So if someone says 'transgenders are sacrificing children' should be illegal, does that mean 'police are arbitrarily killing unarmed blacks' - should that be illegal? Because I think the material reality could be demonstrated that the later is false as well.
I think your argument demonstrates a slippery slope.
I think probably claims should have to be more specific and inciteful to be considered illegal.
Also - I think proportionality matters as well. Saying 'the kids who died at Sandy Hook were not real people but actors' - on a personal level should be legal. But if you have an audience of 400M people and scream that nonsense, I think this might be a problem. Right now it's handled in civic courts, but we could think a bit about what that means.
It's very hard, and there are a lot of slippery slopes. Risky.
It doesn't help to address claims nobody is making specifically dressed up to serve as fallacy. The normal claim is that police are killing black individuals unnecessarily. The claim you have offered is just that claim dressed in dramatic clothing.
Meanwhile transgender sacrificing children would be a falsehood wholly invented to smear a group that already frequently suffers violence and harassment and with the blatant intention of promoting and justifying further violence and harassment. The statement is in effect part of the process of harassing, harming, and ultimately killing people. It ought to be illegal in the same way that breaking into a home to commit rape is also illegal and liable to be punished more harshly itself than if the burglary was part of mere trespass.
I also take issue with drawing a line between a harmful lie like Sandy Hook and mass promotion of same in the fashion you have. Both should be illegal in the same way that starting a house on fire isn't any more legal than setting a fire that burns down whole housing development. The punishment may be harsher but its ultimately the same crime. It's also not a slippery slope AT ALL.
Passing on a falsehood that the individual knew or should have reasonable known was false is not at all like parsing the difference between police arbitrarily or unnecessarily killing black people. We can forgive trespasses where the truth is a matter of opinion, phrasing, or debate while trivially punishing people who blatantly lie or spread harmful nonsense.
If you don't know that dead children aren't crisis actors or forest fires aren't caused by jewish space lasers and you can't be educated you should probably be fined or imprisoned into silence so that the rest of society can move on.
"The normal claim is that police are killing black individuals unnecessarily. The claim you have offered is just that claim dressed in dramatic clothing."
This is plainly false.
Claims that police arbitrarily kill people, or are 'killers' etc. are all over the web..
That you would blind yourself to the radical populism in some corners because maybe you don't want it to exist is not helpful.
Here's a completely random example:
"cops are serial killers. paid, protected serial killers who believe their jobs entitle them to take human life. over and over. they lie. they kill. they lie again. repeat. "
This is one of literally millions of such Tweets.
How could you possibly suggest that such language does not exist when it's rampant?
If that example isn't specific enough for you, then just Google a bit and you'll have your examples.
"a harmful lie like Sandy Hook and mass promotion of same in the fashion you have. Both should be illegal in the same way that starting a house on fire isn't any more legal "
Again, utterly false.
So plainly wrong, that I'm sure you can't have actually thought it through.
Do realize this Orwellian implications of governing speech to the point wherein saying something that is 'non factual' is tantamount to a crime?
It's not even a 'slippery slope' it's already ultra authoritarian.
Again: hop on to Twitter, right now, by your logic, millions of people would be charged with crimes, daily.
"If you don't know that dead children aren't crisis actors or forest fires aren't caused by jewish space lasers and you can't be educated you should probably be fined or imprisoned into silence so that the rest of society can move on."
You seem to have a wilful lack of understanding of what is happening in pop culture and in the commons, and yet want to enact vicious authoritarian violence on people for arbitrary words?
I wonder if you realize that you're a fascist authoritarian?
You are exactly what we are afraid of.
People can believe what they want to believe and say what they want to say, unless it really starts to damage others, and that's a high bar.
The proposed response is not uniform in either case.
Wouldn’t some think that it would be e.g. justified to set fire to a police station or something? I mean, seeing as riots include things like other places being set aflame.
If you provide bullshit medical advice to people you should go to jail frankly, for example.
But misinformation, when it's applied broadly, does have consequences and that will have an effect.
Right now we actually do contend with it i.e voting machine lies, lies about Sandy Hook children - but we handle that in civil cases where people sue each other for 'damages' in which case we have to arrive at some truth. Point being - we legally identify 'damages' there.
But the government is responsible for protecting people from 'damage' as well, in which case we could feasibly have the DoJ take people to court for civil-ish kinds of things, or, find some way forward.
I don't know what the answer is, but it doesn't have to be entirely strict or all encompassing and may have thresholds for proportionality etc. or even depend on the integrity of institutions.
We already draw a lot of boundaries around medical information and could do the same. For example, there could be a requirement to indicate lack of authority / seek a doctor's opinion when discussing health matters. Like I like Joe Rogan, but absolutely detest when he starts yapping about vaccines etc. as his position de facto amounts to misinformation which actually can cause harm. If he were required to consistently remind people "I am not a doctor. This is entertainment. Please consult your doctor for advice concerning COVID." (He should have done this without being asked), then I think those kinds of things can help.
And probably we should err on the side of freedom of expression.
But there is a huge risk in getting into an authoritarian situation as people want to regulate others opinions, and yes, as you say, declaring that there are 'only two genders' is considered 'hate speech' by some and they will push hard to stop others from saying this, which is scary.
I'm wary that our governments have the ability to split hairs on these hard issues.
People are not burning down Children's hospitals, moreover, the kinds of 'misinformation' you're alluding to generally fall way, way within the boundaries of 'hate speech'.
Twitter is a private company they can mostly do what they want.
Some companies rise to the point of 'kind of public service' and therefore we might need basic regs (i.e. at least guaranteeing that Twitter act consistently within their own stated rules).
The bar for hate speech out to be very, very high.
Calls for direct violence have always been illegal.
'Disinformation' is absolutely another issue altogether. Lying about moon landing conspiracy theories is irrelevant, but lying about school shooting victims being 'actors' is something a bit different, as is lying about the effect of vaccines during a pandemic, as is lying / providing medical advice without any kind of appropriate designation. Free speeches probably don't like it but those things do have an effect, and proportionality matters: if you want to say something to your neighbour, fine, but if you're going to go in front of 400M people and broadcast it, and it causes serious harm due to direct minsinfo ... most us don't want that. I don't suggest we have the answer there but I bet if we think about it we can find a reasonable way for the insane idiots to be among each other and for them to not scream non-factual things.
They aren't burning them down, no, but there's a wave of harassment and threats aimed at Children's hospitals directly in response to misinformation about transgender care. In at least one case so far, it prompted a lockdown of the targeted hospital. Hospital lockdowns carry significant risk to patients in critical condition. This is terrorism, plain and simple, and the extremists are showing increasing disregard for bystanders.
I understand why you'd worry about this, but I see no other way forward. Alex Jones' lie caused families who lost children to be harassed by the nuts to watched him. Because he had his own publishing platform it's pretty easy to convince people that what he did was wrong and that he acted irresponsibly. The problem is that in the age of social media everyone can cause the same harm that Alex Jones did without owning anything. They can just spread a hateful lie, it can go viral, and then we're left picking up the pieces as a society. You could only investigate misinformation that already went viral I suppose since then it becomes more equivalent to being like Alex Jones and Sandy Hook. I don't know. It just seems obvious that something has to give because all the free speech absolutists have no answer other than to keep burying their heads in the sand as hateful lies spread like wildfire and drive more and more people over the edge: Mosque shooter in New Zealand, Grocery Store shooter in the USA, etc....
Maybe a private/social response will prevent disaster. I'm unsure. The closest historical parallel I can think of to this is the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (a popular document that helped encourage Germany to liquidate Jewish people) being printed and distributed around the USA by Henry Ford. Luckily Henry Ford didn't manage to convince the US population that Jewish people were plotting to enslave them, but the Germans weren't so lucky which is probably why they're so wary of letting it happen again.
I don't think you grasp the implications of what you are suggesting.
Basically, you're suggesting that 'being wrong' about something, is effectively a crime.
That's one hell of a slippery slope.
Alex Jones has an audience of 400M people.
You and I do not.
You and I absolutely should be able to say 'Sandy Hook children were actors'.
Maybe one of us is a total idiot and actually believes that. Is that a crime?
Proportionality etc. matter.
Also - you are hugely downplaying how much censorship Twitter enacts (I'm not saying this is good or bad, but they do it).
Just like the regular police keep a lid on crime, as in, if they were to disappear all hell would instantly break lose (in Montreal the cops went on strike and immediately there were mass bank robbing etc) - Twitter keeps the total insane hate speech and death threat people off the platform.
In 2020 - the 'Protocols of the Elder's of Zion' - should be hugely and widely disseminated if it were powerful. But it's not. Why? Because we have controls. Google, Twitter etc. tamp that stuff down.
We probably need 'some' laws, but we ought to be very, very careful about it and I suggest it probably be limited to inciting violence and medical misinformation.
There is no reason to allow you or I to say Sandy Hook Children are actors. We already have standards established in civil court to distinguish between matters of opinion, debate, lies or flagrant disregard for the truth.
We regularly punish people in civil court for lies or flagrant disregard for the truth while leaving matters of opinion lie. The system prevents abuse by requiring the substantial safeguards and standards as it well could in similar criminal actions. It only takes 1 in 12 to negate any attempt to convict and the net result is people that share blatant lies will be over time fined into silence.
Just the opposite, I see empathetic, gushing, ridiculous cotton candy optimisim all over places like LinkedIn and the corporate world. Everybody Smile!
There isn't nearly enough contention, questioning, satire (notice how SNL never really goes for that) etc..
Marc Benioff spends the entirety of his time virtue signalling about how he is saving LGBT refugees from this or that, while superficially that's nice, it's ultra narcissistic PR and self aggrandization to use those people as tools for corporate branding. Nobody calls him out.
On the contrary, I see a lot of dour young people, with kind of a 'lack of faith' in the general sense, which is really odd, and I suggest maybe a new concept in the west.
When I was very young we had the 'Cold War' with nukes starring right at us and we were full of ... gumption, positivity, pride, goodwill, hope etc..
Finally - I don't think positivity/pessimism matters that that much - you have to be a 'strong believer' in some capacity to innovate, the rest is head games.
>Marc Benioff spends the entirety of his time virtue signalling about how he is saving LGBT refugees from this or that, while superficially that's nice, it's ultra narcissistic PR and self aggrandization to use those people as tools for corporate branding. Nobody calls him out.
I don't think this sort of cynicism about LGBT rights activism is helpful. If we want to make progress in this area, we need support from all sectors of society. That definitely includes people who aren't saints and who don't act from wholly disinterested and pure motives. Whatever his motives (and I can't read his mind – can you?), Marc Benioff did something substantial to support LGBT rights when many other CEOs did not.
There's no objective content to the accusation of "virtue signalling". It's a zero-effort means of objecting to whatever kind of activism someone doesn't like. Instead of making a substantive criticism of the activism itself, just jump to uncharitable conclusions about the person's inner motivations.
Hollow and performative support for an issues that services only to engender the supporter with social points.
Supporting Ukraine doesn't bring anyone brownie points because it's not so much a moral position.
Corporations 'supporting' BLM, especially with donations, which is a totally corrupt charity - this is a problem. Corporations even throwing up the word 'equity' is a bit of a start, but not really there. Corporations making money off of it (Nike) is evil. Corporations doing something thoughtful and material about it, now that's not 'virtue signalling'. If they want to humble-brag about it in some non aggrandising way, then that's fine but it should not be part of company branding.
It would certainly be unfair to accuse Benioff of merely 'hollow and performative' activism, given that his activism achieved actual results:
> Benioff led an effort of business leaders fighting back against [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act], leading to a revised version of the bill being signed into law that prohibited businesses from denying services to someone based on sexual orientation or gender identity
The accusation of virtue signaling is a convenient rhetorical move. It makes it possible to rail against things that no-one likes (hypocrisy and insincerity) rather than against the changes that activists are attempting to bring about – which many people may support.
In reality it doesn't much matter whether someone is an activist out of selfish motives or altruistic ones. That's between them and their conscience. What matters is what they're an activist for, and whether it's a good thing or not.
But perhaps you can clarify this point. Do you really object only to Marc Benioff's (supposed) underlying motives in opposing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Or is it not that you support the Act, and therefore oppose activism against it?
Because we just went through a massive existential shock with COVID, in which the Fed took on a staggering amount of assets i.e. liquidity - and - we've had material global problems which cause major increase in the cost of goods and fuel.
In 2008 we had a 'banking crisis' but that was an 'accounting crisis' otherwise the economy was normal. We had to re-allocate.
With COVID, we had a real shock to the system, and then lasting shocks due to increased prices.
So both the money printing and regular higher prices are coming back to hit the economy.
The government rarely if ever controls markets to the point where it causes material price increase for things.
The US government has not taken measures to materially affect the cost of goods imported from China, or gas, for example.
Yes, the Central Bank sometimes creates more liquidity than is required for a given economic cycle, but in most cases, this is due to economic calamity i.e. banking collapse, pandemic, war etc. in which case the resulting inflation is the 'accounting adjustment' made to accomodate for that 'external factor' (i.e. factor external to the regular economy).
A pandemic, banking failure, getting invaded etc. can be the result of government action (I mean, especially if the nation is 'choosing to go to war', as in Vietnam) but not necessarily.
Finally, and importantly, the Central Bank is not the 'government' rather, part of 'governance' - they are very different things and act for different reasons. If the 'government' did control the money printing we would all be in trouble!
I'm not sure for what reason you are being down-voted, but I disagree with your comment on China.
Tarrifs on imported goods are specifically designed to make the cost of goods locally higher.
If a foreign product costs $100 landed, and a locally produced one $120,then adding 20% to the foreign one makes them both the higher price.
This is good news for those in local manufacturing, less-good news for the consumer.
Ultimately a tariff is paid by the consumer[1], and received by the local govt, it is thus really just a consumption tax of sorts, although one that is self imposed by the consumer. The alternative is to "not pay the tax" but instead spend the same money supporting local industry.
The US has had a policy over the last 6 years of adding new tariffs. (if they've been revoked in the last 2, I'm not aware.) This drives up local prices, which is a factor in (not the sole cause of) inflation.
[1] politically this was spun as "China pays the tariff" but this is obviously untrue. There is no incentive for them to do so, and even if they did, it would negate the point of the tariff in the first place, which is to raise local prices to make local businesses more compeditive.
Because the 'simple straight forward explanation' doesn't make much sense.
As economies grow and expand, they need more money supply to keep prices stable. If you're using 100 tons of Gold as your 'fixed money supply' then you run into deflationary problems.
Also, if there is a crisis in which people get really anti-liquid and tend to hoard and do other bad things, and/or the system needs to allocate resources somewhere fast or else face destruction - then if you only have a big pot of gold split between owners, you are screwed. Mad Max style. If a country is invaded or has a pandemic, most regular levers may not work. But helicopter money can help. It implies an 'unfair' re-balancing of who owns what, but so long as the community at large accepts that, then it's fine. It means a price adjustment for everyone.
Some good questions. The answer isn't simple, but I'll try.
It comes down to how banks work with fractional reserve banking. (To keep this post short, I'll refer you to google if you don't know what it is.) Banks loan out a multiple of their deposits. In other words, banks create money when they make loans. Amazing, isn't it? But, banks don't loan money unless there is collateral. The next part is tricky to understand. If I, Picasso, create a painting I create value. I can use the painting as collateral for a bank loan, i.e. because I created value, I also indirectly created money!
With me so far? Next, what happens when I repay the loan? The money disappears!
If you think about it, you'll see that the money supply, through the blind forces of Supply & Demand, tracks the value in the economy, almost like magic. While the gold it represents can sit buried in a vault somewhere and needn't actually be traded.
Inflation happens when the government prints money that has no collateral, and has no correspondence to added value in the economy and so it dilutes the value of the money that is already in circulation.
> Banks loan out a multiple of their deposits. In other words, banks create money when they make loans. Amazing, isn't it?
I've heard about that, and it's really amazing.
If i understand it correctly, the loan interest i have to pay is money that also does not exist yet, at the point of time, when i get the cash. The bank faces the risk of me not being able to generate (get from others, who potentially also take loans) that extra money, so they demand a collateral as an insurance against that risk.
> Inflation happens when the government prints money that has no collateral, and has no correspondence to added value in the economy and so it dilutes the value of the money that is already in circulation.
What instance decides, if some printed money does or does not have collateral?
Banks retain assets for loans they make. They don't print money.
But imagine this scenario: you deposit $10 at bank A, they loan that $10 to person B, that person B puts their $10 account at Bank C, thank bank loans out that $10 to person D etc..
You can see all of a sudden, $10 turns into $100! or $1000 in assets!
So what we require banks to do is keep a part of the assets they receive. So if they get $100 in deposits, they can only lend out $90 i.e. they have to keep '10% in reserve'.
This means that banks are leveraged at 90%.
It also means that if there is a calamity, and a 'run on the bank' or it loses 10% of it's assets, the bank is wiped out.
So what all of this means is that there is 'leverage' in the system, and it means there is 10x money going into the economy than is released by the Fed. It definitely adds a lot of flexibility to the system. Banks are still responsible for evaluating risk of their loans and paying the price if they fail.
"The interest on the loan" is mostly a function of risk and the cost of that bank managing that money i.e. getting the depositors to loan you the money in the first place.
The OP's definition of 'inflation' is a bit warped.
Inflation is when there's more money than demand for stuff.
If stuff is harder to make or is more rare, prices will go up irrespective of money supply.
If you throw money in the economy for no reason inflation will happen.
But most economies are expanding a bit, and so they need more money in the supply to keep prices stable, which is why we like to have just a bit of money printing.
All money loaned out - even given out by the central banks has collateral. The Fed keeps mostly TBills (Government Debt) and real estate as collateral.
Oh, absolutely they do. That's why currency is called "banknotes". The banks printed them. Each bank printed their own banknotes. You can find their images in numismatics books.
In 1914, the government took over the function of printing banknotes. But the banks still print money. We just call them "cashier's checks", "money orders" and "travelers' checks". But more normally, they simply credit your account with created money.
> If stuff is harder to make or is more rare, prices will go up irrespective of money supply.
That isn't inflation, because extra dollars are not being created. For example, tomatoes going up in price in the store because of crop failure isn't inflation, because more money doesn't appear in your pocket to pay the premium. What happens is you wind up with fewer dollars in your pocket, meaning you buy less of other things, and with the annoying Law of Supply and Demand, the prices of those other things drop.
Listen, you are really confusing yourself and others here.
That banks used to print notes in the past is not relevant in this discussion, when we talk about 'printing money' what we are referring to is how money comes into circulation. Physical bank notes are barely relevant to the equation as it makes up a tiny portion of the money supply, and of course, they are only printed by the Central Bank.
Money comes into circulation when the Central Bank 'buys' TBills off the free market. That's when the Central Bank 'creates' money.
Then, through fractional lending, a considerably larger amount of money ends up getting into the system by way of accounting.
Finally, the 'credit market' - which is really 10x bigger than even money in circulation, and which is the real thing that matters in business, develops like a bubble on top of that.
"That isn't inflation, because extra dollars are not being created."
Yes - it is 100% inflation and you are absolutely spreading false information at that point.
The 'result' could be as simple as 'less of that product is bought' - meaning, we use 'less gas' when gas prices rise - while every other aspect of the economy remains mostly the same. That is 100% inflation.
Aside from 'buying less of the product with price increase' or 'buying less of other stuff' we can also borrow, use savings, buy on credit etc. to adjust for the price inflation - so it's not going to necessarily work out to be some kind of net price levelling in the economy.
Increasing prices = inflation [1]. That's it. It's not necessarily related to money supply.
And finally - as the economy expands, more money needs to be introduced into the system just to keep prices even. This is an example of where there is more money supply and it does not change prices.
> What instance decides, if some printed money does or does not have collateral?
A great question. No actual decision is made, it's just that there are more dollars floating chasing the same value, so the price in dollars gets bid up.
There is a 'decision' made and there is always collateral - at the bank, and even at the Fed.
The 'decision' that might be made, is what kind of assets to accept on the Feds balance sheet.
At a private bank, they can do whatever they want with respect to what kind of assets they accept as collateral, within regulatory requirements. They have capital ratios to uphold, but if they take stupid risks, well they are going to go out of business.
The OP is implying that money is printed out of thin air and that is not what is happening.
Your retort that 'money money, in a system of all other things being equal, will raise prices' - but the implication of 'all other things being equal' is never a reality. Economies are usually growing, in which case, they need more money to keep prices from going down actually, and, there can be external shocks, which we see every decade or so.
The Federal Reserve assumprion of bank's underperforming loans was done in 2008 with funds created out of thin air. The value of the underperforming loans was significantly less than face value, which is why banks could not sell them on the market. The Fed gave full value with magic money it created.
I think you are misunderstanding fractional lending and collateral.
Fractional lending seems a bit odd, but it's not like there is 'no collateral' - rather, there ends up being 'partial collateral'.
As it turns out, that 'partial collateral' is enough - it's actually reasonable thing to do, because the vast majority of loans are repaid, it's not necessary to fully collateralize everything on the whole.
Banks have to have some capital requirements, which means, if they 'screw up' too badly, then they go bankrupt! So they are acting in a capitalist manner and have to be careful about how they lend, and at what rates. If random bank acts irresponsibly, then random bank will go kaput by regular market forces.
Instead of thinking of fractional lending as 'missing money' think of it more like leverage.
Basically - the effect of fractional lending is that it's a 'multiplier' to whatever the Central Bank decides to do.
So it exacerbates effects in one direction or the other but on the whole, it doesn't change the real nature of the system.
The way we manage money is sound.
We need money to expand and contract, and we have good ways to measure that.
The 'danger' of fiat of course is political intervention, or a failure of controls.
We had a broad intervention in 2008 that favoured home owners over others, and there are attempts to use the Central Bank to do 'Social Justice' type things, which I think is very risky.
It's a bit like Nuclear Energy: it's very potent, you just have to watch it responsibly.
Finally - currency should be a 'current' asset, not a store of value. We just want it as a medium of exchange. So as long as it's not shifting too much one way or another, then it should work.
For 'stores of value' there are other things, like real estate etc..
"Inflation happens when the government prints money that has no collateral, and has no correspondence to added value in the economy and so it dilutes the value of the money that is already in circulation. "
This is misleading.
The 'government' does not print money, the Central Bank does. And as you indicate, the bank ultimately creates credit via fractional lending.
'Inflation' happens when the cost of goods rise faster than the money in circulation.
Thus 'inflation' can happen because 'stuff is more costly to make'. Like gas in Europe, is more expensive, not because 'money printing' but 'Russia'.
Also, inflation can feasibly happen without money printing or even a rise in inherent cost of goods, if the economy shifts in a way that ends up in excess cash.
But ultimately, if during normal course of 'growth' if there is no expansion in the monetary base, then you'll have deflation, which has bad externalizes.
So the goal then is to adjust interest rates / print or extract money from the economy so that prices stay roughly flat, with just a tiny bit of inflation. That is a dynamic process, not a static process.
Rather bluntly, a central bank is central economic planning. Central economic planning always falls short of what free markets do. The idea that a central bank is able to control the financial markets better than free market forces is shown to be false (with actual data) by Friedman in "Monetary History of the United States".
> The 'government' does not print money, the Central Bank does.
I said "print money" as a euphemism for what the Fed actually does, which is the same thing, it just doesn't involve doing the old fashioned way. They do it by issuing debt with no collateral.
So why is it that essentially every developed country in the world today has a central bank? How can they all be wrong? If a 100% "free market" solution was more effective than central banking, I would expect at least one of them to have given it a shot and succeeded in doing so.
Also, "A Monetary History of the United States" argues that the Federal Reserve should have done more to combat the Great Depression, not less. How can you think that the book advocates against central economic policy?
I think there is an erroneous understanding/implication in your statement, which is likely leading you to erroneous conclusion.
The Fed is not 'Central Planning' so much as it is actually trying to make the market more 'neutral' in normal cases.
We'll get to the 'crisis' cases in a bit.
If we just had a hard currency, like Gold (which 'feels' neutral) we'd get into trouble, because of deflationary issues. People would treat it like Bitcoin, and as prices fell slightly would be oriented a bit towards 'store of value' as opposed to currency.
The Fed 'targets' just a 'bit above zero' inflation by policy. That is basically 'neutral'.
That is not really 'central planning', it's more like 'central neutralization'.
As for 'crisis' situations, i.e. when the Fed does start to 'intervene' and does things which you might argue are 'central planning' - well - the government in many cases can absolutely do it 'better than free markets' because only the government has the scale to do it.
For example, 'free markets' could have not have created and executed the Highway road system of the 1950s. It was of a scale and scope far, far beyond any economic actor. That required 'strategic vision' on behalf of the government. Now - private contractors actually did the 'building' - which is how we want it because the government doesn't need to hire individual workers. But it's a government project by virtue of scale and other things.
The meltdown of 2008 was a very scary time - if the government did not intervene, the banks would have collapsed, and it would have taken down the entire economy.
It would be like a human having a 'heart attack' - the heart stops - everything stops.
So the government put together a plan and intervened. A lot of it had to do with 'confidence signals' and other things, extra regulation, but it worked.
There is of course the 'Too Big To Fail' argument i.e. moral hazard i.e. banks take on more risk knowing the 'gov will save' us - that said, the worst actors did definitely lose a ton of money. Also - the problem was not just the banks, it was a systemic failure in a number of sectors.
Basically - the US had an economic cancer and no individual organization was going to be able to contend with it.
So -> intervention. Much like a war, or pandemic.
Having a fiat currency allows that opportunity. If it were a 'Gold Based Economy' it would have fallen down like a house of cards.
Like a brick building during a rare earhtquake: brick 'feels' strong like Gold, but an earthquake will ravage it, which is why you need steel reinforcement - the steel can bend and absorb different kind of tensions.
Milton Friedman is wrong.
Yes, when there is hyperinflation, it's probably because some stupid government is printing too much money, but inflation is not just a function of money printing.
Deflation means people who save increase their purchasing power without gambling on stonks. The savers mentality is called low time preference.
Any problems from less consumerism would be felt by junk producers: plastic spinner toys, yet another streaming service, iGadget yearly upgrades. High time preference people are the market for short-lived trash. A currency with disappearing value encourages such consumption because it does not hold value.
Due to technology and manufacturing advances, price decreases (deflation) are natural.
As an economy expands, it needs more currency to facilitate growth.
A 'very hard currency' would strangle an economy with ugly deflationary issues.
Moreover - with a 'hard currency' the system will fail and collapse when it faces an existential shock such as an internal failure (bank collapse), war, pandemic.
The objective is to provide 'the right' amount of liquidity for the economy as needed, and, during times of crisis to be able to release enough liquidity to see the economy through the crisis.
Yes, the 'price will be paid' in later years for excess liquidity in terms of higher prices, but that's not necessary a bad thing, it's just accounting. It depends on the distortions. If the community accepts that 'yes, resources needed to be diverted to pay for xyz' then that's 'the cost' and it's going to be borne out in higher prices.
And yes, if Central Banks print wily nilly and provide too much supply this will result in hyper inflation.
But fundamentally, this idea that fiat = untenable is completely false.
All Apple users I know are joyous because of this, simplification of life long term. Nobody enjoys carrying lightning cable for their phones and USB for everything else
Maybe if Apple would make their lightning an open free standard, this would be now adopted, but since Apple is... well Apple their arrogance met the laws of place not governed by corporations (that much)
"The government will force companies to make a product decision that I happen to like"
This is an extremely bad reason to support this legislation.
The government could legislate any number of product changes, they don't do that, because that's not their role.
Apple has always been a leader in these areas, and this kind of thing will definitely stifle from making the decisions they need to, in addition to the fact their are all sorts of unintended design consequences on these forced choices.
There are really only 2 kinds of charges floating around these days, and several mechanisms for handling both, it's not even a 1/10 on the problems we face.
This is really bad populism, the EU is running up the wrong tree here.
> The government could legislate any number of product changes, they don't do that, because that's not their role.
In many cases they do, because it is their role. They have done so now with charging cables. You can whine about it until you turn blue but the objective fact remains that the EU has now made regulation of charging cables part of their role.
Roles of governments aren't set in stone, they can in response to changing cultural and social norms, corporate practices, economic conditions, etc. The EU is not obliged to neatly confine itself according to your demands.
I think your argument demonstrates a slippery slope.
I think probably claims should have to be more specific and inciteful to be considered illegal.
Also - I think proportionality matters as well. Saying 'the kids who died at Sandy Hook were not real people but actors' - on a personal level should be legal. But if you have an audience of 400M people and scream that nonsense, I think this might be a problem. Right now it's handled in civic courts, but we could think a bit about what that means.
It's very hard, and there are a lot of slippery slopes. Risky.