Inflation: please explain

[violence in the media]

Does anyone not invested in gold ever argue for a return to a gold standard? Does it ever occur to them how untrustworthy they seem because of how self-serving their arguments are?

Does anyone not using paper ever argue for the use of paper? This is a silly argument. It would be *bizarre* and as horribly dishonest as anything DSM says if someone argued that gold was good, but unwilling to put his money where is mouth is.

I missed this earlier in the cascade of words that followed, but I have to disagree. Someone "putting their money where there mouth is" has a vested interest in the outcome and, unless you can identify their exact goal, should not immediately be regarded as a trustworthy, unbiased source. Disclosure of your positions prior to you singing the praises is a wonderful thing, as it lets the audience decide whether or not they want to facilitate you making a killing.

[tzor]

@Gold-backed during Depression

You are being ridiculously obstinant about something remarkably stupid. People turned in their money for gold during the early phases of this, foreign banks did that, and some even bought gold on an open market using their dollars. A half-decade into the Great Depression, they stopped letting people do that. Keyword there is 'INTO,' as in 'already in the midst of,' or 'well after the damage was done,' or 'too fucking late, sorry.'

Executive Order 6102 required U.S. citizens to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve, in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended on March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 ($167,700 if adjusted for inflation as of 2010) or up to ten years in prison, or both. Most citizens who owned large amounts of gold had it transferred to countries such as Switzerland.[citation needed]

Order 6102 specifically exempted "customary use in industry, profession or art"—a provision that covered artists, jewelers, dentists, and sign makers among others. The order further permitted any person to own up to $100 in gold coins ($1,677 if adjusted for inflation as of 2010; a face value equivalent to 5 troy ounces (160 g) of Gold valued at about $6200 as of 2010). The same paragraph also exempted "gold coins having recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins." This protected gold coin collections from legal seizure and likely melting.

The price of gold from the Treasury for international transactions was thereafter raised to $35 an ounce ($587 in 2010 dollars). The resulting profit that the government realized funded the Exchange Stabilization Fund established by the Gold Reserve Act in 1934.

The regulations prescribed within Executive Order 6102 were modified by Executive Order 6111 of April 20, 1933, both of which were ultimately revoked and superseded by Executive Orders 6260 and 6261 of August 28 and 29, 1933, respectively.[2]

The limitation on gold ownership in the U.S. was repealed after President Gerald Ford signed a bill legalizing private ownership of gold coins, bars and certificates by an act of Congress codified in Pub.L. 93-373[5][6] which went into effect December 31, 1974. P.L. 93-373 did not repeal the Gold Repeal Joint Resolution,[7][8] which made unlawful any contracts which specified payment in a fixed amount of money or a fixed amount of gold. That is, contracts remained unenforceable if they used gold monetarily rather than as a commodity of trade. However, Act of Oct. 28, 1977, Pub. L. No. 95-147, § 4(c), 91 Stat. 1227, 1229 (originally codified at 31 U.S.C. § 463 note, recodified as amended at 31 U.S.C. § 5118(d)(2)) amended the 1933 Joint Resolution and made it clear that parties could again include so-called gold clauses in contracts formed after 1977.[9]

Ironically it took fiat currently to allow the average American to posess gold for other than jewlery. During the time of the gold standard, while the dollar was "backed" by gold, what good was that if you could not legally get that gold?

[tzor]

Meanwhile, back to the present, where we are going to the future!

Forbes Predicts U.S. Gold Standard Within 5 Years

Yes, that's Steve Forbes. "A return to the gold standard by the United States within the next five years now seems likely, because that move would help the nation solve a variety of economic, fiscal, and monetary ills, Steve Forbes predicted during an exclusive interview this week with Human Events."

[Doom]

Someone "putting their money where there mouth is" has a vested interest in the outcome and, unless you can identify their exact goal, .

I certainly understand your paranoia, but the fact still remains: when someone tells you gold is good and everybody should have it, and you ask that someone "Do you own gold?" and they say "no", that pretty much tells you they don't believe what they're saying, much like anything DSM says.

It's much like on TV commercials for food. You *never* see a guy say "Yeah, these cheesy poofs are great. I don't eat them, myself, but you should." How effective do you think such a commercial would be, except as spoof? The vast majority of marketing campaigns feature people that actually use the product telling you the product is great, for good reason

Your complaint, while a solid appeal to the emotion of fear, just doesn't make much sense in this light.

Yes, there are people that are selling gold at huge markups (they call me up and try to sell me gold at triple or more what I can buy with one click from Apmex if I were inclined, and Apmex isn't that cheap)...there are people that sell used cars in a dubious way, there are crooks and scammers in every industry. Don't buy from them.

While you're right owning an investment product you sell DOES indicate a vested interest, the fact that they're telling you that they have a vested interest negates that worry, as they're giving full disclosure.

Most human beings and bullion dealers simply can't own enough gold to cause a shift in the market, which is what you're concerned about; they also can't single-handedly sell enough gold to shift the market, either.

Past this, start another thread and we'll talk more about why you should prefer for the person selling you a product to demonstrate he actually believes in the product himself.

And Tzor, shame on you for quoting text, that would assume the guy reads.

Frank, I'll be responding to your hatred of the miser in another thread as well (eventually, apologies, its final exams week here), it clearly needs to be addressed. For now, though, note that justifications for inflations are based around "it's good for society"...i.e., moral. So, while in your opinion using moral arguments is weird, if moral arguments are to be made FOR inflation, it's quite justified to make moral arguments AGAINST inflation.

[violence in the media]

Absolutely, but usually such renegotiations focus around improved skills and (local) market conditions. Inflation is just too slippery a topic to justify a raise.

After all, when we had deflation, I don't think there was any talk of reducing anyone's pay. I could be wrong, though.

This is a possible explaination.

[sabs]

How about the fact that many companies have had Freeze in increases for the last 3 to 4 years? Or the fact that most businesses do 1%-3% pay increases based on performance, when they do do pay increases.

Wages rarely match inflation if you stay with the same company. If you jump ship, then usually you are getting 15-30% increases which are way out of band with inflation.

[Maj]

You're young, so you don't realize how bad it is when contracts aren't honored fully.

Are you actually older than DSMatticus? Because the way you interpret things and the way you write, you come off like you're significantly younger.

[sabs]

Doom comes off as being late 20's tops.

And contracts not being honored fully is only bad when the contracts aren't giant piles of usary abusive tripe that you are forced to sign because the alternative is basically to be shut out of what ever it is your doing.

Hiring Contracts that bind you to arbitration.
EULA's that make you give up your first born child to the Eldritch Gods.

Enforcing the basic spirit of contracts is good, but sometimes a contract is so imbalanced that it needs to be thrown out.

[Doom]

I'm glad to know I come off as so energetic, while still having the wisdom and knowledge of years of experience.

Absolutely, some contracts are so terrible they should not be honored. However, when not honored, they can still be brought into court; a judge can find the terms of a contract so abusive that he can rule the contract void. But we're not talking about any such thing here, simply the terms written on a piece of paper that apply to the bearer of that piece of paper. Please, go and read those terms I linked earlier.

Anyway, sabs, the point is still: the contracts on those bills weren't honored. The contracts were worth only the paper they were printed on.

[sabs]

Money isn't a contract.
Paper money is an abstraction so that we don't have to carry around 12 goats in our back pocket. Gold backing is pretty much pointless, because GOLD is completely WORTHLESS. It's a metal, that some people like to make shiney things out of. Honestly, it's much more useful in the semiconductor business. But basically, Gold has value because we say it does. It's not like it's iron, or milk, or even salt.

Gold is just as fiat an economy as paper. It's just printed on a different medium. And hell, Paper money is actually Linen weave.. so it has some value.

We could go to a Diamond Backed Economy.. except that DeBiers would kick our ass, and China would flood us with artificial diamonds.

[Juton]

You're young, so you don't realize how bad it is when contracts aren't honored fully.

Are you actually older than DSMatticus? Because the way you interpret things and the way you write, you come off like you're significantly younger.

Doom mentions earlier that he sold bonds back in the 80's, so that would put him in his forties at least, if you believe he actually sold bonds in the 80's.

[tzor]

Money isn't a contract.

It used to be. Back in the "good old days" (which were neither good nor old) those bills said, "This Note Is Legal Tender For All Debts Public And Private And Is Redeemable In Lawful Money At The United States Treasury Or At Any Federal Reserve Bank". Now what was meant by "lawful money" was anyone's guess, as gold was outlawed in 1933 and this text continued on the bills for many years after that.

Prior to that, of course there were gold certificates, "payable to the bearer on demand."

[Doom]

Yes, it's a contract; might be arguable today, but it certainly was on the bills I'm referring to. Really, much confusion could be avoided if you'd just take a look at the bill. It only takes a few seconds.

Here, let me provide the link again

I again ask you to read closely on the bottom of the $500 bill, where it says it is payable to the bearer. This isn't money, it's an agreement to provide money, specifically real money instead of a slip of paper. Yes, of course it could be used like money, no doubt about that. People have been trained to believe paper slips are good money, but it wasn't that long ago that folks knew better.

Tzor, at time of original printing, lawful money referred to gold (of course) or silver. The latter would be inconvenient on the $500 note, as that's many pounds of silver.

Actually, for what it's worth, I never sold any bonds (at least, I don't think so). I sold some CD's, many stocks, and after I became ROP, many options.

Sabs, jeez. Yes, gold is intrinsically worthless, just like paper. However, there are advantages to gold over milk (doesn't spoil) and the other commodities (which can still nonetheless be used, albeit less efficiently in most cases). What is critically important, is it lacks the disadvantages of paper.

[DSMatticus]

@Tzor, the causes of the great depression root in the midst of the roaring 20's, actually. And a lot of the people who traded in U.S. money for gold really were foreign banks, making all those declarations about as useful and effective as, "umm, excuse me, sir, I believe you recently bought some gold from me, and umm... I'd like it back, free of charge?"

You and Doom are establishing that it's a shitty partial gold standard (and partial gold-standards are flat out worse than complete gold standards, which are... pretty bad). This does not establish that it's a fiat economy. There really is a set of criteria for what makes a fiat economy, and it includes not backing up money with any amount of gold. Refusing to hand out the backed up gold does not make it a fiat economy. It only being 40% does not make it a fiat economy. It being 0% gold-backed and refusing to hand out that 0 grams of gold makes it a fiat economy. That is just the flat out definition, and those are the sorts of economies where fiat behavior manifests.

You're comparing rotten apples (partial gold standard) and oranges (fiat economy).

@Maj, if you're wondering, I'm barely old enough to drink. I don't mind Doom lauding 'age' over me because apparently his age hasn't manifested in any particular wisdom, so it hasn't done much for anything but his ego.

I eagerly await the response where he uses this information in lieu of actual arguments of substance.

But back to Doom...

@The Bill

Before I give a shit about the bill, you have to explain why it matters. I have explained, repeatedly, why it doesn't. Prove me wrong. But as it stands, that bills existence does nothing to show that it was a fiat economy, it just shows it's a form of gold-standard you don't like. Which is totally fine, and at the same time totally irrelevant.

No, it was illegal for them to do so. You keep forgetting this, for some reason. Even in the period when it was legal, it was *impossible* for everyone to do so. Those that did so, still ended up turning in their gold anyway because the law obliged them to do so.

It fucking happened through the 1925's to the early 1930's, with the U.S. government gradually passing more and more restrictions on when, how, and who got the gold, until they finally put a complete stop to it by preventing U.S. citizens from holding gold and blocking foreign banks from asking for it. There was a time when the problem existed, and the laws arose in response to that problem, well after the problem had dealt its damage and the downward spiral into the great depression had begun.

There is a window of time where it was legal, possible, and outright happened (and the window is different for when citizens and foreign banks could do it). But those windows existed, and it happened. And they did their damage.

Ah, another error, as step 1 totally is false when you replace words. People actually can vote down taxes. People can even NOT PAY taxes as a form of protest.

We throw people who don't pay taxes in jail or seize their assets. You can 'vote' in people who will stop running the printing presses. You'd be stupid to do so, but you can. You also can't not pay certain taxes, in that they are automatically deducted from your wages before you even see them. Or they are layered automatically on transactions you make by the other party.

Suggesting you have control over your taxes is suggesting you have control over when and how you shoot yourself in the face - sure, you can shoot yourself in the face, but why would you do that to yourself? And by the same token, not paying taxes is similarly self-destructive (unless you have really, really good accountants and lawyers). You're also 'free' to stab people in the face in the sense you're 'free' to not pay taxes. You are always free to break the law, but society doesn't want you to.

When people do pay, they actually know what they're paying

The cost of inflation is totally predictable (as an upper bound) when inflation rates are relatively consistent (and there's pretty much no reputable case where they break 5% very often). This means every year you're paying a 5% tax on all wealth you have that is one year old. Some years, you get tax returns for overpaying (when inflation rate is below 5%). Voila, I have reformulated inflation as a tax, and taxes are okay, so we can stop arguing.

Even if the inflation rate is higher than 5%, what does that mean? Taxes went up. It happens.

The moral of the story - society takes your fucking money, and in exchange you are a part of a stronger society. Demonstrate that the benefits to society from inflation are LESS than the benefits from letting everyone keep their money (which is a fairly demonstrably false claim), or shut up.

I've shown and explained how inflation helps society (spending > saving, it's well-established that manipulating monetary policy eases recessions which is possible in fiat economies, and the data seems to support this).

You've said, "inflation takes my money and that's not fair," and pointed at some failing economies that tried to solve their problems by printing money and hyper-inflating. Both of these are shitty arguments nobody cares about, because they show nothing.

Hell, you could replace "parking tickets" in line 1 and get the same result.

Yes. That's exactly the god damn point. Tons of stupid shit fits in line 1, so the argument is obviously fallacious. But that really was your argument. So your argument is fallacious. Pointing out how ridiculous your own argument is generally considered a bad move.

You are the one who is suggesting, "we should avoid getting shot in the face (inflation), but I don't care about cancer (taxes)." That is YOUR argument. And I totally agree, that's a stupid argument. I'm glad we're on the same page.

Ok, so you didn't move them, you just built multiples. Damn, you split hairs well.

This is totally irrelevant. If I'm scoring over you on multiple goals at the same time, why does that mean I've got a shitty offense?

Or to put it in less insulting and more formal terms, you kept bringing up shitty, irrelevant side issues. "Imagine people living paycheck to paycheck..." "Those people get wiped out by emergencies." "That has nothing to do with inflation, but fine, let's give them a nest egg..." "That nest egg isn't big enough!" "That has nothing to do with inflation, but fine, the nest egg is an arbitrary number, let's make it arbitrarily bigger."

And then I got a real argument out of you - "inflation unfairly hurts wages, and inflation unfairly hurts savings, including the nest eggs." And then I proceeded to show you why you were wrong about each, unless you also think taxes unfairly hurt wages and savings, or you think inflation is the product of a random number generator with huge variability or huge results. And that argument applies at all three goal posts - I just had to keep building new ones because you were, apparently, incapable of the focus necessary to talk about just inflation and not the other shit.

[sabs]

SO, it used to be that US MOney was really a bearer bond for ease of use. A Government guaranteed cashier's check? Okay.. and now it's not.. again.. I fail to see why that matters.

You do understand that a 100% backed gold economy is /completely/ impossible? And it's also basically unwanted. It's actually BAD for the US Economy. There's not enough gold to go around. You'd have to seriously revalue gold. And how do you pay for anything?
Do we just switch to gold coins? That would make a quarter worth over 300 dollars. I know, lets gold plate it! That's awesome.

to represent the GDP with current gold prices:
You would need 300,000 Tons of Gold to represent the US GDP.

You would need 1.2 million Tons to represent the GPD of the world.
At some point, basing your economy on some worthless metal that there isn't enough of just.. becomes pointless.

[Doom]

You do understand that a 100% backed gold economy is /completely/ impossible?...to represent the GDP with current gold prices:

You would need 1.2 million Tons to represent the GPD of the world.
At some point, basing your economy on some worthless metal that there isn't enough of just.. becomes pointless.

Again with this common misconception, and again I point out...it was never a problem in the past 5000 years, at no point in the past did ANY commodity based economy have sufficient of any one commodity to cover entire GDP.

It was never a problem in the past, so it's not a concern, now.

[Ancient History]

This isn't money, it's an agreement to provide money, specifically real money instead of a slip of paper. Yes, of course it could be used like money, no doubt about that. People have been trained to believe paper slips are good money, but it wasn't that long ago that folks knew better.

Okay, I call bullshit.

There is no such thing as "real" money. Money is a concept, it is an idea, it is a completely arbitrary value unrelated to the material used to represent it. Gold is not money, gold is a shiny yellow rock. Paper bills are not money, they are crinkly little pieces of fiber. You can build an economy on any arbitrary substance and it still works. If we were on an island with no gold, we could still have a functioning economy.

The thing about US dollars is that they are legal tender. You have to accept them as payment for debts. They were legal tender before the gold and silver standards, during, and after. Legal tender is what essentially makes US dollars synonymous with money in our society. You try to go buy a frappacino at Starbucks with a gold coin. See how that works out for you. People are no longer set up to operate on a gold-based economy.

And this bullshit about gold-backed monies runs in cycles. In the late 90s and early 00s it was digital metal currencies. They flared briefly and then several of them crashed. Ebay won't even take bids in your grams of e-gold anymore.

[Username17]

This is ridiculous. Practically every fucking country in history that has relied on metal coins has run into economic difficulties because of a shortage of precious metal for coins. Every goddamned one, from the Romans to the English.

And yeah, it's worse than that. Because the amount of credit and barter in the economy changes with respect to events and expectations. If people want more of the literal commodity or commodity-backed currency in their literal hands then the amount of the commodity needed to back the economy goes up even if the economy does not grow.

So if people deal more in stocks, credit, direct trades, and bank transfers, the gold or cacao based currency needs less gold or cacao. If people take their money out of banks and hide it in their sock drawers, the currency needs more. So in the Great Fucking Depression, the banks failed and people took money out of them. And you know what? The amount of gold the economy needed to back things increased. It increased a lot. Because M2 and M3 shrank relative to M1.

So the government needed to get a lot of gold in a hurry. In fact, they needed to get more gold than there really was. In a hurry. They ended up mandating that everyone sell their gold to the government, then they increased the price of gold afterward, and only then let gold go back in as coins at the new price. And why? Because the new (justified) distrust of banks and slower monetary velocity meant that the amount of literal bank notes the government had to back with gold almost doubled for the same GDP.

And that is why commodity backed currency is terribad. In a pure Fiat Currency situation, when the economy needs more bank notes you just fucking print them, and when the economy needs less bank notes you simply incinerate notes you take in as taxes, fees, and government issued "debt" until it doesn't anymore. The biggest impediment to modern economics is people convinced that maintaining some sort of static amount of literal dollars in the economy is even desirable.

-Username17

[Doom]

Fine, let the education continue, I hope these filibusters are keeping you busy.

You and Doom are establishing that it's a shitty partial gold standard

No, it's already been established that it wasn't a gold standard, it was a fraud standard. Neither I nor Tzor can change reality like that.

(and partial gold-standards are flat out worse than complete gold standards, which are... pretty bad).

You keep repeating the mantras you were taught in school. When's the proof coming?

This does not establish that it's a fiat economy. There really is a set of criteria for what makes a fiat economy, and it includes not backing up money with any amount of gold.

Much like the bill you (hopefully by this time) have seen.

Refusing to hand out the backed up gold does not make it a fiat economy.

Yes, we could call it a complete fraud, but, as you yourself said, it was a transition to...what, exactly?

. It being gold-backed

Simply saying it is gold backed doesn't make something gold backed.

You're comparing rotten apples (partial gold standard) and oranges (fiat economy).

You keep saying this sort of garbage. Proof, again?

his age hasn't manifested in any particular wisdom,

I agree from a certain point of view it's foolish to discuss things with people trained as well as you...but I've had considerable success in the past, and you are neither the most foolish nor most abusive that I've eventually gotten through to. So, please, crank up the foolishness and abuse as much as necessary. It really doesn't matter how intellectually dishonest you are, your own posts demonstrate I'm making progress, and that counts.

Before I give a shit about the bill, you have to explain why it matters. I have explained, repeatedly, why it doesn't. Prove me wrong.

I will do so, yet again. Written on the bill is a promise from the government to exchange this slip of paper for actual money. The government fundamentally could not keep its promise. This is what is known as 'fraud' if you or I do it.

it just shows it's a form of gold-standard you don't like.

No, it shows it is fraud, and as this is the basis of the fiat system, that's relevant.

It fucking happened through the 1925's to the early 1930's,

Just because some people break even in a pyramid scheme, does that mean the entire pyramid scheme is legal and valid? (hint: no)

The cost of inflation is totally predictable

Again, you keep saying this, again I point out you are wrong.

(as an upper bound) when inflation rates are relatively consistent (and there's pretty much no reputable case where they break 5% very often).

Trapping inflation/deflation between +/- 5% is crap, these numbers can make a vast difference over time. This is not predictable, this is a bound. Considering that these bounds are not kept, they are not even good bounds.

"no reputable case"...so the 70s are invalid?

Demonstrate that the benefits to society from inflation are LESS than the benefits from letting everyone keep their money (which is a fairly demonstrably false claim), or shut up.

Actually, you're the one who keeps making outrageous claims, and refusing to follow up with proof...think about why this is the case.

"letting everyone keep their money"--herein in is your primary flaw. You do not believe people actually own their money, and instead the kindly, benevolent government only 'lets' them keep their money.

Somehow, in the future, once you have money, I bet your opinion on this will change.

I've shown and explained how inflation helps society

I've shown and proved how it hurts every member of society (destruction < production, life > death...see, I can do this, too).

You've said, "inflation takes my money and that's not fair,"

Inflation takes everyone's money, in an insidious and destructive way.

Yes. That's exactly the god damn point. Tons of stupid shit fits in line 1,

Well, yes, you wrote line 1, thus it is a stupid line. Your definition of theft is fundamentally wrong, theft is not 'taking against will', otherwise paying fines would be considered theft.

Do you consider paying a fine to be theft?

But that really was your argument. So your argument is fallacious. Pointing out how ridiculous your own argument is generally considered a bad move.

Are you writing to yourself here? You constructed the argument; I guess you didn't realize you were strawmanning yourself?

"we should avoid getting shot in the face (inflation), but I don't care about cancer (taxes)." That is YOUR argument.

No, this is what you keep saying. I keep reminding you: just because something else is bad (and YOU are the one who keeps bringing up taxes), in no way addresses a different thing.

Your as bad as Darwinism, with his incessant "4e isn't bad because 3e" lines.

And I totally agree, that's a stupid argument. I'm glad we're on the same page.

So you're finally going to stop making your stupid argument about taxes are bad, so inflation isn't bad? I'd really appreciate it, it really is a stinker.

This is totally irrelevant. If I'm scoring over you on multiple goals at the same time, why does that mean I've got a shitty offense?

And if I'm not scoring on your goals, why do you keep building new ones? Like I said, it's intellectually dishonest for you to deny what your own actions confirm.

. "you kept bringing up shitty, irrelevant side issues. Imagine people living paycheck to paycheck..."

YOU brought up these people, you said there were aloooot of them, even. Are you going to deny this, too? Do you even realize anyone can click back and see you're lying, again, here?

"That has nothing to do with inflation, but fine, let's give them a nest egg..."

YOU brought up this one, too. Your lies are now getting out of control. Do you honestly feel your filibusters will cover up your utter loss of credibility now?

"That nest egg isn't big enough!" "That has nothing to do with inflation, but fine, the nest egg is an arbitrary number, let's make it arbitrarily bigger."

YOU made it bigger by suggesting a higher quality of life. Do you really think your lies are convincing anyone?

And then I got a real argument out of you - "inflation unfairly hurts wages, and inflation unfairly hurts savings, including the nest eggs."

Ahhh, at last some honesty. Since I made that argument, you've said many times that I've said nothing valid. I am getting through. It's a slow, painful process, I admit.

Sir, your credibilily is fundamentally shot, now. Are you sure you haven't had enough?

[Doom]

Okay, I call bullshit.

There is no such thing as "real" money. Money is a concept, it is an idea, it is a completely arbitrary value unrelated to the material used to represent it. Gold is not money, gold is a shiny yellow rock. Paper bills are not money, they are crinkly little pieces of fiber. You can build an economy on any arbitrary substance and it still works. If we were on an island with no gold, we could still have a functioning economy.

I fully respect this opinion.

You have to accept them as payment for debts. They were legal tender before the gold and silver standards, during, and after.

Whoops. No, this was not the case. There's a line on current dollar bills forcing people to 'have to accept' them. There's no such line on the older bills; you didn't have to (and couldn't, not that is was much of a problem) force people to accept them at all.

You try to go buy a frappacino at Starbucks with a gold coin. See how that works out for you.

How much are you willing to bet?

the government needed to get a lot of gold in a hurry. In fact, they needed to get more gold than there really was. In a hurry. They ended up mandating that everyone sell their gold to the government, then they increased the price of gold afterward, and only then let gold go back in as coins at the new price.

What? What government issued gold coins for circulation were put in after it became illegal to own gold?

[sabs]

The United States Supreme Court, with Salmon P. Chase (former Secretary of the Treasury) ruled the practice of legal tender unconstitutional in Hepburn v. Griswold in 1869, but later reversed its ruling within a month when confusion in the markets caused everybody not to accept "Legal Tender" notes at all. The Court held that paper money, even that not backed by specie such as the United States Notes can be legal tender, in the Legal Tender Cases, ranging from 1871 to 1884.

Way before the depression.

Because gold and silver in the open marketplace vary independently, the production of coins of full intrinsic worth under any ratio will nearly always result in the melting of either all silver coins or all gold coins.

Gold Standard is bollocks

[DSMatticus]

No, it shows it is fraud, and as this is the basis of the fiat system, that's relevant.

It took you a lot of time to get to anything that remotely resembled an actual argument (fraud is fiat, if an economy commits fraud it is a fiat economy) - it's a shame it's still so wrong.

Protip: you don't get to decide what the concept of a fiat economy means. If you define 'fiat economy' to include '40% gold standards where you don't get the gold, even though you could a little bit ago,' then you're a moron and you're again, flat-out, objectively wrong.

"State-issued money which is neither legally convertible to any other thing, nor fixed in value in terms of any objective standard." That is a NOR, it is a neither-or, or rather, you must negatively satisfy both of those conditions before you claim something is fiat. You have satisfied ONE criteria - "it was not legally convertible." There is a second criteria - "it is not fixed in value in terms of any objective standard." And while objective standard is somewhat arguable, YOU believe gold is a thing with objective value. So being 40% gold-backed IS being fixed relative to an objective standard. You just don't LIKE that objective standard, and you believe it should be 100% gold-backed. And "not liking the standard" does not imply it doesn't exist.

I really don't care if the Great Depression is a gold-standard, a partial gold-standard, a fraudulent standard, or any of that bullshit, I care what it's not: it wasn't a fiat economy. And that's just simple fucking fact, give up on it already.

You keep repeating the mantras you were taught in school. When's the proof coming?

P.S... The proof is all the arguments I've made you're not refuting.

Just because some people break even in a pyramid scheme, does that mean the entire pyramid scheme is legal and valid? (hint: no)

Wait, what? Are you telling me the people who caused the Great Depression perhaps did something morally questionable? I really don't know what the fuck the point of this is. Do you realize the reason we're talking about the Great Depression is because people doing dollar -> gold conversions hurt the economy and caused it? This is completely god damn irrelevant and off-topic.

Trapping inflation/deflation between +/- 5% is crap, these numbers can make a vast difference over time. This is not predictable, this is a bound. Considering that these bounds are not keep, they are not even good bounds.

I didn't do it at +/-5%, that's why it's called an upper bound. It means it doesn't exceed 5%. We can adjust that to 7%, but we're approaching nut job levels where we should be skeptical of those numbers. With that upper bound in mind, you can formulate your losses with a predictable equation, and then if inflation is lower you make out better.

It's exactly what I said it is (the part of my argument you ignored, because it was probably harder for you to argue with) - inflation can be modelled as a tax on existing assets, that occasionally offers tax returns. Which is exactly how our current tax system is. You pay taxes upfront, if you got overcharged you get more money back.

As for the fact that it adds up over time, agian, literally doesn't fucking matter because for 'investments over time' you have access to investments which exceed the inflation rate. And because it's a tax. Overtime, your income taxes add up to HUGE fucking numbers too, but we don't care because of course over a long time, paying a little bit of money becomes a lot of money. That's just a stupidly obvious assertion. Fortunately, paying little bits of money over long periods of time has been a perfectly viable system for taxation for the past history of... human society. But when we call it 'inflation' instead of 'taxation,' suddenly you decide it's an atrocity against mankind.

Actually, you're the one who keeps making outrageous claims, and refusing to follow up with proof...think about why this is the case.

Again, I've made tons of arguments, and you have magically managed to reply to me without responding to any of them (except the ones you think you can misconstrue and attack).

"letting everyone keep their money"--herein in is your primary flaw. You do not believe people actually own their money, and instead the kindly, benevolent government only 'lets' them keep their money.

We started this whole conversation with you accusing me of putting words in your mouth - I would think you would be more careful about doing the same to me?

1) "People own their money, so it's wrong for inflation to take it."
2) "If it's wrong, we can't have it."
3) "Therefore, we can't have inflation."

Again, I can take this bullshit argument and replace inflation with taxes. Every argument you're making at this point tells us we can have neither inflation nor taxes. Which is basically saying, "organized society is bad."

People own their money, I'm fine with that - and they also have to hand over some of that money to society to keep society flowing smoothly (and in exchange, they get all the awesome benefits society has to offer). Your argument is that society taking your money is bad, and that doesn't let you have inflation or taxes, and that means your argument blows and no one should listen to it (until you have a better argument, which I am seriously fucking waiting on).

I've shown and proved how it hurts every member of society (destruction < production, life > death...see, I can do this, too).

Aaand then I showed you why you were full of shit and wrong, and I'm still waiting on responses. Spending is flat-out better for the economy - I showed the literal mechanism. I even showed how it leads to greater production.

Inflation takes everyone's money, in an insidious and destructive way.

Insidious is a bullshit word. "I don't like it, it's insidious." Show me some objective measure of insidiousness, or a description of insidiousness that inflation uniquely qualifies for. Does inflation have 2.5 insidioms?

Destructive? Again, I'm waiting on you to show this - I pointed out why your attempts to do so have failed, and gave you empirical data.

Well, yes, you wrote line 1, thus it is a stupid line. Your definition of theft is fundamentally wrong, theft is not 'taking against will', otherwise paying fines would be considered theft.

Oh, so society has the right to arbitrarily take things against your will? What a clever observation. Fines are one of those things it can take against your will, then. Society can probably use taxes, too, right? Now. Why can't society use inflation to take your money against your will?

I covered this. This was one of the routes you could go with defending this position - you have yet to establish a meaningful difference between inflation that makes it theft and none of this other shit. So provide an interesting, meaningful definition.

So the appropriate response to "do you consider paying a fine to be theft?" is for me to ask you, "why do you consider fines/taxes not theft, and inflation theft?"

We should ignore 'fines' in this case, because the answer is obvious: "it's punishment." But then you still haven't separated taxes and inflation, and your argument against inflation still works on taxes. So if you really want to make progress with this line of argument, you have to explain why taxes are okay and inflation is bad.

Are you writing to yourself here? You constructed the argument; I guess you didn't realize you were strawmanning yourself?

You do realize that I can restructure your claims in a logical format, and analyze those logically? Formal logic exists, and it can be used to model your position. If you don't like how that argument sounds, that's a shame, because that's literally what you said in an equivalent form. I invited you to REFINE your argument, and I even told you HOW to refine your argument so it no longer meant the bullshit you were spouting.

'Paraphrasing' you is not mispreresenting you if I accurately portray your position. So either point out WHERE my description of your argument is wrong, or refine your argument so it doesn't suck anymore, and then we can continue with intelligent discussion from there. But so far, telling me "I got it wrong," is another claim in a long list of claims you've made and failed to prove.

No, this is what you keep saying. I keep reminding you: just because something else is bad (and YOU are the one who keeps bringing up taxes), in no way addresses a different thing.

I bring them up because your argument applies to both inflation and taxes. If you think the argument is a good one, and you apply it to inflation, it currently also applies to taxes.

1) Inflaton takes money from people unwillfully. (premise 1, YOU said this)
2) Taking money unwillfully should not be allowed. (premise 2, YOU implied this, because you think our economy can't have inflation)
3) Our economy can't have inflation. (by 1 and 2, clear)

This is your original argument. Correct it if you think I got it wrong.

4) Taxes take money from people unwillfully. (premise 3, symmetric with premise 1)
5) Our economy can't have taxes. (by 2 and 3, clear)

That is currently a perfectly valid logical argument. It is mathematically rigorous. And it leaves you with a few options.

A: Tell me how I got your original argument wrong, or change it, and the debate continues around what you write next time.
B: Acknowledge the argument leads to no taxes, and that makes it a bad argument. At which point you'll have to come up with new arguments - like showing how inflation destroys things, or at least refuting the ways I showed inflation helps them.
C: Acknowledge the argument leads to no taxes, and say "I think taxes need to go, too." At which point you're fucking insane, and pretty much everyone should know that.

So you're finally going to stop making your stupid argument about taxes are bad, so inflation isn't bad? I'd really appreciate it, it really is a stinker.

Again, you don't get this. I think taxes are okay, and I think inflation is okay. You think inflation is bad, you provided an argument, and I pointed your argument also clearly states taxes are bad.

So, are taxes bad? If you say 'no,' you are literally contradicting your arguments against inflation. If you say 'no,' and change your argument a bit, we can argue about your new position. If you say 'yes,' you're crazy.

And if I'm not scoring on your goals, why do you keep building new ones?

I explained that. It had to do with your low attention span. Which is probably why I'm having to say it twice. The irony.

YOU brought up these people, you said there were aloooot of them, even. Are you going to deny this, too? Do you even realize anyone can click back and see you're lying, again, here?

Uhh, why would I have to deny anything here? Why are you asking me to deny my good arguments? I brought them up because you claimed inflation hurt everyone, and people living paycheck to paycheck were a trivially easy counterexample to show you you were wrong.

YOU brought up this one, too.

After you brought up emergency expenses, something completely unrelated to inflation.

YOU made it bigger by suggesting a higher quality of life.

Again, I brought it up because it was an easy way to get back on track to the actual effects of inflation. You are notoriously bad at staying on focus and arguing the topic, and I'm patient enough to coach you along (even through all the insults).

Ahhh, at last some honesty. Since I made that argument, you've said many times that I've said nothing valid.

Oh no, you're made a LOT of arguments. Since then and before that. I still assert you've said nothing valid, because they're all pretty god damn bad arguments. You should differentiate on those two.

Are you sure you haven't had enough?

I've certainly had enough of something. But I'm comfortable with anyone reading anything I've posted - nothing you've said has challenged any position I've held. As a matter of fact, you just dedicated the last part of your post to saying, "you've made a lot of arguments about a lot of different cases. I don't like you making more than one good point at once - it's shady." Which is a little... funny. I'm sorry this is such a complex discussion you have trouble handling the branching?

P.S.
We seriously need to reboot and trim this down. And by that, I mean I'd be happy if you restricted your next post to making actual arguments, or responses to my arguments, something you seem remarkably stubborn on doing less and less as this conversation goes on.

[Doom]

Literally, nothing here that constitutes an intelligent response; between the lies, misinformation, and intellectual dishonesty, your confusion is too deep, too intrinsic I daresay, and only time can possibly undo the damage, I'm sorry. I've demonstrated the lies and misinformation and dishonestly more than enough times already, no point in doing so yet again.

You will of course, deny everything, but any casual reading of your posts is sufficient proof.

[Doom]

Because gold and silver in the open marketplace vary independently, the production of coins of full intrinsic worth under any ratio will nearly always result in the melting of either all silver coins or all gold coins.

"Intrinsic worth" is meaningless, as always, things are worth what the market says they are worth.

And how do you explain the existence of all the old coins? Do you know what seignorage is? This assertion is simply not true. I can show you *many* gold and silver coins. How many are necessary to demonstrate you are incorrect?

Gold Standard is bollocks

You want to guess how many states are looking at and/or passing laws making gold and silver coins legal tender?

[Maj]

And that is why commodity backed currency is terribad.

As a basic mental exercise, commodity backed money is awful.

If you happen to have 100 nuggets of commoditanium, and you have 100 people, then you can make enough coins for each person to have a total of 1 nugget of commoditanium. Then your population doubles, so there's now 200 people who use money for daily transactions. If the level of commmoditanium is stable, you only have enough for people to have half a nugget's worth of commoditanium. What then?

And heaven forbid that a second country be mad at our group of 200 people. They could halt trade and hoard the commoditanium supply so there's even less of it in circulation.

It seems to me that in order to maintain any sort of monetary system based on commoditanium, you have to control the number of people who are allowed to take part in the economy (slaves? death?), or devalue your money. But it still costs the equivalent of one nugget of commoditanium to plant your crops, even though with a doubled population each person only has access to half a nugget. Constant devaluing, then, can also lead to inflation - just like printing too much money can lead to inflation. And this actually happened in both Ancient Rome (which collapsed economically) and Song Dynasty China (which solved the problem of copper shortage by developing... paper money!).