>Re: TURMEL: #3 Daniel Reeves says interest is simple but
can't bet
>by: "new_economics" new_economics@...
>Date: Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:22 pm ((PDT))

"JCT: We can use the voting mechanism to let all
ijccr subscribers do an open vote."
---

NE: Despite supposedly hundreds of subscribers, there are
probably no more than five or six who actually read the
posts

JCT: Speak for yourself. Not everyone's posts are
uninteresting, uninformative and wrong.

NE: --because they themselves posted them.

JCT: They may not read you but I'd bet they read me. My
posts often generate a lot of discussion.

NE: I am excluding of course the posters of the penis
enlargement and pornography pushing ads to this apparently
unmoderated list.

JCT: The moderator can ban members who post scam.

NE: They won't bother to "vote" inasmuch as they are
automated spamming computers.

JCT: Then there must be nothing we can do.

NE: The five or six who will vote are as nutty a bunch as
you will ever find. Truly an "unbiased vote" if there ever
was one. This is tee-hee-hee stuff, John.

JCT: We're getting your message loud and clear. You're
scared to put it to the test, especially when voters will be
identified but their votes.

NE: As to logically countering Daniel's argument, there
isn't one.

JCT: Put your money where your mouth is too, go ahead and
provide a payment schedule for a debt with interest to be
paid off without recourse to outside money unless you want
to put your money on my problem:

> JCT: If you're alone on your island, your mortgage
> has no possible pay-off schedule.
> You said a $1000 loan amortized at 10% could be paid off
> if we're the only two on the island. I bet US$100 you
> can't provide a simple quarterly payment schedule without
> recourse to outside money.

JCT: And Reeves' solution to it.

Day 1: Lender gives me 10 tokens. Hurray tokens!
Day 2: I pay back the first 5 tokens.
Day 3: I do the lender's dishes, for which she pays me one
token.
Day 4: I pay back another 5 tokens.
Day 5: Lo! I still have a token! I pay it to the lender.
10 loaned, 11 repaid.

NE: Banks not only collect interest from loans, they pay
interest on deposits. In addition, they pay salaries, wages
and dividends back into the community, as well as ordinary
business expenses. It is an essential public function.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that. End of
discussion. Myro

JCT: I've drawn those flows at my bankmath page. Yes, they
spend the interest they take in. Fortunately, that's not the
bet. My bet is that the there is no possible payment
schedule for a debt with interest to be paid off without
recourse to outside money. So if you want to add another
Paypal US hundred to Reeves' bet, I'll fade you.
---

>Re: TURMEL: #3 Daniel Reeves says interest is simple but
>Posted by: "Daniel Reeves" dreeves@... pegarmpaul
>Date: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:01 pm ((PDT))

DR: Sounds fair. Let's jointly compose the question to vote
on:
Is it possible to borrow 10 tokens and repay 11 in a two-
person economy with no outside money?

JCT: No, let's not compose a new question. Let's deal with
your original solution to my problem.

Day 1: Lender gives me 10 tokens. Hurray tokens!
Day 2: I pay back the first 5 tokens.
Day 3: I do the lender's dishes, for which she pays me one
token.
Day 4: I pay back another 5 tokens.
Day 5: Lo! I still have a token! I pay it to the lender.
10 loaned, 11 repaid.

JCT: If you want to beg off this first claim for this new
one:

DR: Choices:
YES, for example on day 1 you could borrow the 10 tokens, on
day 2 you could pay back 5, on day 3 you could do some work
for the lender for which she pays you 1, and on day 4 you
could pay back 6 for a total of 11 repaid.
NO, because, well, I can't actually fathom what the no
argument will be; I'll let you fill in this part :)

JCT: Not really, I'll question your solution to the problem
and see if you can defend it. I'm supposed to prove your
solution is wrong, not you have me prove it's right. I've
claimed it's right and explained why in numerous posts over
numerous years. I've watched Bill Ryan/Silas Kline/Peter
Hogwood fail to try like you've tried. And I'm ready to
challenge your solution.

DR: PPS, I'm not a fan of central banks and love the idea of
doing away with government-issued fiat currency altogether.

JCT: There is no such thing as government-issued fiat
currency. Debtor governments borrow from banks. The only
government issued non-fiat currency is coins backed up by
credits in banks' computers that can pay taxes.

DR: But why object to me paying someone a little extra for
letting me delay making good on my obligations?

JCT: I don't object to your being suicidal. I've never
objected to anyone who wishes to pay interest for the time
the money is borrowed as opposed to the service charge for
the banker's time issuing it. It's just that I don't want to
promise to pay 11 when I only got 10. You can try with your
solution to pay the interest all you want. I just don't want
to pay interest, I want to pay it as a service charge. Most
losers don't see the difference between interest and service
charge on the participants as I've explained in my bankmath
page, but as long as some others do see the difference, I
won't worry about those who cannot see.

DR: I think interest is a mathematically elegant way to do
that.

JCT: Go ahead and bet on your solution and I'll bet you
can't answer my critique.

DR: Mutual credit systems should not impose any particular
interest rate (including 0%) on people. Ripplepay, for
example, is perfectly agnostic about interest.

JCT: I don't want to impose a pure service charge on you if
you prefer paying interest. There is no coercion, just the
inclusion of an extra choice of an interest-free bank
account side by side with my interest-bearing Visa account.
I want the choice, you're satisfied with what you've got.
---

>Re: TURMEL: #3 Daniel Reeves says interest is simple but ca
>Posted by: "Graeme Taylor" telergy@...
>Date: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:19 pm ((PDT))

GT: ...Any competition by mutual credit mechanisms to
increase punter's liquidity without increased debt servicing
must be a good thing, unless you are one of the elite that
benefit from fractional reserve lending.

JCT: They're not benefiting from fractional reserve lending,
they're benefiting from interest on lending.

GT: I agree with Daniel, except I do not see positive
interest on loans as "value neutral". Indeed, it exacerbates
economic stratification. cheers

JCT: So you accept Daniels' way to pay 11 when he only got
10?

GT: Graeme Taylor (not a user of penpal)

JCT: Get an account and I'll fade you up to $100 too.
---

>Re:TURMEL: #3 Daniel Reeves says interest is simple but ca
>Posted by: "Lee Redinger" lee@... leerr66
>Date: Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:11 pm ((PDT))

Daniel Reeves wrote:
>Sounds fair. Let's jointly compose the question to vote on:
>Is it possible to borrow 10 tokens and repay 11 in a
>two-person economy with no outside money? Choices:
> >> SNIP <<<

LR: DR and JCT,
I see no point in this vote. Instead, define the banking
rules your are going to use. Then anyone can figure it out.

JCT: No, we're not going to define the banking rules "we are
going to use." We're going to use the banking rules as they
exist. That there have been so many lies about the system's
engineering so as to keep most people fooled about how it
works isn't what we're doing here. I've presented the
problem relating to how the system works, Daniel has
presented a solution relating to how he thinks the system
works. I must rebut and get him to admit he can't do it.

LR: John is right if the bank can only lend money to others
and cannot collect interest before the loan principal is
paid back. Daniel is right if the bank can either borrow on
it's own account or collect interest before the principal is
returned.

JCT: So whoever is wrong will lose.

LR: JCT mentioned "An interest-free UNILETS world-wide
timebank. Almost here." What is it you are hinting at, John?
You got something to show us? Almost? Hurry!

JCT: I'm already using it. I've already created my personal
UNILETS account online for everyone's inspection. It's
rudimentary but functional. What I want and what I offer,
what I've spent, what I've earned. I paid for most of my
1999 European Tour with online Hours from my online timebank
account. Of course, since I run my UNILETS bank account
myself instead of having some network run it for me, many
people don't think that counts. Just because it works is no
reason to say it works! As soon as Hugo Chavez's Poor People
social currency is usable between Venezuela, Brazil and
Mexico is as soon as I can say the first international links
have been made between nations. Still, the fact my UNILETS
account works everywhere is another indication of links
between nationals personally. Check out:
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/unilets.htm

LR: If you want to see another great example take a good
look at CES. http://community-exchange.org/

JCT: Another indication that social currency accounts,
whether operated personally or by a group or nation, is
looming on the financial horizon.

LR: Tim has a great thing going there, and needs more users.
It's easy and requires no "cash" or other "official
currency".

JCT: Sounds great.

He has been purposefully designing and using it unattached
to any bank money. It is standing upright on it's own hind
legs!

JCT: They way it should. Paid for with its own credits.

LR: It is usury-free and does not have features to support
usury. Millions of units of value have already been traded
on his system, and it is growing in user count and
transaction volume. Transparency is built in. Now he's
rewriting it to run on pure open source computing platforms.
Good trading but forget the voting!-Lee Redinger

JCT: Wonderful. Glad to know.
---

>Re: TURMEL: #3 Daniel Reeves says interest is simple but
>Posted by: "marc_gauvin" gauvin@... marc_gauvin
>Date: Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:49 am ((PDT))

Dear All, I could not resist replying to this:
1) I propose the following banking rules which are relevant
to what is occurring today and is what is precisely
reflected in my spread sheet

JCT: And here's Marc detailing for Daniel why he can't win
his bet with me. So I'll skip this and perhaps repeat it
when the money is in action.

>Re: TURMEL: #3 Daniel Reeves says interest is simple but ca
>Posted by: "marc_gauvin" gauvin@... marc_gauvin
>Date: Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:49 am ((PDT))

MG: Hi Lee, The CES is good of course, however nothing new
there.
1) Still need to answer the problem of balancing the usury
based sucking up of collateral value enforced by physical
force and legislation. When this is the case at an
exponential rate, systems like LETS and CES which are
frankly trivial, remain marginal and when and if they grow
they are stamped out.

JCT: That's not what happened when the banking system
crashed in Argentina. Use of social credits expanded to
millions of users and the deluge of sound credits that
couldn't be banked for interest encouraged the payment of
most overlapping internal debts to that federal dollars
would be focused on paying off the IMF and World Bank debts
last year. So the life-boats remain marginal until the Ship
of State crashes then everyone makes use of the available
lifeboats. Sure, it takes economic storms to push people
into their LETS lifeboats but to say that because the
lifeboats are so far small is no indication as to how long
it would take for social currencies to be used more in US,
Canada, France, Europe when their financial upheavals
arrive. With the jacking up of interest rates, it's on the
way now.

MG: 2) The key is not one currency or another. The key is
the technical specification of currency. There is no formal
rigorous standard technical definition for currency
published anywhere. What makes both the meter and the yard
viable is that they share a common generic spec so that
conversion between the two is trivial. Similarly, when the
world or we for that matter define a standard that is
published, then it matters not if it is this or that
currency, it will only matter what the underlying spec is.

JCT: That's why time is best, it's simple and everyone
understand that someone owes them an hour of work for their
hour of work.

MG: For example, green, blue and yellow currencies all
adhere to currency standard XYZ published by ABC and
available at 123. Time is running out friends, none of us
want to suffer that moment when resolution is made
impossible due to physical force while we remember how our
efforts ultimately were spent in vain. Best, Marc

JCT: Which is why setting up your lifeboat before the stormy
weather is still the right thing to do no matter how
marginal the lifeboat now while things are not yet too
turbulent.
---

>Re: TURMEL: #3 Daniel Reeves says interest is simple but
>Posted by: "Lee Redinger" lee@... leerr66
>Date: Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:10 am ((PDT))

LR: Hi Marc, I think you know I do not oppose your efforts
to teach. By the way, your letter to ALL only came to me.
You missed the group I think.
The county guys went through my area today, doing what they
do every year - spraying weeds. Have you ever tried to
eradicate Canadian Thistle? It's a losing battle! You see,
Canadian Thistle just does it's thing. It spreads
underground, then pops up and sends thousands of seeds
flying everywhere the wind blows, just like alternative
currencies. Stomp 'em out one place they blow or grow in
from another next day or next year.
There are what, 6 billion people on this earth. I doubt I
can get all of them to use anything I design or manufacture.
I doubt you can either. Even if you get a spec published
most folks won't even know about it, let alone care. Most
will probably oppose it if they do find out.
Most people are busy trying to get ahead, pay the mortgage,
beat the Joneses, etc. They simply won't take time to learn
the truth. Even if it's stuck in front of their noses! I'm
trying all the time, and I bet you are, too. It doesn't work
very well. But what does work? Helping them get ahead! That
is what the LETS and CES and even the commercial "barter"
systems are doing!

JCT: That's right. Every transaction you do with your own
barter currency is one transaction less using money you're
paying interest to use.

LR: Each of these systems is marginal and it is doubtful
many will grow so big they will be stamped out. But there
are thousands of them, maybe millions, and more are coming.
The internet is a really great growing medium for them.
Tim's CES is approaching a point where it will "go to seed"
and be running on anybody's cheap web host service! Cyclos
is doing the same thing! WebLETS could too, and might. These
and other systems are already cushioning the impact of the
Fed and it's international siblings impact on the world
economy, at least for those folks who are using them. As
millions of additional people find out how they can
personally benefit by avoiding bank money the banks lose
more control.
CES, LETS, ITEX, Intagio, Airline miles, McDonald's certs,
IRTA, NATE, NTB, DoB, TTB, BFL, BM, IBC, WIR, American
Liberty Dollar, Phoenix, and a thousand more are the weeds
in the garden of the central bank and it's strongman taxman
weedstomper.

JCT: Canadian Tire money is Canada's best example of a
corporate social currency.

LR: They can't keep up! The weeds are sucking more and more
of the moisture and nutrients away from the interest garden!
Take heart, man! Don't fight with your fellow "weeds".
Join and support them. Get on some bandwagons and they will
bring you an audience like you only dream of right now!
Accept and pay with alternative forms whenever and wherever
you can find or make an opportunity. Use your cash to pay
off any debt and stop interest from hurting you directly.
You will be able to help others better then, too. Use Mutual
Credit systems whenever possible. They will prove to be
better than gold, and better than any centrally issued money
form. (Gold and other metals could prove to be a great
investment right now though, the way the USD is going. Don't
sit around with USD's in your pocket or bank account.) Have
fun! Lee Redinger

JCT: After 25 years, Marc's got a right to be tired but it's
nice to see the enthusiasm of the newest generation of money
reformers.
---

>Re: TURMEL: #3 Daniel Reeves says interest is simple but ca
>Posted by: "marc_gauvin" gauvin@... marc_gauvin
>Date: Thu Jul 12, 2007 4:06 am ((PDT))

MG: Hi Lee, Thanks for posting your reply.
Not against any alternative currency that people are using.
People have been doing that for centuries with or without
trendy alternative money schemes.
Every time you strike a deal for exchange of manpower in a
common endeavour you are using manhours as a unit whether
you account for it formally or not.
My point is that the definitive solution is not in promoting
alternative units, that is helpful in that it people become
familiar with the fact that there are other possible specs
out there. But the viciousness of the current system is such
that it is imposed with physical force something that will
not be diminished by using alternative currencies.

JCT: But it's a great example. It's a lot easier to convince
people that the Bank of Canada should operate interest-free
now that interest-free LETS social credits are on the scene.
I've haven't been challenged in years about the feasibility,
like I was in the old when economists would argue with us
for hours on end. That's why having a gnurd like Bill Ryan
is so much fun, having someone willing to take the loser
always losing argument to the entertainment of all who see
where he keeps going wrong is a precious show-biz resource.
Marc, don't you remember how large the crowds of listeners
would be when we'd catch some Bank of Canada economists to
be gnurds for us to to argue with? Now, with LETS timebanks
to point at, there are few gnurds left to argue with.
(Gnurd: Someone who believes the wrong thing and is willing
to argue in public about it and be made fun of though never
realizing it so they'd keep coming back for more and more
punishment."

MG: Thus, the solution will not come about without a direct
reference to the spec being used, that to date has not been
formally expressed nor rigorously elaborated in open fora.

JCT: Time-based currency. Formally expressed and rigorously
elaborated in open fora for me.

MG: The only definitive solution will come when there is
such a spec to compare others with available to anyone.
Best, Marc

JCT: There already is. It's call the "Time standard of
money" to replace the "stuff standard of money."

So anyway, I'm prepared to PayPal any bets made. As soon as
Daniel, Graeme or Myro say "bet," I'll provide the stumbling
block to stump them."


--
Abolitionist Debt Slave Leader John C."The Banking Systems Engineer"
Turmel for UNILETS interest-free time-based currency in U.N. resolution
C6 to Governments in the http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel USENET blog: alt.fan.john-turmel