[gruez]

>Retail banks actually don’t ‘pool people’s money and invest it’,

>deposit inflows create the liquidity banks need to lever up their capital

Aren't these basically the same thing? There's complicated capital structure around how much tier 1 capital banks have to hold, and what deposits have to be backed by, but at the end of the day banks are taking money from depositors and investors, and using it to buy assets. More importantly if you deposit a dollar, that's not sitting around in a vault somewhere, it's used to buy treasuries or whatever. Most people would characterize that as "pool people’s money and invest it".

[roenxi]

It seems like a reasonable objection, AFAIK the argument would boil down equivalently to money being a unit of measurement therefore the language is wrong - it is a bit like saying "pool people's meters" - meters are a unit of measurement as opposed to a thing. Can't pool meters, can pool meters of cloth. Especially since we don't hold the amount of wealth measured by a unit of currency steady it doesn't make sense to talk about "pooling money".

In this case though I said banking system, not retail banking system and I think the fairest reading given the ambiguity is just to treat it as "pool people's wealth" and shift to talking about the real economy.

[Retric]

Fiat money is a token of exchange backed up by the need for everyone in an economy to pay taxes using those tokens.

The idea it’s a measurement is appealing but incomplete, you can’t exchange abstract gallons or other measurements in the abstract only in terms of a measurement of something.

[roenxi]

> you can’t exchange abstract gallons or other measurements in the abstract only in terms of a measurement of something.

I have an implement for doing exactly that on my desk - a cup. The people who made the cup don't know what I'm going to be filling it with but they have a very good idea of what volume it'll take up. I could go to the pub with friends and ask for a glass of something but I don't mind what. The point of a unit of measurement is it enables abstract handling of quantities. Otherwise we may as well have a unique system of measurement per thing.

And if you want a monetary example, there is barter. I can exchange $50 of work directly for $50 of food, abstracting out the money. That wouldn't be possible if the token itself were the important thing, because it isn't present anywhere in the example.

> Fiat money is a token of exchange backed up by the need for everyone in an economy to pay taxes using those tokens.

Obviously there is more than one type of money if you feel a need to add a prefix to explain what type of money you are discussing. The other types aren't backed up by a need for everyone to pay taxes, money can exist independently of a taxation system. Then it is called non-fiat money. You're focusing on the non-monetary aspects of the system, which is cool and all but missing the forest for the trees.

[Retric]

> I could go to the pub with friends and ask for a glass of something but ai don’t mind what

You’d very much mind you got a cup of bull sperm or diarrhea. That request is actually excluding the vast majority of possible liquids.

> if you feel the need to add a prefix

There’s only two types of money, fiat and barter.

If I’m exchanging a promissory note that I can exchange for 1 barrel of wheat or 1lb of gold or whatever that’s barter through an abstraction. If you’re using stamped gold coins people are just bartering precious metals of a known purity thus the need to weigh the coins not just count them.

[roenxi]

> You’d very much mind you got a cup of bull sperm or diarrhea.

Dear me. That got a good 5 minutes of chuckling out of me if you are aiming for humour. In the alternative I'm probably too far away to offer you a hug, but if you're having a bad day it might be a better bet to try going for a walk or some meditation rather than posting on HN.

> If I’m exchanging a promissory note that I can exchange for 1 barrel of wheat or 1lb of gold or whatever that’s barter through an abstraction.

The interesting implication of that is if you turn up at a foreign airport, change currency and buy a doughnut you couldn't be sure whether you're bartering or not until you've done some detailed analysis of the local legal system.

Either which way, if you want to call it barter through abstraction I can't stop you but we have a word for that - money. The reason most people use money is to abstract the bartering away whether they are in a fiat system or otherwise.

[Retric]

I’m glad you got a chuckle out of that, it was intended to be humorous while also countering your argument.

> I’d you want to call or barter through abstraction I can’t stop you

I was calling it money, but it’s really a spectrum. Is a coupon for a free burger money? What about gift cards?

IMO, it’s money when it’s worth more than the underlying commodity. Stamped coins were a net benefit by being of known purity and promissory notes benefited by being easy to transport. So people mostly didn’t melt the coins down or exchange the notes because easy of trade is inherently valuable on its own. At the other end wasting time exchanging or melting it down is a net cost.

Which in a roundabout way means using money is never barter. Non fiat money has a separate floor on value, but the actual value is generally set the same way fiat money is.