Wealth, for me, is the income that I produce which allows me to sustain my lifestyle.

For the lucky ones, our wealth is greater than what is needed to sustain our lifestyle & compensate for inflation.

When we produce that much wealth on a continual basis, we can continually raise our standard of living.

"Absolute Wealth" is having so much continual income, that we never have to be concerned about anything financially.

You think fiat currencies are true wealth. I'd say that coincides with what the guberments would like people to think. I'd kill if I could convince people to accept my electronic keystrokes in return for goods/services. mbn.

Your view that fiat money = wealth is a view shared by the majority of the general public. You don't need me to point to someone, just walk out your front door and stop someone on the sidewalk.

Fiat is representing real value,wealth - the question is just how much.

Wether it is real wealth is a different question. I think of it as a claim.

Please define "real wealth." K TNX

Among people who are interested/educated regarding economics, all will claim that money is not wealth (you're likely correct regarding the lay public).

Please define wealth in a way that does not include fiat currency. It's impossible. This is about the tenth time I have request a definition for "real" wealth, or one that avoids accidentally including fiat money. Ya'll seem to be ignoring this request. Why?

Lyric obviously has me on "ignore" because I've defined it several times. For instance, Saudi Arabia's wealth is the oil they extract from the ground. They just convert it to currency.

See: Thread where multiple pages are spent debating why someone borrowing money to make losing investments is not beneficial.

You're not defining wealth; you're offering an example of wealth.

You're going to have to elaborate on how that debate relates to your inability to define wealth without accidentally including fiat currency in that definition.

You're not writing any sort of definitions of wealth, all I've ever seen you write is stories about your views on who is rich and who's not. Please point us at your post that is a definition of wealth.

Impossible.

But consider that a claim in a system never represents independent wealth, as in directly exchangeable assets that represent value.

Wat? If you can't define "real wealth," how can you use the term?

Please define "independent wealth," "assets," and "value."

1. any assets (2) redeemable in the free-market without an overarching structure, such as the state or even banks to legitimate its use.

2. any real good that serves any potential profitable role.

3. Anything an individual appreciates.

Since wealth is dependent on so many variables and has to be judged by any individual for himself it is impossible to define it.

I disagree with a lot of what you say, but the inability to grasp this single fact really does make the forum's "Austrians" and propertarians too economically illiterate to take seriously.

Fiat money is not wealth though. If you expressed it as a token of wealth, or even as a way of keeping score, it would be less problematic. In itself though, as you have correctly shown here, it is worthless.

For some it might - for you it is not.

For me it is atm. Viewing it as anything else would be very abstract.

Who are you even referring to that can't grasp what he's saying there? What he's saying there is cookie-cutter and basic, doubtful that anyone doesn't "grasp" it. The problem though is he's trying to compare the likelihood of mass amounts of wine to be produced with mass amounts of dollars to be produced, trying to suggest they carry the same risk, without addressing the underlying variables that makeup the risk factor (which in this case there's a clear distinction).

Are you guys still waiting for that currency crisis?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THAaIZmxfNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sZdXJbK554

money supply m2
1960-1970 301.5 592.0 96% increase
1970-1980 592.0 1486 153% increase
1980-1990 1486 3172 112% increase
1990-2000 3172 4649 47% increase
2000-2010 4649 8439 82% increase
2015-7-01 12006 on pace for greater than 80% decade gain.

- The money supply is a lot more complex. Japan and China hold a lot of reserves and debt and much of the worlds debt is denominated in U.S. dollars. Almost anything than can be made in another country is, not based on competitive advantage, but due to lower wages.

+ Banks can create money by taking money out of deposits and loaning it out. Those loans end up at another bank as deposits or m1/m2. The last 5 years consumer and mortgage debt is down on a relative basis. Thus there is less money on a relative basis. During the great depression money supply dropped by 1/3, the fed did not allow this to happen this time.

+ The countries population growth rate is slowing thus should put more pressure on inflation.

+ As bond rates drop it is actually bullish for bonds as the capital gains of the bonds make up for the low interest. Thus inflows continue. Bonds have not had a rise which imho keeps inflation low. People will sell bonds if they believe they do not earn more than inflation. Although the national debt has risen, the interest payments might have actually dropped.

+ With high unemployment there is low pressure to increase wages. Changes in average wages are should approximate inflation with a lead or lag. Labor force participation rate is at a 35 year low.

+ money velocity is at a 60 year+ low 1.5. Maybe due to more money overseas. This may be due to uncertainty and low bond and savings returns resulting in the people saving more money instead of spending.

In summary there are a lot of variables (even more than listed above) and there might even be a 10-20 year lag. Everyone including Ron Paul are just guessing.

Isn't this kind of like the creationists that retort a facepalming Dawkins by saying "if evolution is real, where is the 'transitional form'??" The point being that a case could be made (and is being made by libertarians) that the world currencies are in a constant state of slow-burning crisis.

Just to add, I was watching a Mike Maloney video (gold bug) he claimed velocity was down because the parked at the Federal Reserve. To further investigate as he is a gold bug I found this article.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles...speed-of-money

Also on CNBC Jeremy Siegel, mentioned that inflation really picks up when unemployment starts dropping between 5.2 and 5. The latest report 5.1%.

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000416821
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/03/jerem...bs-report.html