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by baybal2 2068 days ago
> Of course there is. Deposit guarantees are enabled. That and the central bank’s credible power to influence money supply and borrowing costs as well as act as an unconstrained lender of last resort.

So it was at the time when the king could've simply set the gold rate for the currency, and do the very same thing with borrowing, and lending on behalf of the state. Just before, it was much more likely led to more angry people with pitchforks than today.

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> So it was at the time when the king could've simply set the gold rate for the currency, and do the very same thing with borrowing, and lending on behalf of the state

No. The de facto currency was estimated mass of precious metal. The king could default, of course. But that is selective; inflation is not. Re-basing happened, but just as with money printing, it is tracked and accounted for and, in extreme cases, fled from.

Equating modern monetarism with gold-standard economics betrays, fortunately, a terrific opportunity to learn from works that have been peer reviewed, in many cases, for over a century.