[FRIAM] Musk’s America Party – Some Thoughts from Afar

Thu Jul 10 00:02:44 EDT 2025

"*Money isn’t zero-sum. The whole idea of 'don’t spend more than you earn'
is not just wrong — it’s a misunderstanding of money*."

Now, I get the spirit of that — but hey, let’s give a nod to George Box:
“All models are wrong, but some are useful.” Maybe this idea isn’t
wrong-wrong, but just wrong in a different way depending on your worldview.

So here’s my (possibly equally wrong) model of money. Let’s put it on the
table, kick the tires, and maybe even agree that both our models are wrong
— but useful in their own peculiar ways.

Big Picture First
Humans make stuff. Other humans want that stuff.
The trick is: how do we get the right stuff to the right people?

One approach goes like this:
“From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,”
and the government decides who makes what and who gets what. Sounds great,
if your government is made up of wise, fair, well-informed people.

Me? I’d love to live in that world. Show me a party run by such unicorns,
and I’ll vote with both hands.

But — and here comes the plot twist — in the real world, wise and fair
leaders are a rare species. So we end up with something else.

Enter the American Way
In the U.S. (and most of the world), they use money as a sort of
distributed ledger. No central master list — just everyone tracking value,
trading labor or goods for money, then using that money to get what they
want.

This works way better than bartering chickens for shoes.

In this system, money is really just a record — “Here’s what I contributed,
and here’s what I can claim in return.” It’s flexible, decentralized, and
surprisingly efficient.

So far, no government in sight.

But Wait — Here Comes the Government
Governments step in because, well, someone needs to organize a few things
we all need: roads, hospitals, armies, cat memes (okay, maybe not those).
Also, someone has to stop the money system from melting down.

To do this, governments collect taxes and (spoiler alert) borrow money.

Borrowing isn’t bad, in theory. But here’s the rub: both major U.S. parties
seem to have developed a taste for borrowing like there’s no tomorrow. Debt
keeps growing, interest payments balloon, and one day — surprise! — the
interest alone starts eating the budget.

At that point, the government has a few not-so-great options:

Print more money (hello, inflation),

Raise taxes and cut spending (cue screaming),

Or pretend everything’s fine (until it’s not).

So What’s the Point?
I’m not saying governments should never borrow. Borrowing to invest in
people, infrastructure, or science makes sense — if it’s done carefully.
But running constant deficits just to keep the lights on? That’s a recipe
for future pain.

In a perfect world run by wise leaders, debt wouldn’t matter so much. But
in our world, the least-bad option might just be the old-fashioned advice:
Try not to spend a lot more than you earn.

Not because it’s always true, but because it’s a pretty useful model — at
least until someone builds a better one. I'm all ears and like to
evaluate different constructive options, don't just criticize what's wrong
with the current system.

On Wed, 9 Jul 2025 at 20:19, glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> And ... and and and, money isn't at all zero sum. The very concept of
> "don't spend more than you earn" is not even wrong. It's a fundamental
> misunderstanding of money. And Musk is a great example! When Tesla stock
> dives, Musk isn't losing what he's earned. Borrowing money to buy Twitter,
> collateralized against estimates of Tesla stock? Did Elno spend less than
> what he earned? No. Has he earned whatever "we" estimate his fortune to be?
> No. Toss in things like quantitative easing, the value of USD as the world
> loses confidence in it, etc. None of that over-simplified rhetoric makes
> any sense whatsoever.
>
> I'd love it if Elno stopped spending money *he* doesn't have. And if he
> did that, you'd see something magical happen, his name wouldn't be in the
> headlines every day. Just like with buying Twitter using imaginary money,
> the political party he wants to create is a mechanism for keeping his name
> in everyone's feed. He wants you to say his name every day, multiple times
> per day. Trump does the same thing. They want you to keep saying their
> name. Again. And again ... and again ... and again... all day every day.
>
> Why? Because we (at least in very developed countries) have an *attention*
> economy. The more you say their names, the more money they accumulate. That
> "huge personal hit" is at best empty rhetoric and at worst bullshit
> designed to distract you with one hand and pick your pocket with the other.
>
> On 7/9/25 10:14 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> > We do have the money.  We are a wealthy nation.   The problem is we are
> cheap.
> >
> > *From: *Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Pieter
> Steenekamp <pieters at randcontrols.co.za>
> > *Date: *Wednesday, July 9, 2025 at 10:07 AM
> > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> > *Subject: *[FRIAM] Musk’s America Party – Some Thoughts from Afar
> >
> > I’m not American—but I’m a big fan of the place.
> >
> > What really keeps me up at night is how both major political parties in
> the U.S. seem to have a shared hobby: spending money like it’s going out of
> fashion. Year after year, the national debt grows bigger, and the interest
> payments grow even scarier. It’s like watching someone keep swiping a
> credit card with no plan to ever pay it back.
> >
> > Now, let me put on my South African cap for a moment.
> >
> > When South Africa became a democracy and Mandela became president,
> things were looking financially grim. We weren’t flat-out broke yet, but we
> were close. Mandela then did something very clever: he made Trevor Manuel
> the finance minister. Manuel, being honest, told Mandela he knew nothing
> about finances. Mandela basically said, “Don’t worry about the
> details—we’ve got smart people for that. Just make sure we don’t spend more
> than we earn, and I'll politically support you.” And guess what? South
> Africa’s finances did great for a while.
> >
> > (Yes, it all fell apart later when Jacob Zuma came along, but let’s not
> ruin the story.)
> >
> > Back to America.
> >
> > No, I don’t think the U.S. is heading for an immediate meltdown—but the
> idea that it’s too big to fail? Not something I’d bet my pension on. Sooner
> or later, the debt monster will come knocking.
> >
> > Which brings me to Elon Musk’s political adventure. From where I sit,
> his main message is: “Hey folks, maybe we should stop spending money we
> don’t have?” Whether his new party takes off or not, I think it’s great
> that someone is at least ringing the alarm bell.
> >
> > Even if nobody listens, I’m 100% behind the effort. Musk is taking a
> huge personal hit—his companies, his wealth, all of it’s being affected.
> But if it helps America become more financially sensible, I say hats off to
> him.
> >
>
>
> --
> ¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
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