Isn't burning money just the opposite of Quantitative Easing and thus it slightly increases the value of existing money?
If burning money is "depriving others of it permanently", then when banks issue currency (e.g. quantitative easing), they are supplying money to others permanently. Logically, it would seem that if you are against the destruction of currency, then you should be a proponent of banks creating as much currency as possible. Obviously it's not that simple and currency is not the same as 'value', so it's overly simplistic to think purely in terms of creation/destruction.
Nope. The whole point of money is to buy things. Banks create new money backed by debt which is what creates real value. The new money is destroyed when people work and pay off the debt. This "act" has created nothing of the sort.
You could argue that they theoretically increased the value of everyone else's money but the actual amount is so infinitesimal it would just add insult to injury. The vast majority of the money in existence is just numbers in bank databases, actual cash is a small fraction and burning an even smaller fraction of that does absolutely nothing beneficial to anyone.
I don't agree with your description of money creation as a primary means of creating value. Surely value is created by human endeavour and currency is just a convenient means of tracking that?
If there was a bank that just continually created new money and gave debt to everyone, then do you believe that they are creating value and presumably a society could exist purely from the value created by these numbers?
You misunderstand me. Money is indeed created by banks creating debt, but money is not the same thing as value. It's used as a convenient way to exchange value, but if you were stuck on a island with no-one else, you wouldn't find money to be of any use.
If burning money is "depriving others of it permanently", then when banks issue currency (e.g. quantitative easing), they are supplying money to others permanently. Logically, it would seem that if you are against the destruction of currency, then you should be a proponent of banks creating as much currency as possible. Obviously it's not that simple and currency is not the same as 'value', so it's overly simplistic to think purely in terms of creation/destruction.