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Re:Bitcoin rises by jacoblyles on Tuesday March 19, 2013 @06:42PM (#5404116)
Can you make loans denominated in gold? I think you can. The volatility of bitcoin will settle down eventually. It's essentially the 19th century international gold standard for the 21st century.
Re:Bitcoin rises by Eliezer on Tuesday March 19, 2013 @11:25PM (#5405426)
> Can you make loans denominated in gold? I think you can.

Nobody does. Now why is that?

Friedman understood perfectly well that failure to increase the money supply in response to decreasing velocity was responsible for the Great Depression. He's sort of famous for that part, if I understand economic history correctly, it's why Bernanke apologized to Friedman's memory on behalf of the Fed. It seems odd to call them 'Friedman coins' when they depreciate automatically, but don't adjust to velocity and especially to changes in fractional reserve lending.

Re:Bitcoin rises by jacoblyles on Wednesday March 20, 2013 @12:41AM (#5405690)
>Nobody does. Now why is that?

Probably executive order 6102 in 1933. By the time the government allowed private ownership of monetary gold again, it had fallen out of use as currency.

Re:Bitcoin rises by yxhuvud on Wednesday March 20, 2013 @02:47AM (#5405947)
The world is a lot bigger than the scope of executive orders.