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Re:Bitcoin ‘Ought to Be Outlawed,’ Nobel Prize Winner Stigli... by WalterBright on Wednesday November 29, 2017 @09:25PM (#15812958)
The US economy expanded from subsistence farming in 1800 to superpower in 1914 conclusively shows that fiat money is not a requirement for that.

What fiat money is good for is so the government can spend whatever it wants to without needing to tax it or balance its books. Fiat money makes financing of wars possible, for example.

The notion that fiat money makes for stable financial markets is obviously false, although it is persistent.

Re:Bitcoin ‘Ought to Be Outlawed,’ Nobel Prize Winner Stigli... by maoistinquisitr on Thursday November 30, 2017 @12:51AM (#15813775)
The US economy expanded from subsistence farming to superpower mostly because of high quality coal and oil reserves, an excellent river transport network, and excellent topsoil. Ideas about monetary policy don't figure. Might as well wonder about the monetary policies of the Mongols.
Re:Bitcoin ‘Ought to Be Outlawed,’ Nobel Prize Winner Stigli... by WalterBright on Thursday November 30, 2017 @01:37AM (#15813900)
The rivers weren't remotely good enough, which is why the Erie Canal was dug. For the first 70 years, commerce east to west had to go around the horn of S. America, and the economy still boomed.

The explosion of the railroad system solved those problems, but that was around 1870.

Massive oil, gas and coal reserves are hardly unique to America. Oil, for example, has made Saudi Arabia very wealthy, but not an economic powerhouse.

Re:Bitcoin ‘Ought to Be Outlawed,’ Nobel Prize Winner Stigli... by maoistinquisitr on Thursday November 30, 2017 @02:08AM (#15813976)
The canals and rails are the expected endogenous result of a unified european or east asian people blessed with such land, after being formed by a thousand years of scarcity and warfare. It's not a monetary policy or tax thing.

These people just don't get that civilization is energy flows and culture, not laissez-faire economic policies.

Re:Bitcoin ‘Ought to Be Outlawed,’ Nobel Prize Winner Stigli... by WalterBright on Thursday November 30, 2017 @03:52AM (#15814333)
Why didn't it happen in S. America, Central America, Africa, etc.? The only consistent pattern distinguishing prosperity from poverty is free markets.

Anyhow, my point was fiat money was not a necessary condition for such prosperity.