[hiddencost]

Scarcity is actually an incredibly valuable property. Control over gold production meant control over the money supply. Otherwise, anyone could inflate your currency into oblivion.

[WalterBright]

Just imagine what would happen if the money supply consisted of pieces of paper that the government could print any time it wanted more money!

[namaria]

Wait until you learn that banks can just make more money by increasing numeric values in databases. "Money supply" is very poorly understood in armchair denouncements of modern central banking.

[WalterBright]

> Wait until you learn that banks can just make more money by increasing numeric values in databases.

I know how fractional reserve banking works. That "more money" is represented by the collateral for the loan.

[jamiek88]

Unprecedented wealth and living standards?

it’s not very evenly distributed wealth but our enormous economies are not limited by supplies of an arbitrarily valuable metal.

All money is imaginary anyway.

[WalterBright]

You can't print wealth from a printing press.