The Bitcoin Standard – a critical review
coppolacomment.com
coppolacomment.com
The same things happened when the world used gold and silver.
Fractional Reserve Banking is less than 100 years old. We didnt have fluctuating interest rates among the working class.
When the world used gold and silver you would have trade deficits causing economic troubles.
These are vastly different problems, still problems though.
Fractional reserve banking is centuries old, and originally involved deposits of gold and silver (first at goldsmiths, but as early as the 1660s at banks). Europe's first bank run happened in 1664, when people tried to redeem bank notes for the underlying reserves.
> We didnt have fluctuating interest rates among the working class
Interest rates fluctuated, and the working class were deeply exposed to the impacts.
> When the world used gold and silver you would have trade deficits causing economic troubles.
Global financial crises were routine during the era of metal-backed currencies and did not only (or mainly) relate to trade deficits. See, eg, the panics of 1819, 1825, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1866, 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, and 1896. (And that's just focusing on US and UK history during the 19th century; the list could be much longer!)
> These are vastly different problems
Citation very much needed.
Surprising: Bitcoin part is largely left uncriticized.
I would say the author of this article is clearly biased against the Austrian view that make Bitcoin attractive to the libertarian types so the criticism is largely unsurprising.
What we do see is that the author of the critique and the author of the book can't be both right, especially about history. The success of Bitcoin does seem to favor the Austrian interpretation, though I'm sure many will disagree. Whatever the case, the experiment that is Bitcoin will continue and give us more data to make the case ourselves.
When an Austrian economics fan says "Keynesian economist", it's like a creationist calling any sort of scientist who disagrees with them "evolutionary".
Coppola's assertions on history are reality-based. If you have particular objections, you'll need to go into more detail than just saying "Keynesian".
> Surprising: Bitcoin part is largely left uncriticized.
This was largely left to my review: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/04/07/saifedean-am... He makes a lot of assertions about Bitcoin that are simply factually untrue in plain English, and would only be barely true even being generous in assuming particular jargon.
To Ammous' credit, he appears to know more about the Bitcoin sphere than about ... basic economic history.