by OLD1953 » Mon Jan 07, 2013 3:12 am
While the Internet makes it easy to create bartering networks, electronic currency is still currency and therefore will wind up with these folks being shut down, eventually. The complaint about scarce EURO's does help illustrate my old point about a money pump running from Greece outwards. If any country in the zone exports less than it imports, either they will shortly have no EURO's at all, or they must create EURO's locally, AND distribute them. Whether this distribution comes in the form of a giveaway lottery, airdrops from helicopters, they just run the government on it or whatever, they have to circulate it. And then this new money is pumped out just as the old money was, rinse and repeat until things fall apart. And that's where Greece is now. Since Greece can't inflate their "personal" EURO's and they can't devalue them in relation to the other EURO's, and they aren't allowed to tax or otherwise limit imports, they are pretty much dead in the water.
While the Internet makes it easy to create bartering networks, electronic currency is still currency and therefore will wind up with these folks being shut down, eventually. The complaint about scarce EURO's does help illustrate my old point about a money pump running from Greece outwards. If any country in the zone exports less than it imports, either they will shortly have no EURO's at all, or they must create EURO's locally, AND distribute them. Whether this distribution comes in the form of a giveaway lottery, airdrops from helicopters, they just run the government on it or whatever, they have to circulate it. And then this new money is pumped out just as the old money was, rinse and repeat until things fall apart. And that's where Greece is now. Since Greece can't inflate their "personal" EURO's and they can't devalue them in relation to the other EURO's, and they aren't allowed to tax or otherwise limit imports, they are pretty much dead in the water.