Friday, October 23, 2015

Time Value as Front Loaded Growth

Time value has mostly been back loaded into the economic systems of the last century, through redistribution and other forms of asymmetric compensation. As a result, it's easy to forget that time value is where all other forms of economic value, actually begin. Are there ways to make up for the lack of time value, in today's economic frameworks? While it's not realistic to front load time value through much of the spectrum, it can still be restored at the margins. Doing so, would eventually help to overcome the present limits to growth, which governments and special interests have imposed in the global economy.

Insofar as economic activity is asymmetric, time value mostly exists in a meritocratic - or rival - capacity. When central banking focuses too much on credit dynamics, policy makers seek to support the capacity of those considered "credit worthy", instead of supporting a full range of economic participation. Given the fact that credit is logically a back end function of income potential (one would think), credit representation should be a back loaded aspect of economic activity - instead of a front loaded point of monetary origin which has superseded monetary policy too often.

Consider how Wikipedia defines front end loading.
Front-end loading includes robust planning and design early in a project's lifecycle...at a time when the ability to influence changes in design is relatively high and the cost to make those changes is relatively low. It typically applies to industries with highly capital intensive, long lifecycle projects.
Services capacity - with a little luck - could become a 21st century project for long term growth. Of course, the "highly capital intensive" nature of local corporations, would be greater coordination for human capital potential. Local corporations would front load time value, as an initial point of group coordination and wealth creation. Time value becomes quantifiable, once it is recorded as ongoing economic activity. As a result, much of what might otherwise exist as informal activity, would instead contribute to knowledge use formation and community stability.

Another aspect of symmetric or front loaded time value would be important for all concerned: accurate monetary representation (of both local economic activity and otherwise) on the part of central bankers. To this end, local corporations would keep records which would be more precise than what is presently on offer, for knowledge and time use in service formation. Even though this process should generate new wealth, the certainty of new wealth still depends on whether all economic contributors are taken into account, in a given monetary policy context.

While such an acknowledgement should seem obvious, oddly enough this is not always the case. For instance, when monetary authorities do not faithfully represent aggregate spending capacity, that means what should have been new wealth can be lost, somewhere in the (overall) system. For instance: before any supply side reform can matter, central bankers have to make it count on monetary terms. As James Alexander explained in a recent post, arbitrary inflation ceilings simply offset "the good stuff". Even though he was discussing the Eurozone, it's a problem that any nation faces, should monetary policy refuse to take productive (and hard won) supply side efforts into account.

Granted, many individuals are - and will remain - happy to assist others simply because they want to. Even though many have been inspired to pay these efforts forward, these processes still exist in relative economic isolation. Local corporations could create a stronger continuum, which contributes (symmetric) time backed money to the asymmetric structure of fiat monetary formation. Individuals would finally gain the option of utilizing time value as a basic commodity, should they decide not to seek monetary compensation for work through rival or meritocratic means. In the process, person to person interaction in coordinated settings would become quantified and recognized as new wealth.

Until now, meritocratic structure appeared sufficient for labor force participation. However, it is becoming apparent that not all meritocratic time value can be asymmetrically compensated from traditional production. It is time for symmetric time value to be a real part of wealth creation, and economic opportunity.

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