Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Josh Ryan-Collins — How can we link monetary systems to the natural world?

Our new report on energy currencies is the first attempt to review existing proposals and projects that link money to energy, anchoring the monetary system in the natural world and encouraging more sustainable economic activity.
NEF — New Economics Foundation
How can we link monetary systems to the natural world?
Josh Ryan-Collins


5 comments:

Ralph Musgrave said...

Sounds similar to the idea that the kilowatt-hour should be the currency unit. See:

http://www.globalideasbank.org/site/bank/idea.php?ideaId=6350

Roger Erickson said...

Returning currency systems from a dynamic valuation - fiat - to any type of static valuation at all (even energy) would be akin to resurrecting the gold std. Just picking a different static commodity this time.

Matt Franko said...

That's what I thought when I read this Roger...

Turns it back over to nature rather than law...

This is all you can come up with when you have no view of authority... this concept should go over well with the libertarians...

"return to primitive" imo...

rsp,

Tom Hickey said...

Returning currency systems from a dynamic valuation - fiat - to any type of static valuation at all (even energy) would be akin to resurrecting the gold std. Just picking a different static commodity this time.

Yes and no. The MMT JG fixes the value of the currency to an hour of unskilled labor. As Warren says there is always a buffer stock somewhere in the system. Could be gold, energy, labor, etc.

WillORNG said...

At least with Job Guarantee the weakest link/lowest labour productivity, can grow.

On the other hand, there is a need to make resource use sustainable, the real world physical limits and the human resource limits are out of step.