Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: JasonC
If one man lends to another to fund some new production, neither of them you, and the loan is sensible and makes economic sense and produces new value, then there is more value in the world after it than before, and none of that value is yours. Does that pick your pocket? It does not.

That's a nice red herring, but that's not what happens when the Fed creates credit. To put it simply, my committed capital loses value when they do that. My long term investment in productive capacity is swamped by the speculative leverage fueled by cheap credit. As a producer I might get lucky and get an LBO, but it is much more likely I will find all my inputs costing much more, long term capital costing much more or unavailable.

116 posted on 03/13/2008 4:59:55 AM PDT by palmer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 109 | View Replies ]


To: palmer
Wrong, the impact on the value of your committed capital of new money creation is quite unpredictable and can have either sign.

If you own debts of entities that were sound before and still are after, then the value will not increase, because you deliberately contracted away such upsides to your counterparty when you agreed on the debt form.

If, on the other hand, as a side effect of the new money creation a business that was going bankrupt does not, and you hold its debts, even debts can increase in value as a result of new credit issuance.

If, a more common case, you own real equity and haven't signed away the upside you will generally see an increase in value - whether it is greater or less than others get will depend on the composition of demand and which sectors you hold etc.

And if you merely own real property or commodities, then timing issues about changes in their price will largely determine whether you gain or lose and how much. If the prices have already moved before you purchased you may gain nothing. If after, you may gain a lot, including in real terms. This arises in all the cases above too, but becomes the dominant factor in this asset type because their prices are typically the most volatile, the least driven by secular non-monetary trends etc.

And it does not matter whether it is the Fed issuing new credit, in any of the above. If I run up credit card debt, the causes and possible effects are exactly the same, just smaller in magnitude for an individual. If business entities increase their acceptance of payables and receivables from each other, the same will occur.

Again, your mistake is in assuming you have any prior right to a given valuation of the capital assets you own. Do what you will, capital is at hazard, and its value will fluctuate with every free economic action by every other economic entity.

"But I choose to hold the most secure forms of debt, and I want those to increase in real value continually, relative to all other commodities and services". Tough toenails, your wants are not your rights, least of all when you demand to pick the asset as well as its future price trajectory. "But I make no such demand!" Sure you do, as soon as you demand that no new fiduciary media shall issue without full commodity cover, because it has that effect.

You can instead as a policy matter, not a means to personal wealth, desire monetary policy to be so conducted, that prices remain broadly stable over the long term. But that is not the previous. One, because it takes continual new issuance of fiduciary media for that to happen - no new issuance would instead lead to a progressive fall in average money prices - and two, because broad price stability is perfectly compatible with violent chances in the shorter term, and most definitely with real gains and losses to you as an owner of capital assets in any form, from monetary causes.

The demand that the value of any of your capital not change as a result of monetary policies, is then a demand that cannot be met, in the nature of the case, and seeking it will entail destroying one economic freedom after another, for other people. Including my credit freedoms, which I am not willing to surrender.

121 posted on 03/13/2008 7:04:34 AM PDT by JasonC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 116 | View Replies ]

To: palmer
To put it simply, my committed capital loses value when they do that. My long term investment in productive capacity is swamped by the speculative leverage fueled by cheap credit. As a producer I might get lucky and get an LBO, but it is much more likely I will find all my inputs costing much more, long term capital costing much more or unavailable.

This is the Austrian position exactly. It is very simple to understand, it is sound Friedmanian economics, and JasonC is just being obtuse. The really interesting speculation is why he is being obtuse. Which of his oxen are being gored though mal-investment based on believing all of Greenspan's flimflammery.

125 posted on 03/13/2008 7:18:48 AM PDT by AndyJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 116 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson