Coin economy

Paper money is an economic paper shackle, and paper money is an economic ripening agent.

Paper money can make you rich, and paper money can destroy your family.

Once the paper money is derailed, it is likely to become a thing that is difficult to get rich through labor, and at the same time create one myth after another. It is not terrible for a person to get rich without labor, and it is appalling for a country to get rich without labor. The global "getting something for nothing" is directly equivalent to human self-harm. The derailed banknotes created a derailed world. The financial crisis in 2008 was a collective derailment of the world economy.

Where will China and the world go after the financial crisis? Some people advocate that resources are king, while others insist on financial monopoly. These are the arguments of resource finance. Resource finance will only aggravate "getting something for nothing" and lead to "more and more people becoming poor and fewer and fewer people becoming rich". Because most people's livelihood depends on various industries, and abnormally high resources and resource finance will only squeeze industries and destroy the ecological environment. The human economy and the earth's ecology are at the crossroads of life and death, either going to heaven or going to hell.

This book puts forward six strategies to turn crisis into opportunity. This book is the work of senior executives of CITIC Group for many years, and it is really an economic research in the post-financial crisis era!

Enter the era of paper money in an all-round way

Since 2008, the financial crisis originating in the United States has swept the world. What kind of crisis is this? What is the historical orientation of this crisis? What warnings will it bring to the world? There are still different opinions.

The hegemony of monetarism before the crisis, the arrogance of financial innovation, the ever-increasing American land, and the dollar that everyone envies ... all these gorgeous things together constitute the "American Dream". The beautiful "American Dream" has long been the engine of the global economy, bringing people high-return expectations, leading people to speculate on resource finance and building a strange virtual economic world. People all over the world, along the track of chasing money and wealth dreams, flock to this virtual world, half-delayed, half-dreaming and half-awake.

After the crisis, people correctly realized that "putting the cart before the horse in the real economy and the virtual economy led to the great crisis". However, this "dichotomy" only puts forward the problem correctly, lacks in-depth analysis of the specific situation of the real economy and the virtual economy, and has little concrete value for the investment of ordinary people. In fact, the resource and energy bubble is the "culprit" of the great crisis, the financial dollar is the "accomplice" and the industrial trade is the "victim".

How did the resource and energy bubble burst? Wall Street is naturally the main advocate, who created and over-hyped resource finance. How is resource finance passed on to all Americans? Through consumer finance, mainly consumer credit, especially subprime mortgage. After the subprime mortgage securitization, it is sold to financial institutions and investors all over the world. Therefore, this is a huge financial crisis of mass consumption and a super nightmare caused by excessive debt consumption. The list of culprits of the economic crisis summarized by CNN is unexpected: American consumers are actually ranked in the top, Richard, president of Lehman Brothers? Fuld, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben alan greenspan and others were listed as the top ten culprits by CNN. CNN comment: If as a consumer, you pursue carpe diem, lose control of consumer loans, bring high debt ratio to individuals and families, and lead to a low savings rate in the whole country, then you are not the victim of the financial crisis, but the primary culprit.

It's really like a CNN survey. When reading this great crisis, people are more and more aware of "two randomness": first, lending has become a random thing, and banks not only encourage lending without restricting it, but also develop the banner of "consumer finance"; Second, we are in an era of paper money, and the incremental issuance of paper money has been turned into a "more casual" thing by the central bank. Issuing paper money at will has become the "killing weapon" of this great crisis, and combined with resource finance and consumer finance, it has become the "culprit" of this great crisis. The Fed has been making this "casual" mistake, and it is still making it. Central banks in other major countries are also actively or passively following suit. In the era of paper money, everyone used paper money and became a direct and indirect participant in all paper money events, and also a participant and receiver of incremental paper money passively or actively, or everyone was an active or passive maker of this paper money crisis.

First of all, "everyone is the maker of the crisis"

Major events in history are all group events, and this time is no exception. The Great Crisis is an unprecedented large-scale financial movement. This is a great idea worthy of reflection by Americans and people all over the world.

"Respectable" Friedman buried "original sin"

In this great crisis, people often hear the word "monetarism", which is called the ideological root of the great crisis. The main founder of this theory is Friedman. In the past, people generally called Friedman a "master of monetarism", and even said that he was the first American economist with real-world influence.

19 12. Friedman was born in a poor Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn, new york. My mother runs a tailor's shop and my father runs a small business. Family life is difficult and often makes ends meet. Friedman's father died at 15 years old. Then, the Great Depression of the 1930s came. Friedman, a young man who was trapped in internal and external affairs, had to raise living expenses and tuition for himself. He worked as a salesman in a department store and a waiter in a restaurant. The waiter was paid a lunch, from which he invented the famous contemporary proverb-"There is no such thing as a free lunch". He has also done second-hand book business, sold socks and ties, and opened a summer school to make up lessons for high school students.

The hardships of life never discouraged Friedman. On the contrary, he is grateful for these difficult years. Later, Friedman entered the University of Chicago to study economics. At the University of Chicago, the base camp of liberal economics, Friedman was fortunate to be taught by a large number of first-class economists. 194 1 to 1943 served as an adviser to the us treasury department, studying wartime tax policies and supporting Keynesian tax policies. In his autobiography, Friedman called himself "a thorough Keynesian" while working for Roosevelt's New Deal. 1946 After receiving his doctorate from Columbia University, he returned to the University of Chicago to teach economic theory, during which he studied the role of money in the business cycle for the National Bureau of Economic Research. This is a major watershed in his research.

At that time, Keynesianism was in full swing. Because of the success of Keynes's policy, the whole western world has become a believer in Keynes. However, influenced by classical liberal philosophy, Friedman had doubts about Keynesianism. In Friedman's view, the highest value of human beings is freedom, which is the same as private property and market. Keynesianism believes that the large-scale intervention of the state in economic life means the erosion of the market by non-market forces, which narrows the space for the market mechanism to play its role and reduces the degree of spontaneous action of the market mechanism, thus inhibiting individuals' free choice. This may be a "road to slavery".

Friedman decided to defend the spirit of free market economy and shoulder the heavy responsibility of attacking Keynesianism. Since the mid-1950s, he has written and published a large number of books and papers, advocated liberal economics and exposed and criticized Keynesianism. From 65438 to 0957, The Theory of Consumption Function was published, which criticized Keynes's law of diminishing marginal propensity to consume and denied the role of government public expenditure in increasing effective demand. Capitalism and Freedom was published from 65438 to 0962, which expounded the internal relationship between political freedom and economic freedom, the harm of government intervention to individual freedom and the positive role of the market in maintaining and realizing individual freedom. 1963 Co-published The History of American Currency. Through a detailed analysis of the historical data of American economy, he proved that the great crisis of 1929 was not caused by the market, but the result of improper government intervention. Friedman also published articles in Businessweek for a long time to promote his liberal views, and also presided over a set of public education TV advertisements called Free Choice to promote economic liberalism.

Before the great crisis, liberalism has become the mainstream of western and even world economics. From 1950s to the end of 1970s, in the struggle against the powerful Keynesianism, Friedman was almost alone, regarded as eccentric, absurd and overreaching, and some famous libraries did not even put Friedman's works on the shelves. But Friedman succeeded, and gradually gained academic reputation. His neo-liberalism became "national economics" in the era of Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the United States. It can be said that the economic theory and practice from 1970s to this great crisis belong to Friedman. At least before this crisis, this is a respectable Friedman.

1974, Hayek won the nobel prize in economics. Two years later, Friedman also won the Nobel Prize in Economics. It is generally believed that Hayek is a liberal political philosopher, and his later research on liberal thoughts did not extend to economic analysis, so only Friedman's award really means the victory of neo-liberal economics. Friedman's position as the "godfather" in the school of neo-liberal economics was gradually established. In the movement of relaxing government control and restoring market belief that arose in the capitalist world in 1980s, both American President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher accepted Friedman's ideas, and Margaret Thatcher honored him as "a freedom fighter of the academic world". Friedman has been fighting for the free market economy all his life, and his economic theory serves to promote the free market system. He has been a professor in the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago for more than 30 years, advocated the neo-liberal economy, trained a large number of disciples and grandchildren, and founded the famous "Chicago School". Under his leadership, many members of the Chicago School won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Keynes died 30 years before his status declined, and he left his followers 30 years of good times. In the view of neoliberalism, the failure of interventionism is the result of digging one's own grave. In June 2006, on the eve of the crisis, Friedman died at the age of 90. The great crisis marked the failure of neoliberalism. Friedman left with an aura of nothingness, but left few good times for his followers. He is full of challenging and innovative spirit, he is eloquent, he also pays attention to future generations, and he has enviable love. This is indeed a respectable person. However, he also failed.

What are the reasons for the failure of neoliberalism?

As an outstanding neoliberal economist, Friedman is regarded as the successor of Smith in the 20th century. Believe in the spontaneous role of the market, advocate limiting and restraining the functions of the government, and emphasize "small government, big market", which is indeed Smith's basic proposition. Friedman did hold Smith's banner against Keynes. He believes that the market has the function of self-recovery. Keynesianism relies too much on the government's ability to regulate the market and frequently uses expansionary and contractive policies to regulate the economy. As a result, inflation and economic recession are combined. When these two diseases are combined, Keynesianism fails. They can neither solve the problem nor provide an effective explanation. Stagflation itself is the result of implementing Keynesian policies and destroying the spontaneous function of the market. The way to solve the problem can only be based on restoring market belief and establishing market order.

Friedman's point of view can be summarized as: one insists and the other opposes.

Friedman insists that money and free price play the most important signal function in the market mechanism, so he has always opposed government intervention plans, especially the control of market prices. In the book "American Monetary History", he suggested that the Great Depression was actually caused by the government's improper control of the money supply. Before his death, the master expressed his doubts about Roosevelt's New Deal that he had hidden in his heart for many years: "Do you know? It is strange why people still think that Roosevelt's policies helped us get out of the Great Depression. The problem at that time was that you had a bunch of unemployed machines and unemployed people. How can you solve their problems by setting up an industry monopoly group and raising prices and wages? "

However, Friedman's greatest academic achievement is also his greatest academic mistake. On the basis of challenging Keynes, he re-established the authority of money and the freedom of price, which made the government's behavior across the economy "timid" again. This is the cornerstone of a clearly defined market economy in the Smith era, and Friedman rebuilt it in the world economy in the late 20th century. What is terrible is that the currency in Smith's era is gold coins, based on the law of value; The currency in Friedman's era was paper money, which was based on national credit. If gold coins are water, but paper money is like water vapor, the free movement of the former is basically synchronized with economic activities, while the latter is hovering high in the economy. A large part of it is just a monetary and financial game, which does not participate in economic production and creation activities and does not bring real wealth. Moreover, Friedman advocated that paper money trading had no boundaries, and even advocated the legalization of prostitution and drug trading.

Generally speaking, the freer the paper money, the freer the financial game. Friedman's monetarism has thus become the guiding ideology of financial speculation on Wall Street. Although he also said that pure currency trading may not increase real wealth, this is obviously not his main tone. Looking back on the great crisis now, people point the finger at Friedman, and he should not feel wronged. I respect Friedman's character, but I firmly oppose his thought, because he didn't understand the difference between paper money and gold coins, and planted the virus of monetary liberalism in the paper money era, and it was the mutant virus in the Smith era, which was the super virus.

Money masters don't understand the difference between gold coins and paper money.

Friedman is a master of monetarism, but in fact he is only a master of "gold coins" and has no unforgettable understanding of the difference between gold coins and paper money.

Money is something that even children like, but I'm afraid many old people may not know what money is. This is by no means a mockery of popular wisdom, because "even people with brains do not fully understand this problem" (Marxist language).

Value is undifferentiated human labor condensed in commodities. Only goods of equal value can be exchanged with each other. Goods that can be exchanged are equivalent to each other. Commodities that can be exchanged with all other commodities are universal equivalents, and universal equivalents are currencies. The five-sentence "value-money" theory is the only starting point for studying all economic crises.

Exchange value is a digital existence, and the specific symbol of this digital existence is money. Money comes from value exchange. With the repeated exchange of one value with another, the equivalence of exchange requires an equivalent as the medium for the next exchange, thus making the exchange more convenient. This equivalent is money.

Generally speaking, the development history of money can be simply divided into three stages.

The first stage is a special equivalence stage. At this stage, natural or preliminarily processed objects are used as equivalents, such as sheep, cloth, shellfish, etc. , are in the form of money one after another. This stage is at least thirty thousand years.

The second stage is the universal equivalence stage. At this stage, smelting and processing of metal objects as equivalents, first copper, then iron, and finally gold, because of its natural superiority, become the most suitable universal equivalents. The so-called universal equivalence is widely used and more people believe it. The gold coin stage is at least 3000 years.

The third stage is the stage of all equivalents. At this stage, social credit has basically matured, the state has become a relatively stable force and the last carrier of social credit, and the paper money issued by the state has become the final currency, which can be circulated not only in industries but also in resources.

So it is called full equivalence.

China's "Jiaozi" in the Northern Song Dynasty was the earliest paper money, 1000 years ago, but it was not a paper money in the modern sense, because the national credit and authority had not really been established at that time. Only when the territorial and sovereign credit of the country is finally established in the era of globalization can the country issue real sovereign paper money. The first modern paper money appeared in Holland in the17th century, followed by the pound. The stage of modern paper money is only over 300 years.

After entering the 20th century, a modern country has been formed, and the stability, credit and authority of the country have undergone qualitative changes and improvements. Major countries implemented the paper currency system and began to issue paper currency on a large scale, restricting the free circulation, exchange and entry and exit of gold coins. The challenge of paper money and the Great Depression of 1929 ~ 1933 led to the total collapse of the world gold standard, and paper money replaced gold as the best symbol of trading.

The biggest difference between gold coins and paper money is that gold coins themselves are valuable and cannot be issued at will. Due to the law of value, it is impossible to depreciate sharply. Paper money itself has no value, and it is likely to be issued at will. Only the so-called national credit is used as a guarantee, which is likely to depreciate sharply. This is the answer to all the questions.

Western economics revolves around the contradiction between market and government, resulting in the opposition between liberalism and Keynesianism in the era of gold coins, and the opposition between neo-liberalism and neo-Keynesianism in the era of paper money. This is the simplest history of western economics. Three books compiled by academic schools need to teach the history of western economics for two or three semesters, which boils down to these two sentences. Scholars are so complicated, either to make more money or not to understand the difference between gold coins and paper money and their decisive role in economics.

The founder of liberalism is Smith, who is also the founder of the whole economics. Based on the economic era dominated by gold coins and based on industry, this theory advocates giving full play to the trading role of money. Free currency trading can drive the development of the whole market economy under the constraint of the law of value. The founder of Keynesianism was Keynes. This theory is also based on the economic era dominated by gold coins and based on industry, but it advocates giving more play to the role of the government. Free currency trading can only promote the development of the whole market economy under the effective intervention of the government.

Friedman is the founder of modern monetarism and one of the main founders of neoliberalism. Based on the economic era dominated by paper money and resources, this theory advocates giving full play to the trading role of paper money, and free paper money trading can create more wealth. Neo-Keynesianism is a loose school, but it also constitutes half of contemporary western economics. The theory is also based on the economic era dominated by paper money and resources, but it advocates giving more play to the role of the government, and free paper money trading can only create more wealth under the effective intervention of the government.

The crux of the matter is that in Friedman's view, there is no essential difference between gold coins and paper money. All are currencies, and currencies are the same, with the same authority and freedom. Currency transactions can be carried out freely in both industrial and resource fields. It can be seen that Friedman's new exploration of monetary freedom caters to and encourages the new territory of the paper currency era-resource finance.

According to estimates, from 1973 to 2006, the number of paper money engaged in speculation has increased by at least 200 times. Friedman turned a blind eye to this and always defended currency speculation under the banner of free market. Even after speculation has obviously triggered crises in Thailand, Argentina, Mexico and other places, he still sticks to his old habits. These speculations are largely concentrated in the field of resource finance and its derivatives. When monopoly capital such as Rockefeller family charges 10 or even 20 times the cost for natural resources such as oil, he assumes a completely ignorant attitude. Is it really because the Rockefeller family supports the University of Chicago? I don't know if this is the "hypocrisy" of the master, but it must be the "defect" of the master-I don't know the difference between gold coins and paper money, so I don't know the boundary between resource finance and industrial finance. At present, the whole world is drawing lessons from the great crisis, and the biggest thing to do is to cut resource finance and industrial finance. This must have been unexpected by Friedman.

Time has once again proved that history can be repeated and academics cannot be repeated. Friedman's repetition of Smith, though satisfying the need of historical repetition to a certain extent, can't stand the academic test and can't meet the need of historical progress. It is necessary to establish a new kind of economics on the basis of strictly distinguishing between gold coins and paper money.

How to spread "super virus" to the public?

Before the Great Crisis, neo-liberalism prevailed and reached the "Washington Knowledge". This new liberalism with monetarism as its core is the academic and ideological "super virus" that caused this great crisis.

Neo-liberalism and "Washington knowledge" aim to restore laissez-faire capitalism. As one of the main opponents of neo-liberalism, neo-Keynesian Stiglitz correctly pointed out that the foundation of neo-liberalism is the revival of market fundamentalism and laissez-faire policy. These policies were vigorously promoted by the ruling class at that time from 18 to 19 century. It is inappropriate to promote neoliberalism now, which is "misleading at worst".

Stiglitz's criticism of neoliberalism is consistent with what people call "super virus" in this crisis. This academic "super virus" was transmitted to the public with paper money. First of all, monetarism opposes the government's intervention in the economy, and advocates that people believe in the power of money, that is, the power of paper money under the condition of paper money, which has greatly revived the "money fetishism" and freed people from the "material worship" in the era of shortage economy after World War II. Secondly, western governments skillfully used monetarism, the Reagan and Thatcher eras, and until this crisis, the west regarded monetarism as a "national study." Thirdly, with the oil crisis and the sudden emergence of resource finance, the money-making effect of resource finance is enviable, and people's passion for chasing money in turn fuels the bubble of resource finance. Groups of ordinary people put their hard-earned money from industry into various resource financial products and various financial derivatives. Monetarism eventually evolved into a vigorous mass movement. Fewer and fewer people care about labor and wealth creation, more and more people care about stock and futures speculation, and the crisis is getting closer and closer. Thousands of small and medium-sized retail investors and capital predators in Qian Qian have blown up the resource bubble and capital bubble together.