This "bitcoin is better than gold" statement going around once more show that bitcoiners have no clue about monetary history and what the purpose of a monetary system is. A thread.
1- Metal standards were never inflexible; they could not in order to operate properly. Qty of metal was changed, usually lowered, to accommodate for changing economic conditions: price of metal, scarcity of coins, financial needs of economic units (state and private), etc.
2- The purpose of a monetary system is to make the rest of the economy go. It is there to accommodate financial needs. The more elastic one can design the supply, the better.
That doesn't mean that monetary creation & destruction shouldn't follow any rules & have no constraint.
Ingredients:
4 eggs
200g of flower
300g of ham
200g of shredded cheese 1/2 expresso cup of milk
1 expresso cup of oil
One soup spoon of yeast
One loaf pan that is buttered and floured
1- Shred the ham 2- Beat the eggs 3- Mix flower and yeast and add bit by bit to eggs 4- Add ham and cheese and mix well 5- Put in loaf pan 6- Cook at 230F for 15 min 7- Cook at 390f for 45 min
Done.
An animated GIF of the financial balances through time. OECD countries. DPB: Domestic private sector balance, GB: Government balance, FB: Foreign balance.
DPB + GB + FB = 0
It looks to me that we can detect a cycle that reflects the business cycle. Start NE, goes SW, goes E, goes N. Start again. May be I am reading too much into it.
I am almost done with my study of the Roman monetary system (mostly from the denarius system to the fall of the western Roman Empire with a bit of intrusion into what happens "immediately" before and after). It has been a 6-month journey leading to 100 pages of notes. 1/
I have looked at the lit with a financial approach to monetary systems in mind (see my 2014 paper): did monetary instrument circulate at par?Why?Why not?What were the redemption mechanisms? did they work or not?What was the unit of account?Did it change?Who were the issuers?etc2/
I have not restricted myself to coins, that are at best only half of the story, but also have studied extensively banking where the work of Andreau, Harris, Bogaert, van Reden, and others are very helpful 3/