• Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems
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    9 months ago

    I think that’s literally the reason they designed it this way lol. At least it’s been the line from as far back as I remember. Because we all know inflation is bad, so surely a strongly deflationary currency must be really good!!! It’s just free value!!!

    • gerikson@awful.systems
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      9 months ago

      “If inflation is bad, deflation must be good” was a notion I had when I was like 12, my dad (an economist) swiftly disabused me of that notion.

      I think there’s a (deliberate?) confusion about the interwar years. People know 2 things:

      • the Great Depression
      • hyperinflation in Wiemar Germany

      They think those are connected (they are, kinda) and think that inflation caused the great Depression, when in fact it was characterized by deflation.

      Back in the early days of Bitcoin there was this weird Mellon-esque view that debt==bad and that a deflationary economy would encourage savings. This is one of the many ways that Austrian economics is childish and shallow.

      Another thing I’ve had thought about - if the gold standard is so superior, why doesn’t a country base its currency on it and outcompete everyone else? If you ask that you’ll inevitably get conspiracy theories about how (((they))) won’d allow it.

      • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems
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        9 months ago

        I’ve had someone try to bully me into buying Luna a couple months before it collapsed because they understood economics and I was a fool for not wanting free money and letting my vast welfare ressources get eaten by inflation. I don’t think crypto can function without this narrative.

        Also I’m wondering now how they square their Ponzi scheming with the popular libertarian slogan about free lunches, and I imagine the answer is something like “by not thinking about it”.

      • raktheundead@fedia.io
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        9 months ago

        I’m of the opinion that the gold standard was obsolete around the time when the railroad and the telegraph were being rolled out on a wide scale and that shiny metal fetishism was heavily responsible for the longer and deeper economic crises of the 1800s and early 1900s.