To be fair, the Bitcoin folks are trying to throw away the economics playbook of the last 50 years, which is itself a result of the economics playbook of the pr

To be fair, the Bitcoin folks are trying to throw away the economics playbook of the last 50 years, which is itself a result of the economics playbook of the previous 500 years having been thrown away in the first place. Fiat currencies haven't worked out; whether Bitcoin is the right thing to replace them is an open question, but there seems little doubt that there needs to be something to replace a short-lived status quo which never worked properly from the outset.