DSMatticus wrote:That'd be great, if it was ever what I said.
Ah, once again you forget. Once again I remind. You said:
If that were the case, if I were to point out any gold-based economy that collapsed,
This was in reference to paper currency becoming worthless. So, can you please, please, give me that example of gold becoming worthless? Or simply acknowledge that no such example exists, and so your conditional is meaningless. Either is fine.
As a minor aside, it doesn't have to be gold, just the obvious and well known and thoroughly demonstrated risks of paper make it a hideously reckless thing to do to a society.
. Gold standards fail in different ways than paper currencies.
Yes; primarily by currency debasement (the ancient world equivalent to printing more paper). Back then, people weren't educated as you are, and generally wouldn't accept pieces of paper, so instead governments typically diluted the precious metal content of their coins.
You've pointed out that fiat currencies exist, and some of them have sucked.
If some means all, yes. I reiterate, the dollar (best paper currency by far) has lost 95% of its value since becoming paper. Here's a
crackpot website that confirms it.
95% suckage isn't good.
I've pointed out that gold economies exist, and some (many) of them have sucked. And that's all I ever claimed.
SO sorry, I missed those examples. Refresh my memory of the ones where gold became worthless and so you need great quantities of it to buy anything? That *is* what we're talking about, despite your many attempts to squirm around.
I don't know if you're just an idiot, or if this is intentional, but you are completely misrepresenting the things I've actually said. You should stop that.
I can't help but notice you're just getting more and more abusive as I reveal the lies you were told as a kid. I get the feeling you musta really let Mom have it when she told you there's no Santa.
Wow, some actual evidence, and it's pretty good. Granted, there's no way to compare numbers (GDP is uncalculated, and 'unemployment' is a bit harder to achieve in the 19th century, even if it was calculated).
But we can at least do the times.
1843 - 1913, 28.25 years of recession.
1913 -1983, 26.17 years of recession.
I'll give you there's a bit more recession in the pre-Fed era, but The Great Depression, the worse economic issue ever, happened post-Fed. Basically a wash, and certainly not enough to say one 'sucked' over the other strictly on this basis; I won't address the other basis of measurements possible, in order to keep things simple enough.
Is it debateable under-10% improvement enough to justify stealing from little old ladies? I mean, if we practiced cannibalism, we'd improve the meat available for consumption, too. The extensive risks need to be weighed against the questionable benefit in both cases, in my opinion.
Same goes for economic stability. Less economic recessions means more economic stability.
Heh, here we go again. Massive currency printing/inflation also causes booms (eg, the roaring 20s, the housing bubble, etc), so you're basically arguing that paper currency is even worse than I've been saying. Fair enough.
People seriously traded in their money for gold, and they got all the gold they bought.
Ok, this is a serious lack of understanding, in addition to being circular. $20 represented an ounce of gold, you didn't 'buy' it, the word is meaningless here. "They got all the gold they got"...yes, they did, but they didn't get all the gold their money was claimed to represent. And, by 1933, it became illegal for anyone to even ask the government to back its claims.
It's certainly the case that if everyone had cashed in simultaneously, there would not have been enough gold.
So agreed, a fraudulent system. Paper.
The idea that inflation is theft is a ridiculously fucking stupid claim.
And yet, fact, to judge by your unwillingness to answer a simple question that determines the legitimacy of printing paper.
1) Is it theft for a wheat farmer when his neighbor has an especially good season, and his own profit is reduced? Things happen that are going to devalue the things you have, and that's fucking fine and normal and it happens everyday.
And not even remotely the same thing. Markets rise and fall as a matter of principle. "The weather" can not sanely be considered less random than "guy running a printing press". And yet, here you are doing it.
Hey, if the neighbor went over and burned the guy's farm, you'd call it good for society, right? After all, the ashes would spread around the country, and that helps crop yields. Who cares about sacrifice of one guy, it's for the good of the economy! Would burning all the farms be even better? Probably not...who gets to choose who gets to keep their farm?
I'm not saying paper currency is all bad, it surely helps those with access to the printing press, but it really seems no matter how you slice it, better ways are certain.
2) Inflation can be accounted for. It can be expected.
Um, no. There are at least half a dozen sites trying to calculate inflation in half a dozen different ways, and these sites often don't agree on inflation of 20 years ago, much less today, much less on the definitions. So, blatantly wrong.
Taxes just are, because they improve society for everyone.
Another great line from high school. You honestly believe our tax dollars paying for the invasion of Iraq really has helped the Iraqi people? They do count as people, right? Well, maybe not, depends on what you were taught. You seriously think the invasion helped most Americans? Do Americans count as people?
Heck, I said 'most', you said 'everyone'. Our US soldiers killed invading Iraq on our tax dollars...did our taxes help them?
So, wrong again: taxes aren't fundamentally good any more than inflation...just not fundamentally evil.
Inflation just is, because it can improve society for everyone.
I've already reminded you many times, and I'll do so again. It doesn't improve society for old people that are living off savings...do they not count as people? I won't bother listing all the many other examples of who it hurts, which basically includes everyone.
Most saving accounts have interest rates that could (but probably currently fail to) cover inflation rates.
They could, theoretically, but as you acknowledge they don't, so not an example....even if there was agreement on what inflation was. So, wrong again.
Any investment is largely immune to small inflation, because investment turns money -> tangible wealth -> money -> tangible wealth.
Dude, seriously, don't recite, think about it. What's 'small'? You've already said earlier, if it's noticeable, it's bad. Lots of people notice, ergo, it's bad for lots of people. An actual investment immune to inflation would be golden (heh, a funny there), but no such exists. No investment is immune to inflation, the concept makes no sense since inflation has no solid definition. Gold is often touted as such, but no, it's not even close, no matter whose numbers you use, outside of folks that define it so that it matches exactly.
So, no investment is immune to inflation, as even casual thought shows...and here you are saying any investment is.
Wages go up to cover inflation. Things scale.
Eventually, sure, but only after a goodly while, often forcing people to spend money they don't have while they're waiting for salaries to catch up...and by the time they recover, a new round of inflation has arrived. This is questionable thinking at best, although an understandable simplification for the 9th grade.
and the inflation will be almost completely negligible.
But, still noticeable, and by your own definition, bad.
Inflation isn't theft any more than taxes - it's a part of the system that makes things better for everyone.
That's right, just keep repeating it, it'll get true eventually. You keep stating as fact that which is clearly not true. At least with taxes, most people can tell how much is being taken from them.
our recessions are shorter and better because of this.
You didn't even check to make sure, and yet you've no problem repeating it. I'm not convinced all the harm done to people without a printing press is worth the very slight and highly arguable improvement for 'society'. People are part of society.
I do acknowledge that the forced sacrifice made by the serfs might possibly be helping the economy, just as when Aztecs cut out the hearts of their victims, it pleased their gods enough to give a good harvest.
Please, consider respecting a differing opinion, for now. I really have faith in a few decades you'll understand better.
The basic premise is that inflation encourages spending. Spending makes economies stronger.
Again with the thoughtless repetition. So, again I explain how this fundamentally is not true. Spending does NOT make economies stronger. If this were the case the US could spend its way out of debt and into prosperity, by purchasing grains of sand for a million bucks apiece.