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Alan Greenspan has died

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Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#91

Post by anthonypasq »

enragedcacti wrote: post #43
brightball wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

39 trillion in debt with no Congressional stomach for... - spending cuts - stopping fraud - figuring out how the net worth of people in Congress increases from hundreds of thousands of dollars to 10s or 100s of millions of dollars - addressing wasteful and ineffective programs Given those issues, the only solution will be inflation. The circling the drain moment will hit with the associated welfare programs get a dir…

> - stopping fraud / - addressing wasteful and ineffective programs Good to know that this will be an evergreen argument despite an extremely well-supported project to do just that taking place in the last two years with nothing to show for itself other than hundreds of thousands of deaths.

> despite an extremely well-supported project to do just that

a weird extremely small executive branch task force with pretty much zero power is not what i would call a well supported project in the context of the trying to reduce spending in the american government.

Congress controls the purse, doge had nothing to do with congress.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#92

Post by mschuster91 »

greenavocado wrote: post #55
throw0101d wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He wrote about how the gold standard created responsible spending and more equality in the world: The Gilded Age, which had quite high levels of inequality, occurred when the gold standard was active: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age It should also be noted that the gold standard did not bring any kind of price stability: * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch... Further, sticking…

The Great Depression was caused by France panic hoarding gold https://www.nber.org/papers/w16350 Semi-ironically France was the reason the US fell off the dollar standard after it panic hoarded gold AGAIN when the French government made one last, massive purchase of gold from the US using US dollars, paying $35/oz. A French warship arrived in New York in early August 1971 to load the gold and bring it back to France.…

> All in all France managed to deal massive blows to the US economy covertly TWICE within the same century.

And now it seems to be the US' turn in returning the favor. First 2007ff (caused by irresponsible actors in the financial world), then the lackluster response to Covid and Russia's invasion against Ukraine, and now we're set to look at the AI bubble collapsing, a bubble much much larger than Lehman Brothers ever was.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#93

Post by throw0101d »

Noaidi wrote: post #57
throw0101d wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He wrote about how the gold standard created responsible spending and more equality in the world: The Gilded Age, which had quite high levels of inequality, occurred when the gold standard was active: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age It should also be noted that the gold standard did not bring any kind of price stability: * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch... Further, sticking…

The separation of wealth during the Gilded age was caused by the same thing it is caused by today: rapid industrialization. This rapid industrialization began when the US was off the gold standard during the civil war. The 1920's gilded age was fueled by fiat money, the greenback. The great depression was triggered in part by imbalanced gold flows when we returned to gold back currencies. https://explaininghistory.or…

> The separation of wealth during the Gilded age was caused by the same thing it is caused by today: rapid industrialization.

What "rapid industrialization" is happening today?

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#94

Post by Spooky23 »

Noaidi wrote: post #69
throw0101d wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gilded Age was the 1870-1900, the gold standard was from 1870-1920s. Gold did not help stop inequality, and many progressive elements rallied against it when it was in effect: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Gold_speech > A comparison of 35 years against 4? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moderation Panics and economic downturns during the Gold Standard period were much more frequency. The term "Gr…

> the gold standard was from 1870-1920s. The U.S. officially left the gold standard on August 15, 1971. https://blog.swissamerica.com/glossary/gold-standard/ > many progressive elements rallied against it when it was in effect: Bryan wanted a gold and silver standard, not fiat currency. There was also the Greenback-Labor Party who wanted to get off both gold and silver standard. They favored inflation because the gol…

Bryan wanted to solve the same problem that we solve today with central banking and fiat. Basically, the gold standard limited money supply and the interest of the big money interests was to gather all of the wealth. There were no taxes or carrying costs for wealth, so that’s how they won the game.

Farmers and regular people were drowning in debt while the money shortage created a deflationary cycle.

Silver is more plentiful and more volatile - Bryan wanted a fixed 16:1 ratio with gold.

The magic of fiat is that as long as you have working governance, modest inflation and plentiful credit equals prosperity.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#95

Post by Noaidi »

throw0101d wrote: post #93
Noaidi wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The separation of wealth during the Gilded age was caused by the same thing it is caused by today: rapid industrialization. This rapid industrialization began when the US was off the gold standard during the civil war. The 1920's gilded age was fueled by fiat money, the greenback. The great depression was triggered in part by imbalanced gold flows when we returned to gold back currencies. https://explaininghistory.or…

> The separation of wealth during the Gilded age was caused by the same thing it is caused by today: rapid industrialization. What "rapid industrialization" is happening today?

Have you lived through the late 90s big tech boom or the current AI boom?

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#96

Post by skywhopper »

bko wrote: post #39
bhouston wrote: post #5

I'm not a gold bug but Alan was a proponent of the gold standard. He wrote about how the gold standard created responsible spending and more equality in the world: https://ritholtz.com/2008/11/gold-and-economic-freedom-by-al... The world we are in now, especially in the US, is one where there is near unlimited government credit but it is, according to many, papering over deep structural problems. At some point, these…

I have come around to gold. Money shouldn't be dual purposes, we should apply single responsibility principal. Money should refer to some stable (albeit slightly growing by nature) account of measure. Prices should get cheaper. That's a progress dividend. We get better at growing food every year, why shouldn't food get cheaper? Imagine a world in which prices regularly go down. You're a passive beneficiary of technol…

If prices get cheaper all the time, there would be no way for anyone to ever borrow money. Tech products like phones used to get cheaper because 1) they start out at a wild markup; 2) they have intense competition by rivals to build the latest and greatest; 3) the ability to make things faster/smaller continued to increase. Those factors are non-existent for most industries, and they are reducing in effect for tech products over time.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#97

Post by Noaidi »

rawgabbit wrote: post #87
Noaidi wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The separation of wealth during the Gilded age was caused by the same thing it is caused by today: rapid industrialization. This rapid industrialization began when the US was off the gold standard during the civil war. The 1920's gilded age was fueled by fiat money, the greenback. The great depression was triggered in part by imbalanced gold flows when we returned to gold back currencies. https://explaininghistory.or…

From your linked article. ” The Wall Street Crash of October 1929 precipitated a U.S. recession, but it was the gold standard that converted this into a worldwide depression. With currencies locked to gold, there was little scope to ease monetary conditions. When the U.S. economy slumped, its import demand plummeted and it exported deflation to the rest of the world. Gold-standard countries could not respond by cutti…

It didn’t start with gold standard. It started with the issuance of greenbacks during the Civil War. If they never issued greenbacks during the Civil War, there would not have been an issue with going back on the gold standard.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#98

Post by 4er_transform »

throw0101d wrote: post #90
BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Gilded Age, which had quite high levels of inequality, occurred when the gold standard was active I've got some news for you about modern levels of inequality.

I am aware of today's inequality (e.g., I read Piketty back when he was making a splash). But the critique is that Greenspan argued gold standard = less inequality and that fails on the historical record. If we want to talk about the causes of the 'New Gilded Age' that's something else. As a general starting point I'd begin with: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan…

Gold Standard is probably a force that acts against inequality but the forces pushing inequality today are just much stronger. Technology that creates winner take all markets and incredible leverage with few people being one.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#99

Post by throw0101d »

Noaidi wrote: post #95
throw0101d wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The separation of wealth during the Gilded age was caused by the same thing it is caused by today: rapid industrialization. What "rapid industrialization" is happening today?

Have you lived through the late 90s big tech boom or the current AI boom?

> Have you lived through the late 90s big tech boom or the current AI boom?

Inequality (at least in the US) started growing in the 1980s, after Reagan got elected. For causes I'd start with these:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#100

Post by rawgabbit »

greenavocado wrote: post #55
throw0101d wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He wrote about how the gold standard created responsible spending and more equality in the world: The Gilded Age, which had quite high levels of inequality, occurred when the gold standard was active: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age It should also be noted that the gold standard did not bring any kind of price stability: * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch... Further, sticking…

The Great Depression was caused by France panic hoarding gold https://www.nber.org/papers/w16350 Semi-ironically France was the reason the US fell off the dollar standard after it panic hoarded gold AGAIN when the French government made one last, massive purchase of gold from the US using US dollars, paying $35/oz. A French warship arrived in New York in early August 1971 to load the gold and bring it back to France.…

Sorry no. France was a wreck of itself after WWI having lost an entire generation of its young men. Germany was even worse off. The US was the economic engine of the world after WWI. Despite the fact the US regulatory institutions was in its infancy. The FED at that time had no teeth. It was only after FDR became president and the continuous bank runs that the FDIC and Glass Steagall (which has been repealed) and modern banking regulations were put in effect. When the US stock market bubble popped and plunged the US into depression, it was the hard money policies such as the Smoot Hawley tariffs and Hoover’s economic hands off policies that made everything worse.
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