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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robnhood who wrote (4189)	6/2/2001 6:07:21 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 74559

I wonder how one can quantify how much money and credit was spent on "hopelessly uneconomic enterprises" - I presume he means the dot.com boom of 2000? Which I though was old news. And who cares? It's part of the process of capitalism to fail. 90% of new businesses fail. Only through trial and error comes success. The process of creating "purchasing power" aka money through credit is as old as Adam Smith, at least. If you study the history of money, you see that gold has played only a limited part in the creation of "purchasing power" throughout time, and credit has been there all along. It's not created out of "thin air", it's created out of promises to repay, which may or may not be kept. These promises to repay can be backed by nothing more substantial than the integrity of the promisor, or by a pledge of property, like a mortgage. From "A History of Money," by Glyn Davies, an alphabetical list of items which served as "money": >>Amber, beads, cowries, drums, eggs, feathers, gongs, hoes, ivory, jade, kettles, leather, mats, nails, oxen, pigs, quartz, rice, salt, thimbles, umiacs, vodka, wampum, yarns, and zappozats (decorated axes).<< Davies defines money thus: >>Specific functions (mostly micro-economic) 1.Unit of account (abstract) 2.Common measure of value (abstract) 3.Medium of exchange (concrete) 4.Means of payment (concrete) 5.Standard for deferred payments (abstract) 6.Store of value (concrete) General functions (mostly macro-economic and abstract) 7.Liquid asset 8.Framework of the market allocative system (prices) 9.A causative factor in the economy 10.Controller of the economy << Credit transfers were used by the ancient Greeks, and revived by the merchants of Venice, who also invented, or reinvented double-entry bookkeeping. ex.ac.uk I've been on the bear threads since 1998. Were you? I'll be happy to quit commenting on Noland when people quit posting links from Noland to me.

To: robnhood who wrote (4189)	6/2/2001 6:50:08 PM
From: jjetstream	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<Anyway CB,, I don't know why you're on these bear threads trying to put in an opposing viewpoint except that you want to argue and get lots of posts. Most on here and CFZ agree with Noland and can see the unfolding insanity for what it is. A massive credit bubble, and ensuing mania> Come on RR, I enjoy reading Noland just as much as the next person, but CB's posts and insights into historical data and interpretation are excellent reading and should be a welcome education/viewpoint if one is interested....