Comment by constantcrying
3 years ago
>It makes me question why we allow government to be in charge of our money
This isn't true. Private currencies exist(ed) and are afaik still legal.
The reason we put governments in charge of our money is that up until about a decade ago it was either the government or a corporation as a decentralizes currency was not really implementable. Do you want to get paid in amazon coins only redeemable on amazon? No, you do not.
>interest rate meddling by govt contractor federalreserve
You need to do that. Any currency needs some mechanism to control issuing. If not the government who else could do that?
> This isn't true. Private currencies exist(ed) and are afaik still legal.
For most of my life, those were ancient history or theoretical. Then in 2009, something changed.
And ever since then, I've seen nothing less than the most zealous propaganda campaign to undermine those... it's bizarre to watch it unfold. I keep side-eyeing everyone, wondering if I'm the only one that sees it. Sure, it doesn't help that the cryptocurrency people are whackjobs that might have screwed it all up without any outside help. But I guess they couldn't trusted to do that, so the help was provided.
Saying that it's "legal" doesn't change the fact that if someone were to come up with a private currency, gigantic forces, government and not, would be arrayed against them to put an end to it.
> Any currency needs some mechanism to control issuing. If not the government who else could do that?
I think the implication here is: who could be trusted to do it in a way that doesn't favor some at the expense of others?
>Saying that it's "legal" doesn't change the fact that if someone were to come up with a private currency, gigantic forces, government and not, would be arrayed against them to put an end to it.
Thousands of private currencies exist right now.
Nobody would care about your currency, since it is useless, and as such worthless. A centralized currency is an enormous social asset. Nobody wants private currencies.
>who could be trusted to do it in a way that doesn't favor some at the expense of others?
Just try to imagine a currency controlled by amazon. Do you think they won't do some hyperinflation making you poor once a decade?
The controller of a currency has enormous power. If the government can't handle it nobody can.
> Just try to imagine a currency controlled by amazon. Do you think they won't do some hyperinflation making you poor once a decade?
Do you think that the US government and the fed don't do this? You don't see it, of course, because they also report the numbers you use to decide if there is inflation.
And who says that it has to be controlled at all, in the sense that some singular entity controls it, rather than an algorithm?
> The controller of a currency has enormous power.
Yeh, and it's no less a problem when it's the government rather than Amazon.
> If the government can't handle it nobody can.
That's always been my point.
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