← Back to context

Comment by imtringued

4 days ago

There is a zero lower bound on the interest rate. Excess capital means negative returns on capital. The money system can't express the state of the real world so either companies close down until the yield is positive, or the companies pass on the artificial minimum price onto the consumer. In both cases, the real world is forced to match the state of the money system.

Being shocked that companies try their best to deal with the bad cards they have been dealt with should be expected. The money system simply cannot express the concept of surplus capital or abundance. Positive interest means capital is scarce, so capital must be made scarce even if there is abundance.

Before you come up with the argument that the interest rate is supposed to reflect a market property and therefore does not force itself upon the market, remember that I said that there is an artificial restriction in the money system that prevents the state of the real market to be expressed. The non-profit economy has never had a chance to exist, because our tools are too crude.

The non-profit economy includes resilient production with slight/minor overproduction.

Think about how stupid the idea of a guaranteed 0% yield bond is (aka cash). The government obligates itself to accept an infinite amount of debt if the real return on capital would ever fall negative. No wonder it has an incentive to inflate the value of the bond away.