Hacker News Reader

Comment by std_throwaway | Hacker News Reader

It amazes me how long and how slowly the value of our money can be eroded without casing a hard crash. This has been going on for over 100 years in the US. Money used to pay things used to be gold, then fully gold backed, then partially gold backed, then no gold but security backed, then securities are diluted more and more. The next logical steps would be that the central banks buy up the bankrupt economy and introduce social credit as currency which is backed by surveillance.

View on HN

Right, because everything was so much better when you could, for no particularly good reason, relate money to a marginally useful-to-jewellers-and-dentists soft metal. I suppose I shouldn't expect economic literacy on Hacker News, but the twist on the standard goldbug narrative ("social credit backed by surveillance") is at least original, if nutty.

I did not say that gold backed currency is better for everybody. I'm just amazed at the time span over which the dilution is happening. And I don't think that anybody can deny that our money is slowly losing its purchasing power.

it is slowly losing purchasing power. That's called inflation and nobody denies it or is surprised by it.

In fact what people are generally surprised about is how little inflation is has occurred in the USA compared to how much money has been pumped into the system via QE.

Mainstream economic opinion is not particularly concerned by the fact that our money is slowly losing its purchasing power.

There's a general consensus that a small amount of inflation is useful, although the reasons are pretty cynical (i.e. wage flexibility -> "it's easier to give someone a 0% raise under conditions of 2% inflation than it is to give someone of -2% pay cut under conditions of 0% inflation").

You might make the argument that making it psychologically easier for employers to hand out small 'in-real-terms' pay cuts is wrong in itself, of course, but that's another discussion.

Your "next logical step" isn't logical in any sense of the word. You're just recounting a few steps of history (that actually went along with increased stability of the financial system) and then suddenly suggesting it's a preamble to some scenario that's currently en vogue among the paranoid.

"backed by surveillance" simply does not mean anything. At least not in the sense of "backed by" as used in those other cases.

This makes way less sense than you think it does.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com