

Solution to Deflation: Abolish Cash - dedalus
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6531299.ece

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gasull
Price deflation is the normal state of affairs when the Government isn't
inflating the currency. It isn't a problem to be solved. A financial bubble is
the problem. Japan is trying to create a bubble in its economy. Even if they
succeed it will deflate at some point in the future. The bigger the bubble,
the deeper and longer the recession/depression that follows the bubble.

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philwelch
Deflation may be the "normal state of affairs when the Government isn't
inflating the currency", but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem. And that's
a flawed description of affairs.

Deflation is more specifically the normal state of affairs when the government
enforces a legal tender law on a scarce, slow-growing currency such as gold.
It doesn't happen when the currency is fast-growing, like silver was in the
late 19th century, or like tobacco was during the colonial period. And it
doesn't happen in a barter system. The establishment of the gold standard was
a major political effort that was only accomplished by the McKinley
administration around the turn of the 20th century (having been preceded with
an even less tenable system of bimetallism that finally collapsed due to the
Nevada silver rush).

As for whether deflation is a problem, deflation disincents both investment
and spending, which means in a very real way that deflation disincents
economic growth. The situation you describe would also be possible only with a
return to the gold standard, which would effectively price gold out of any
kind of industrial use--something that would have negative economic
repercussions in itself, and which would likely cause extremely high rates of
deflation in the future.

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gasull
I should have said "mild deflation":

<http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v21n3/cpr-21n3.html>

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philwelch
Mild deflation is better than runaway deflation just as mild inflation is
better than runaway inflation. But it seems that mild inflation is actually
better than mild deflation.

I'm not impressed by think tanks: they come up with the conclusion first and
the reasoning second.

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cousin_it
> _Solution to Deflation: Abolish Cash... Without physical cash, a central
> bank can set rates exactly where it likes, runs the argument._

Solution to Everything: introduce an Orwellian total control scheme. I like my
anonymous money just fine, thank you.

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dan_the_welder
So right, and let's not forget that EVERY electronic transaction incurs a
cost.

To paraphrase, "I for one, welcome our future Visa overlords."

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moe
You have to admit it's a brilliant business model. "Let's just go and take a
cut of every money transaction anyone, anywhere ever makes". Bulletproof.

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olefoo
That's how a VAT is supposed to work. In theory it is the most efficient and
fair form of taxation.

I think Japan could maybe pull it off, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it
bit them hard in unexpected ways.

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dan_the_welder
No more panhandlers.

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russell
I suspect the article is confusing cash and cash equivalents like savings
accounts. It says that cash is 16% of the Japanese GDP. I have a hard time
believing that. The Japanese have a high savings rate and the predominant
means of saving is postal (government) savings accounts. (The last time I read
about it was the middle of the last decade.) If I am correct, they are
contemplating negative interests rates on savings accounts. They might be
considering the elimination of cash to prevent people from pulling cash out of
their savings accounts and putting it in their mattresses or lock boxes.

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arihelgason
If any country can pull it off, Japan can. The economy is dominated by a
relatively small number of large conglomerates.

It would be much harder to pull it off in more fragmented economies (except
for very small ones perhaps).

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msluyter
I'm assuming that negative interest rates would encourage spending, but I'm
wondering why this wouldn't simply encourage people to move their money to
foreign banks?

