> Now list something what that's actually held its value.
Gee, I dunno, anything whose value as measured in dollars increases by more than 3.45% a year? Like, just off the top of my head, stocks, bonds, real estate, and yes, gold. Bitcoin, maybe.
> A nice, mostly-even 3% a year is spectacular.
I don't think you understand that that 3.45% a year is not a rate of appreciation, as if dollars were an asset. It's a cost that you have to bear every year if you insist on holding dollars instead of something that, um, holds its value. In other words, it's a rate of loss of value of dollars.
> Only a central bank can do that.
If you mean that only a central bank, as an agent of a government, can force people to use money that loses value every year as the central bank prints more, yes, that's quite true. But it doesn't mean what you appear to think it means.
Gee, I dunno, anything whose value as measured in dollars increases by more than 3.45% a year? Like, just off the top of my head, stocks, bonds, real estate, and yes, gold. Bitcoin, maybe.
> A nice, mostly-even 3% a year is spectacular.
I don't think you understand that that 3.45% a year is not a rate of appreciation, as if dollars were an asset. It's a cost that you have to bear every year if you insist on holding dollars instead of something that, um, holds its value. In other words, it's a rate of loss of value of dollars.
> Only a central bank can do that.
If you mean that only a central bank, as an agent of a government, can force people to use money that loses value every year as the central bank prints more, yes, that's quite true. But it doesn't mean what you appear to think it means.