 With regard your assertion that in a deflationary collapse, "nobody will accept this funny money," nothing could be further from the truth. Never in the entire history of the world has deflation led to the currency becoming worthless. Quite the opposite is actually the case. The currency appreciates in value. We need only look at what has taken place in Japan since 1990. Back then it took about 160 yen to purchase a single dollar. Today that figure is under 100. In deflation, asset values take a beating (the Nikkei 225 dropping from 40,000 to a third of that today) meaning that it costs considerably less to purchase goods and services. Currencies only become worthless with the loss of confidence that hyperinflation brings.
In America, there was never a vote to remove the nation from the gold standard. Nixon, with input from his Fed chairman, Burns, did it unilaterally.
There cannot be a massive devaluation of the dollar. That could only be accomplished if the dollar were actually linked to something tangible. As it is not, floating against other currencies over which it has no control, such an event could only take place with the full cooperation of other nations with fully convertible currencies. That possibility is so very remote, especially in the midst of the competitive currency war that they are currently engaged in, we need not trouble ourselves trying to put a number on its likelihood.
Like yourself, i too have long believed that the nationalization of pension funds is where things are headed. Government would seem to have little in the way of other viable options. Such a move would allow for the Fed to not only taper QE, but end it entirely. It would also forestall a government default by several decades, perhaps longer. Avoiding default is, above all else, the goal of all governments, for they know that default leads to the end of their time in office (not always the case with monarchs or dictators) and in extreme cases, the guillotine....The U.S. has long been attempting to devalue the dollar with limited and only temporary successes. We need only look at how well they have done against the yen or Euro to see just how powerless they are in this respect. There really is no mechanism which exists that will allow for them to devalue the dollar in a significant and lasting manner. Well, i actually misspoke. There is one avenue open to them, but one they would not willingly take and that would be to accept reality and default on their obligations. That would certainly lead to the few months of chaos you said would come from (the impossible to achieve) devaluation. But it would also lead directly to membership in the third world, as Willie likes to put it and would certainly lead to an end of all talk of American exceptionalism. (That term was initially coined by Stalin and he did not mean for it to be taken as a compliment.)
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On another page when we were discussing what makes for the best representation of money, you came up with two valid criticisms of points I was making. The first had to do with the planet discovered by scientists at Yale. You were quite correct to point out that no proof exists for my saying that the planet is a giant diamond. Indeed, I went even further than the scientists, who only claimed that as much as 60% of the planet might be composed of diamonds. And you were also quite correct to point out some of the flaws (there were more) with my suggestion that a 3 trillion ton asteroid composed of gold might be discovered by one of the recently formed asteroid mining companies. By engaging in such hyperbole, my intention was not to be taken literally, merely to add emphasis to the folly of basing ones' currency on a commodity whose value is subject to wild market fluctuations.....There was one criticism you made that i cannot agree with. You claimed that QM is not science, but philosophy. Such a statement ignores not only that in every single experiment that has put the theory to the test, not even once did the theory fail; it also entirely glossed over the many new discoveries that QM predicted. That the universe functions as it does may seem counterintuitive, but that does not change the reality. As for a philosophy of QM, insofar as there is one, most would say that would be the Copenhagen Interpretation, which actually says very little. Myself, i like what John Cramer has attempted with his transactional analysis approach to the subject.
 Commented 3950 days ago |
