No, I don't—I care about central bank independence. I’ll answer this in the context of the gold standard—the ultimate hard currency/sound money. That history i

No, I don't—I care about central bank independence. I’ll answer this in the context of the gold standard—the ultimate hard currency/sound money. That history is very different than the one its proponents portray. Governments routinely had more currency in the circulation than they cover with their reserves, the money supply was effectively ceded to technological developments in mining, and we saw a period of social unrest in the back half of the 1800s as farmers got screwed by deflation. (See William Jennings Bryant’s ‘You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.’) The money supply matters. Historically, the gold standard exacerbated swings in the business cycle. Economies would grow by exporting good and gold would flow in, people had more money so they spent more growing the economy more. But, if the economy was bad and there wasn’t gold down in the basement, the government and central banks were unable to issue the currency necessary to stimulate business activity to help end the problem. Milton Friedman made his name by looking at the money supply as the root cause for why the Great Depression was so bad. Could the Federal Reserve do better? Absolutely. But if you compare the last 10-15 years to any other period in the last 150, things are as good as they’ve even been on the monetary front.