Re: S=I, an old debate.

["Bruce R. McFarling" <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 16:04 16/08/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Bruce R. McFarling wrote:
>
><<SNIP>>
>>         Any stock that is not fixed at a single level has an
>> associated flow.  So pointing out that there is a flow of
>> something does not prove by itself that there is no stock
>> of that thing.
><<SNIP>>
>
>Actually, pointing to a flow of a thing pretty much proves there is a
>stock of the thing -- else what is it that flows?

	However, it may be a flow of a "thing" that only qualifies
as a "thing" as a trick of language.  A flow of services do not
flow from one service stock to another.  A flow between a capacity
to deliver services and a capacity to receive services does not
necessarily have a pool of services on both sides, one being drawn down,
the other being accumulated.
	So it does not necessarily follow that all flows are tied to
stocks, where the change in the stock.  Since money is an institution
for regulating deliveries of goods and services, it isn't even the
type of "thing" that naturally has a stock/flow relationship.  Rather,
it is a peculiar feature of monetary institutions that they generate
information that can be treated as if it was a thing.  This social
construction of the reification of this particular type of institution
leads fairly naturally to models which treat money as if it actually
*was* a thing -- e.g., Friedman's helicopter.





Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Newcastle, NSW
ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx