Once it has been hijacked it never returns to it’s original course.
[quote=SingleSpeak]Once it has been hijacked it never returns to it’s original course.
[/quote]
A thread is like an airplane: it has to keep moving forward or it stalls, then crashes.
Great discussion, John and Chris! Thanks for taking the time to do it. There’s something about an interactiv conversation that illicits a whole different flavor of information than a more formal article. I really appreciate the peeks into personal opinions and perspectives, I guess! Anyhow, I value that, and am glad for the venue!
Adam, thanks for helping to elevate the quality of material on the site with all that you do.
Also, thanks to Adam or whoever takes the lead on providing transcripts for the poscasts. Those are great for me; i can print them off and read them whenever I get a chance. I like hearing the actual converations, but being able to print them out and read them here and there when I get time is a great option.
Glad to hear the newer content like the podcasts (and accompanying transcripts) is valuable to you. Our dancecard for future interviews is already getting quite long, so there are many more to come.
A reminder to all that it’s always useful to hear specific names from you of thinkers you’d like to hear us interview. You can PM me anytime with your preferences. I’ll do my best to arrange them, though note that some popular requests (like Bernanke) take longer to land than others 
Rob Hopkins, Stoneleigh, Karl Denninger, James Turk, Jeff Rubin, Gail the actuary (I forget her real name!).
Strategic suggestions - the obvious thing is to question the guest in his/her area of expertise, but it’s sometimes interesting to
ask a few questions that take the guest away from their speciality… but towards the connected 3E understanding.
If they tend to think globally, ask them about individual responses, if they focus on economics, ask about energy… etc…
Hi Doug, thanks for responding.
I agree that fiat money has a very poor track record, but I don't think it's a lack of intrinsic value that leads to the massive printing, but a lack of discipline. It's easier and cheaper for bankers and politicians to print,, quantitatively ease, stimulate, and borrow new money into existence than it is to tax or borrow the money that already exists. Because some don't understand or just prefer to deny the consequences of expanding the money supply, and the temptation to simply print paper money is so hard for some to resist, I would agree that gold and silver are a much more reliable form of money. I just don't think that gold and/or silver serve as a perfect form of money because more gold and silver can be mined and introduced into the money supply--fortunately not at the same rate that paper money can be printed.I would disagree with this part of your definition. It certainly fits frn’s and other fiats, but they have a very poor history of longevity. In fact, it is their very lack of value that leads to massive printing which, in turn, leads to massive devaluation. By contrast, gold and silver have value quite apart from their thousands of years of history as money.
Money should possess three characteristics. The first is that it should be a store of value. Historically, gold and silver filled this role perfectly because they were rare, took a lot of human energy to mine, and did not corrode or rust. By contrast, the US dollar pretty much constantly loses value over time – a feature which punishes savers and enforces the need to speculate and/or invest. A second feature is that money needs to be accepted as a medium of exchange, meaning that it is widely accepted within a population as an intermediary within and across all economic transactions. And the third feature is that money needs to be a unit of account, meaning that the money must be divisible and each unit must be equivalent.I concur. The reason "the US dollar pretty much constantly loses value over time" isn't because they're made of paper, but because new dollars have consistently been added to the money supply. On the other hand, if dollars were to be removed from circulation and destroyed then the remaining dollars would gain in value (purchasing power).
And, of course, frn's/fiat fail your own test: [quote]Aristotle is attributed with claiming that money must be durable, portable, divisible, and have intrinsic value. I think he left out the most important attribute of money--scarcity.[/quote] As long as currency can be printed at will or created as digital entries, it will be. There is no control as long as there are Greenspans and Bernankes who have the control.I don't agree with Aristotle's belief that money must have intrinsic value. I think money should be able to measure value. It's the goods and services that have value, not the gold or paper or whatever it is that's being used as money. Gold and silver have historically been able to more accurately measure the value of goods and services because of their relative scarcity compared to other forms of money. It's not just that what passes as money today can be easily created, but it's also legal tender laws that prevent us as citizens from abandoning the frn's. If each of us were free to choose individually what we are willing to accept as money, then those that control its supply would be less inclined to debase it.
[quote]Personally, I don't want a monetary system that benefits me at someone else's expense. I would rather have a system that is completely fair and impartial to both producers and consumers, both savers and spenders, and both lenders and borrowers.[/quote] Very idealistic. I'm afraid I'm cynical enough to believe that as long as there is money there will be people willing to lie, cheat and steal to relieve us of ours.Yes, admittedly so. Don't get me wrong. I prefer gold and silver over all of the other currently existing options. It's just that they have their drawbacks as well. One being that the supply of gold and silver can be expanded. This issue was brought up earlier today by Kevin Brekke: http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/reality-bites-crude-oil?active-tab=archives Other drawbacks to using gold and/or silver as money are the security and storage requirements/costs. As far as I'm concerned gold and silver are and have been the best forms of money currently and historically available, I'm just hoping that we will be able to come up with something even better in my lifetime. Thanks again for welcoming me and I look forward to participating in future discussions. Kevin
. " If each of us were free to choose individually what we are willing to accept as money, then those that control its supply would be less inclined to debase it."
You already are. You can tender anything you wish, you can accept anything you wish.
Legal tender simply means you must accept FRN’s as repayment for any DEBT. They are debt cancellation notes…
If your friend owes you $50, you must accept FRN’s as repayment of that debt. You don’t have to accept them as value for value… you don’t have to accept them for your apples, you can demand silver, or cheese or anything you wish.
The FRN is an antiparticle… it cancels out the positive debts incurred in it’s creation, but not the interest.
To do that, the FED would have to issue new FRN’s to buy zero interest debt, which it’s showing a remarkable talent for.
The government on the other hand, can create debt ex-nihilo, they can arbitrarily demand a certain number of FRN’s in property taxes, without creating the means to pay… in doing so they increase the demand for FRN’s, without increasing supply.
Excellent interview and podcast! I finally got around to listening to it, and immediately forwarded it to others. Thank you for keeping up the great work, Chris, Adam, et al!
Great to see you back here.
I read through this thinking that the argument presented actually showed that the US is exporting inflation. So what is the disagreement? Then I realized this is about who’s fault is it. Is it the US or the other countries that don’t adjust their own currencies appropriately. Well, it still seems the US triggers the inflation. Without this, the other countries would not be put in this predicament. This has got to tick off each other country. From their perspective, its the loose US policy that is the problem.