Money owned, if it's absolutely never spent, doesn't matter. If it really just sits in a safe somewhere it's as if it doesn't exist in the first place.
The amount of money in circulation matters. However with someone owning a lot there is a risk of them suddenly putting it in circulation and thus suddenly changing the amount of money in circulation. This will cause prices to fluctuate causing price instability. Up or down doesn't matter.
This isn't an abstract problem btw. Fiat currently has problems that are similar. https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/sp500-companies-stockpile-1-trillion-cash-investors-want-it/
This goes both ways btw, someone being owed a lot of money ("owning" a large negative sum) can suddenly demand loans to be paid back and thus suddenly withdraw a lot of money from circulation with prices again fluctuating. I believe the financial crisis in the USA in the 30's was caused that way.
This is why you need demurrage on money, according to Silvio Gesell's writings. It discourages stockpiling. You'll have to abandon dreams of generational wealth and other outgrowths of capitalism but it'll keep you from starving because of a financial crisis.
This is very nicely put!
My thought were about holding vs circulating as well. The historic example I thought about was Mansa Musa of the Mali empire who caused gold inflation in Egypt on his hajj.
It‘s just that a some point holding or spending doesn‘t make a difference anymore. If there is a king (and only one) and he has all the gold, he cannot use it with his people.
Correct about the king holding 100% but don't worry about it because things will go South long before that.
The difference between the king holding 50% and holding 95% doesn't matter, 10 times the amount of an abstract unit is still an abstract unit. It's like feet vs. meters.
The change in the unit matters though. With the king accumulating gold, or Saylor accumulating Bitcoin or tech companies accumulating dollars, money is withdrawn from circulation and everyone has to recalibrate their yard stick a.k.a. prices. This causes confusion in the system and interrupts the flow of goods and services. You can literally starve with all the grain in the fields.
Just ask dimwits like nostr:npub12262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7s6cgrkj or nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s who are losing customers because of a recent recalibration of the ratio of money supply to services offered. They could have asked those questions beforehand but hey despair can be overwhelming and impact your reasoning.
> starve with all the grain in the fields
I find it weird how it could come to that much specialization. So that now everybody wants to participate in the capitalist arms race where something seems to come from nothing. Everbody investing and hedging until they realize that nothing grew.
But please elaborate about jb55 and Semisol. What‘s there?
jb55 and Semisol are attempting to offer services priced in Bitcoin, and also keep the price in Bitcoin stable.
Further more, these services are somewhat "buy ahead", where you pay now and receive the service later, sometimes even a year later.
That's fair enough, like newspapers will give you a sometimes massive discount if you subscribe for a year ahead because having that money allows them to plan ahead, it's some financial security.
But recently the value of Bitcoin has been going up, and that's been creating the expectation that it'll go up even more. Nothing wrong with that either, if the economy of Bitcoin-priced services is growing against a largely constant money supply that's a fair expectation.
But now you have the deflation trap. jb55's customers were happy to subscribe last month for $5 equivalent but now it's $10 equivalent and they consider dropping.
Semisol would like customers to pay $50 equivalent in advance now for next year's service, but this amount of Bitcoin might be worth $100 or $500 next year, so why spend it now? Better to keep it and spend it next year and get so much more for it.
Small-time Bitcoiners are typically financially stable enough from fiat income that they can afford to just buy Bitcoin and keep it the same way that they could spend it on collecting Beanie Babies to put on a shelf if they wanted to. They don't need to spend it on food or other urgent stuff. So they don't spend.
You don't get an economy going like that.
> the capitalist arms race where something seems to come from nothing
The bugs in our system that let some live at other people's expenses (it doesn't come from nothing, the paths are just too convoluted to identify the victims) are very appealing so everyone's pining for it.
Not everyone equally though don't be mistaken. A lot of people, myself included, aren't content with "making a living" and devoting any surplus time and energy to creativity, honing skills, self-realization and the like.
The aggressively capitalistic ones ("look! got me another investment property!!") are usually those that, according to their own self assessment, can't compete on talent and skill and are therefore feeling perennially insecure and desperate.
This includes most Bitcoiners, who, other than Bitcoin, have nothing to talk about. The skilled people, in the other hand, will talk your ear off about their latest creation and what have you. You can usually tell the one from the other in about 30 seconds of conversation only.
Gaah. "are content with making a living"
About "too much specialization".
Joseph Tainter has a book on the Collapse of Civilizations. It's hard to deduce, from the rubble of say the Roman Empire or Easter Island, what made them fail but his theory is that there is a recurring theme of too much specialization so you're possibly onto something there.
FYI some customer testimonials from nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s 's and nostr:npub12262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7s6cgrkj 's businesses.
nostr:note13zrcuqcjzzmwa9w6f96eu4m6f0tqwgtp8erkputaqdr95rt64n4qrqzaze
nostr:note1kexz0j5ksxxu3ggtpvkr92wkjs06u7r2mzzfhg2g03k765z0xz3q85ntqc
nostr:npub12262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7s6cgrkj got so nervous about this he started calling his customer "wet wipe". I wonder whether it's helping.
