XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.books   
   From: jclarkeusenet@cox.net   
      
   In article ,   
   droleary@4usenet2013.subsume.com says...   
   >   
   > In article ,   
   >  tmcd@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) wrote:   
   >   
   > > In article ,   
   > > Your Name  wrote:   
   > > >The greedy Government makes more than everyone else combined.  :-(   
   > > >   
   > > >If you work it out, the Government basically gets all the money,   
   eventually.   
   > >   
   > > And then ... the government eats it?   
   >   
   > The confusion is a temporal one.  It is not "eventually" that the   
   > government gets all the money, it is *initially*.  It's all fiat.  They   
   > print it from nothing, stealing value from all other currency that has   
   > been issued already.  Accept that it has value, and you give them the   
   > power to take it all back, in taxes and otherwise.  The funny thing is,   
   > even given all that, they (the US government, at least) still can't   
   > manage to operate without a debt or stop running at a deficit.   
   >   
   > The more economics is a work of fiction, the less the future will   
   > resemble a work of science fiction.  (He said, desperately trying to   
   > stay on topic.)   
      
   The value of any substance or object is what the market will pay for it.   
   Doesn't matter if it's gold or little pieces of paper.  And the   
   government has little control over the value--they can print the   
   denomination but the denomination and the value are two different   
   things.   
      
   That piece of paper that says $1.00 on it?  It's worth a dollar.  But   
   what a dollar is worth in terms of purchasing power changes.  It doesn't   
   matter whether it's backed by some metal in a vault or not.  The Spanish   
   brought home a lot of gold from South America, but all they managed to   
   do with it was drive down the value of gold.  Gold is subject to the   
   market too you know.  If the dollar was backed by gold it might have a   
   tremendous lot more purchasing power, but you wouldn't get any benefit   
   from it--instead of being payed dollars an hour, you'd be getting paid   
   cents an hour.  What sets your wage is the market value of your labor.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)