- It is in perpetual free supply;
- it maintains perpetual perfect supply demand balance of the money itself (zero inflation);
- it imposes no restraint nor interest load on responsible traders;
- it is fair in imposing interest loads on irresponsible traders commensurate with their propensity to default;
- it maintains perpetual perfect transparency of the creation and destruction of the money process itself;
- it requires no resources (reserves) at all;
- the cost of its operation is negligable;
- it is measured using an unvarying scale (the HUL);
- there is not money to made in operating it (as there is in insurance … i.e. investment income)
- and its behavior is totally objective and the results easily provable;
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This article contains too many or too-lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. (April 2015) |
Ideal money is a theoretical notion promulgated by John Nash (Nobel Laureate in Economics), to stabilize international currencies. It is a solution to the Triffin dilemma which is generally about the conflict of economic interests between the short-term domestic and long-term international objectives when a currency used in a country is also a world reserve currency in the meantime.
MD: “To stabilize international currencies”? Tilt!!! Real money is an inherently and perfectly stable process. It has the automatic negative feedback mechanism of immediately mopping up defaults with interest collections of like amount. Now, with a statement like that first thing out of the chute, we here at MD know its silly to read further. But we’ve been given the assignment. We trudge on.
“Triffin dilemma”? Conflict of economic interests? A “proper” MOE process has no sensitivities to such things at all. There is no difference between short term and long term. The time value of money is provably 1.0000. When a proper MOE process exists anywhere, there is no such thing as a world reserve currency. “All” monies either come from a proper process or they are competed out of existence in an instant. Thus all moneys exchange at a constant rate … 1.000 if denominated in HULs (Hours of Unskilled Labor). And no “real” money requires “reserves” of any kind whatever!
Contents
Introduction
How does the idea of Ideal Money appear
“Money can be recognized as a technological development comparable to the wheel and of similar antiquity. Among the more recent developments in the technology that facilitates transfers of utility (in the sense of game theory) are systems like those of EZ Pass, by means of which vehicles traversing toll bridges or toll highways can pay their toll fees without stopping for the attention of human personnel manning the toll booths. In this lecture, I present remarks about the history of monetary systems and about issues of comparative quality or merit , along with a specific proposal about how a system or systems of ‘ideal money’might be established and employed.”[1]
MD: He describes a transfer system. The real money process is insensitive to the myriad of transfer systems employed in the money’s circulation. The process itself is only interested in its media’s creation and destruction and prevention of “all” leaks. He talks of a technological development. Exotic transfer systems are not it. There is nothing technical in addition and subtraction. That’s just simple accounting. I’m going to ignore all his noise about history. I’m just going to look for his solution to all the historical failings. We here at MD already know the best … and yet untried solution.
Main value standard of ideal money
Ideal money is working in the theory similar to the gold standard, but it is generally based on a Nonpolitical Value Standard. “A possible nonpolitical basis for a value standard that could be used for money would be a good industrial consumption price index(ICPI) statistic. This statistic could be calculated from the international price of commodities such as copper, silver, tungsten, and so forth that are used in industrial activities.”[1] John Nash said in his lecture.
MD: Tilt!!! All money is a perception held by two traders at an instant in time. One has money. The other has an object they will trade for money. In the negotiation step (1) of a trade, they decide how much money is involved. In all our illustrations our money will be measured in units of HULs (Hours of Unskilled Labor). A HUL has traded for the same size hole in the ground for all time … and is expected to do so in all future time. There is no “standard” … .political or otherwise. If the trade is made using existing money, the trade is complete for both traders. Promise to deliver (2) and Delivery (3) happen simultaneously on-the-spot. That trade is done. It has no impact on any other trade in the entire trading environment. It is just between those two traders. While the trade “uses” money, it doesn’t “create” money.
Money is “created” when one trader promises to do the trade over time and space. And we have all done that. We have bought a house, a car, a washing machine, or a steak dinner by creating money and then returning it a little bit at a time. Our trading promise is certified, the person with the house, the car, the washing machine, or the steak gets money (which we created on the spot). We then go about working to return that money and destroy it as we promised to do. If we are responsible traders (i.e. we don’t default), we pay no interest. If we have a propensity to default, we pay interest actuarially based on that weakness.
So Nash need not make this more complicated than it has to be. We can ignore references to anything “political” for example.
Why gold can not be an ideal money
MD: Not only can gold not be “ideal” money. It can’t be money at all. Anyone holding gold is doing just that … holding gold. They’re no more holding money than someone holding a ribeye steak.
The gold does not reach the standard of ideal money, despite its merits. The main problem is because the silver and gold do not have a constant value all the time.
MD: One gold star for Nash. Real money guarantees perpetual perfect balance between supply and demand for the money itself.
“To the undiscerning minds of the mass of men a pound sterling of gold, a silver five-franc piece, or a paper dollar, represents always a definite unit.
MD: So does a pound of ribeye steak. The pound is the unit … what it is a pound of can play no role at all. We choose the HUL as the best candidate for unit. It is related to time, which is unvarying, and what can be delivered in that time … which is relatively unvarying. Who knows how big a hole an ounce of gold traded for 100 years ago? Most don’t even know what it trades for today. But everyone can put a spade in their hand and in one hour make a hole that is one HUL in size. And they can know that their hole, for all intents and purposes, is the same size hole a HUL would have produced 100 or 5,000 years ago. We don’t need to search the Dead Sea Scrolls for proof.
It has not escaped attention, however, that a given amount of money buys much less at one time than another.”[2]
MD: May have to take back Nash’s gold star. A given amount of “real” money will always trade for the same size hole in the ground … always! It may trade for a different size car or different size ribeye steak or a different number of gold ounces … but that’s because of the supply/demand relation of those things themselves. The supply/demand for the money itself is perpetually perfect and plays no role whatever in the pricing.
in other words, people are used to measuring the value of goods by money, but due to some reasons the value of money itself changes, which causes the value of silver or gold changes. We can’t tell the constant value of the metal, and the fixed mind-sets can not easily be changed.
MD: What he says is only true of an “improper” MOE process like that run by the Fed and every other central bank which ever existed. if everyone does the same thing wrong, that is only one thing being done wrong. People thinking in HULs will never have this problem. Thinking in dollars, a HUL was $1.50 when I was one. It is about $8.00 for those who are HULs today. In both cases, it trades for the same size hole in the ground.
Related factors mentioned in Nash’s lecture
Welfare Economics
“A related topic is that of the considerations to be given by society and the national state to ‘social equity’ and the general ‘economic welfare’.
MD: But we at MD know that (welfare) has nothing whatever to do with money. So we should be able to skip this whole topic … but of course we can’t because we’ve been given this study assignment.
Here the key viewpoint is methodological, as we see it. How should society and the state authorities seek to improve economic welfare generally and what should be done at times of abnormal economic difficulties or ‘depression’?
MD: I don’t know and don’t care … as long as they don’t try to do it by manipulating the MOE process.
We can’t go into it all, but we feel that actions which are clearly understandable as designed for the purpose of achieving a ‘social welfare’ result are best.
MD: Best for whom? “real” money is not concerned. People can “use” it to do the things they feel are good. They can even “create” it to do so … as long as they also return and destroy as they promise to do. But they absolutely cannot “counterfeit” it to do the good things they want to do. That results in bad things for others … and a “proper” MOE process cares nothing about good or bad. It just cares about strict adherence to the process, thereby achieving the predicted and desired result … with zero outside meddling.
And in particular, programs of unemployment compensation seem to be comparatively well structured so that they can operate in proportion to the need.”[3]
MD: Unemployment compensation is no different than broken car compensation. If you can’t cover the risk through self insurance, you better be buying insurance. Regardless, that is no concern of a “proper” MOE process. Nash, this is oh so easy! Are you being paid to give these lectures?
Generally, the social welfare is what we always expect to be improved, and if there is really an ideal money, the whole economy would be influenced, including the social welfare.
MD: Why say the ideal money should do it? Why not say the ideal drug should do it. Or the ideal bullet should do it? “Social welfare” is not the business of money. Trading over time and space is the business of money.
Money, Utility, and Game Theory
MD: You gotta love it when they throw in game theory. Can string theory be far behind? How about global warming?
The concept of utility generally appears in the field of economics but it can be connected with the game theory in mathematics. In the game theory of economics, “utility” is a very important and essential factor. In the book (on game theory and economic behavior) written by the mathematician John von Neumann and the economist Oskar Morgenstern, a utility function is proved, which can be used to put the individual’s preference on the interval scale, and the utility is always preferred to be maximized. (More details can be found in Von Neumann–Morgenstern utility theorem.)
MD: And this is the exact same kind of nonsense Mises spends most of his really boring words on. When it comes to money, why traders make the trades they do is completely irrelevant. We see time and time again “buyers remorse”. It can happen in a day. Or it can happen over several years (e.g. in the case of a boat purchase … two days of glee, the day they buy it and the day they sell it … other than that, it’s just a hole in the water into which they throw money). That’s all irrelevant to the subject of money. But we have our assignment to study this nonsense!
In John Nash’s lecture about ideal money, he gave the opinion that we can through observing the changing relationship between the money and the utility transfer to see “how the ‘quality’ of a money standard can strongly affect the areas of the economy involving financing with longer-term credits.
MD: With a “proper” MOE process, quality is in the transparency and the efficacy of the process. The quality of the governor on a diesel engine is more complicated than that … its parts can break. The MOE process is either operating objectively as dictated … or it is not. Only in the former case does it have quality of any kind … and that quality is of the perfect kind.
And also, we can see that money itself is a sort of ‘utility’, using the word in another sense, comparable to supplies of water, electric energy or telecommunications.
MD: Absolute nonsense. It is never proper to think of money “supply”. A proper MOE process has media is perpetual free supply. There is always exactly as much there as is needed … no more … no less. Nash … no gold stars for you!
And then, if we think about it, money may become as comparable to the quality of some ‘public utility’like the supply of electric energy or of water.”[3] The game theory of economics is a good way to check whether the quality of a money is ideal or not.
MD: The way to check the quality of money is by observing its universal acceptance in use … and observing its trait (built in) of perpetual zero inflation of the money itself. The latter will enable and result in the former.
“Keynesians“
“The thinking of J. M. Keynes was actually multidimensional and consequently there are quite different varieties of persons at the present time who follow, in one way or another, some of the thinking of Keynes.
MD: “Multidimensional”? As in wishy washy? … yep … as in wishy washy.
A very famous saying of Keynes was ‘…in the long run we will all be dead…’”[3] Keynesian economics gives the opinion: in the short run, the change in economic output has a strongly relationship with the change in aggregate demand, the output is always affected by the demand.
MD: How about this from us here at MD: In the long run, inflation of real money will be zero; and in the short run inflation of real money will be zero. It’s more true than what Keynes said … some people die before the long run.
And look what they’re talking about: “aggregate demand”. Money doesn’t care about demand. It is in free supply. There is always in circulation the exact amount that is needed … or some trader is creating it as we speak.
If there is an ideal money which can be stable in a very long period, we do not really need to worry about lots of problems in the long run.
MD: Real money is perfectly stable … perpetually … as is a HUL and the size hole it trades for. It never worries about any problems … long run or short. It perpetually mitigates defaults experienced with interest collections of like amount and this is a stabilizing negative feedback loop.
Asymptotically ideal money
MD: OH PLEASE!!!!!
Main idea
Asymptotically ideal money is the currency close to but still not ideal money. In John Nash’s lecture, “Ideal Money and Asymptotically Ideal Money” focused on” the connection between fluctuation in inflation and exchange rates and the perceived long-term value of money”, he mentioned that: “‘Good money’ is money that is expected to maintain its value over time. ‘Bad money’ is expected to lose value over time, as under conditions of inflation.
MD: So money from a “proper” MOE process (i.e. real money) is “good money”. It (the process) guarantees it (the media) will hold its value in HULs over all time everywhere. It cannot be made to do otherwise without violating the process … at which point it is no longer “the process” … it is no longer “real” money.
The policy of inflation targeting, whereby central banks set monetary policy with the objective of stabilizing inflation at a particular rate, leads in the long run to what Nash called ‘asymptotically ideal money’ – currency that, while not achieving perfect stability, becomes more stable over time.”[4] That means if a currency has shown a trend to be more stable，it could become an asymptotically ideal money or even the ideal money in the future.
MD: A “proper” MOE process is subject to no such manipulation. Thus it can only produce “ideal” results. But the results are only ideal for the traders. They are far from ideal for the money changers or the governments they institute for their protection and force in applying their scam. And they are not ideal results for those in the business of finance. Their cherished and worshiped expression (1+i)^n from which they claim the time value of money … well, it always produces 1.000 … i.e. “real” money has zero time value. So those in the scam of finance need to find other work.
Currencies may become (asymptotically) ideal money
Euro
John Nash mentioned in his lecture that Euro might become an ideal money in the future, because Euro is used in a large range of places and has a good stability.
MD: We here at MD wished they talked to us when they created the Euro. We could have told them exactly how to do it to make it perfect “real” money (for traders that is). But the Euro was created by money changers to gain control over lots of countries at the same time. It is an open scam … and BREXIT is saying, we’re out … we want to run our own scam. Note, the Euro scam, like our own Constitution scam has no buy/sell agreement.
It is the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union and is the official currency of the eurozone which consists of 18 of the 28 member states of the European Union. In general, Euro has a macroeconomic stability, people in Europe owning large amounts of euros are “served by high stability and low inflation.” Moreover, in March 2014, Euro was commented as “an island of stability” by the head of the European Central Bank.[5]
MD: Every one of those individual entities in the European Union could have instituted their own “proper” MOE process. Ideally, they all would have adopted the HUL as the logical choice for unit of measure. If they had done that, all their money would be freely exchanged with a constant exchange rate … that being 1.000. Had they done that, there would have been no reason to “unionize”. And there wouldn’t be a European Central Bank; or 18 central banks; or 28 central banks. there would be “no central banks”. Just certified certifiers with transparent operations employing a “proper” MOE process. What’s not to love about the simple and the obvious?
References
- “Ideal money”. Southern Economic Journal, 2002, Vol.69(1), pp.4-11 [Peer Reviewed Journal]. July 1, 2002.
- “Is an Ideal Money Attainable?”. Journal of Political Economy. 1903. JSTOR 1820954. doi:10.1086/250969.
- “Lecture by John F. Nash Jr. Ideal Money and Asymptotically Ideal Money” (PDF).
- “Nobel winner Nash critiques economic theory”. April 27, 2005.