52
votes
Is money we make completely taken away by taxes?
No, this will not happen.
Government does not tax people just for 'shits and giggles'. Governments do not hoard money at some pile as a some sort of dragon from a fantasy novel. Taxes are levied so ...
- 54.4k
44
votes
Accepted
If no one knew about inflation, would inflation take place?
In this case, I think it is best explained without any economics jargon.
If your thought experiment is taken to the extreme and no one knows about the money, it would literally imply that the money ...
- 4,008
41
votes
People pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation
But when people pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish
the entire nation
This sentence seems to imply that we should fault the rich not because they are rich, but because they do ...
- 33.4k
34
votes
Why do different countries have different currency?
Two reasons: history and ability to control the money supply.
History: paper-money started by being issued by trustworthy agents from kings/governments, as a way to be able to transfer the ownership ...
- 2,145
31
votes
Accepted
Why do different countries have different currency?
I will focus on some economics reasons not mentioned explicitly so far. There are economic benefits to having your own currency. Your question essentially raises the question of so-called "Optimum ...
- 6,128
23
votes
If no one knew about inflation, would inflation take place?
Yes and there is a real-world historical example.
Inflation is the term given to a natural phenomena where an overabundance of resources in human societies leads to the devaluation of such a resource ...
- 331
22
votes
Accepted
Why is bartering uncommon in modern countries?
The main likely reasons why barter is not more common are:
The inconvenience of having to find another party who both offers what you want and wants what you offer.
Even if such a party can be ...
- 8,311
21
votes
In today's money, what was the value of a 1492 Spanish maravedí?
dtcm840's answer is about as good as you're going to do for a single actual number: it is clear, well-sourced, and almost certainly misleading. That's not their fault: all comparisons over time ...
- 371
19
votes
Is money we make completely taken away by taxes?
Wind the clock back in the other direction: where did this money come from in the first place? The government issued it. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, etc.
You've also chosen to stop your ...
- 558
16
votes
What is money really?
Money is, in essence, debt. More broadly, it's a system of clearing and credit. That entry in the computer means that the bank owes you \$1000, which is worth whatever others are willing to exchange ...
- 6,374
16
votes
Why is bartering uncommon in modern countries?
In the countries that I am familiar with (such as Canada), using barter to avoid taxes is definitely illegal. You are required to report the dollar value of the exchange as revenue. It is treated as ...
- 9,852
14
votes
People pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation
Her position isn't quite untrue. If you define poor and rich relatively, you cannot have "poor" without having "rich." However, this has little to do with hoarding.
We often think of money in terms ...
- 481
13
votes
Accepted
Wouldn't abolition of cash give rise to a substitute currency?
"Cash" is an emergent phenomenon of human economic organization. It exists for lots of reasons, as a provider of economic anonymity, a low transaction cost solution to the double-coincidence of wants, ...
- 16.3k
13
votes
Why do different countries have different currency?
There are also many countries without their own currency. For example, Ecuador and Panama both use the US dollar as their official currency. See this list for more examples.
There are several reasons ...
- 8,581
11
votes
Accepted
How much money is wire transferred every year worldwide?
If you're just trying to understand the volume of electronic transactions generally to an order of magnitude, it's in the quadrillions of dollars per year. According to this document from the US ...
- 6,374
11
votes
People pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation
The argument is largely based of the following premise:
You have 10 Million Dollars. Say in one case you gave it all to 1 already rich millionaire, and in the other case you gave $1000 to 10,000 poor ...
- 219
10
votes
Is money capital?
"...capitalists buy and sell money as though it were a productive
economic good."
No they don't. They buy and sell currency, because the price of currency fluctuates (due to imagination and/or ...
- 33.4k
10
votes
Why do different countries have different currency?
You might also want to think about
If it's not divided then we can easily use the money anywhere.
Is that positive and desirable for everyone in all situations? If you want to control the flow of ...
- 201
9
votes
Accepted
The Printing of Money for Paying Debt
Printing money causes inflation because someone (or some institution) will get the money and will spend it somehow. This increases demand for goods, but the number of goods, the supply was not ...
- 28.7k
9
votes
People pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation
This particular statement posted is actually two separate statements that are being conflated despite not being related:
Statement 1:
People who collect many newspapers or cats are called "nuts&...
- 191
9
votes
Can inflation occur in a positive-sum game currency system such as the Stack Exchange reputation system?
No, there is no inflation.
Inflation is caused by a relative increase in the amount of currency, relative to the amount of scarce goods and services available.
As you note, there is a continuous ...
- 8,123
9
votes
Can inflation occur in a positive-sum game currency system such as the Stack Exchange reputation system?
Yes, there is inflation.
StackExchange was created in 2008. Anybody who had 5,000 (arbitrary value) reputation points in 2009 would have been perceived as an outstanding member. Now, having ...
9
votes
Accepted
Why are the financial intermediation theory of banking or fractional reserve theory of banking still accepted despite evidence to the contrary?
There are several reason for it. Please note the reasons are not necessarily listed in order of importance, the last point is actually most relevant answer to your question.
The 'Evidence' You Cite ...
- 54.4k
9
votes
Is money we make completely taken away by taxes?
Your calculation is fundamentally wrong because you are forgetting an important factor - the money that government spends.
In your calculation you seem to think that the 10% the government takes in ...
- 218
8
votes
Why can't a government print money to pay its debt?
Your get the basic intuition, but real-life situation is a bit different.
First, I didn't really understand what you meant by "try to catch some 'fool'", but what you are calling foreign exchange ...
- 475
8
votes
Why is the money supply perfectly inelastic?
The Fed controls the nominal money supply as they are the only ones who can add or remove money from the economy by printing it. Real money supply is only affected by increases or decreases in ...
- 954
8
votes
Accepted
Would a fair distribution of wealth from the super rich increase the purchasing power/life quality of the average person?
tl;dr: In the hypothetical you set in the body of your question redistribution cannot help the poor. However, this is not because redistribution could not significantly raise the welfare of the poor ...
- 54.4k
7
votes
Why doesn't Nintendo fire up the old factories and re-produce *exact* copies of many of their most popular games, controllers and consoles?
I am unsure whether this qualifies as economics, but it would be something that might be discussed in business school. Furthermore, the answer is almost entirely engineering. As such, I will do this ...
- 9,852
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible