riddles or poetry.

If you took your prescription seriously, you'd have no posts on this topic.

You mean my saying Trump ran up federal deficits higher than Obama's? -- That's "riddle"?

The particular "riddles or poetry" I referred to is the following:

"That the Earth is flat is a simple fact of life which everyone knows."

Whatever one's point is, this is not the way to say it. Something is wrong with your argument if you find yourself saying this kind of snake-oil. It's a kind of clue that whatever you're trying to prove is probably false.

We're supposed to all agree with this? that it's "a simple fact of life" that the earth is flat? and everyone knows this? This is asserted by someone here demanding that the public debt has to be increased, and arguing that the debt ceiling has to be raised (or eliminated). And that there's no such thing as a need to collect any tax revenue to pay for programs. And everyone here agrees with this? E.g., no need to increase taxes on the rich? Does everyone also agree that there's no need to increase taxes on the rich (to fund the budget)? like they know the earth is flat?

bilby said:

Why is it that the reasons for higher and higher debt have to be something which contradicts the simple facts of life everyone knows [such as the fact that governments need tax revenue in order to pay for the spending programs]?

The same reason why other "simple facts of life which everyone knows" must be contradicted - they're not true.

That the Earth is flat is a simple fact of life which everyone knows.

?????
This is a fact? What is the point? How is this not metaphor? What is it about raising the debt higher that means we all know the earth is flat?

higher-debt advocate: That the Earth is flat is a simple fact of life which everyone knows.

What does this mean? Why is a statement like this necessary? Why does the higher-debt crusader feel the need to say "everyone knows" this? Is this why the debt ceiling has to be raised?

Is there something about those demanding higher debt / higher debt ceiling that they must blurt out pronouncements like this? If you must say things like this, we're entitled to doubt the credibility of whatever you're trying to prove. It ought to be possible to express your sentiment in honest language rather than riddle like this. If you cannot, then your sentiment is not legitimate and the crusade or theory you're promoting is probably incorrect, or even phony or fraudulent.

Jarhyn:

bilby said:

the commonly-known fact that governments need to assess taxes in order to raise revenue to spend on its programs

Isn't a fact.

It's a falsehood.

This, really, is the thing that makes fiscal conservative policy exist at all: the failure to understand on a basic level where money comes from and why taxes happen.

Really, it's about sources/sinks and supply stability, not about debt vs revenue. It's about balanced systemic rates, not final quantities.

What kind of language is this? This is an argument to raise the debt ceiling (or eliminate the debt ceiling), and is explaining the point that governments do not need to raise tax revenue.

So the need to raise the debt ceiling is based on the fact that governments do not impose taxes in order to raise revenue? this is supposed to clarify the point that governments don't need tax revenue? because it's about "sinks" and "balanced systemic rates" etc.? Even if it's about that and a few hundred other details, so what? How does that prevent us from operating on normal facts (which "everyone knows"), e.g. that governments need tax revenue (to fund the budget)? So what if there's a million tiny facts of economics one might do a treatise on?

What "fiscal conservative" does Jarhyn mean here (above quote)? Not Pres. Trump, who increased the deficit more than Obama did. Bilby and Jarhyn are lock-step in agreement with Trump here, defending his increase of the federal deficit, explaining where money comes from and endorsing Trump's fiscal policy to raise the federal deficit higher than Obama increased it. Is Trump their Guru-Prophet leading their increase-the-debt cult? Where did they get their explanation where money comes from? Trump University? When did the Orange One convert them into Devotees of his money-creating religion? obviously he taught them well, about the origin of money and why his fiscal policy (higher debt) was good for the nation.

How does this lesson from their Trump school book debunk the common belief that governments collect tax revenue? We can't assume governments do this? or have a need to do this? Doesn't everyone know that governments collect taxes? or need to do this (in order to fund programs)? And yet we're told by those who want higher debt that governments do not need to collect tax revenue to pay for gov't programs. Doesn't this contradict what "everyone knows"? that governments do have a need to collect taxes from citizens to pay for the budget?

No? there is no need to collect any tax revenue? What about the need to obey the traffic lights? there is no need for this? no need for government to build any roads? how about requiring motorists to drive on the right (left) side of the road? no need for that either?

How is this different than the Libertarian argument against the need for any taxes? or police? or any government at all? How is it wrong to say "everyone knows" we need these? There's no such thing that "everyone knows"? How about that the sky is UP and the ground is DOWN? We don't know that either? Is this a solipsistic argument that we don't know anything at all? or a nihilistic dogma that there's nothing "everyone knows"? or that no one really knows anything at all? or that nothing exists which can be known?

What's wrong with giving us a reason, if you want the debt to keep going higher and higher (as a % of the economy)? Why can't you explain this with facts and regular speech, and say what benefit we have gained from this? What's wrong with giving us some facts? rather than bizarre pronouncements that governments don't need to collect taxes to fund the budget? don't need revenue to pay for stuff? What's an example of a government which doesn't need tax revenue to pay for stuff like police and defense and infrastructure? What phony idea lies hidden in your (subconscious?) mind causing you to blurt out that governments don't need to collect tax revenue? Do you actually know you're saying this? why you're saying it? or are you being manipulated by some force you can't control?


What's driving you to speak this way?

The basic logic for raising the debt higher and higher seems to be based on a "spending spree" mentality, an impulse to "spend first and ask questions later" because the spending per se is good for us for "economic growth" and the "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" hysteria regardless whether this spending is a good use of the resources. The attitude is "What the hell -- cut loose and run up debt -- we can always print more money later or sell off assets to pay for it -- nevermind if there's a net gain from the spending -- there needn't be a benefit from the spending -- the spending per se is good for us, no matter how wasteful." All these ideas are expressed by those who insist on raising the debt ceiling (or eliminating it).

All the arguments are for disregarding any critical consideration of the spending, or judgment whether it's cost-efficient vs. wasteful. Because the spending is an end in itself, not a means to producing a benefit worth paying for. No debt is too high -- we have so much wealth we can always liquidate anyway, to pay for it -- so it's no problem:

laughing dog: In most discussions about the US national debt, the wealth of the US gov't is completely ignored. The US gov't has trillions of dollars in assets. The US gov't owns thousands of acres of land, and multitudes of physical assets such as dams, bridges, buildings, planes etc... that conceptually could be sold to pay off debt.

I.e., look at all these goodies we can sell -- so there's no need to criticize the spending and borrowing. We can always pay for it later by selling off the nation's assets, or just running up still more debt.

bilby: "The present and future ability of the USA to pay any debt of any magnitude, denominated in US Dollars, is unlimited."

So there's no limit on debt, or even on printing up more money to pay for it no matter how high it goes.

Copernicus: doing nothing to stimulate a depressed economy is worse than spending money to do something stupid.

So, wasting money is better than doing nothing. Even just the spending per se, by itself, makes us better off, regardless how wasteful it is.



These and other ideological pronouncements need to be examined, criticized, judged for some false premise they come from. The above are all incorrect. Those who say such things must answer directly to explain the ideological basis for it, which they seem unable to do, and so they resort to a different kind of language ---- the language of metaphor and poetry and hyperbole.

It's this avoidance which drives them to say something nonsensical like --

". . . that governments need to assess taxes in order to raise revenue isn't a fact -- it's a falsehood."

or

"That the Earth is flat is a simple fact of life which everyone knows."

Nutball outbursts like the above are symptomatic of an underlying cult-like belief system, or ideology, unable to be expressed except by hiding a premise which would be exposed as false (or perverse, degenerate, etc.) if expressed openly.



What is the false premise?

Maybe it's only conjecture, but the likely hidden premise of all the above is the "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" hysteria, which is propagated by most Red & Blue demagogues, perhaps all of them in varying degree. (Also "job creation" or "bring back the factories" hysteria, common to all disciples of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and others.) This premise is preached like a religion, pronounced by speech-makers trying to manipulate a mob with their "jobs! jobs! jobs!" rhetoric. The audience preached to imagines a mass of unemployed riff-raff on a rampage, stampeding through the streets, on the verge of tearing down our cities and neighborhoods if we don't find babysitting slots (especially factory jobs) to put them into to keep them out of mischief.

"Bring back the factories!!"​

(If this is not the basic impulse/premise driving the ever-higher-and-higher debt crusade, what is the underlying driving force behind it? What is driving these crusaders to say nutball outbursts like "no need for gov't to raise tax revenue" and "everyone knows that the earth is flat." Something has to be driving this sickness.)

This fear of a mass of unemployed riff-raff on a stampede seems to be the biggest factor driving the higher-and-higher-debt binge we've been on since the 1930s. This hysteria actually goes back several centuries, spurred on partly by the Luddites around 1800, but it seems to have finally broken out into the higher-debt explosion beginning in the 1930s, notably in the U.S. with the Hoover-FDR debt policies.

 

[bilby]

we're told by those who want higher debt that governments do not need to collect taxes.

No, you're not.

You're told that governments do not need to raise taxes as a prerequisite to spending money.

Governments do need to raise taxes; But as those taxes are a result of (and not a prerequisite for) spending, they need not "balance" spending, and there's no harm whatsoever if taxes fall short of spending - ie, if there is a deficit.

Taxes don't fund the government. Taxes give value to money, and rein in inflation. Government "funds" itself. And can run any amount of deficits and debts without harm, as long as those are a reflection of the growth in the economy.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

we're told by those who want higher debt that governments do not need to collect taxes.

No, you're not.

You're told that governments do not need to raise taxes as a prerequisite to spending money.

Governments do need to raise taxes; But as those taxes are a result of (and not a prerequisite for) spending, they need not "balance" spending, and there's no harm whatsoever if taxes fall short of spending - ie, if there is a deficit.

Taxes don't fund the government. Taxes give value to money, and rein in inflation. Government "funds" itself. And can run any amount of deficits and debts without harm, as long as those are a reflection of the growth in the economy.

I "cheated" -- I just edited by last post (quoted above), in response to this response. --- "that governments do not need to collect tax revenue to pay for programs." Maybe it's a significant point. I feel I should mention it.

I recognize that you advocate taxes in order to counteract inflation, but not to pay for government programs. But I argue that the function of taxes is to pay for programs, and this is the popular understanding. And I think correct. Taxes are not for the purpose of counteracting inflation.

"You're told that governments do not need to raise taxes as a prerequisite to spending money." That's right. That's what I meant, or should have said. So I changed it since there still was time.

 

[bilby]

But I argue that the function of taxes is to pay for programs, and this is the popular understanding.

And it's demonstrably WRONG.

Not one cent need be raised in taxes in order that programs be paid for.

Because that's not how fiat money works.

The function of taxes is to destroy some money. It's a necessary response to the creation of money that government spending represents. But it post-dates spending, and is in no way required, before spending can occur.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

But I argue that the function of taxes is to pay for programs, and this is the popular understanding.

And it's demonstrably WRONG.

Not one cent need be raised in taxes in order that programs be paid for.

Yes, some is needed in order to pay for programs, though also recipients can be paid from debt money later to be reimbursed to lenders from either future tax revenue or future borrowing.

It's not possible/practical to pay all the programs without also raising tax revenue. The need currently is to reduce the dependency on debt and rely more on tax revenue. There is no net benefit anyone has shown why there should be greater reliance on debt to pay for the programs.

If there really were such an obvious benefit, all nations would be borrowing much more than they do.

Generally the only benefit of more debt is instant gratification enjoyed at the time of borrowing, but damage later when the lenders must be repaid.

Because that's not how fiat money works.

The function of taxes is to destroy some money.

That's not their function. But higher taxes could serve to reduce inflation, if needed. It doesn't matter whether it's "fiat" money or any other kind. Even during barter there is revenue and borrowing and taxes -- it's just made simpler with currency units instead of barter.

Obviously any state can name their system whatever they want, and adopt any "function" it chooses for its taxes and currency etc. All of them rely on some debt, regardless what "money system" it's called -- this is mostly just semantics. Today it would be better if most of them would reduce their reliance on debt.

It's a necessary response to the creation of money that government spending represents. But it post-dates spending, and is in no way required, before spending can occur.

But the spending is not possible without the money-creation process already present, available to pay for the later spending. No point is made by quibbling over the chronological order of the money creation and the spending made possible by the money creation. The spending cannot happen without the money-creating process in existence first, the purpose of which is to fund the gov't programs. Only then is the spending possible.

If there were no gov't programs at all to pay for, then there'd be no need for money creation or taxation. The system of paying may change significantly, but the purpose of creating money and collecting taxes is to pay for the programs.

The decision to spend the revenue might be made before it's collected from taxpayers. But that tax revenue's purpose (or taxation purpose) is not "to destroy some money," but to pay for the programs.

It would be bad long-term for the economy to rely more heavily on debt (than we do already), rather than tax revenue, to pay for the programs.

You've said nothing to prove otherwise, other than your pronouncements. Maybe also me, and my pronouncements, but my version is the popular understanding, and you've not disproved it, but only given contrary pronouncements.

But it's true that a gov't could rely much more heavily on debt. In some rare cases this is probably better -- like emergency, or crisis. But not as the norm.

 

[Swammerdami]

Proofs that higher government debt is not necessary for increasing prosperity have been given in the thread already. America's boom after World War II occurred despite that the federal government was running huge surpluses. Debt was also paid down during the Clinton boom. (This has been pointed out in the thread multiple times already and I apologize to all who had to read it again just now.)

Can you express why higher debt is necessary?

Higher debt is NOT necessary. Your content in the thread is not completely wrong. I'm going to award you a D+. If you condescend to LEARN instead of "teach," I think you can make it up to a straight-C in a week or two.

No, wait. If you want to earn a C grade you're going to have to make your posts much MUCH briefer. Few if any of us have enough time to read more than the headlines of your giant walls of text.

Learn from these famous geniuses:

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.

Show respect to fellow Infidels and take the time to reduce your cogent points to single clear paragraphs.

Money is debt. In a world without debt, nobody has any money.

If Lumpen gets a D-plus, I'm afraid bilby gets, at best, a D-minus. He's trying to enunciate a garbled version of MMT, a doctrine which attracts interest from politicians (on both the left and right!) but from actual economists? Not so much. Paul Krugman says that arguing with the MMT'ers is like playing Calvinball. Krugman has kinder words for MMT than many economists. Larry Summers blames Turkey's recent woes on MMT.

[MMT] is voodoo economics. It takes ideas that have a little bit of validity and extends them to a grotesque point where they defy the laws of arithmetic; So I believe MMT is very much misguided, the premise that somehow you can always print enough money to cover all of your debts. ... [leads to hyperinflation] ... there are no examples of countries that have operated on a sustained basis with an MMT-type policy framework.

But bilby goes beyond the voodoo doctors and keeps pushing his confused "Money is debt" meme.

For thousands of years, humans used gold and silver as money. Are gold and silver debt? I don't know if bilby has an intelligible answer to that, but whatever answer he might have I hope for his sake he can find a way to phrase it with a predicate less stupid than "is debt."

Does he disavow any knowledge of economics prior to the abandonment of the gold standard, and claim that his poppycock applies only to the last 55 years? Wrong again.

Money is created by private banks. Anyone who doesn't even understand that much needs a refresher course. There was a big change in U.S. money creation in 2008 -- For the first time in history, America's central bank began accumulating huge quantities of government debts (and bailed out banks by buying MBS). But since May, the Federal Reserves have SOLD a net total of 600 billion dollars of these assets. This is Quantitative Tightening, not Quantitative Easing.

Bilby: If you respond, give a quick summary of how money is created in the U.S. Just quote from a textbook if you wish. It will be a pleasurable change from confusion.

 

[bilby]

Yes, some is needed in order to pay for programs, though also recipients can be paid from debt money later to be reimbursed to lenders from either future tax revenue or future borrowing.

No, it really isn't. Why on Earth would it be?

It's not possible/practical to pay all the programs without also raising tax revenue.

Why not??

Apart from the reasons I have already given - as a post hoc response to the effects of that payment, what, exactly, requires the raising of tax revenue?

 

[bilby]

Are gold and silver debt? I don't know if bilby has an intelligible answer to that

Of course I do. The answer is yes.

 

[bilby]

Bilby: If you respond, give a quick summary of how money is created in the U.S.

By two means. By the deficit spending of the US government, and by the amplification of that spending through marginal reserve lending.

I apologise if my failure to require a textbook from which to extract a response undermines your presumptions.

 

[Swammerdami]

Bilby: If you respond, give a quick summary of how money is created in the U.S.

By two means. By the deficit spending of the US government, and by the amplification of that spending through marginal reserve lending.

So no money was created during the Truman-Eisenhower era except for a little 1952-54 and during 1959. And money supply contracted sharply during Clinton's 2nd term. Or so you seem to think.

And "gold and silver are (or were) debt." When new gold is brought to the surface, who becomes the debtor?

What about IOU's? If gold is "debt" I suppose IOU's are "precious metals."

Is tobacco also debt? Or was it "debt" only during the period early America used it as money?

I apologise if my failure to require a textbook from which to extract a response undermines your presumptions.

Apologize to yourself. You have a good mind: Why indulge in wilful ignorance?

 

[bilby]

Bilby: If you respond, give a quick summary of how money is created in the U.S.

By two means. By the deficit spending of the US government, and by the amplification of that spending through marginal reserve lending.

So no money was created during the Truman-Eisenhower era except for a little 1952-54 and during 1959. And money supply contracted sharply during Clinton's 2nd term. Or so you seem to think.

Really? Did banks stop making loans against marginal reserves in those periods? Did the national debt fall to zero - implying that all the prior spending by the US Government had been recovered as taxes? No? Then I don't seem to think it at all - you seem to think that I think a lot of stupid things, but they only exist in your highly inaccurate caricature of my actual thinking, so those stupid thoughts are all yours.

And "gold and silver are (or were) debt." When new gold is brought to the surface, who becomes the debtor?

Everybody. New supplies of commodities in a commodity money economy are inflationary

What about IOU's? If gold is "debt" I suppose IOU's are "precious metals."

No; But they are money - specifically, fiduciary money

Is tobacco also debt? Or was it "debt" only during the period early America used it as money?

Anything being used as money is debt. Debt is money.

I apologise if my failure to require a textbook from which to extract a response undermines your presumptions.

Apologize to yourself. You have a good mind: Why indulge in wilful ignorance?

Ask your mirror.

While you're there, ask yourself why you indulge in pointless snark, too.

Your absolute failure to even consider the possibility that I might have thought this through, as evidenced by the very basic questions whose answers should be immediately obvious to you based on the premises that I have already outlined, is truly rude. It is trivially obvious both that IOUs cannot be precious metals, and must be money, according to the framework I have already established. So why did you ask that question?

I put it to you that you were not requesting information or clarification of these details, but rather holding my (completely reasonable and consistent) position up in the worst possible light, in the hope that you and others could ridicule it.

But the only person here indulging in the ridiculous idea that IOUs might magically become precious metals is you. And of course, in a commodity money economy, such fiduciary instruments are mundanely able to be exchanged for precious metal, if and when they are discharged. So while they are not precious metals, they can be traded as though they were (to the extent that people trust their issuer to pony up the gold or silver when called upon to do so).

What fact(s) do you imagine me to be in wilful ignorance of? You haven't presented any.

 

[Swammerdami]

I apologize for the snark. Maybe my thinking is just too prosaic. For me, cats and dogs are animals, gold and silver are metals, bonds and promissory notes are debt. I might trade my widget for your gold, but debts are obligations. I'm not obliged to trade my widget for your gold. Is my widget also debt?

If you've posted an essay -- or linked to a scholarly article -- explaining why gold and silver are "debt," I missed it. Care to link again?

The verb "is" is sometimes used metaphorically or in some sort of synecdoche. "Frailty, thy name is woman." "Liquor is the devil." Is that what's happening? Can your thought be rendered without such flourish and therefore more clearly?

 

[bilby]

It's not difficult.

Joe has a pig. He wants to have other stuff instead, and he meets Sam, who wants a pig. So Joe gives his pig to Sam, and now Sam owes Joe one pig. A debt exists.

Sam could give Joe a piece of paper that says "the bearer of this note is owed a pig by Sam, and Sam will exchange this note for a pig, or for stuff to the same value as a pig, on demand".

Now Joe is owed a debt, but he has a bit of paper that embodies that debt, and he can transfer the debt to someone else.

Of course, the debt is denominated in pigs, which is confusing for anyone who isn't a trader in pigs, and so it's probably better if Sam and Joe denominate the debt by reference to something more universally understood - a given weight of gold, for example.

So perhaps instead of a bit of paper, Joe could take a certain number of gold discs, each with its weight certified by the king, and stamped by the royal mint so that the tedium of assessing its weight and purity can be dispensed with at each transaction. Now Joe has the physical embodiment of the debt he is owed, not as a bit of paper saying "the bearer of this note is owed a pig by Sam, and Sam will exchange this note for a pig, or for stuff to the same value as a pig, on demand", but instead as a bag of gold (or silver) coins. These coins are the debt in physical form; Joe has them because Sam owes him a pig (or other stuff to the value of a pig). He can transfer them to anyone else in society. Ultimately Sam will have to settle his debt by taking the money that embodies his debt from someone else, in exchange for some goods or a service that Sam can provide - perhaps some nice bacon.

From the above, we can see that the money in a person's bank account or pocket is a measure of how indebted society is to that person. If I have a thousand dollars in my bank account, I can exchange that for goods or services from society at large, to the value of $1,000. Society owes me a thousand dollars worth of stuff, and that debt sits in my bank account waiting for me to call it in by "spending" it in exchange for stuff I actually want.

The money is a debt. Any debt can be expressed as money, though it need not be. The terms "money" and "debt" are therefore synonymous.

The use of a commodity, or fiduciary money that is exchangeable for a commodity at the central bank, is traditional, but no longer widely done. Money today is almost invariably fiat money - a dollar is worth a dollar because it's a dollar, and it's value "floats" against the value of any other commodity, including those that were previously used as money in their own right.

People still want dollars, because they expect other people to recognise that the possession of a dollar entitles them to claim goods and services in exchange - that is, people agree that society owes goods and services to the value of a dollar to a person who has a dollar (either as a bit of paper or as an electronic record in a bank's computer).

Money is debt. Most (but not all) debt today is money. Money is a debt embodied in a transferable and fungible form.

Debt, in the form of money, is an obligation. The supermarket is obliged to accept my dollars in exchange for the goods they stock, at the exact same rate as they accept dollars from other people, at any given point in time.

More importantly, the ATO has an obligation to accept my dollars in payment of my taxes. The government is the ultimate issuer of the debt denominated in dollars, and is therefore obliged to accept that debt in payment of the taxes they impose.

 

[Swammerdami]

It's not difficult.

Joe has a pig. He wants to have other stuff instead, and he meets Sam, who wants a pig. So Joe gives his pig to Sam, and now Sam owes Joe one pig. A debt exists.

... The terms "money" and "debt" are therefore synonymous.

With this definition, almost everything is "debt." When I buy French Fries, they are "debt" and so is the dollar-bill I exchange for them. If the cashier says "You're a good customer; No charge" does the "debt" suddenly disappear?

Many transactions involve more-or-less simultaneous transfers. Are the French Fries "debt" only for the few seconds it takes the clerk to make change and hand me a receipt?

Can you link to a credentialed economist (or even a YouTube loon) who espouses this definition? Don't get me wrong! Laymen should take pride when they discover their own novel but correct model which leads to useful simplifications. But that's a tall bar to hurdle.

 

[bilby]

It's not difficult.

Joe has a pig. He wants to have other stuff instead, and he meets Sam, who wants a pig. So Joe gives his pig to Sam, and now Sam owes Joe one pig. A debt exists.

... The terms "money" and "debt" are therefore synonymous.

With this definition, almost everything is "debt." When I buy French Fries, they are "debt" and so is the dollar-bill I exchange for them. If the cashier says "You're a good customer; No charge" does the "debt" suddenly disappear?

Many transactions involve more-or-less simultaneous transfers. Are the French Fries "debt" only for the few seconds it takes the clerk to make change and hand me a receipt?

Can you link to a credentialed economist (or even a YouTube loon) who espouses this definition? Don't get me wrong! Laymen should take pride when they discover their own novel but correct model which leads to useful simplifications. But that's a tall bar to hurdle.

Almost anything is debt/money. If you can trade it, it's money. It obliges society to give you stuff in return for it - because money and debt are different ways of describing the exact same thing. If your money's also useful for something other than a representation of debt, then you're in a barter economy.

And no, you're not obligated to someone to repay them for stuff they give you free of charge, so if they decline to charge you, there's no debt, and no money, involved. Congratulations, you got a free serve of fries.

The important thing about modern fiat money is that it's only debt. You can't eat it, wear it, or build a house from it; it's debt and nothing else. The reason gold is a fairly good choice as money is that it's fairly useless. Fiat money is even better than gold, as it's nothing at all other than a debt owed, by the economy, to the bearer.

If you have enough debt owed to you by the economy, you can demand almost anything from it. If you have enough money, you can demand that society give you a private jet, or a super-yacht, or a serve of french fries.

Anything can be debt, but the point is that money is nothing but debt.

This is not something I am just making up, and there are plenty of economists who have written about it; But it is bleeding bloody obvious. If I told you that when I let go of a brick, it will accelerate towards the Earth, you don't need a YouTube video or a credentialed physicist to support the claim; You just need a brick, and the ability to observe and think.

You can just look at money, and observe how it works and think about how it works, and it's bleeding bloody obvious that it represents a debt by the wider economy owed to the holder of that money.

But if you're genuinely impressed by arguments from authority, here's the first result when I googled "money is debt":

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_theory_of_money

 

[Elixir]

Hmmm…
I was told society owes me nothing. At that age I had no money, so by the above paradigm that was true. Later, living on my own and on my diminutive supply of wits, society still owed me nothing.
But today, society is moderately in debt to me?
I can buy the idea that the Medicare and Social Security ”benefits” I enjoy are payments on a debt owed to me by government as a proxy for society. But any wealth accrued by simply owning things that appreciate and trading them for currency, would seem to me to be debt that is unfairly assigned by the same algorithm.

 

[bilby]

Hmmm…
I was told society owes me nothing. At that age I had no money, so by the above paradigm that was true. Later, living on my own and on my diminutive supply of wits, society still owed me nothing.
But today, society is moderately in debt to me?
I can buy the idea that the Medicare and Social Security ”benefits” I enjoy are payments on a debt owed to me by government as a proxy for society. But any wealth accrued by simply owning things that appreciate and trading them for currency, would seem to me to be debt that is unfairly assigned by the same algorithm.

That may be true, but money doesn't care about fairness.

I can argue until I am blue in the face that Charlie Windsor has done bugger all in his life to make himself more worthy of the indebtedness of society to him as a person than am I; Yet nonetheless, if the King wants a Lear Jet, the economy is obliged to provide him with one (in exchange for his relinquishing some of his pounds sterling), and if I want one, it won't, because I don't have the spondulicks to support that demand.

That our economic system makes some people unfairly wealthy, and others unfairly poor, is a fairly widely discussed topic, but the specific nature of money isn't really concerned with the inequities in its means of acquisition, other perhaps than noting that forgery and fraud must not be allowed.

 

[Elixir]

That may be true, but money doesn't care about fairness.

An old pal (a wealthy guy who has cars worth more than I’ll ever be) proposed that every seven years, everyone should have to randomly “switch wallets”.
IMO, that concept would be the most equitable way to employ any monetary system. (Notwithstanding the reality that it would be impossible to implement; it’s a thought experiment.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That may be true, but money doesn't care about fairness.

An old pal (a wealthy guy who has cars worth more than I’ll ever be) proposed that every seven years, everyone should have to randomly “switch wallets”.
IMO, that concept would be the most equitable way to employ any monetary system. (Notwithstanding the reality that it would be impossible to implement; it’s a thought experiment.)

Horrible idea--a huge disincentive towards saving for a rainy day.