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The gold standard disincentivizes consumption, and incentivizes savings. Plain and simple. Of course corporations love consumerism, and that's what the central
by blased 2y ago
The gold standard disincentivizes consumption, and incentivizes savings. Plain and simple. Of course corporations love consumerism, and that's what the central bank fiat regime has enabled: wanton consumption and dwindling away the wealth of society.
If you're wondering why everything in society outside of technology is getting worse and being replaced with cheap substitutes, you need to look at the money itself.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> gold standard disincentivizes consumption, and incentivizes savings. Plain and simple Read Walter Bagehot's Lombard Street, published in 1873 [1]. It's the treatise by arguably the world's first modern central banker. What makes it neat is it's entirely on the gold standard. Britain, on the gold standard, still faced each of inflation, bank runs and credit crises. It was an imperial military power almost constantly at war. And yes, its contemporaries lamented its industrial consumerism and rising inequality. (And that's Victorian Britain, mind you!) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_Street:_A_Description_of_the_Money_Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_Street:_A_Description_...
- blased 2y agoThanks I came across Walter Bagehot in the book Price of Time which looks at interest rates and money throughout history. It turns out that interest rates are still manipulated by banks and governments whether it's gold or something else. The difference is that at least under gold there's constraints and a price to be paid for debasing.