[erulabs]

With inflation at the rate it's at, I can't help but laugh at "crypto is so volatile!" That argument made sense in the endless bull markets - but these days? What's not volatile? I-Bonds?

The idea that the US Dollar is the eternal pinnacle of stability always seemed naive in principle, but now its clearly naive in practice.

[rglover]

It certainly could have been if our government didn't:

1. Unpeg it from a gold standard.

2. Use it as a geopolitical weapon.

The power and greed were too intoxicating.

[vkou]

Yes, because tying deflation and inflation to the rate of 'how quickly do we mine gold' is a brilliant way to run an economy.

Don't open enough gold mines? Here comes the deflationary spiral of death to strangle the economy. Too many gold mines? Inflation, inflation, inflation.

Can we do anything to dampen either one? Nope.

> 2. Use it as a geopolitical weapon.

Sure as hell beats getting involved in an actual shooting war.

[not2b]

This was exactly the history of the American economy in the 19th century. Rapid episodes of deflation would regularly bankrupt farmers, who couldn't sell their crops for enough to repay their loans.

[rglover]

> Sure as hell beats getting involved in an actual shooting war.

Until it backfires and creates the potential for a nuclear war.

[vkou]

Nobody's going to start a nuclear war over sanctions.

[gunshai]

I'm not really sure why people opine about not using the gold standard.

Especially crypo-enthusiasts or even libertarians (I consider my self tangent to both these groups).

Gold is terrible for the following reasons.

* Supply is unknown so your market cap value is volatile to any sudden prospected windfall. This one is ESPECIALLY bad if you are a central government. Why would a central bank want to be beholden (with respect to purchasing power) to some random gold find that devalues the currency unexpectedly? (see wiki article about Mansa Musa who just went around destroying local economies because he just literally threw his gold around.)

* Gold is not very divisible, in that there are real costs to trying to divide the mint.

* Gold comes with high storage/security costs (especially if it is your currency back).

* Gold isn't really that transferable, the stuff is a pain in the ass to actually move around.

Gold has two things going for it.

1. It has manufacturing uses that provide real world value

2. Through out time people have a perception that it should have value. This perception spans across cultures and geography.

[rglover]

There's no opining about it. It was the best solution at the time and removing it eliminated the last remaining dam preventing absolute corruption of our money by the state.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

[agentultra]

The collapse of the Bretton-Woods system was really bad. It got so bad that Nixon had to temporarily suspend exchange of notes for gold. It eventually dragged all currencies into a death-spiral. You can read all about it in the history books. Why should it be repeated?

The Austrian school of economics radically simplifies economic theory to an absurd degree (I assume that's what you're signalling you follow given your statements). It treats empirical evidence as heresy. The only driving force behind all of their conspiracy theories and racist/anti-semitic dog-whistling is a belief that governments are evil and all inflation is bad. It's really reductive and anti-intellectual.

Inflation isn't inherently bad and not all inflation is the same.

In terms of geopolitics the collapse of the Bretton-Woods system has had many benefits. Much of the world eventually recovered by the mid-80s by the economic crises of the late-60s. Also in the history books.

War and debt are bedfellows. Everyone knows this. Also well known are the economic consequences of creating such debt by going to war. It turns out mostly authoritarian psychopaths will go to war or make crypto-currencies official currencies despite the economic consequences and impacts it would have on their citizens.

[rglover]

> War and debt are bedfellows.

Because fiat enables them to be as much. If you can print money, you don't need public consent to go blow people out of the water, nor to justify obscene spending on the military. Every war the U.S. has been involved in since Vietnam has been a banker war, not a state war.

What's reductive and anti-intellectual is deluding people into believing that giving the government (or even worse, "economists" or central bankers) authority over their wealth is, somehow, going to multiply or protect it when we have ample examples to the contrary.

To your point, governments historically are evil and inflation is bad (it's arguably an inherent property of government as you're giving absolute power to the unproductive class). The idea that it's not (MMT) is the rationalization of a failed economic strategy that's put everyone's well-being in the crosshairs.

The idea that any of that is untrue is a result of unrelenting propaganda and indoctrination (or, in certain cases, someone who has directly benefited from the scheme). Any way you shake it, to think that what's happening isn't the result of malfeasance is denial, wholesale.

Mayer Rothschild codified the potential for this way of thinking with his Economic Inductance theory:

> Currency, or deposit loan accounts, has the required appearance of power that could be used to induce people into surrendering their real wealth in exchange for a promise of greater wealth (interests). When applied gradually, the public adapts to its presence and learns to tolerate its encroachment on their lives until the pressure (psychological via economic) becomes too great and they crack up, depending on their resilience capacity.

Flip on the television if you need insight into what people do when they "crack up."

[agentultra]

It sounds to me like you believe in conspiracy theories about finance and banking and the threatening powers that control them. I suppose you also take Ezra Pound's later obscenities about global finance and the reasons for war to heart. And therein lies the problem with the goldbug: the path to fascism.

All inflation is bad is a highly reductive argument. It is much more complicated than that and most economic models indicate that a certain amount of inflation is a good thing for overall growth. This is why, in the US, the Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation. There are a lot of positive effects to inflation and trying to control it so that it grows moderately is a good thing. There are decades of research as to why this is the case even though I suspect it won't sway you I suggest you try reading it if you are seriously interested in educating yourself about what you're talking about.

Do I believe the current economic conditions are the result of a scheme among elite bankers? No. A conspiracy involving more than two people is not sustainable and not a conspiracy. Financial regulation is managed in most Western countries by democratic representation. In the US they created the Federal Reserve system. If you want to see what they get up to they publish their board meeting notes, research, reports, results of votes, etc. It's open information.

If Americans have a problem with the system they're free to vote for representation that will introduce laws that will change the way the Federal Reserve is run... although in my experience very few people even know what the Fed does or that they have a website.

I don't need the thought experiments of a long-dead banker who didn't live to see the formation of the Federal Reserve. The quote you're citing is antiquated. Banks today don't make money on deposits like they did in this Rothschild's day and people aren't worried about runs on a bank's reserves anymore.

Although if they're invested in crypto via Tether or any other stable coin they ought to be.

[fleddr]

I'd offer a less technical criticism on the economic and monetary system you defend.

At the end of the day, now matter what happens, somehow the system always calibrates to ensure that the typical human being is a wage slave for life. Spectacular improvements in productivity and technology are somehow never returned to the worker, the system then just increases the cost of living, or creates new jobs, many of no real purpose.

It's a system to both maximize work and consumption, which is as anti-economical as it gets. It's also a system that crashes when it doesn't grow. It's also a system that completely ignores every externality and wrecks everything in its path.

But yes, I'm sure you're right that from within this system, everything you say is technically correct.

[agentultra]

I'm not defending it as a perfect system.

I am criticizing the implication that the banking system is run by vast conspiracy and that the gold standard was a better system.

[rglover]

> It sounds to me like you believe in conspiracy theories about finance and banking[...]

Yeah, dude.

> Do I believe the current economic conditions are the result of a scheme among elite bankers? No.

You're their ideal customer.

> A conspiracy involving more than two people is not sustainable and not a conspiracy.

You, like many people, highly underestimate the role of hierarchy in a conspiracy. The people at the top don't have to tell you it's a conspiracy or explain why they're having you do what you're doing. They just say "hey, manager, go do this" (who wants to keep their job and will do something, even if it's irrational) and then that edict trickles down till you get to a lower-level worker who's only concern is "will I get my paycheck?"

It's why it's possible and why it works. Most people are timid cattle that are deathly afraid of their "superiors" and this logic enables psychopathic behavior quite well. Couple that with folks like yourself who are desperate to explain away evil in the world and you have a pretty kick ass machine for corruption.

> The quote you're citing is antiquated.

Who decides that? You?

[agentultra]

Decide for yourself. Mayer Rothschild died 100 years before the creation of the Federal Reserve. Banking in his time was extremely different.

Monetary policy in the US is federally regulated by the Federal Reserve. Their meeting minutes, votes, etc are all public information. We all benefit from this regulation. Because of it, banks are forced to disclose their finances as part of their SEC filings. Ever notice how they claim to care about the environment and the Paris Agreements and yet their investments in oil and gas have increased in the last couple of years?

Some people have because regulation does work some times.