[sleepysysadmin]

>I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read.

Which one might I ask?

Bullshit jobs is pretty big, but debt: the first 5000 years is quite good.

[q-base]

Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.

[sleepysysadmin]

>Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.

The interesting things are everything Graeber missed. Which fair, he's an anthropologist and not an economist. Interestingly, none of which really contradicts him.

When Jeff Bezos is worth billions, does he really? He doesn't have actual $, he has an abstract # derived from owning stocks in amazon. But how did you even get there? It's fundamentally debt. Every $ he is worth is the debt someone else has. Society owes him for his contribution. He created something that people love to use. Therefore he will be rewarded for that.

The caveat is that he does not get interest for this debt. He's not holding mortgages or whatever. So inflation is the mechanism in which he gets poorer. He is forgiving that debt like Graeber explains it worked in the olden days. However, he obviously is still operating and continuing to earn, so his worth goes up.

Flipside, if you are someone who holds mortgages, you earn the interest. You're not forgiving debt, so long as inflation is lower than the interest rate. Like right now, the market has bond rates well below inflation. The people holding debt are forgiving the debt. Which are often retirement funds and what have you because they are legally required to buy those.

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...

In the USA, even the 30 year bonds are negative. Whoever holds your debt is forgiving your debt in those percentages. Other countries like Germany have negative interest rates, they have to forgive the debt even faster. Why is this? This is the time when baby boomers are retiring. Germany obviously didn't do well in WW2 and it's going to impact them more.

[dragonelite]

It has definitely changed my view on what money is and how it came to be. And how political money really is, like a king can say from now one 1 gold coin equals 11 silver coins etc. Another one is the book "And forgive them their debts" by Michael Hudson talking about ancient debt jubilee in the middle east. If i'm not mistaken one of the sources for debt: the first 5000 years book.

[throw0101a]

> It has definitely changed my view on what money is and how it came to be.

You may be interested in Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein (of NPR's Planet Money).

* https://bookshop.org/books/money-the-true-story-of-a-made-up...

[dragonelite]

Thanks for the tip I will put it on my ever growing reading list.

[q-base]

Absolute same for me. It challenged core beliefs which I had no idea ever would be. Thanks for the tip on the book.

[barrenko]

The ascent of Money is also good.