I'm a proponent of the Gold Standard because inflation is a hidden tax. Worse, it is a regressive tax on the poor. There is a cost to having 6 fleets of aircraft carriers, 20 years of endless war and a huge unfunded pension liability. If we decided to pay for our promises in an honest way - it would equal 10% of our GDP for 75 years. Gold is honest money. Fiat currency is not.
WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
171–180 of 477 posts
Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
#172The author obviously wants you to believe that it was the abandonment of the gold standard, but there are several other theories that have more credence with mainstream economists. The early 70's was the start of a horrible period of stagflation: stagnation coupled with inflation. Some do blame the loss of the gold standard, but the leading theory is the OPEC oil crisis. Others blame market regulations, the EPA was p…
I don't buy this because we could have easily kept on building nuclear power plants. There was temporarily an energy shock, but the long-term issue is insufficient demand not (energy) supply.
Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
#173Interview with the website creators:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8QhCW7_DZE
From
https://www.peakprosperity.com/1971-the-year-that-changed-ev...
Edit: my commiserations to the person(s) having a miserable enough day they needed to downvote a contextual video link...
Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
#174This is clearly because 1970 is the Unix epoch when this version of the simulation began. It took about a year for things to get sufficiently out of whack so that stuff started to diverge in a noticeable way. I hope our implementors are proud of me for making reference to the simulation that we're all in.
That would be the revised simulation history, the original did actually diverge in 1971.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11573024/when-was-unix-e...
Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not true: https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/house-joint-res...
That's after it was amended. The original proposal did have a 3/5ths majority requirement: https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/house-joint-res...
Fair enough. I know they're just words on paper with escalating levels of authority, and at the end of the day we get the government/money we want/deserve.
I personally benefited some $2000/year from the Trump tax cuts that I know my children will have to repay some day at punitive rates, but apparently that's what my fellow citizens want. Without a cultural change, founded on a spiritual change, why should we expect our government, finances, or money to change? I love Hayek but I disagree with that quote at the bottom of the site. A "poison pill" is no solution to our problems.
Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
#176This is clearly because 1970 is the Unix epoch when this version of the simulation began. It took about a year for things to get sufficiently out of whack so that stuff started to diverge in a noticeable way. I hope our implementors are proud of me for making reference to the simulation that we're all in.
A coworker and I were recently indulging in dark humor about pandemics being due to load shedding required on account of unexpected simulator platform downtime.
Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
#177The author obviously wants you to believe that it was the abandonment of the gold standard, but there are several other theories that have more credence with mainstream economists. The early 70's was the start of a horrible period of stagflation: stagnation coupled with inflation. Some do blame the loss of the gold standard, but the leading theory is the OPEC oil crisis. Others blame market regulations, the EPA was p…
Peter Thiel (who I don't agree with on everything) had a really great take on this once (can't find it at the moment), and basically laid out a strong case on how we haven't really recovered from the oil shocks of the 1970s.
I do think that the early 1970s was the culmination of a bunch of different cultural, political, economic, and social trends meeting together and creating a very different global consensus.
BTW, the Gold Standard was already out the window with original Bretton Woods. Only certain actors (governments and certain NGOs) were allowed to redeem money for Gold. Gradually lots of caveats and weird rules were added to the system because of various structural inefficiencies. The oil shocks just toppled the system, but the financial system of the world was already untenable.
Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
#178Wait, why does only male income stagnate but female income keeps tracking GDP? Was it women entering the workforce en masse that devalued work?
Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
#179The inflection point in most of these charts happen after 1971, many closer to 1980.
Looking at economic graphs is hard because it’s laggy. The problems that lead to 2008 were a gradual accumulation through the preceding 10-20 years.
If "it's laggy" is a valid explanation, then literally any economic change since 1971 can be used to "support" the OP's theory.
Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)
#180Love the charts, then scroll to the bottom and "oh, Bitcoin". Sorry but there are other ways. Did you know that the Balanced Budget Amendment (proposal) failed by a single vote in 1995?
Yes, we narrowly averted disaster. Did you know that amendment required a supermajority to raise taxes?
At this point I kind of wish a supermajority was required for every vote. Then neither party could control legislating over the objections of the other. This trading back and forth every so often thing doesn’t seem to be working great.