Grant is always interesting. He is exactly right on the "central planning" role of the Fed. It's funny that we learn about the distortions that come from price controls and then go out and have our central bank control the price of money. I'm not sure about the "burst in inflation'. I'm thinking technology, via the internet mainly, is having a great impact on competition and therefore holding inflation down. I'll probably spend less than half eating out this year by using Groupon and Restaurant.com etc.
I've never understood the drive to go back to a gold standard in this new information technology age. Gold is a finite resource. You can only dig so much of it out of the ground. Information technology is an exponentially growing market.
To meet the requirements of the information age from a gold based money supply would be like trying to pull water from a damp sponge in the desert.
@Mycroft Ideally the only standard would be one that the people freely choose in their interactions with the market. The quantity of gold doesn't matter though. What matters is how finely you can divide it and using digital technology sending around fractions of a gram should be no problem. With free choice though if there were problems people could always choose to use something else if it proved to be a superior means of exchange.
Grant is always interesting. He is exactly right on the "central planning" role of the Fed. It's funny that we learn about the distortions that come from price controls and then go out and have our central bank control the price of money.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about the "burst in inflation'. I'm thinking technology, via the internet mainly, is having a great impact on competition and therefore holding inflation down. I'll probably spend less than half eating out this year by using Groupon and Restaurant.com etc.
I've never understood the drive to go back to a gold standard in this new information technology age. Gold is a finite resource. You can only dig so much of it out of the ground. Information technology is an exponentially growing market.
ReplyDeleteTo meet the requirements of the information age from a gold based money supply would be like trying to pull water from a damp sponge in the desert.
@Mycroft Ideally the only standard would be one that the people freely choose in their interactions with the market. The quantity of gold doesn't matter though. What matters is how finely you can divide it and using digital technology sending around fractions of a gram should be no problem. With free choice though if there were problems people could always choose to use something else if it proved to be a superior means of exchange.
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