Interview with Thomas H. Greco, Community Currency Economist

Thomas H. Greco, Jr. is an educator, author, and consultant dedicated to economic equity, social justice, and community empowerment. He specializes in the design and implementation of private and community currencies and mutual credit clearing networks.

In this video we discuss: The impact of the Government and banking systems; the Double spending problem, Differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum; The power of local communities; The role of the Fed, and much more.

00:16:52 Empowerment of Government
00:18:02 Depression and Inflation
00:19:03 The Government and the Banking System
00:25:06 Credit: The basis of money and trust
00:39:51 The development of Web 3.0
00:45:12 The double-spending problem
00:55:30 The differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum
01:01:12 Ethereum smart contracts and Blockchain
01:06:05 The UBI solution:The power of local communities
01:39:34 Intercoin: The safety of cryptocurrencies
01:52:51 Fiat, the role of the FED, and the application of cryptocurrencies

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OMG Greg, you interviewed Thomas H. Greco, Jr.?

He is an international legend :earth_asia:!!!

I know that many event organisers are dreaming to get him to speak as he is a sought after speaker internationally.

Thank you :pray: for a very interesting interview

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There was a lot of Interesting topics you and Tom covered and I love that itā€™s ok to Disagree on certain topics such as UBI or others as everyone has different views. Looking forward to hearing the thoughts on different blockchain and crypto topics from upcoming guest speakers.
Great way to start the Making Crypto Mainstream Show!

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Really enjoyed the discussion about credit. I read about this from Ray Dalio as well, but thinking about credit and money together is a mental framework that I think is very useful and many people can benefit from.

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Impressive Greg, enjoyed the interview, thank you!

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For those who do not want to sit through the full 2 hour interview, we cut this segment with just the topics of georgism, capitalism, and socialism. The Georgist land value tax from my experience reading about it is something I think people from both sides of the political aisle can get behind.

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First, presenting the belief that the land-owning class has hidden Georgeā€™s work is absolutely stupid. Leon Walras, a french economist, heavily favored many of these policies for social justice and is currently taught today in nearly every micro class. Georgism was consumed in other more distinct philosophies, like Institutionalism and dominated by Foucauldian Theory about epistemes and Derridean Theory about the ā€œtracesā€ of wordsā€¦which formulated the basis for critical social justice theory.

6:14, all of those can be true and other theories that I have pointed towards answer the questions better. most notable among them is power structures from Foucalt. The Disney world critique is just plain silly, this is an equivocation fallacy on what constitutes a city because the US Supreme court has already ruled on business-owned cities. By the way, I am not sure why there is this idea that economic stratification is the paramount form of stratification. I think you need to sit down and read Weber: Class, Status, and Party to better understand how you are incorrectly diagnosing the issue.

10:40, absolutely schlocked AHAHA. Grecoā€™s statement on risk vs. reward and LLC: There is a social cost, but the incentive structure breeds increased growth through endogenous technological development. The foundation of high risk to high reward was mapped by Acemoglu and other growth economists. Yes, anti-corruption policies are very important, it is also one of the fastest-growing fields in economics, spawned by Ackerman; however, it does not need a heterodox school of economics, so, why do you? Investment without risk from damage: You canā€™t?

Federal Reserve: Reduction of value through inflation. This is a rather difficult thing to say because yes in some areas inflation may reduce the overall value, but that does not mean that inflation itself reduces the value. First, this value or price of money is not an objective frame, as we all agree that it is subjective. Second, look at car prices and tell me that inflation reduced the value of your money relative to goods. This is the fallacy of reasoning from a price change, which should be avoided at all costs. Governments collude with banks/corporations to spend money how they want, sure, but that is a political issue, not one of economics.

27:34, bruhā€¦that is not what he was saying at all. Stop.

Honestly stopped at 33:50 Greg makes this nearly unbearable to watch. Really enjoyed Thomas H. Greco, Jr. though.

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Hey, I just stumbled across this comment and you seem to be super well read in economic literature. Iā€™m just a lowly fresh grad and to be honest I struggle to follow along with your arguments a bit here, and I think many people would benefit (including Greg!) if you broke down this down a bit so people would engage. I know Greg actually loves being proven wrong and is constantly being educated, myself as well

To start with I agree with you that the Georgeā€™s work is definitely well known and taught in classes; when I took undegrad econ classes the land value tax was a topic for sure.
But then I get lost, I can see how Georgism was absorbed into other philosophies, but I donā€™t think many readers here would understand how it relates to Foucauldian Theory/Derridean theory and ultimately critical social justice, I think we would all like you to explain the link here a little further

As to your point about economic stratification, I think in an American context I donā€™t think its ridiculous to put a big emphasis on economic stratification/class. Nobody here is saying its paramount. People who read a lot of critical theory may disagree but its a ongoing debate for example whether race was invented to enforce economic classes in America.

And obviously investment without risk from damage is impossible, but I donā€™t think thatā€™s what is being argued here. Tom is talking about asymmetric risk/reward when you limit corporate liability. I havenā€™t read Acemoglu but since you are talking about tech development and growth economists I would guess you are saying that the corporate incentive structure is good for capital formation. Again I think it would be really good to add more detail here because you can get capital formation in many ways, unless you are specifically saying LLC incentives are unique and superior I think you are not really arguing against Tomā€™s point.

And as to inflation, Iā€™ll agree with you that inflation itself doesnā€™t reduce the value. But I think in many cases it does. While you might be right on car prices, the same doesnā€™t apply for things like housing and educating.

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Sorry for the absence, been busy. Here, this should do a bit better in explaining some of this. Also, Greg does not like being proved wrong, considering he is not even open to the possibility of being wrong. Bullheaded and prejudice.

but I donā€™t think many readers here would understand how it relates to Foucauldian Theory/Derridean theory and ultimately critical social justice, I think we would all like you to explain the link here a little further

Georgism, as it relates to social justice, was consumed by other branches of sociology/economics/philosophy that focus on critical theory. I do not think that Georgism, being a heterodox school of economics, is why it fell out of favor in the West. There has consistently been a battle between neo-classical and institutional economics in the US, and the NC school was eventually propped up by the Keynesian school which integrated some institutionalist work (Schilesser, 2012).

As to your point about economic stratification, I think in an American context I donā€™t think its ridiculous to put a big emphasis on economic stratification/class. Nobody here is saying its paramount. People who read a lot of critical theory may disagree but its a ongoing debate for example whether race was invented to enforce economic classes in America.

Yes, it is an ongoing debate, but it is not a debate worth having from either a materialist or positivist point of view. Also, we have to have a way to empirically test the hypotheses claimed by CRT, and yet we cannot. This debate can be found all the way back to Parsons (the structural functionalists) versus the Theory schools (Frankfurt, French Post Modern, Italian Cultural Marxists) (Moore, 1960).

The argument about the importance of LLCā€™s from Acemoglu and other growth economists can be summed as: Limited liability is a human invention that has facilitated enormous economic growth around the world, particularly since the time of its general application in advanced countries during the nineteenth century. The individual legal identity of companies, coupled with the limited liability of their owners, has provided protection for investors from the risks associated with their investments. It has thus contributed to increasing the sources of capital available to finance projects which might otherwise have been considered unviable. Further reading is Acemoglu and other growth economists. (citation)

The distinction you make about prices differences between houses and education is a fatal error of reasoning from a price change. Education has the cost inflated from exogenous shocks (government intervention into the price), homes are a function of scarcity, and exogenous shocks (institutions, laws, etc.) That is not to say that cars are somehow not a function of institutions, but obviously, the effect has been limited through technological advancement. Which land nor education have had significant technological revolutions in.

Schliesser, Eric. ā€œInventing paradigms, monopoly, methodology, and mythology at ā€˜Chicagoā€™: Nutter, Stigler, and Milton Friedman.ā€ Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43, no. 1 (2012): 160-171.

Moore, Wilbert E. ā€œA Reconsideration of Theories of Social Change.ā€ American Sociological Review 25, no. 6 (1960): 810-18.

Acemoglu, Daron, James A. Robinson, and Thierry Verdier. Canā€™t we all be more like Scandinavians? Asymmetric growth and institutions in an interdependent world . No. w18441. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2012.

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The Acemoglu/growth economist argument about LLC is new to me so Iā€™ll definitely check it out. The closest thing Iā€™ve read that seems related to his argument were some articles in the Economist magazine a while back where they compared bankruptcy laws in the US and Japan and made an argument that its part of the reason why we see more growth in the US. The ability to shutter your business and start from a clean slate was their argument. Seems pretty similar to what youā€™re saying Acemoglu is saying but again Iā€™ll have to dig a little deeper.

Subbed to your channel btw

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Always a pleasure to hear Thomas Greco, he is a legend!

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Really impressive interview! I enjoyed watching it!

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Really enjoyed this interview!!

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Great interview and itā€™s awesome you got to have a legend such as Thomas Greco Jr. on your show.

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It was a pleasure watching this interesting interview.

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Such an interesting interview ! Itā€™s great you had Thomas Greco on the show

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