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Actually I've never met him, but I (obviously) agree with a lot he says - but not everything.

My response when I read that post this morning (thanks to following Izzy on Twitter) was....


I think there will be billions of credit/IOU issuers - within suitable 'framework of trust' agreements - whose credit is based upon their capacity to provide goods and services.

But this people-based credit does not mean exactly mean each issuer creating a separate currency. What is needed is a unit of account by reference to which such exchanges are priced, and a framework within which these people-based credit units may be cleared and settled.

At the moment we use completely abstract (base-less/worthless) units such as £, € or $. In my view we will exchange our credit/IOUs by reference to a unit of energy.

And we will not just exchange our 'money's worth' units of credit for each other's units of credit, but will also be able to exchange them for units redeemable in payment for different types of energy, and above all for units redeemable in payment for property rentals.

A standard unit of account is not the same thing as a unit of currency. One can no more run out of units of account than one can run out of metres or kilogrammes. But one can certainly run out of currency/IOUs based upon finite resources.



"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson
by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Wed Feb 29th, 2012 at 11:39:25 AM EST
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about his discourse is the idea of new technologies which enable us to render the existing financial "infrastructure providers" irrelevant.

What militates against a rapid changeover is the huge amount of inertia in the system. There are certainly much better alternatives available for personal banking, business banking etc, but the existing market-share holders will continue to extract rents from us, colluding between themselves, and with the authorities, as necessary.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Wed Feb 29th, 2012 at 11:58:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, I've been saying as much here for years, initially to showers of brickbats.

Clearly great minds think alike ;-)

The dynamic which is changing things is the fact that dis-intermediation to a role of service provision is actually in the interests of the intermediaries themselves - because minimal capital is necessary - and that is why they are already doing it and fucking up organised markets by selling passive 'inflation hedging' investment to muppets while they are at it.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Wed Feb 29th, 2012 at 12:06:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
What militates against a rapid changeover is the huge amount of inertia in the system.

Once inertia seems to be on the way to being overcome expect copious quantities of 'strategic damage' or sabotage to be inflicted by existing financial incumbents, the worst of it through governments which they control and their legal systems. Only when that has been overcome can we truly have a paradigm shift. But favoring the shift might be some incumbents betting on making the shift themselves as early adopters and using their incumbent power to confuse and confound the existing system.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Wed Feb 29th, 2012 at 12:56:15 PM EST
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