[gtCameron]

This went off the rails for me at the end. If earning money is good for other, but spending money is bad, then the "best" thing I could do would be to earn money and hoard it under my mattress.

However, that would be the worst thing I could do for society, because I would be removing that resource (whether it has intrinsic value or not, it is still a resource) from society.

In order for me to earn money, someone else has to spend it. I don't see what labeling one of the sides of that transaction as good and and one as bad accomplishes.

[aylmao]

It goes on to explain it in the following paragraphs:

> Don't get me wrong — this is far from the full picture. There are a ton of second-order corrections we need to make. We'd want to inquire how the money was earned, for example. If it's earned in free, honest, competitive transactions, it's going to be a better measure of value-added than if it's earned coercively, dishonestly, or in stifled markets. If it's earned in positive-sum games (like farming), it's going to be a better measure of value than if it's earned in zero- or negative-sum games (like spamming).

> On the spending side, we need to account for whether the goods we're consuming are rivalrous or non-rivalrous, as well as all the externalities from consumption, both positive and negative. If no one consumed anything above basic subsistence, we'd have a lot less economic growth, fewer innovations, and inferior technology (including medical technology).

[airstrike]

> Don't get me wrong — this is far from the full picture. There are a ton of second-order corrections we need to make.

I'm sorry, but the author makes a terribly weak argument and than hand-waves any criticism away preemptively. That's not how this should work. That "ton of second-order corrections" would immediately destroy his argument.

[markbnj]

> However, that would be the worst thing I could do for society, because I would be removing that resource (whether it has intrinsic value or not, it is still a resource) from society.

I think the author would say that the pile of money under your mattress is not a resource, but rather just a pile of tokens that represent an ability to acquire resources in the future. If the author's view is correct then keeping it tucked away under your mattress has no net positive or negative effect: it just sits there. The exchanging of valuable resources that produced the tokens happened sometime in the past.

[mbrumlow]

If you were actually hoarding in your mattress yes -- but most of us will never probably have enough money alone, or even as a group to horde under a mattress that the economy or society would actually notice.

Now if you were hoarding the money by putting it in banks and various other investment vehicles -- then you are doing a great deal of good for society -- as the resource is not actually being removed.

I hear this argument lot, but just because you are not using your money does not mean somebody else is not using your money while you are not using it. The only case that might be true is if you were a real life Scrooge McDuck, but then you probably killed yourself the first time you tried to dive into your vault of coins.

[notahacker]

The whole article is a defence of the principle of actual hoarding as opposed to investment though, hence the author's expression of concern that spending the money might generate inflation, their focus on intertemporal arbitrage with assets rather than lending, and their contention that taking an asset out of circulation and profiting from its future price fall represents a tangible "time-shifting" service performed on the asset. Those who have read more mainstream economics and less Austrian economics would argue that any value generated (as opposed to rent extracted) comes not from what is withdrawn from circulation but from the advance of cash to the grain vendors who might be able to make better use of it than they could the unsold grain: the time value of money comes from allowing money to circulate towards those willing to invest in productive activity, not from withdrawing it from circulation. A corollary of the emphasis on circulation of money rather than withdrawal of goods is that whilst buying a yacht might be far from the best thing you could do for the Congoese people, creating a whole load of boatbuilding jobs (which in turn sees more goods spending and more production to meet increased spending) is likely still better for Congoese economic development than keeping the money you'd received from trading in their economy under your bed.

[mbrumlow]

But how are you removing a asset from circulation? Like I asserted in my original post when you are not using money, somebody else is -- unless you are actually putting your cash in a vault.

When ever you store money in a bank, it gives the bank the ability to make loans using that very money to other people who then can start other businesses which intern then generate more exchanges of cash with other people.

So again, unless you are actually storing raw cash under your bed -- the fact that you are not spending it is not a ill effect on the economy as a while. I also postulate nobody has a bed big enough to store enough raw cash that the economy would ever notice.

In short I am calling BS on the idea that you can actually remove money from circulation -- other than actually destroying it that is.

Maybe I am still missing the point, but just because you have a bunch of money does not mean you need to make boat building jobs. The bank can easily loan the money out to any of the Congolese people who can show that boat building is a good business. And you who have made a bunch of money off speculation can be part of that by simply hording your money into a bank.

[notahacker]

> But how are you removing a asset from circulation? Like I asserted in my original post when you are not using money, somebody else is -- unless you are actually putting your cash in a vault.

The original article - what we're actually discussing - chooses the example of buying and selling with cash through a window, and worries that actually putting the cash into circulation at all might create inflation. The example is carefully constructed to avoid anything being done with the money except buy and sell goods, and the act of withdrawing the grain from circulation is likewise celebrated as value creation. It's pure internet-Austrianism.

As for the real world, the ability of real world banks operating in a fractional reserve system to lend to boatbuilders is not constrained in any meaningful sense at the margin by speculators' willingness to deposit with them, whereas boatbuilders' willingness to pay staff and suppliers is entirely dependent on whether people who have accumulated wealth buy boats. So the causality works the same way: consumption, deferred or otherwise, is the necessary element for growth. And if people who've made a bunch of money off speculation want to really improve the world, they'll want their money invested somewhere more actively than a bank or spent.

[dnautics]

Why would you be removing it from society? Presumably you will be using it in the future.

[sowbug]

The area under the curve is empty until then.

[mbrumlow]

What do you imagen happens to unspent money put in a bank?

[sowbug]

Money in a bank is typically lent back out again, where it continues to circulate in the economy. That's irrelevant to this comment thread, though, which gtCameron kicked off by stating that hoarding money under a mattress is bad for society, to which dnautics responded by noting that even mattress money is eventually spent.

[dnautics]

it is used as collateral for the money multiplier.