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by felipeko 1613 days ago
It is a good thing to be encouraged to saving instead of spending.

No one needs incentive to spend. You will spend if you have plenty to spend. Having a currency which gains in value will take you there.

3 comments

> You will spend if you have plenty to spend. Having a currency which gains in value will take you there.

That’s some pretty fanta-dreamy-economics. How can it possibly be true for everybody? Money from heaven?

> Having a currency which gains in value will take you there. Until it doesn't.

As a matter of fact crypto "currencies" are a rotten medium for saving due to their volatility.

Sure, they may go up in value. But then that's pure speculation, certainly not saving.

You can’t avoid being a speculator. Any currency or asset you hold is your speculative position. You may believe that one position is more speculative than another. But fiat currencies can go into hyperinflation and become worthless, for example.
There is no modern economic argument to favor saving over spending. What you're saying runs counter to pretty much all economic theory from any ideological camp you could think of.
Economic theory has run this world into the ground in just a single human lifetime. A system that maximizes consumption is insane.
Do you mean that if we had some renaissance banks during the 19xx until 2022, gold coins instead of our modern currencies, no stock exchanges, no financial whatever and maybe all retro economical entities you can think of… would we be in a different position?

You cannot blame the theory, you cannot blame the system… we have a saying in Italy: opportunity makes the thief. Blame the people, not abstract entities.

I'm not seeing how a deflationary currency even addresses this argument.
I wasn't try to. I'm saying "modern economic theory" isn't really a position of strength to reason from. It's not like economists have done a good job at anything. Endless unsustainable growth, a disaster of a financial system, every natural incentive is completely upside down and inequality keeps rising.

Is a deflationary system better or a solution? I don't know.

To my knowledge, no large society in the past two centuries, regardless of economic systems, has been a particularly good steward of natural resources. You're going to have to do better than that.

Deflationary currencies have been an abject disaster in all fronts, and there is nothing particularly contentious about them from even the most contrarian of positions.

Just because an argument is not popular does not indicate it is false.