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   GhostOnTheHalfShell (ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 01:13:55 JST GhostOnTheHalfShell

   @economics-that-works

   Think about taxes only as a means to distribute wealth, not to finance the government.

   Tariffs redistribute wealth from the bottom to the top of wealth.

   Tariffs strip wealth the bottom.

   This is its purpose.

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     GhostOnTheHalfShell (ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 01:13:53 JST GhostOnTheHalfShell

     in reply to

     • Log 🪵

     @log @economics-that-works

     The distinction here is that the monetary process having a currency even one that is peg to precious metals, for instance, the relationship still hold.

     Is issuing the currency, which in the modern banking system is simply bank ledger entries, and returning the currency to the issue creates and destroys money.

     Hyperinflation is irrelevant to this discussion. A speculative bubble is the same thing, but played out with private money creation through lending.

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     Log 🪵 (log@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 01:13:54 JST Log 🪵

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     @GhostOnTheHalfShell @economics-that-works Taxes work hand-in-glove with inflationary issuance of new fiat currency. Those who spend it first can exchange it at the earlier higher value. Taxes remove the devalued currency from circulation to avoid hyperinflation. The net result is to transfer purchasing power from those most distant from government spending and bank lending, to those closest to it.

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     GhostOnTheHalfShell (ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 01:14:20 JST GhostOnTheHalfShell

     in reply to

     • Log 🪵

     @log @economics-that-works

     Yeah, I frame that idea simply by saying that inflation and interest are tribute, they are private tax that exists for one reason: to consolidate wealth and power.

     In the banking system exists to consolidate power

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     Log 🪵 (log@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 01:14:21 JST Log 🪵

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     @GhostOnTheHalfShell @economics-that-works There is also a velocity effect. Currency at rest is worth less than currency in motion. Enforced inflation rewards private hoards, which affect the velocity of money nearest to them. In this, the fiat controller is barely distinguishable from a hoard of nigh-infinite fiscal mass.

     TL;DR: the value of money is not constant, and it is frequently manipulated to unfairly get more goods and services out of us.

     Church of Jeff repeated this.
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     Log 🪵 (log@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 01:38:33 JST Log 🪵

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     @GhostOnTheHalfShell @economics-that-works The best counterplay I see is to abandon settlement of trade with US dollars, and use credit issued via trust networks for small-scale trade and enforceable commodity futures contracts for larger trades (explicitly excluding carbon fuels). There would be a lot of collapse in businesses dependent on dollar-economy settlement. The dollar has rotted out its own foundation, and its now dedicated to burning coal for no constructive purpose.

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     GhostOnTheHalfShell (ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 01:38:34 JST GhostOnTheHalfShell

     in reply to

     • Log 🪵

     @log @economics-that-works

     There is also another thing I’d like to mention is that today’s deficit spending (US) is distinguished not quite by its magnitude, but into whose pockets that money goes. The current budget directs more of the federal dollars created directly into the pockets of billionaires.

     So I think I would say is that it’s not distance from government spending, but the fact the money never gets into the hands of people before the rich get their hands on it.

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     GhostOnTheHalfShell (ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 01:38:34 JST GhostOnTheHalfShell

     in reply to

     • Log 🪵

     @log @economics-that-works

     In other words, the way, the economy is structured now, instead of the money, even momentarily circulating in the larger economy before being captured by the wealthy more and more of it is going directly into their pockets, which allows them to consolidate economic power, which is decision-making power.

     Data center construction is billionaires decide to grab power, water and land. They get their way by manipulating politics

     Church of Jeff repeated this.