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Comment by pbourke | Hacker News Reader

> While there were panics and issues before the era of active central banks, most fo the time, things were calm.

Wow - this is insanely inaccurate. Before the active central bank era (call it post-WW2), recessions lasted up to twice as long as they do during the modern era. Unemployment also peaked at much higher numbers: 25% during the Great Depression, for example. The pre-central bank localized agrarian and early industrial economic model leant itself to boom and bust cycles eg massive instability.

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The Great Depression was unprecedented because prior to that no one had had the power to mess up the economy that badly. The Fed was extremely active. They made the Depression Great by contracting the money supply by a third when the economy was in recession.

Given the consequences of the Great Depression (WW2) it seems unlikely active central banks have been a net good.

> The pre-central bank localized agrarian and early industrial economic model leant itself to boom and bust cycles eg massive instability

Glad to see we put those patterns behind us /s

I mean, we haven't had a depression quite as world-shatteringly gigantic at the Great Depression since. Although I guess it isn't obvious if that's because the system we have now is somehow better, or if it is just the case that we've been more prosperous as a baseline since then, and so our various downturns haven't launched people into such a level of destitution.

Central banks and macroeconomists have learned a lot since the Great Depression, mostly of the “don’t do that again” variety. For example the Fed caused the Great Depression by contracting the money supply by a third in the middle of a recession, killing US economic growth for decades. They are unlikely to repeat that mistake.

Yes. This is why they no longer operate on a gold standard, which de facto contracts the money supply (people want to hold "safe" gold rather than circulate money) in the middle of a recession

The Fed did a lot worse than a Gold Standard would have. You can’t blame the gold standard for a decision to contract the money supply.

They were literally on a gold standard at the time. You absolutely can blame the gold standard for the Fed decision to raise interest rates to protect gold reserves.

The only decision the Fed could (and eventually did) take to allow the money supply to expand was removing the US from the gold standard.

Or if we've just postponed it all until now

The Great Depression happened after the US central bank was created in 1913.

The Fed didn’t have any ability to effect money supply until 1932 when the US went off the gold standard.

No, but the Fed did have the ability to extend credit beyond the reserve of gold.

Pretty sure the Federal Reserve was setting reserve requirements from day one, which has a direct effect on the money supply.

Yeah, these days we only have existential risk to our system via structural contagion twice per decade. Good thing we moved past that era!

Those issues were real and went o longer than they needed to but also weren't as deeply structural as the issues today. Our issues are different but not better.

I don’t know what you would consider “deeply structural,” but not having influence over the money supply seems fairly structural. Going back further, the issues are larger: not having a central bank, not having a single currency, no deposit insurance, etc.

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