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Q: How much U.S. currency is in circulation?
A: There was approximately $1.58 trillion in circulation as of September 20, 2017, of which $1.53 trillion was in Federal Reserve notes.
U.S. Population (2017) : 326,474,013
>>> $4,686 per capita <<<
If everyone tried to "cash out" their so-called household wealth, it would be obvious that the evaluation is bogus.
THE.MONEY.DOES.NOT.EXIST.
Ergo, you cannot presume any value, denominated in dollar bills, that exceeds the quantity in circulation. Unless, of course, you are bat-feces crazy.
Maybe people have assets other than cash, like cars, houses, tools, boats, art, land, stake in businesses, or intellectual property. I know that cash is a small fraction of my own household wealth.
T...you cannot presume any value, denominated in dollar bills, that exceeds the quantity in circulation.
You realize this would get you howled out of the second week of an Econ 101 class?
Just in case it hasn't been made clear enough to you (as it would in week 1 of that class), "money in circulation" is a small fraction of total national banking assets. Google up "M1" (as in economics, not the UK roadway or BMW sports car) and do a little reading.
The only way that much money could exist is with massive central gov't creation or a huge number of private loans. And the very large bulk of that new money would be electronic, not cash currency.
But why would everyone want to sell everything they had all at the same time, and all go to cash currency?
If it is obvious that a sum of money does not exist, how can one evaluate something in money?
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/resource.html
● NASA has estimated the mineral wealth of the entire Asteroid Belt could be as much as $700 quintillion, or a seven followed by 20 zeroes. That’s $100 billion for every one of the 7 billion people on Earth!
=\=\=\=
How can you claim measurements that exceed the known total of circulating monies?
Isn’t that INSANE?
What’s really reality: the actual sum of property, goods and services - or - an arbitrary value and sum of money tokens ?
=\=\=\=
If Amancio Ortega, Carlos Slim Helu, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and a consortium of other billionaires walked into the offices of the largest bank on the planet, and asked for a loan of 20 trillion dollar bills with which to fund mining asteroids worth 300 times that value and were more than willing to pay 15% interest, the bank would have to decline.
WHY?
Business is the primary way in which wealth is created, GDP per capita goes up, and our standard of living goes up. Corporations are one form of business, alongside partnerships and sole proprietorships (and a couple other obscure forms).
Corporations have been the greatest force for improving standards of living that has been invented by mankind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude
In one self-defined, self-fulfilling economic model, yes.
You say that as if it were bad.
There is no such thing as "self-defined, self-fulfilling economic model." That's just baby-talk stringing together words as if they create a whole meaning.
Capitalism and (relatively) free markets have forced inefficient and obsolete businesses to shutter their doors, re-allocating capital to higher-value-add activities. This (relatively) efficient allocation of capital, enabled by a relentless pursuit of value-add as measured by actual customers, with an underlying foundation of property rights and laws and regulations and a legal system to enforce them has brought more human beings out of poverty than anything else invented by mankind.
Joseph Schumpeter called it Creative Destruction: "The process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one". Schumpeter derived Creative Destruction from Karl Marx; in the earlier work of Marx, however, the idea of creative destruction or annihilation implies not only that capitalism destroys and reconfigures previous economic orders, but also that it must ceaselessly devalue existing wealth (whether through war, dereliction, or regular and periodic economic crises) in order to clear the ground for the creation of new wealth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude
One that has zero regard for individuals, families and consumers in general ...
You've just described a failed business that doesn't exist anymore (or soon won't). Successful companies relentlessly focus on their customers, manufacturing processes, technical innovation, distribution efficiency, etc depending on the specific market segment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude
...except as the actual source of wealth, a nameless, faceless, otherwise valueless economic placeholder; the imaginary number in econ calculations.
Just focus on nouns and verbs; the adjectives and adverbs get in the way of your thought.
The actual source of wealth -- value creation -- occurs through focus on solving actual customer problems, providing true value to customers where customers voluntarily and eagerly exchange their own hard-earned money for products and services that make their lives better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude
It's so easy to justify oppressive practices when the oppressors get to define the rules... and "success," and "growth" and all the other factors that increase and cement their security.
Cement's cracking, babe.
Good God. So many heart-string adjectives and adverbs it is hard to figure out what you are actually saying.
Let's try to parse your comment.
1) There are no oppressors.
2) Because there are no oppressors, there are no oppressive tactics.
3) Because there are no oppressors, they obviously do not define any rules.
4) Rules -- laws are defined by elected officials, and the regulations that implement the laws are defined by career public service employees.
5) Success & growth occur by creating products and services that make customers better off.
6) Nothing is cemented -- all things are constantly changing in response to increases in technology, changing products and services, and changing values, wants and desires. See Creative Destruction.
You realize this would get you howled out of the second week of an Econ 101 class?
Just in case it hasn't been made clear enough to you (as it would in week 1 of that class), "money in circulation" is a small fraction of total national banking assets. Google up "M1" (as in economics, not the UK roadway or BMW sports car) and do a little reading.
And you think that 13.8 T is somehow in the realm of sanity when the national debt is in excess of 20 trillion dollars?
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/resource.html
● NASA has estimated the mineral wealth of the entire Asteroid Belt could be as much as $700 quintillion, or a seven followed by 20 zeroes. That’s $100 billion for every one of the 7 billion people on Earth!
=\=\=\=
How can you believe measurements that exceed the known total of circulating monies?
$1.4 T in circulation (or 13T) versus $700 quintillion estimated “dollar value.”
Are we not mad?
What’s really reality: the actual sum of property, goods and services - or - an arbitrary value and sum of money tokens ?
=\=\=\=
If Amancio Ortega, Carlos Slim Helu, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and a consortium of other billionaires walked into the offices of the largest bank on the planet, and asked for a loan of 30 trillion dollar bills with which to fund mining asteroids worth 300 times that value and were more than willing to pay 15% interest, the bank would have to decline.
WHY?
The.Money.Does.Not.Exist.
All eCONomists are insane. There is no science in eCONomics, where the unit of measure is a variable and finite; and that embraces usury and its mathematical unsustainability as acceptable.
You either have to suffer doublethink or cognitive dissonance to participate.
This home is located on a lake that is extremely low due to issues with the dam. Those issues will not be resolved for years. There are several homes like that, some quite a bit larger, in that general area along the lake.
It is fairly centrally located to all three of the Tri-Cities and several prominent business people live there. Before the issues with the dam, it was a lovely lake. The owners will not get anywhere near asking, but if you are affluent and plan to be in there for a decade or more, it's probably worth a look.
Makes sense. As everyone says, all real estate is local, and it is all based on location, location, location.
YThere is no such thing as "self-defined, self-fulfilling economic model." That's just baby-talk stringing together words as if they create a whole meaning.
I wouldn't argue, but my focus is on the actual discussion here and not arguing over the meaning of meaning. So let me make my widdle mean-mean aw clear, 'kay?
Economics is composed of three parts: accounting, defined terms and theory.
Accounting is absolute and hard-data-driven. Other than when deliberately fudged or incompetently done - and those outliers can be fact-checked to the last penny - accounting is precise and accurate and thorough. That precision to fractions of a mill, when desired, is what gives the field its wholly unwarranted claim to being a science. Reams and reams and reams of hard numbers... wow. (I can go count every pebble in my xeriscaped front yard, too... that doesn't make landscaping a science.)
Terms should be almost as rigid, but that's where it starts to fall apart. In way too much economic discussion - including nearly all of it here, most in even serious media like Fortune and Business Week and well into the stratosphere of academic econ - terms are tossed out without referent and either without agreed meaning or (much worse) with utterly subjective "agreement." (I have particular, visceral loathing of the terms "middle class" and "disposable income" - but many more seemingly fixed terms have far more Jell-O™ in them than concrete. "Average CEO compensation," for example.) So a discussion without assurances of agreed meaning of the terms is frustrating at best, useless most of the time, and FNN 24/7.
Theory... ah. Theory. So pretty. So malleable. So casually discarded when bwitch-slapped by reality. So... wrong so much of the time. So in love with "tomorrow will be just like yesterday, only more so." (You do know that not one of the 50 recessions since WWII has been predicted by consensus economic theory?) So self-referential, selecting its own metrics and terms and spinning elaborate tautological truths... but see "discarded" above. Seriously, economic theory is a matter of choosing a viewpoint and assumptions and then selecting data to support them. Choose different assumptions and metrics... and you have a whole different picture. From the very same reality.
I don't dispute accounting, but I will always question it and look for the cooked numbers.
I try to define my terms clearly, especially those that "evvabody knows" and has wildly varying (even wildly flexible) definitions for. "Middle class," for example.
Theory? I have come to completely reject standard economic theory and discussion as being of any use in identifying and analyzing the real problems facing us (as a nation and planet). I contend that current consensus standard economic theory is no more fundamentally valid than any other theory that draws from the same pool of information. I also contend that it is, and perhaps always has been, the language and tool of the Haves, the owners, the capitalists (in the negatory sense) and governments more concerned with business revenue than citizens. I contend that nations we admire for their economic success and well-cared-for citizens are capable of speaking Global Econ Babble but use a very different view for internal purposes.
And I come at our vast range of economics-linked problems with economic assumptions and theory that actually address the root causes of those problems instead of devising theoretical band-aids, smoke screens and workarounds for them that preserve the existing order.
Accounting is a very different profession from finance. The education is very different.
This is very true. I have a degree in both and they're both different concepts. With that said, both professions teaches you (should teach you) how to budget your money properly.
really ? where does accounting teach you what is an acceptable ratio of discretionary to non discretionary spending ? where is the rule for budgeting for a car ?
what does live below your means mean when means is variable and can change with life's events .
it doesn't really teach you much at all about how to spend .
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