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How will we live if people aren't artificially pressured to consume their wealth as quickly as possible? And we know those 8,000 years of civilization using met
by crassus 13y ago
How will we live if people aren't artificially pressured to consume their wealth as quickly as possible? And we know those 8,000 years of civilization using metallic money were not all "economically disastrous".
History gives us plenty of episodes of deflationary growth, such as America after the civil war during resumption of the metallic standard. Yes, a sudden collapse in a money supply is bad, but economies work fine under slow deflation.
Economists are the worst intellectuals. Their predictions are always wrong and their growth advice is ineffectual. I wouldn't take what you read from an economist in a newspaper op-ed page at face value.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoAmerica during the resumption of the metallic standard underwent overall growth, but with frequent financial panics in which thousands of people lost everything, went bankrupt, and in quite a few cases starved to death cold and alone in a ditch. That sounds like a great model /sarcasm!
- crassus 13y agoStatistically, the American economy has not been more stable since the invention of the Federal Reserve. I think George Selgin has a paper on it.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoLuckily, there are more things in Heaven and Earth than "Federal Reserve vs Ron Paul".
- ori_b 13y ago"History gives us plenty of episodes of deflationary growth, such as America after the civil war during resumption of the metallic standard." You're referring to the period known as "The Long Depression", from 1873 to 1896? It had an extremely high unemployment rate during the quarter century that it lasted. Ten states went bankrupt. The US manufacturing output virtually stagnated, with periods of significant decline.
- primroot 13y agoI find the "8000 years" claim in the parent comment to be interesting. My understanding is that it is false, and that metallic money is a way, in which armies impose themselves over populations. This talk by anthropologist David Graeber illustrates my point http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZIINXhGDcs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZIINXhGDcs