I've Got a Dollar Now, I'll Give You Back a Five Dollar

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

i completely understand that gougle et cetera doesn't have the same investment in capital. The opportunity cost of time, at least foran has critic cards good. But if you go to the exal operations of the cat market, it's, i've got a dollar now. I'd like to consume something in a year's time. How much yo cannot find somebody who can take mydo turn it into a dollar, five, say, and give me back that dollar? Fi, fa, a, and that's investment. So historicallytwe've been short of capital ar lots of reasonably high, high returning investments. And as tat, the combination of the information

The idea of an “interest rate” might seem mundane and practical, in comparison to our usual topics around here, but there is a profound philosophical idea lurking in the background: if you lend me money now against the promise of me paying you back more in the future, I am relating the different values that a certain sum has to me at different moments in time. Traditionally, the interest rates set by the government have been a major tool for influencing the economy, but in recent decades they have increasingly fallen near zero. John Quiggin relates this change to the shift from manufacturing to an information economy, and we talk about what that means for the public interest in having information be reliable and widely available. And yes, there is a bit about crypto.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

John Quiggin received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of New England. He is currently a VC Senior Fellow in Economics at the University of Queensland. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Among his books are Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us and Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.