Thanks for sharing, I loved reading it. I can’t wait to see in the last video (thumb picture) it says “FARCEl.” “Fiddler on the roof”? Hidden deeper meaning word like Farce?
Isn’t this like when companies offer evidence of purchase orders in exchange for credit? The notes representing the credit may all originate from central banks now, but these would have originally been actual claims for an asset (e.g. Gold).
It seems to me that detaching the note from the asset triggered the breakdown. As soon as people considered the credit notes as good as the assets, the required scepticism over actually delivery of the underlying asset on demand disappeared with it.
There is a long history of people still doing things, long after the reason for it has ceased. Post war coconut headphones on post war island is one example, but first world societies have many of their own - “we do this because we have always done it this way.”
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The limitation is that one in the hand is always worth two in the bush, as it were. There is always risk in accepting credit, instead of an asset (which is why there needs to be interest or a coupon to accept in lue)… Unless people forget what the difference is altogether, but then you have the reverse problem.
Credit has its place - promises make the world go around - but there are times when you need delivery instead. I think the monetary system went too far into the credit usage, it broke down, and now we are trying to re-orientate again. I see crypto currencies as very much part of this re-discovery process.
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It seems to me there was an entity named The Federal Reserve created on December 23, 1913 that might have had something to do with it.
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There’s an excellent Radio 4 series (of ten 15 minute programmes) The History of Money.
I say excellent based on only two episodes 
and urge those interested in this thread to listen to today’s episode: The Classical Period (15 minutes long)
It contains some really interesting facts about debt, trade and money, including a really important one right at the end. Main ones from memory:
- money was not created to facilitate trade (a popular incorrect assumption), in fact some of the biggest trading nations were late to adopt it
- coinage was brought about in order to facilitate war and empire (that figures!) as a way to make, er incentivise, the nearby population to provide logistical resources to soldiers. This made it much more efficient to maintain armies all over the place
- before coinage, rulers dealt with debt burden problems by forgiving all debt periodically, after coinage this was not attractive, which meant the plebs became overburdened with debt unless other means were found to return wealth to them from the rich.
- similar philosophies appear to have arisen at different places due to the arrival of money, as well as anti-war movements, often religious, some interesting ones in China.
- if rulers did not forgive the debts of the masses, or have other ways that returned wealth to them, the rulers generally realised too late, and the civilisation collapsed. Oh dear!
Today’s repetition of the last scenario appears obvious, along with the futility of QE being used to further enrich or our ruling elite (bankers) rather than the populous. Oooh political!
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Nice find, using material from his book, Debt: The first 5000 years.
He recently did an interview with Keiser about his new book: Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
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Excellent thanks @chrisfostertv
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This is excellent economic-theory-reading @chrisfostertv – I read this when you first posted it, but returned to reread the relevance of ‘financing world trade’.
Thanks for taking the time to put all this together.
No worries, the concept that
money was not created to facilitate trade
…has me thinking that indeed ‘self liquidating credit’ was the mechanism that saw us thrive, but instead of gold coin which came later, the store of value was the bookeeping entry itself, recorded on clay and parchment.
I cant help but think, this is a system that can overlay safecoin…a value exchange system that can weather the storms happening outside in the world of ‘money’
It also gets me thinking of ‘value-based’ ie value-based pricing, value-based health etc …it just feels like were missing a trick with, Safecoin = x Gb = y$ thinking (feels like behavioral economics to me).
To me safecoin is a value exchange token and could do with some kind of ‘elastic value’ as we rapidly reach the point of abundance with storage space. Then again, maybe the value is in how the human utilizes the token…someone who is clever and efficient will convert a token into more tangible value than another.
Another interesting mechanism that goes way back for keeping records of value is the ‘Tally Stick’ from which ‘stocks’ are derived
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You are not alone there, I myself also query this internally. I know safecoin is what it is, but I also feel there will be advances and as money systems continue to ignore actual value then this change surely must happen at some stage.
I actually had my hands on a tally stick mind you, not as primitive as we think, it had to line up with the grain on each part which are pretty unique. Very cool as we think it was just a stick with notches. Well a split tally.
Interesting also these created credit where they were split apart and the longer part was given to the lender. The longer part was called the stock and there started another system, stockholders 
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Using a certain amount of currency is essential for clearing. If one person spends in the first hour, the receiver can spend to the next person and so on, however if there were only one unit then no one could put off an expense… For example a person might not have the energy or attention to make a transaction, So therefore more than one of a currency should exist so that people are not critically dependent on others to spend.
Safecoin having almost as many whole units as people on the planet is a phenomena, that proves so useful… If only enough coins per person who have access or care to have access to an electronic device
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Could you explain more your thinking here? What do you mean by “value exchange token”? Isn’t a value exchange token what any creator of currency hopes (or forces) that currency will be? What do you mean by “elastic value”?
Definitely free-form thinking here…riffing parallel to the radical idea of elastic currency (expansion/contraction) as proposed in the early days of the Fed…which was kind of ground breaking at the time, given you had to dig up money to expand the supply, but of course the contraction part of ‘elastic’ seems impossible now.
Well I believe a currency is always issued, either by a private entity or government. This is clearly not the case with safecoin…it must be won by providing resources… a value to the network. You provided value, it is stored in the coin and can be exchanged for whatever you consider to be value, be it external (fiat based) or internal (apps, services etc)
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What also played into this ‘elastic value’ comment was the book ‘value-based fees’
consulting fees are dependent on only two things: value provided in the perception of the buyer and the intent of the buyer and the consultant to act ethically. Many consultants, however, fail to understand that perceived value is the basis of the fee, or that they must translate the importance of their advice into long-term gains for the client in the client’s perception. Still others fail to have the courage and the belief system that support the high value delivered to clients, thereby reducing fees to a level commensurate with the consultant’s own low self-esteem.
Ultimately, we only have stuff and promises of stuff. In terms of Safecoin, we have safecoins themselves (cash) and promises of safecoins (credit).
IMO, this simple definition is much clearer than that of ‘elastic money’. Money can mean cash and credit or even derivatives of the latter. Elastic can mean pretty much anything in terms of increasing or des creasing the amount of money in circulation. For me, this is just far too one for interpretation. Just IMO though, of course.
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Most would agree, we’re only scratching the possibility-surface of crypto-currencies. What do you mean though by elastic values? Like built-in if this then that prices? Do you imply that a crypto should be buyable at a value beyond the market price, or are you just referring to chart type calculations where Bollinger Bands are displayed (for ex.)?
A crypto-currency’s value might be tiered like stocks with voting rights, level A, B etc. However the programmability of crypto$ will inevitably lead to currently unimagined values and highly flexible uses. I’d have to put more thought / time into what a few might be though beyond A, B, voting etc.
Freewheel thinking, stealing the term ‘elastic money’
a currency that automatically increases and decreases in volume with the demands of business
Maybe we could very loosely say:
a coin that automatically increases and decreases in volume/recycling with the demands of storage
…and associating it in an abstract way against ‘value-based fees’
pricing strategy which sets prices primarily, but not exclusively, on the value, perceived or estimated, to the customer rather than on the cost of the product or historical prices
I’m really dreaming about how SAFE might have been, absent fiat exchanges, i.e a closed economic system, with no ‘price’ discovery…but maybe ‘value’ discovery…as opposed to some of these closed systems that seek to equate an hour of everyone’s labor as being valued the same.
You’d almost need a feed from the core…a trend index on the supply of SAFEcoin (state of the network) at the time of transaction/ contract.
I don’t think we get an insight to the flow of coin…but would be fascinating to visualize.
So dreaming about value in a modern world of diverse skills, services and products.
We presently have the perverse situation of being at advantage when being close, in time and space to the point of money issuance. If we’re close to the point of issuance we get to extract value, before passing it down the line…the little guy ends up holding a permanently devaluing token…and it gets even worse with negative interest rates.
We have a much loved old Movie in Oz ‘The Castle’ i.e a mans home and one meme in particular “tell em he’s dreaming” at least it’s still free and they cant hack it…yet
