[ExI] Australian dollar

[Dan]

Imports themselves are not to blame. Also, recall the context of my statement 
here: BillK wrote, "Currency devaluation has many bad consequences, of course, 
as well as the good consequences of possibly increasing exports and reducing 
imports."

He's, obviously, here pointing to an upside to currency devaluation. I was 
questioning whether this was really an upside after all. What's wrong, after 
all, with imports? They're a sign of trade -- that people somewhere else want to 
sell stuff to you. This is usually a great thing -- it spreads the division of 
labor ever further -- making for greater efficiency in production -- and usually 
provides you with more things to choose from.

We are not "spending ourselves to a brutal catastrophe." The US government is. 
If you're worried about spending being too high (by whose reckoning?), then the 
thing to do is stop government-sponsored credit expansion. Also, stop government 
debt-financing -- which is one of the main drivers of credit policy (credit 
expansion allows big debtors to borrow more; the biggest debtor in any modern 
economy is its government).

This debt, too, doesn't need to be paid back. It should be defaulted. Defaulting 
on the government debt will make creditors unlikely to loan to the government 
again. More importantly, paying it off will involve coercion -- via taxation or 
some other coercive means. Yes, I know, the wealthy creditors who lent to the 
government enjoy being paid off by taxes and the like. Well, that has to stop 
and would undermine the Hamiltonian notion of having national debt to cleave the 
wealthy to the government. (Granted, my recommendation here would be unpopular 
with these same creditors and they would try to persuade everyone that the world 
will end if the government default or were just abolished outright.*)

Regards,

Dan

* Which is _the_ libertarian position. Libertarians who advocate government are 
inconsistent.


----- Original Message ----
From: spike <spike66 at att.net>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wed, November 3, 2010 6:35:49 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Australian dollar

That US dollar will drop way faster now that the federal reserve has just
bought up 600 billion in US Treasury notes.  US government buying its own
debt is equivalent to spinning up the printing presses at the national mint.
Are we going to keep pretending this is a debt that never needs to be paid
back?

... On Behalf Of Dan
...
>Why is reducing imports a good thing? Dan

Dan, your even asking the question worries me.  Answer: because we are
spending ourselves to brutal catastrophe.

spike