Description

1. Ed and Jeff -- background and purpose of the podcast series.
2. Definition of money -- textbook definition.
3. Money as medium of exchange.
4. Store of value: is there intrinsic value?

• Our current system shows that digital money does not have intrinsic value
• Money as Debt - video by Paul Grignon (Jeff says fractional reserve explanation is faulty)
• We must have confidence that money is backed by productive capacity.
• Commercial banks create money out of nothing -- but you must repaythe loan by real world effort.

5. Unit of account: a social convention.
6. Money: commodity or simply public utility (infrastructure)?

• The fallacy of the gold standard.

7. Inflation: New money does not necessarily create inflation.

• PMC advocates the creation of debt free money to fund beneficial programs.
• Concentration of wealth aggravated by tax structure.
• A universal basic income (NB -- created without incurring bank debt) would be spent back right away into the economy.

8. Commercial exchanges use the unit of account, not barter per se.

9. Significance of the definition of money.

RESOURCES
Videos
Credit to: John Turmel: the argument that money printing is not, in and of itself, inflationary.
Turmel video: Debt Money is Good
Paul Grignon (video): Money as Debt
Books
David Graber: Debt: The First 5000Years
Stephen Zarlenga: The Lost Science of Money
Website
Michael Hudson, economist