Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alan Greenspan has died

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 274 posts

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#141

Post by boppo1 »

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 always wondered how someone who wrote that could go on to chair the fed with LIRP policies that fueled crazy asset bubbles.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#142

Post by red-iron-pine »

4er_transform wrote: post #98
throw0101d wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> probably

bro your argument hinges on "probably" and then completely ignores it

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#143

Post by aunty_helen »

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…

There’s no roosting. It’s frog boiling. Every day your money loses value.

That’s why stocks go up, spending goes up and the asset class gets richer. When you peg these to an arbitrary “value” you can see, companies aren’t getting trillions of dollars more efficient, the government isn’t delivering more services and the utility of a business or property hasn’t increased.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#145

Post by onraglanroad »

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…

Have you ever read Bertrand Russell's critique of the gold standard in his essay The Modern Midas? It's in the collection "In Praise of Idleness".

It's worth reading all of them, even if you disagree with most of it.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#146

Post by thakoppno »

kzrdude wrote: post #45

Greenspan was also the subject in the weird comics "h4x0r economist"/"haxor economist", which thankfully still live on since its early internet days https://www.rdwarf.com/users/kioh/ (NSFW language)

Chaos theory and all but my career in tech doesn’t happen without haxor economist. My Econ major collided with it somehow and a year later ended up with a CS degree.

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#147

Post by OnlyANeurosci »

up2isomorphism wrote: post #135
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…

It depends on how inequalities is defined. But from the wealth distribution point of view, today’s wealth distribution skews much more towards the top. Although the lowest living standards improve thanks to the technology advancement.

Ah the classic "you have a fridge, king louie didn't have a fridge therefore in the scope of ALL of human existence you are obscenely wealthy" trope.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-nation/fox-cites-ownership-...

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#148

Post by toomuchtodo »

brightball wrote: post #138
toomuchtodo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-of-the-federal-budget... > The US government spent $6.2 trillion in total in 2023, with $1.7 trillion on discretionary spending, $3.8 trillion on mandatory spending, and $659 billion on net interest. Discretionary spending includes funding for defense, education, transportation, and scientific research. Approximately half of federal discretionary spending is allocated to defense…

Per the link you provided https://usafacts.org/government-spending/ 2024 - $6.8 trillion in spending $1.3 trillion Defense, $323 billion of which is veteran support (pensions, retirement, medicare, etc). Discretionary spending is a misnomer that assumes all of the other spending levels just have to be maintained as is, are without fraud, run efficiently and impossible to reform. Cut 20% across the board from every ag…

> Discretionary spending is a misnomer that assumes all of the other spending levels just have to be maintained as is, are without fraud, run efficiently and impossible to reform.

We disagree on the fundamental problem, and I believe your solution is wildly irresponsible to "just keep cutting 20%." You say fraud; prove the fraud. DOGE couldn't find any, so "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Fraud has a very clear definition versus "spending I do not like or approve of."

The $21.7 Billion Blunder: New PSI Report Reveals Billions in Taxpayer Dollars Squandered by DOGE - https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/07/... - July 21st, 2025 (Report [pdf]: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025-07-31-M...)

The reality of DOGE's mediocre savings - https://fordschool.umich.edu/news/2025/reality-doges-mediocr... - February 25th, 2025

DOGE and “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse” - https://www.cato.org/blog/doge-waste-fraud-abuse - February 20th, 2025

> "Wealthy people" didn't cause the US government to spend an extra $3.5 trillion a year over a decade ago and this idea of raising taxes more on those people wouldn't even begin to address the spending problem.

I mean, this is the government they created over decades, including influencing elections through dark money spending, and they have all the wealth. Tax cuts for the wealthy are a material component of the debt the US carries today. Where else would we get it from? More tax and spending cuts? This is very unlikely, feel free to confirm with an NGO like USAFacts or Brookings on the topic.

How four decades of tax cuts fueled inequality - https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/t... - November 29th, 2022

Popular support is very high for taxing the wealthy more, ~80% as of this comment in some cases.

Most Americans continue to favor raising taxes on corporations, higher-income households - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/19/most-amer... - March 19th, 2025

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#149

Post by OnlyANeurosci »

jimbokun wrote: post #102
b40d-48b2-979e wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also oversaw the economy for twenty years before one of the worst recessions in the world. He helped set the stage for multiple disasters with his policies, so I'd take his opinions with a grain of salt.

By the same standard shouldn’t he also get credit for those 20 years of prosperity?

"He burned the house down, but for a while we were VERY warm and it was good."

You don't credit an arsonist with "keeping a homeless person warm" when they set a homeless person on fire...

Re: Alan Greenspan has died

#150

Post by OnlyANeurosci »

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…

> I have come around to gold. Money shouldn't be dual purposes, we should apply single responsibility principal.

Gimme all the gold contacts in all of your electronics please, we shouldn't be using gold for those I guess....

Post reply on HN