In the scale of construction, them making 200k doesn't necessarily go all that far. I'm not saying it's not a cushy job, but if they made half that and put 100k more into the project, which is probably in the service of their organization, not the main goal of their organization... how much good would that do?

Well they didn't have a legit need for pro bono anything. Their organization had multi-millions in cash and real estate assets, and could have easily paid the going rate to us and all other vendors involved in the project. Guess what the project was: an HQ for themselves. There are many non-profits across town in the poor areas where the staff earn a pittance, if anything at all. I'll do pro bono for places like those with legit needs all day long.

Fair take. With this sort of thing, the scale of the organization and the nature of what they do is pretty critical. We did some work for a company that also had a significant amount of money. Ultimately their values aligned well with ours though, so we did a small portion of work as a pro-bono project, and then came back later and did a fair sized construction project that they paid us for...

Habitat does a lot of good work where I live. They are building affordable housing and also doing recycled building material collection and sales.

I don’t think that you understand these terms that you use.

I don't think you understand irony.

To be fair - a non profit can still bring in a lot of money - they are just limited on how much they can take as proffit - the rest is normally put back into the business. I don't think they are authoritarian or anti capitalistic.  

authoritarian - favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom.

Chad, what I wrote above was total bullshit. I thought it was obvious I was using the same pretzel logic that the OP uses.

I don’t think arch 2 understands what capitalism is. It’s not a greedy obsession with money, That’s materialism. Capitalism is simply the freedom of individuals to engage in trade with one another. Non profits are in no way anti capitalist.

Arch2 wrote: 

"Chad, what I wrote above was total bullshit. I thought it was obvious I was using the same pretzel logic that the OP uses."

How are we supposed to know that?  I assumed you got really high, drunk, and received a head injury.  

x-jla wrote: 

"I don’t think arch 2 understands what capitalism is. It’s not a greedy obsession with money, That’s materialism. Capitalism is simply the freedom of individuals to engage in trade with one another. Non profits are in no way anti capitalist."

Capitalism is driven by the acquisition of wealth, or money.  

I apologise. I actually thought it was so over the top ridiculous that no one could take it seriously.

Have you seen the stuff that x-jla posts? He's serious about that . . .

I knew you were not serious. I just don’t think you understand the terms that you are being not serious about.

I have to call bs on that x-jla.

Money is probably the biggest problem with capitalism. Most people who complain about capitalism are really complaining about money, and probably would not like NOT having capitalism.

We have capitalism now . . .

You can't have capitalism without money. 

You can't have capitalism without the pursuit of profits. 

You can't have capitalism without greed - hence the need for some types of regulations.  

You can have capitalism in a socialist democracy. 

You don’t understand what you are talking about. Profit is necessary. Greed is not necessary, but it’s inevitable in any system. Money is essential, but not in the form it currently is in. You cannot have capitalism in a socialist democracy. You can have a social welfare system in a capitalist democracy. Big difference

*See difference between Scandinavian nations and China.

You don't understand what you're talking about. 

You can have capitalisms in a socialist democracy. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Japan, France, Germany, and the Netherlands are just a few examples of socialist democracies who also have capitalism.  

Capitalism is simply the freedom of individuals to engage in trade with one another.

this is more than enough evidence to demonstrate you have no idea what capitalism actually is - what you have described is simple barter and happened long, long before capitalism emerged.

cap·i·tal·ism

 /ˈkapədlˌizəm/ 

noun 

an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

“You can have capitalisms in a socialist democracy. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Japan, France, Germany, and the Netherlands are just a few examples of socialist democracies who also have capitalism.” Except you are wrong. None of them are socialist democracies. They are market economies.

Yes, for profit,

Because if it were for a loss it would be over pretty quick lol

Square, money is the medium necessary for capitalism. Bartering doesn’t work on mass production scale or else what does the farmer do with a million apples

But fiat currency and petro dollars are not necessarily needed. Money can be reimagined to be backed by all kinds of resources which would change the game dramatically.

But this thread is getting quickly derailed by the usual debate that I’ve already argued a million times more than necessary to get the point across. Can we stay on topic for once.

Those countries are a combination of a market economy and a socialist democracy political system.

On a side note:  your idea of backing money by some other resource - what do yo propose US currency being backed by?  

I ask because fiat currencey has pros and cons:

Pros

• Gives central banks greater control over the economy
• Seigniorage
• Provides flexibility

Cons

• Not a fool-proof way to protect the economy
• Opportunity for a bubble
• Risk of inflation

As for using some other resource to back a currency . . .

I'll use gold as a resource but it pretty much applies to any resource.  

Pros:

1. Linking the growth of money supply to the growth of gold stocks would keep inflation in check, thereby ensuring monetary stability.
2. Government spending would be limited to the amount of tax receipts. Any deficit financing via debt issuance would require additional gold.
3. Central banks would be immune from political pressure as the amount of money in circulation is determined by gold.

Cons:

1. Under a gold standard, growth of money in circulation would be severely restricted and could suffocate economic growth.
2. Fixed supply of money would be deflationary, and most likely lead to a period of depression with bankruptcies and high unemployment.
3. The expansion of money supply would depend on successful gold mining operations and continued investment in exploration of new deposits.
4. Gold standards in the past might only have worked because the stock of existing gold was much lower. So an increase in the stock of gold was possible. The 46% growth rate of gold stock between 1900 and 1909 would be impossible to repeat today.
5. Policy makers would be unable to respond to economic shocks.
6. Not all countries have equal access to gold for lack of gold mines or existing reserves.
7. International trade deficits, if settled in gold, would, over time, lead to a depletion of gold reserves, leading to a balance of payments crisis coupled with the inability to pay for critical imports.
8. In the (unlikely) event that the amount of gold available would allow for additional debt to be issued, who would be entitled to do so? The government? Banks? Households? Who would decide on who has access to fresh debt?

It’s fiat like I said…but for example if the US dollar was backed by national park land then the game would dramatically change. When us got rid of gold standard it was a game changer. Not that gold is a good resource to back it, but better than being backed purely by the states existence

Fiat currency is bad, because there are essentially no speed limits on growth. It’s a casino and the chips are backed by the casino…which means nothing really.

See my comment above - any resource back currency has the same issues as backing a currency with gold. 

You're missing one very important part of a currency. The people using it have to agree upon its value. It's how a gold standard and fiat currency works. We're a global economy so the entire world would have to value the currency and the resources backing it.

Backing the US dollar by national park land would have the same problems as backing it with gold. In addition it would have the problem that other countries don't value our national parks.

x-jla wrote:

"Fiat currency is bad, because there are essentially no speed limits on growth. It’s a casino and the chips are backed by the casino…which means nothing really. "

It has its drawbacks. However, it’s much better than a resource backed currency. As for your idea that fiat currency has no speed limit on growth – it does – the government that issues it. 

It’s important to note that in a resourced backed currency the growth is only limited by how much of the resource you can possess. See my list of cons for this in my post about gold backed currency.

“The government that issues it”. Which is the root of many of the problems with capitalism as it exists today. And each nation does not have to back its currency with the same thing. Imagine currency backed by the well-being of its people…that would create an obvious incentive to advance the wellbeing of its people. I’m not playing semantic games. Capitalism is only as dysfunctional as its money. Socialism is a lazy and dated alternative that relies on centralized government authority, and its not needed to create a more equitable society. The central banks are a major problem with capitalism as we have it.

I’m not an economist, but it seems obvious that a nation that backs it currency by its power and size will be incentivized to act like an empire.

Socialism works well up here and does so in plenty of places. Must be tied to the metric system.

x-jla wrote 

"I’m not an economist, but it seems obvious that a nation that backs it currency by its power and size will be incentivized to act like an empire."

How would backing a currency with a resource not incentivize a country to act like an empire?  

Yeah, -40 below zero and fake bacon no thanks pal.

I've lived in -40 F cities with real and fake bacon. It cost me $8K a year to treat my diabetes with insurance, $38K without insurance.

Chad, a commodity would for sure. An intangible resource such as human well being measured by some Meaningful metric would not. So essentially the growth is limited by suffering. That’s a good currency.

Chad, health care in the US sucks. I agree on that.

Justin - 

I'm not sure where you're getting your ideas or the information that formed them.

A commodity is just a raw material no different than gold. This wouldn't limit a country becoming an empire because all that would happen is the country would do whatever it could to get more of the resource. Growth wouldn't be limited by suffering either. Just look to the history of resource based currency.

You might want to do a bit more research on this stuff before you post.  

I understand that. I meant that a commodity “would for sure” incentive empire. In other words, a non commodified resource like human well-being could incentivize growth that benefits more people. Suffering would limit growth

Justin - 

That wouldn't work.  You have to deal with the idea that other countries and people have to value your currency. 

Human well being or something intangible and subjective.  This wouldn't work as a backing for a currency for several reasons. 

1. Who judges the intangibles level (in this case human well being?). 
2.  How would you measure the intangibles? 
3. Human suffering wouldn't stop anything - it could in fact promote human suffering depending on your answers for items 1 and 2.

Finally, giving value to an intangible thing to act as a currency is even worse than a fiat based currency. A fiat currency is based on measurable, tangible things. An intangible currency has nothing to be measured against - as such all it would take to change a currency's value is the opinion of others.

A fiat currency is not based on anything.

You are incorrect.

A fiat currency is based on the supply and demand and the stability of the issuing government and its economy. The issuing governments economy is based on a lot of things including GDP, overall physical resources, and the available production capabilities of it's people.

Theoretically, well being could be self reported and democratically determined by a vote. I just threw that out there. Other tangible measures like median income could also serve as a proxy. This is a trace paper idea. I didn’t think conversation had to be polished in cad.

*Poll not vote

It’s only -40 here for a few days per year… unless you actually live in the far north. I prefer regular type bacon over “Canadian” bacon tho but I won’t say no to either. Besides that, it’s so much better than what ya’ll have to deal with in m’erica. 8-).

America is mostly fine if you turn off the tv.

That's my plan for tomorrow's "big arrest"

Anything measurable in theory could be a stand in for gold. Well being is a bit out there, but Land, potable water, etc.

All profit is wage theft.

Non, I would be surprised if they actually arrested trump. It’s a really stupid political move if they do.

“Human capital consists of the knowledge, skills, and health that people invest in and accumulate throughout their lives, enabling them to realize their potential as productive members of society.“. This is what I was getting at. You can potentially use a non-commodified metric to weigh the value of the dollar against. It’s still sort of fiat, but not based on the control of the federal reserve…getting rid of the gold standard allowed for a massive expansion of state power.

Getting off the gold standard also reduced or got rid of the following issues with a gold backed currency:

1. Under a gold standard, growth of money in circulation would be severely restricted and could suffocate economic growth.
2. Fixed supply of money would be deflationary, and most likely lead to a period of depression with bankruptcies and high unemployment.
3. The expansion of money supply would depend on successful gold mining operations and continued investment in exploration of new deposits.
4. Gold standards in the past might only have worked because the stock of existing gold was much lower. So an increase in the stock of gold was possible. The 46% growth rate of gold stock between 1900 and 1909 would be impossible to repeat today.
5. Policy makers would be unable to respond to economic shocks.
6. Not all countries have equal access to gold for lack of gold mines or existing reserves.
7. International trade deficits, if settled in gold, would, over time, lead to a depletion of gold reserves, leading to a balance of payments crisis coupled with the inability to pay for critical imports.
8. In the (unlikely) event that the amount of gold available would allow for additional debt to be issued, who would be entitled to do so? The government? Banks? Households? Who would decide on who has access to fresh debt?

Also please explain how you're going to measure non-commodified metric to weigh the value of a currency.  Once that is done please explain how you're going to get the rest of the world to accept this measurement and agree upon its wealth? 

Getting rid of the federal reserve would be impossible without a total collapse first. Governments don’t just give up power. It’s not possible to implement, but that wasn’t my point. It was a thought experiment. My point was that capitalism as we have it is heavily influenced by the way money is issued. And, when people critique capitalism, they are usually missing that big part of the equation. The fiat system may have benefits, but it also certainly expanded the power of the state and the banks, and accelerated growth beyond the resource space of the planet in a short amount of time.

That's not what you said at the beginning of your posts. 

Your entire argument was that fiat currency is bad and we should go to some other resource based currency. 

You then changed to saying that our currency should be non-tangible resourced based. 

You're now saying that your previous arguments for non fiat based currency isn't possible.  

Regardless of your previous posts, you don't seem to grasp that if we used some other resource backed currency, even an intangible resource, the government would still have overwhelming control over said resource. This means the government would still have power and their wouldn't be the limit on growth that you think. 

 Again, this all comes back to: 

1.  how would you quantify an intangible resource? 
2.  who would measure an intangible resource? 
3. who would have trust in the stability of said intangible resource?
4.  who would accept value in an intangible resource?

“Money is probably the biggest problem with capitalism. Most people who complain about capitalism are really complaining about money, and probably would not like NOT having capitalism “

I don’t know the answers to those questions, because that isn’t the point. It’s called a hypothetical for a reason. Do you need to understand how to build a warp drive in order to speculate on how nations would adapt to interstellar capabilities ?

That's not ' this is a thought experiment' or 'I know this won't work but what if . . .' 

You also stated a lot of untrue things about capitalism, fiat currency, and resource backed currency. It almost as if you had no idea what you were talking about and as you learned from other posters you attempted to revise your opinion to avoid looking foolish and uneducated all while not admitting you were changing your opinion.  

But your point that subjective things are dangerous for states to attempt to measure is a good one. Measurement problems are at the root of many contemporary issues.

You weren't talking about theoreticals - you made statements regarding capitalism and various ways to back currency. You never asked a question or invited debate. Your statements where incorrect and you dismissed and insulted those that called you out for those incorrect statements.

In Imaginary land….Probably something more tangible like farm land would act as a better substitute for a gold standard. Then you can understand how it would effect the outcome. For one thing, it would incentivize sustainability in terms of soil health. A nation that backs its capital by farm land would most likely not deplete top soil. Again, just an example of how currency effects things.

It would also incentivize more revolutionary agriculture like vertical farming. Just an example

No it wouldn't. Farm land is only as good as what it can produce. Vertical farming is about what it produced. What you're describing is a resource backed currency. Do we need to review why that is bad?

You aren’t understanding the point. Land backed currency has been proposed by economists. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. That is besides the point. It’s an example of how a currency can incentivize certain things depending upon what it’s backed by. Anyways, the topic was npo’s and if there is a website that gathers opportunities to make them easy to find (like one of those competition websites). I proposed that may be a cool idea for archinect to do.

If you missed it, “theoretically” and “imagine” were used to set up the point…

I don't see where you said 'theoretically' or 'imagine' anywhere. Care to point to the post in this part of the thread?

Nevermind, foun 'em. 

"But fiat currency and petro dollars are not necessarily needed. Money can be reimagined to be backed by all kinds of resources which would change the game dramatically."

That's not true and even you admitted it.  

"Theoretically, well being could be self reported and democratically determined by a vote. I just threw that out there. Other tangible measures like median income could also serve as a proxy. This is a trace paper idea. I didn’t think conversation had to be polished in cad."

You're backpaddling in this comment.  Previously you where certain it could be done.  

x-jla wrote:

"In Imaginary land….Probably something more tangible like farm land would act as a better substitute for a gold standard. Then you can understand how it would effect the outcome. For one thing, it would incentivize sustainability in terms of soil health. A nation that backs its capital by farm land would most likely not deplete top soil. Again, just an example of how currency effects things."

You weren't in imaginary land in your original comments.  You're backpedaling again and hoping we won't notice.  Also you're now saying that economists think it's a vail concept.  Care to back up that statement? 

You can't have capitalism without money.

You can't have capitalism without the pursuit of profits.

You can't have capitalism without greed - hence the need for some types of regulations.

You can have capitalism in a socialist democracy“

Can you back up having “capitalism in a socialist democracy “

https://centerforneweconomics.org/publications/a-world-currency-based-on-community-land-trust-resources/

That is an essay from 1978 . . . have anything more recent and not discredited.?

I’m not an economist, and neither are you, but my point doesn’t require that I am. I’m not saying that land is good or gold is good. I’m saying that fiat currency is not good and that many of the problems with “capitalism” are actually problems with money. The us is the world currency for a reason, and it’s a position that comes with lots of power.

A bit of reading for you then:

capitalism in a socialist democracy:

https://www.investopedia.com/a...

https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/definitions/capitalismvssocialism.html/#:~:text=In%20capitalism%2C%20private%20businesses%20are,production%2C%20rather%20than%20the%20government.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mixed-economic-system.asp#:~:text=A%20mixed%20economic%20system%20is,order%20to%20achieve%20social%20aims.

You can't have capitalism without money

. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-03-08/is-post-capitalism-post-money/#:~:text=Capitalism%20cannot%20be%20defined%20without,currency%20or%20unit%20of%20value. https://www.quora.com/Can-there-be-Capitalism-without-money 

 You can't have capitalism without the pursuit of profits.

  https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/06/basics.htm#:~:text=Capitalism%20is%20often%20thought%20of,motive%20to%20make%20a%20profit.

 You can't have capitalism without greed - hence the need for some types of regulations. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/06/is-capitalism-built-on-greed

A socialist nation with socialist doctrines cannot have capitalism. A liberal market economy can have social welfare programs. That’s not the same thing. The CCP is a socialist nation with socialist doctrines that tries to integrate capitalism. Norway is a market economy with liberal doctrines that integrates social welfare programs. It’s a big difference.

x-jla wrote: 

 "I’m not an economist, and neither are you, but my point doesn’t require that I am."

For you to make comments and state opinions about capitalisms, backing currency, economic growth limitations, and socialist democracies,  you should at least have a basic understanding of economics.  

You clearly do not. 

Even more important: If you're looking to get involved in doing pro-bono work for non profits you really need to have a basic understanding of economics.