Comment by FeepingCreature
4 hours ago
The point of money is not to reward delayed gratification. The point of money is to efficiently tabulate human preferences, and deflation directly counteracts this by introducing potentially unbounded latency at every step. That's why it destroys economies, as it has throughout history.
Can you provide an example of deflation destroying an economy in history? There are many more examples of inflation destroying economies.
The problems with using physical gold as currency are very well known. When population would increase, or when someone would hoard it, it would cause deflation. Likewise, when a new deposit of gold was found, it would cause inflation.
This is, in part, why there were expeditions to find gold.
Wasn't the great crisis in first half of 20th century caused by deflation?
Japan in living memory, I believe? I'm not a history buff. Google should have many examples.
The Japanese economy is not, in any sense, destroyed. It doesn't get the infinite exponential growth unhinged economists want, but life on the ground is stable, wealth inequality is low, cost of living is low, average quality of life is very high. It is the perfect counterexample to the doctrine of chasing line go up.
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Are you kidding me? Have you heard of a tiny event called the Great Depression?
The Japanese Lost Decade?
Greece Debt Crisis?
Those are credit bubbles bursting, not the result of hard money.
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