미친 짓 김진태가 지적했듯이, 정부는 지금 30억 그루의 나무를 심는다고 30억 그루의 나무를 베어내려 하고 있다. 정상적인 사람이라면 미친 짓이라고 당장 말하겠지만, 이 정부의 인간들은 이런 일이 아무렇지도 않은 가보다. 내가 사는 집 앞에는 얼마 전에 멀쩡한 보도블록을 제거하고 조금 더 큰 보도블록으로 바꾸었다. 이것도 미친 짓이다. 정부에서는 돈을 풀어 경제를 돌아가게 한다고 아무 필요도 없는 사업을 여기저기 벌여놓았는데, 그게 생산성을 높이는데 는 아무 도움이 되지 않는 것들이다. 다시 말해 밑 빠진 독에 물을 붓는 셈이다. 물론 이런 미친 짓 뒤에는, 소비를 통해 번영에 이를 수 있다는 케인즈의 엉터리 경제 이론이 있다. 미친 짓의 뒤에는 잘못된 현실 인식, 엉터리 경제 이론이 있다. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 한국 정부가 중국에 OLED 기술 팔아먹을 예정 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11343071542 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 중공의 신나는 관광열차/시진핑, "너희들 제갈량이구나"/장개석 구호 인용한 시진핑/ 보름 내리 우박 박상후의 문명개화 중공의 문화혁명2.0이 속도를 내고 있습니다. 혁명 사적지로 향하는 홍색관광 전용열차에서는 충자무 춤판이 벌어지고 있습니다. 시진핑은 홍색 유전자를 잘 살려 홍색강산을 세세대대 전하자고 말하고 있습니다. 시진핑은 또 一寸山河一寸血라는 구절을 언급하며 투쟁을 강조했습니다. 그런데 알고 보니 이 표현은 장개석의 것입니다. 장개석의 어록인지도 모르고 시진핑이 인용한 것입니다. 시진핑은 연일 시찰행보를 계속하고 있습니다. 허난성 난양의 중의학 유적지를 방문하는 자리에서 촌극도 벌어졌습니다. 미리 주선된 환영군중들에게 내가 올줄 어떻게 알았느냐, 너희들은 천문지리를 아는 제갈량이구나"라고 말해 웃음을 자아내고 있습니다. 시진핑이나 동원된 군중이나 서로 속사정을 알면서 우스꽝스런 농담을 주고받은 거였습니다. 한편 중공에서는 이상기후가 계속되고 있습니다. 2020년과 다른점은 미국과 같은 토네이도가 발생하고 있다는 점과 우박이 장기간 내린다는 것입니다. 특히 우박은 일부지역의 경우 보름 내리 퍼부었습니다. 최근 중공에서 벌어지고 있는 다양한 현상들을 정리했습니다. https://youtu.be/3dRMBMn56Jc ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 조선일보 ‘오징어 없는 오징어 국’ 국방부 직할부대 부실급식 사실로 --->지난 6,70년대에 장교나 장성들이 군인들 보급을 떼어먹은 일이 많았는데, 다시 그런 시절로 돌아가는 것 같다. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 손정민 실종 사망 사건 , 기자놈 경찰놈 개 지랄 콜라보/ 일베 태극기요원 댓글달기 내가 손정민사건 초기부터 그랬지 대한민국은 자정기능을 상실했고 군사혁명외에는 방법이 없다고 "현재 사건의 진행방향과 유사한사례 2가지 시민들이 열심히 나섰지만 경찰은 유사한자세로 대처 의심되는 인물들은 지역유지급 자녀 전부 무죄판결 서울출신 여자수의대생 실종사건도 친해보이던 용의자 있었지만 실종몇일전 휴대폰날치기 실종다음날 130kg실험실소각처리 실종자방 용의자가 청소 누군가 가구등무단폐기 수첩도 분실되었다가 용의자가 찾았다고함 실종자 컴퓨터로그기록 누군가가 중요부분 삭제 경찰방치 수사미온적 용의자 부모 지역유지설등 시끄러웠지만 지금 잘먹고 잘산다 김성재사건도 동물병원 졸레틸산건 맞는데 그걸로 사망했다 단정할수없다고 무죄받고 잘먹고 잘산다" --->한국의 부패는 오래 전부터 진행되어 왔고, 그것이 박 대통령의 탄핵 인용이라는 황당한 결정에 이르러 정점을 찍었다고 보아야 한다. 사회 곳곳이 부패했고, 자정 기능이 없어 부패가 고착화 되었다. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 통화 팽창은 어떻게 소득과 부의 불평등을 만드나 통화가 팽창하면 팽창된 통화를 처음으로 받아서 사용하는 사람들에게로 자원이 이동하면서 이익을 얻는 사람과, 그렇지 못해서 손해를 보는 사람들이 생긴다. 지니 계수가 1에 가까우면 소득의 불평등이 심화되는 것이고, 0에 가까우면 완전한 소득 평등을 의미하는데, 미국이 1971년 금본위제도를 공식적으로 포기한 이후로 지니 계수는 점차 악화되었다. 계속적인 통화 팽창은 기존의 부의 불평등을 확대하고, 인플레는 부동산 소유자들을 이롭게 한다. 이렇게 부의 불평등이 심화되면, 경제적인 계층들이 나타나게 되고, 정치, 경제적인 갈등이 잇따르게 된다. 정부와 중앙은행, 신용매개물(fiduciary media)의 발행자들은 부의 불평등을 초래한 당사자들이지만, 사람들은 이런 경제적 원리를 모르기 때문에 그들의 비난을 피하게 된다. 정치가들은 부의 불평등이 시장자본주의에 의해 초래되었다고 비난하지만, 사실 그것은 정부의 개입에 의해 초래된 것이다. 또 정치가들은 점점 성장하는 시장 경제를 낙수 효과라며 비판하지만, 통화 팽창이야말로 낙수 효과를 전제로 하는 정책이다. How Monetary Expansion Creates Income and Wealth Inequality Jonathan Newman “Every change in the money relation alters … the conditions of the individual members of society. Some become richer, some poorer.” – Mises, Human Action, p. 414. New money enters the economy at a particular point. It does not enter in the form of a proportional and simultaneous increase in everybody’s incomes. This means that there are uneven effects of monetary expansion, including exacerbated income and wealth inequality. When we trace the consequences of monetary expansion, we notice that it creates winners and losers as resources are shifted toward the first receivers and spenders of new money. This idea is an old one. It goes back to Richard Cantillon, who in the mid-eighteenth century outlined the step-by-step process that new money works its way into an economy, causing some prices and incomes to rise before others. Rothbard summarized these “Cantillon effects” in his history of economic thought text: In short, the early receivers of the new money will increase spending according to their preferences, raising prices in these goods, at the expense of a lower standard of living among the late receivers of the new money, or among those on fixed incomes who don't receive the new money at all. Furthermore, relative prices will be changed in the course of the general price rise, since the increased spending is "directed more or less to certain kinds of products or merchandise according to the idea of those who acquire the money, [and] market prices will rise more for certain things than for others…". Moreover, the overall price rise will not necessarily be proportionate to the increase in the supply of money. Specifically, since those who receive new money will scarcely do so in the same proportion as their previous cash balances, their demands, and hence prices, will not all rise to the same degree. Thus, "in England the price of Meat might be tripled while the price of Corn rises no more than a fourth." The Gini ratio, one of the more popular measures of income inequality, showcases the effects of an unrestrained central bank. A ratio closer to one indicates more income inequality; a ratio of zero means complete income equality. The graph below shows that the trend in inequality measured by the Gini ratio changed when the US completely went off the gold standard. Since 1971, the central bank has not been constrained by physical gold at all. How New Money Is Created In our modern fractional reserve banking system with an active central bank and profligate federal government, monetary inflation is a given. In the US, money originates as bank reserves created by the Federal Reserve to pay for US government debt or other assets from commercial banks. Commercial banks can then use these reserves as a basis for multiplying deposits in the form of extending new loans. It is worth taking a moment to compare this to a commodity money system, perhaps with full reserve banking. New money must be produced at a cost and it is subject to the profit and loss test. The money supply can only grow when the money costs of producing money are less than the amount of money that can be produced. In the case of gold, the cost of mining, refining, and minting gold must be less than the discounted value of gold money produced for new gold to enter the money supply. The same economic threshold applies to any money that is not fiat. Since it is trivial to add zeroes to fiat paper money (consider the Zimbabwean $100 trillion note pictured below) or to electronic bank accounts, there is no limit to the “profitability” of governments creating more fiat money or banks issuing fiduciary media (loans extended beyond reserves). Where New Money Goes Once a dollar is created, somebody gets to use it first. When, for example, the Fed buys government bonds from a bank, the bank can now increase their lending due to those additional reserves. Banks lend in a variety of ways, including to each other and to the government. But once it is done bouncing around and between the banking system and large financial firms, the new money ends up in the hands of businesses and consumers. The FRED graph below shows the total amount of loans to consumers and businesses from commercial banks. Consider, though, what the new money has done even before it reaches a consumer or entrepreneur. It has been used to buy assets that will provide potentially long-lasting streams of income for large financial institutions. We should not be surprised, then, by the insidious “financialization” of the economy, in which the size and scope of the financial industry expands. In 2020, the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector reached over 21 percent of gross output (and 8.7 percent of GDP) according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Over the past few decades, we have also seen an increasing variety of complex financial assets, some of which are derivatives with multiple layers of performance based on performance based on performance of some deep underlying real asset. Once the new money finds its way into the hands of regular private citizens, however, they get a chance to increase their demands for goods and services before everybody else. This includes durable consumer goods, capital goods, financial assets, etc. The prices of these goods begin to rise relative to other prices due to the artificially increased demand. After the first group spends the money, there is a new group of people holding the new money—the people who sold to the first spenders. The new spending of the first group has turned into new, higher incomes for the second group. This second group now gets a chance to increase their demand for goods, but they will face slightly higher prices. The prices are higher because the first group had to bid their purchases away from those who would have bought it if there had not been an expansion of the money supply. Winners and Losers As the third, fourth, fifth, etc. groups spend their new incomes, prices continue to rise unevenly. Relative prices and the distribution of incomes change. The early receivers and spenders of the new money acquire resources that they otherwise would not have been able to acquire. At the end of this chain, we have the last receivers of the new money. Their incomes rise after everybody else’s (or never, as Rothbard mentioned). It is worse than just a delay, however, because this group has been paying the higher prices from everybody else’s spending spree. Not only have the later receivers had to cut back on consumption, but their ability to acquire productive resources and durable assets also has been restricted. There has been a shifting of real resources away from the later receivers of new money toward the first spenders of the new money. Beyond productive capital goods like tools and machines, consider also that stock prices and the prices of durable goods like houses and land will increase. If the first few groups of spenders acquire these first, they can merely wait for the later spenders to bid the prices of these goods up even further. Permanent Increase in Inequality Income and wealth inequality is a natural feature of an unhampered market economy. Land, labor, and capital are heterogeneous, so incomes will vary according to the varied productivities of these inputs. Also, consumer demands change constantly, and entrepreneurial anticipations of those demands are anything but consistent even if they are striving for profits and avoiding losses. The economizing process of the market via profit and loss, however, ensures that resources are not systematically wasted and that consumer wants and needs are met to the fullest extent possible. These inequalities are natural and healthy. If, for example, the government gives me money (after taking a cut) from somebody who has a higher income than me, then the allocation of efforts and resources will be altered such that consumer demands are not met as well as they would have absent the income redistribution. Monetary expansion increases and exacerbates income and wealth inequality in a permanent way, however. We have seen that incomes rise disproportionately, such that some people’s incomes increase before others. We have also seen a clear movement of real wealth toward the first spenders since they are able to successfully bid resources to themselves from others. The increase in inequality is not self-reversing. This is because the winners of the Cantillon effect game accumulate assets that appreciate due to the inflation or assets that augment their own productivity (consider an early spender who buys a tractor that increases his farm’s yield). These gains make it easier for them to make more investments in the future. The wealth redistribution is a permanent one with continuing effects on income inequality. Political and Social Implications Future monetary expansion will multiply these effects—inflation favors those who own real assets. The inevitable result is the emergence of economic classes and the political and social conflict that may entail. The Cantillon effect losers may become envious of the seemingly unearned riches of the Cantillon effect winners, and since the Cantillon effect mechanism is difficult to see, the perpetrators—the government, the central bank, and issuers of fiduciary media – are likely to escape criticism, just like a run-of-the-mill counterfeiter who never gets caught. The persistence and aggravation of the economic inequality caused by Cantillon effects also benefits those who can gain political points by appearing to stand up for “the little guy.” The same people like to blame free market capitalism for the heightened income and wealth inequality we see today, but we have seen that it is state intervention that exacerbates inequality. They also like to use the term “trickle down” economics as a discrediting label for policies that would get us closer to a healthy and growing market economy. But there is nothing more “trickle down” than government money printing from on high. Jonathan Newman is Assistant Professor of Economics and Finance at Bryan College and an Associated Scholar of the Mises Institute. He earned his PhD at Auburn University while a Research Fellow at the Mises Institute. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------