Re:JPMorgan Chase Bank Assumes All the Deposits of First Rep...
by qwytw on Monday May 01, 2023 @05:50AM
(#35770770)
They weren't even exactly stable if you look at data between 1800 and the 1930s , though:
https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1800?amount=1#:~:t....
or even in the 18th century:
https://www.in2013dollars.com/UK-inflation
The counter-swings just created an illusion of longterm stability. But it definitely didn't feel that way for people living on the ground (of course a lot of that is down to unstable food supply and not just the monetary system. Not that it was avoidable, you can't really have a fiat currency without a stable and somewhat reliable government anyway).
We spent millennia with examples of stable, metal currencies and bank failures. Then, like now, bankers chased risks. First Republic financed long-term Treasuries. Romans financed eastern fineries [1]. Many others blew capital on kings’ failed wars.
Booms and busts are inherent to money and credit, this is a foundational learning every industrialised non-Malthusian society learned fast and, in many cases, including our own, the hard way.
[1] https://epicenter.wcfia.harvard.edu/blog/financial-crisis-th...