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Thank you for being the only reasonable person in this thread. That argument -- that people would defer consumption forever -- is the craziest thing in the wor
by fiatjaf 10y ago
Thank you for being the only reasonable person in this thread.
That argument -- that people would defer consumption forever -- is the craziest thing in the world, and every economist and wannabe economist seem to take it without question.
- mac01021 10y agoIt's nice to be regarded as reasonable. My question, one to which I have not been able to find an answer, is: Is this questionable premise (I'm not quite willing to call it crazy, but it is non-obvious) the entire basis for all of monetary policy? Approachable texts about why and how the money supply should be controlled seem hard to find. In conversation, this is the only reason I've ever been given for us to need the Fed to ensure that the money supply grows with the economy.
- dredmorbius 10y agoI've also been looking at and for texts on money. Adam Smith and William Stanley Jevons are two of the earlier significant works. Reading Milton Friedman probably has value. Keynes as well. Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money is a well-received popular work on money, trade, and exchange. (NB: I'm not particularly well-disposed toward either Friedman or Ferguson.)
- fiatjaf 10y agoThe answer is yes, and the lack of clear statements confirming it shows that economists feel that it is a stupid idea but they go a long way to hide that from themselves.