Squirrel Economics 101

This will be familiar to a few of you, it is a reprint from two years back. I'm having a little writers block. I should be back on track by Friday.

Imagine a group of squirrels saving nuts for winter and depositing them in a bank (one nut one credit in their account). Let’s imagine that a truck pulls up and helps themselves to 80 percent of the nuts. The bank now has a problem. It can’t cover all of the deposits. But notice, if there isn’t a run on the bank, there is no real problem. Squirrels are depositing and withdrawing nuts with no problem.

In this little example even if there was some form of bank insurance, what ever it was, it could not replace the nuts (their winter food supply). The amount left for all of the squirrels is pretty much set to the 20% remaining plus net deposits made until winter. In this case, there is no inflation (you cannot print the squirrels food supply). The squirrel has no idea of the life or death consequences of what the bank has done until winter arrives (retirement).

The real estate market is the truck that pulled up to our personal savings and looted the bank. In this case, we have government insurance to “make us whole again.” The money taken was spent. Notice that every dollar deposited had to be worked for (a squirrel nut).

Labor created some product. By not consuming this nut and saving it, you were putting this towards retirement consumption. The money from the boom (real estate loans) was spent on many lavish toys and is forever gone. Now we have financial institutions with only 20% of capital left. In actuality, there is only 20% of product produced left (the nuts). The rest has been consumed. It is rather academic whether or not the government prints more money to make us w(hole) again.

We have a choice, leave the banks with the 20% which will buy the 20% of produced product left or we print enough money to restore everyone’s bank balance.

I am sure this little analogy could get me shot again or could be picked apart easily. I present it as an illustration of how money relieves us from the bother of having to barter for services and goods. Once you accept the convenience of money vs bartering, the concept of just printing it, is the equivalent to stealing.

So if you are a squirrel, “It’s grab your nuts and run!"