Continuing the discussion on WoB , perhaps the best news comes last.
10. Capital
Saying that world currencies have coped well with this crisis would be what is euphemistically termed as under-reporting of the facts.
As world trade collapses and billions, even trillions, are earmarked for bailouts, we should be witnessing the final days of Fiat currencies, but the magic money promised out of thin air, or more correctly, out of electronic bits and bytes, has brought stability, not chaos.
Of course, the ideological Capitalists are already complaining about Who will pay for all this? And it's a valid question, but Pay for what? Is also a valid reply.
What service has been provided for these vast sums of money? Only that they allow business to continue and for life to go on, so our governments have effectively spent it on themselves.
There is also a fear that taxes will need to be raised, but there is no tax regime on earth that could realistically pay for the current and projected world debt, so why bother? We found this magic money to bail out the banks after 2008, and continued with QE until now, when we are bailing out businesses and supplementing their wage bills, perhaps next we will bail out the people.
It's only money.
The difference between using capital for trade, and the ideology of Capitalism, is difficult for many to grasp yet the invention of money is perhaps the most underrated achievement in our collective history, and without it civilization as we know it would have been impossible.
When trade was based on barter and exchange, each party needed to have something of value to the other, which prevented expansion beyond a very local and limited marketplace. The first intermediaries were probably manufactured goods, tools, pottery, trinkets and the like, which allowed towns to grow, but only when coins of exchange arrived was it possible to develop large cities and trading empires; the agricultural revolution was also an enabler, but capital was the driver and the complex systems required to keep the city functioning were only possible via the medium of money.
It would not have taken long for this coinage to take on a life of its own, to be hoarded and traded as an end in itself and most of us, religious or not, know the story where Jesus purged the temple of money lenders and merchants, we should also remember that the love of money is at the root of many evils, so the dangers of deifying capital are long known and well established and we should not fall into that ancient trap in this age of impending enlightenment.
Imagine a world where taxation of income is non-existent, and governments instead harvest their needs from this invisible money tree, accounts are reconciled annually and a balance maintained. Trade between nations is established so that no country falls into debt or accumulates surplus, but rather, as accounts are settled each country's value is reflected in the purchasing power of its (crypto-?)currency. I would also imagine that each country might hold two such currencies, one for internal use, and one for international trade and travel.
Since abandoning the Gold Standard, money is a concept only, a matter of confidence and convenience, and we should treat it as such, write off world debt and start again.
