[lbo-talk] Krugman's babysitting co-op model

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

Excuse me if this is a newbie question; I looked at Krugman's
baby-sitting co-op model, and it seems clear that my education isn't
really good enough to evaluate it. And his formalized description just
has too many hanging variable names and higher-level concepts.
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/babysit.html
http://www.pkarchive.org/theory/MINIMAC.html

So my thoughts are:

* Is this really a sufficiently large model to feature recessions? (Even
granted this chops out nearly everything important about the economy we
live under, like radically unequal distributions of wealth/capital, the
dependence of livelihoods on it, etc.)

* Is there actually a point to money in this model? There's no barter
between particularly different commodities; tallying babysitting hours
on paper seems more than adequate. Money is too finite.

* Why wouldn't the money's devaluation be (in principle) the same as
injecting new money into the supply?

* What would be the effect of me starting a private credit market, if
anything?

Thanks,
Tayssir