Dirk Ehnts — Benjamin Franklin on “Paper-Currency” (1729)

As Europe struggles with its currency – well, at least parts of Europe – it might be interesting to take a look back at the history of the United States of America, back when they were part of the British Empire. There is a text by Benjamin Franklin from 1729 titled “A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency“.

econoblog 101
Benjamin Franklin on “Paper-Currency” (1729)

Dirk Ehnts | Berlin School for Economics and Law

Laurence Kotlikoff Tries To Screw His Country Again ... On Behalf Of Whomever's Paying Him. The NY Times Jumps Onboard As Willing Accomplice

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)




Add Laurence Kotlikoff to that list of identified traitors to the USA.

"HOUSEHOLDS can’t spend, on a continuing basis, more than they earn. Countries can’t either, at least not over the long run."

Kotlikoff is spewing words that fail the most fundamental rule of discourse: Define your terms - or accept nonsensical semantics masquerading as discourse. Was Kotlikoff raised on Erble Logic?

Just restate his statements accurately, in the following way.

"CURRENCY USERS can’t spend, on a continuing basis, more than the currency they earn.

CURRENCY ISSUERS can, obviously, since they create, on-demand, the currency that their users need, to denominate existing transactions - no matter how fast they increase."

See? That wasn't so hard.

Kotlikoff is inventing a fiat mountain out of fiat nonsense, by misusing the semantics. Why? He should go into the magicians business, where it actually pays to distract and fool audiences. That strategy does NOT benefit a democracy.

How do YOU spell "Benedict Arnold?"

Few, if any, perform this kind of treason without a willing sponsor. Does anyone know who is paying Kotlikoff to spew such nonsense? Neither Marriner Eccles nor Beardsley Ruml would approve. Not even Benjamin Franklin. 

Who ya gonna believe? People that SERVED their country? Or those who undermine it, for personal gain?

Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson On Private Property

 Contributed by y in the comments:

"All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."

Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris, 25 Dec. 1783

"Private Property therefore is a Creature of Society, and is subject to the Calls of that Society, whenever its Necessities shall require it, even to its last Farthing; its Contributions therefore to the public Exigencies are not to be considered as conferring a Benefit on the Publick, entitling the Contributors to the Distinctions of Honour and Power, but as the Return of an Obligation previously received, or the Payment of a just Debt."

Benjamin Franklin, Queries and Remarks respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1789


"While it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from Nature at all … it is considered by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no one has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land … Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society."

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson, 13 Aug. 1813

Matias Vernengo — Ben Franklin, Consumption and the Industrial Revolution

Short history lesson and some useful links if you don't already have them.

Naked Keynesianism
Ben Franklin, Consumption and the Industrial Revolution
Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, University of Utah