[OstiaAntica]

The idea of "money on the sidelines" is also an economic fallacy. Money invested in land, futures, or TBonds still gets circulated into the economy. There's still another person on the other side of the trade. The landowner who sold will have cash to spend, the government with new borrowed funds will spend them on a new bridge, and so on.

[jaekwon]

I'm talking about cornering markets. The money received for land sold can be can still sucked out of the economy. It is possible for one entity to own all land.

[tatsuke95]

And then what? Continue the thought experiment. One person owns all the land. What does he do with it? Does he rent it to people? Then those renters are willing to pay a price to use the land in order to generate some kind of return. The economy expands. If the land owner refuses to allow people to use the land, what was the point in accumulating it all in the first place?

[Tichy]

I used to think kind of like you, until I realized that the rich people would also buy military robots. Then they could defend their land against revolutions for free. Sure, it would maybe be kind of pointless (although, maybe by then there would be "super golf clubs" that allow you to play really big golf ranges), but that doesn't seem to have stopped people sitting on lots of land in the past.

[tatsuke95]

That's interesting. Never really thought about the military robots. I guess it wouldn't take much for a "rich person" to pay an individual enough to be willing to fly a drone over a crowd of "poor people"

[jaekwon]

Someone crazy enough to try to own all land, is crazy enough to do nothing with it.

[Tichy]

That doesn't seem to automatically solve all problems. For example, imagine I sell my land in exchange for 1000 apples. I eat apples for a couple of months, then they run out and I starve to death. Whoever bought my land still has the land, but nothing is left of whatever he paid it with.

Yes, I might have worked those months, powered by apples. But what if I was sick, or played farmville instead?

[chrisgppall]

Unless that money is tied up in assets that are thought to be safe like land or commodities.