A hard currency standard is the key to world peace

[zarus tathra]

That's not the part of our current system that sucks, I'm not stupid enough to make the abolition of supply/demand a goal.

[Hakurei Reimu]

So when they buy back energy the price you get will account for the distance loss. Invalidating yet another "scheme."

On and off peak has nothing to do with distance loss.

That's not the part of our current system that sucks, I'm not stupid enough to make the abolition of supply/demand a goal.

That's all it takes.

[gomtuu77]

I'm for returning to a Gold/Silver standard, but we'll have to find some way to enforce it and prevent governments from skirting the law.  In this way, countries would have to save for multiple decades to even think about fighting a war, and because they would have no "good way" of estimating its cost; fighting such a war would likely bankrupt any country that chose to take this road.

[zarus tathra]

The best way I can think of is to have private currencies that are regularly "stress tested" by the customers.

[gomtuu77]

The best way I can think of is to have private currencies that are regularly "stress tested" by the customers.

I would love to see competing currencies, but I think all currencies should be backed by something real.  And to me, real money (i.e. Gold & Silver) is the best backing available.

[zarus tathra]

I meant gold or energy-backed currencies. I should have made that clear. A joule standard is easier to stress-test, since simply by using energy we would be stress-testing it.

[Plu]

And to me, real money (i.e. Gold & Silver) is the best backing available.

Gold and silver are quite useless materials, though. They're no more real than any other as they serve little utilitarian purpose. It's just been hammered into our heads that they're valuable for so long that most people have started to accept it as a universal truth. Even up to the point where their industrial application can suffer because their prices are so far artificially inflated. (Like with diamonds)

[Hakurei Reimu]

I meant gold or energy-backed currencies. I should have made that clear. A joule standard is easier to stress-test, since simply by using energy we would be stress-testing it.

A currency where a large portion of it is being redeemed and reissued is one that is not working very well. Also, in any practical implementation, the energy that is being generated for normal use will be separate from the energy that is being used to redeem the currency — that energy will not be exchanged for currency, it will simply be bought and sold with money as would any other commodity. Nothing is being "stress-tested" here.

You're still tripping over this stumbling block that, because we need energy for everything we do, that this makes it a good basis for a currency. I have already outlined why it is not. The value of the joulebuck will still, ultimately, depend on how much trust you put in it, no matter what its basis or even if it has any at all. Stress-testing, in and of itself, diminishes the value of the joulebuck because it is a clear demonstration that you don't really trust it, whereas despite your protests to the contrary, you still value the US dollar because you still use it as if it really will buy you a dollar's worth of goods.

Because that's all that monetary value is — the trust that the money is worth what it says it is.

[zarus tathra]

The issue here isn't whether or not the currency is "useful," the issue is whether or not the currency is by its very nature forced to correspond to physical and social realities, which a fiat currency is not.

[josephpalazzo]

The issue here isn't whether or not the currency is "useful," the issue is whether or not the currency is by its very nature forced to correspond to physical and social realities, which a fiat currency is not.

Totally wrong. If the US GDP would suddenly have a huge rise, the US dollar would rise against other currencies, and for your US dollar, you could buy more stuff from imported goods.

[zarus tathra]

Inflating the USD would cause the GDP to rise, what then?

[josephpalazzo]

Inflating the USD would cause the GDP to rise, what then?

You've got this in reverse: A rising GDP would cause the US dollar to rise, all else being equal.

[zarus tathra]

Inflating the USD would raise the prices of everything while doing little to increase/decrease economic activity over the long run, thus inflating GDP without a rise in anything. Because GDP is retarded and we shouldn't use it.

[josephpalazzo]

Inflating the USD would raise the prices of everything while doing little to increase/decrease economic activity over the long run, thus inflating GDP without a rise in anything. Because GDP is retarded and we shouldn't use it.

And how does one inflate the US dollar, by waving a magic wand??? It doesn't work that way. The rise and fall of the dollar will be the result of some economic activity, be it that interest rates are moving up or down, which in this case would be from a particular monetary policy of the FEd, or the up/down of the GDP, which would be the result of increased productivity, or an increase/decrease of the money supply due to deficit expansionary policies of the US government, or the up/down of foreign economies Vs  US economy.

BTW, GDP is retared for those who are clueless about basic economic principles.

[zarus tathra]

If a hurricane hits DC and the government spends a bajillion dollars to rebuild it, then that's a jump in GDP even though in material terms that's a ginormous loss.

If increasing prices causes everything's price to jump 20% but people still buy things at the same rate as before, that's a jump in GDP even though everyone's doing everything the same way.

Etc.

And how does one inflate the US dollar, by waving a magic wand???

By printing money/changing a database entry, so yeah, kinda.