Bartering merchants had no problem discovering that the wealthy people wanted gold, silver, and gems (rare things), while the common people wanted salt and grains (universally necessary things). These were the monies that naturally arose from trial and error in simplistic economies and led to the development of more complex economies without fiat. Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Season 7, Episode 6: "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River"

This is David foster wallace if he was more of an optimist

Great talk

Still no comment on what the Star Trek episode is :(

@Biggnuncio

8 жыл бұрын

Treachery, faith, and the Great River.

@Biggnuncio

8 жыл бұрын

Oh, I guess the other comment has that in there too.

in his grain scenario, after many people have begun to use it as a medium of exchange, all of the sudden let's say (for the sake of argument) that everyone in this economy gets celiac disease and over night, grain is no longer a useful commodity, but people still try to use it as a medium of exchange? What would the process of changing to some other medium look like? Would it be over night or would it still be accepted for a time?

@johnyoung4502

7 жыл бұрын

I suppose farmers could still use it to feed animals, that might be the only avenue for exchange at that point.

@hadensbigfatclipstackaroon2695

2 жыл бұрын

It's possible for goods to be useful only monetarily, such as US dollars, which originated from gold, then gold-backing of notes, and now just the notes, which are useless outside of their use as money. Currencies just usually (some would argue always)* come from something originally useful for non-monetary reasons, but once people value them as money, they can persist as money whether or not they still have their original purpose. Think about it like this: 9/10 of your grain is for spending at the store, and 1/10 is for eating. If you suddenly develop Celiac disease, your demand to hold grain would diminish somewhat, but not completely, because grains would maintain the other use to you. This could be individually true for everyone, even if everyone suddenly never wanted to eat grains again all at the same time, since there's already a giant network of people who all value grains for their monetary use. Even someone on a no-carb keto diet would want to have grains if he could buy high-fat foods with them, so their value as food and as money don't depend on one another, the same way people still want USD now that it isn't backed by gold. *Hayek discussed the possibility of private fiat currencies that don't start out as commodities at all, which non-governmental cryptocurrencies arguably are, though some would argue they originally started as methods of aiding trade in other currencies (which themselves could be traced back to commodities), and from there became currencies themselves, thus fitting the Mengerian story.

This guy says that if everybody tried to became self sufficient everybody would starve to death (7:00-7:10). This is fundamentally wrong. If everybody becomes self sufficient, it would mean that everybody would have everything they needed. How would they then starve to death. He said this was not a joke but he was in fact cracking a joke that nobody understood and thus nobody laughed. He did not say what he wanted to say actually. It is only self sufficient people who would not be satisfied with what they have and would like to buy things that they cannot buy who would finally starve, not of death, but because of being satiated by the same stuff that they are using everyday and that their body starts rejecting.

@UNO400

6 жыл бұрын

Lebal De Vam Pire he says if people tried to become self sufficient, people would starve because without division of labour people would not be productive enough to survive

@MrKarolWlodarczyk

4 жыл бұрын

There is a differen e between trying and becoming. I am a computer artist working in visual effects. My salary that a company pays me is enough to support my family (wife staying at home takomg care of a new born), have good life, a car, a house and save fair bit. If I tried achieve all that on my own id fail mkserably. If i try to build a bit of a house, grow potatos, build a car and so on we we would all die in week 2. Turns out i am able to generate a lot more wealth doing what i am relatively good at. Thats his idea i think.