Basic money stuff

So a government "borrows" 4 billion dollars to have a bridge built.

The money did not exist before, whether the bank from which it "borrows" is publicly owned (as in Canada) or private (as in the U.S.).

This is a transaction. The transaction is what brings that money into existence. The money did not exist before. That is the way it works. The promise to pay 4 billions dollars, plus compounding interest on top of the four billion dollars over time, is what brings the money into existence.

So the government makes this transaction with the bank in order to get a bridge built. Commuters have to pay a toll fee for thirty plus years. They have to pay the fee (whether a direct fee or through taxes) for thirty plus years in order to "pay off" the "cost" to build the bridge which also includes compounding interest. It will take thirty plus years to "pay off" the "cost" to build the bridge mostly because of compounding interest - compounding interest on the money that was "borrowed" that didn't exist before it was "borrowed".

Just a moment...ROFLMAO!!!!!

Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, debt as a precursor and attachment to the issuance of money.

Though that bridge has been built, has been completed, and you can touch the bridge, and it is a solid bridge and a stable bridge, and you can drive across it (paying a fee both ways), yet it is not actually wealth evidence.

Why and how so? Precisely because the transaction has not been completed.

It is in effect a thirty plus year transaction. Debt and delay: the velocity with which transactions come to completion is...how does one say...of the essence.

Velocity does not mean "efficiency" or "speed" necessarily. We are talking about proportionality. Attaching thirty plus years onto the building of a bridge is wickedly disproportionate.

We really need to understand what sort of burden debt causes - and for what?

Money can be inflated, deflated, brought to a grinding crash, whatever - and resurrected the very next day. Gold is given value. Moreover, we owners of gold give gold value precisely through transaction. Transaction is the way in which gold receives its value by owners of gold. Then they up the ante of its value further through high frequency trading. It's all fiat no matter what.

Money is a sterile instrument. Money is a means. Saving? Saving implies spending, by someone, at some point. Save a bunch of money. Don't spend it but pass it on to your inheritor. And he in turn does not spend it but passes it on to his inheritor. That one in turn does not spend it but passes it on to his inheritor, and so on, and on, all the way to doomsday. That money is worth less than nothing. That money which has been saved all the way to doomsday is in fact less than waste. A man cutting down a big old tree just for the sake of letting it rot into the ground would be better, for at least he has provided the ecosystem with the nutrition and good bacteria of its decomposition.

Proportion: the quantity of money issued into circulation without debt to anyone by a transparent agency held to account by the public.