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Monetary policy is a form of central planning. Central planning suffers from several issues, primarily due to insufficient ability to model the economy in a wa
by pfannkuchen 2y ago
Monetary policy is a form of central planning.
Central planning suffers from several issues, primarily due to insufficient ability to model the economy in a way that can reliably make valid predictions, but also due to being a single point of failure due to either incompetence or capture.
Speculation bubbles seem to be the main cause of economic collapses prior to centralized currency. Could we perhaps address that in a more targeted way, rather than jumping straight to handing government control of money?
Side note: Government controlling money not being necessary and furthermore not even being the American historical norm may be surprising to many readers. I would encourage you to look that up, it’s quite interesting.
- intended 2y agoAnd the gold standard isn’t? As someone said elsewhere - a working knowledge of economic history is crucial to be a part of this discussion.
- pfannkuchen 2y agoThe gold standard is also central planning. But, where the heck did I say anything about the gold standard? I’m referring to private banks issuing receipts for metal deposits, which can be freely sold or traded. This is the origin of currency, no? The exchange rate between everything and everything else naturally floats in such a system, so there is no central planning. > a working knowledge of economic history is crucial to be a part of this discussion Here, let me get you a towel for that egg on your face, rude sir.
- intended 2y agoBut thats the heart of the gold standard. The only difference here being that you’ve described it before things like watering gold down, fraud, volatility, bank failures and the rest resulted in it coming under a single aegis. Issuing currency against gold is what the gold standard is all about. What do you think it was? And eggs are expensive, you should save them for later.
- pfannkuchen 2y ago> Issuing currency against gold is what the gold standard is all about. What do you think it was? This seems pretty reductionist in a way that ends up being quite lossy. With the gold standard, I believe the conversion rate between the dollar and gold was set by the government, right? With private bank currency, it is literally a voucher for a specific weight of gold. There is no exchange rate like there was with the gold standard.
- intended 2y agoThink it through - you just showed how currencies came about. They were all receipts against the payment of a physical good. Thats what the gold standard is. The difference is simply centralization. Are you aware of what happened to The Spanish monarchy regarding silver and inflation? The discovery of more physical silver results in more inflation.