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Petulant oligarchs exist because inequity and wealth transference to the top is baked into the US monetary system. Until the monetary system undergoes a radical

Petulant oligarchs exist because inequity and wealth transference to the top is baked into the US monetary system. Until the monetary system undergoes a radical transformation, the oligarchy will only get worse.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
You seem to be very here-and-now focused. "The US", for instance. Whose monetary system is better? And why? Or are they all rotten, and you're just focused on the US because that's where you live? And, it wasn't always this way (I mean, it wasn't always possible to argue that it was based on the monetary system). The petulant oligarchs ruled the world because they had armies, and the rest of us were serfs. That had nothing to do with the monetary system. I think the "petulant oligarchs" problem is much more widespread than your post indicates. No matter what the system, people find ways to work it to put themselves in positions of power and money. If you fix the US monetary system (whatever you think "fix" looks like), we might get a different set of oligarchs, playing by a different set of rules, but we'll still have them. They'll almost certainly still be petulant, too.
- celtoid 4y ago
  Krugman's essay is about the US. There's never been a particularly equitable money system in modern times, the last 200 years or so. In the US, the gold standard was replaced by the fractional reserve system. I'm not opposed to fractional reserve on its face but since the US system is mostly owned and run by private interests, it's opened a wider door for the more truculent and petulant oligarchs to excel at rising to the top of the food chain. I'm no fan of the gold standard either. It seems that whatever a money system is based on, people will move heaven and Earth to acquire that thing. Under the gold standard, entire nations were wiped out in order for "explorers" to acquire gold. In our debt based fractional reserve system, people will ruin themselves to acquire debt. A monetary system based on a gram of protein might see a world with a surplus of food but I'm merely speculating.
Zigurd 4y ago
While it is fair to say the US economic system enables outsize wealth accumulation at the same time wages have stagnated for decades, what's that got to do with the monetary system? People who blame everything on modern central banking are usually barking up the wrong tree, sometimes in ways that originate in conspiracy theories. There is enough wrong with the system without inventing villains.
- celtoid 4y ago
  The Federal Reserve was hatched at a secret meeting, according to the Federal Reserve. IOW, the Fed itself was the result of conspiring by private and public interests. "On Nov. 24, 1910, a select group of men enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner of wild turkey with oyster stuffing at the luxurious Jekyll Island Club, off the coast of Georgia. The resort offered a host of leisurely pursuits, but the men weren't there to golf or ride horses. Instead, the group was there to devise a plan to remake the nation's banking system. The meeting was a closely guarded secret and would not become widely known until the 1930s. But the plan developed on Jekyll Island laid the foundation for what would eventually be the Federal Reserve System." https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2015/q1/federal_reserve https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus...

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

You seem to be very here-and-now focused. "The US", for instance. Whose monetary system is better? And why? Or are they all rotten, and you're just focused on the US because that's where you live? And, it wasn't always this way (I mean, it wasn't always possible to argue that it was based on the monetary system). The petulant oligarchs ruled the world because they had armies, and the rest of us were serfs. That had nothing to do with the monetary system. I think the "petulant oligarchs" problem is much more widespread than your post indicates. No matter what the system, people find ways to work it to put themselves in positions of power and money. If you fix the US monetary system (whatever you think "fix" looks like), we might get a different set of oligarchs, playing by a different set of rules, but we'll still have them. They'll almost certainly still be petulant, too.

celtoid 4y ago
Krugman's essay is about the US. There's never been a particularly equitable money system in modern times, the last 200 years or so. In the US, the gold standard was replaced by the fractional reserve system. I'm not opposed to fractional reserve on its face but since the US system is mostly owned and run by private interests, it's opened a wider door for the more truculent and petulant oligarchs to excel at rising to the top of the food chain. I'm no fan of the gold standard either. It seems that whatever a money system is based on, people will move heaven and Earth to acquire that thing. Under the gold standard, entire nations were wiped out in order for "explorers" to acquire gold. In our debt based fractional reserve system, people will ruin themselves to acquire debt. A monetary system based on a gram of protein might see a world with a surplus of food but I'm merely speculating.

Zigurd 4y ago

While it is fair to say the US economic system enables outsize wealth accumulation at the same time wages have stagnated for decades, what's that got to do with the monetary system? People who blame everything on modern central banking are usually barking up the wrong tree, sometimes in ways that originate in conspiracy theories. There is enough wrong with the system without inventing villains.

celtoid 4y ago
The Federal Reserve was hatched at a secret meeting, according to the Federal Reserve. IOW, the Fed itself was the result of conspiring by private and public interests. "On Nov. 24, 1910, a select group of men enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner of wild turkey with oyster stuffing at the luxurious Jekyll Island Club, off the coast of Georgia. The resort offered a host of leisurely pursuits, but the men weren't there to golf or ride horses. Instead, the group was there to devise a plan to remake the nation's banking system. The meeting was a closely guarded secret and would not become widely known until the 1930s. But the plan developed on Jekyll Island laid the foundation for what would eventually be the Federal Reserve System." https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2015/q1/federal_reserve https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus...