Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Economist in a Box - Money in a Box

Economist build idea boxes about the economy.  Their boxed thought structure is defined by all the parameters they assign to the box.  Then they attempt to relate the model of that boxed thought to the real world economy.  When it fails to fit they are confined by the box they built.  If it is a square box and the real economy is a round hole and they have invested a great amount of time, effort, reputation and commitment then they just try to pound it in to the round hole rather than start over.

Economy is about money.  It is about what money does.  Money is a fundamental entity in the economy.  Other major entity players in the economy are entities that use money as a medium of exchange and the objects that money is exchanged for.

The entities that use money and the objects they are exchanged for are highly defined identities.  The greater the amount of money involved the higher the degree of definition, often contractually defined.

The money involved in the transaction lacks a unique degree of identity beyond the nature of the currency, the US dollar, the amount involved, the account source of the funds and means of conveyance from one entity to another.

Scientific study of money and what it does in the economy cannot be done until each unit in the medium of exchange is uniquely defined and identified  to its lowest level instance of the collective entity and persists forever with that unique identity.   Then its micro and macro nature can be traced in time and transactions linking the transactors as well as the objects in the transaction.

In order to manage what money is and what money does each individual unit of money must be serially identified and that unit of account defined as a computer record that does not change.  Only the attribute of that unique serialized unit record called "possessor" changes as a function of transactions using the medium of exchange.

If the "possessor" entity of a serialized unit of money (one single dollar) may be either an owner or an occupier (borrower).  There must always be an owner associated with a unit of money.  Possession by an occupier is optional associated with rights (which may be limited) to use the unit of money granted by an owner entity.  When an owner expends a unit of money in a transaction (the owner can only expend it if their is no occupier) the information regarding the transaction goes into memorandum history.  When an occupier (if there is one) expends the occupied money in their possession it becomes owned by the new possessor.  The transaction in which the occupied medium of exchange unit was involved goes into the debt record history of the occupier.  The creditor of that debt record may (subject to law restrictions) transfer ownership of the debt.  The debtor (occupier) of that debt settles the debt by repayment of owned dollars.

Some rules:  Occupiers cannot loan money they occupy.  In other words occupied money cannot be "reloaned".  At least there is no provision in the central money record for this situation.  The expenditure of money by an occupier is not a legal basis for any legal repayment claim other than failure to deliver the goods or (non-loan) services.  If an occupier of money does re-loan the occupied money then there is no legal recourse to collection of that loan by the occupier or legal requirement for the receiver of occupied money to repay the loan.

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