Ron Paul Damaged the Tubes
Have you noticed how forums are now clogged with passionate hatred of fiat currency thanks to all the Paulspam from earlier this year? It’s unbelievable. If you listened to Reddit, we would be back on the gold standard with little or no deliberation.
I’m reading up on the Austrian School a bit, and it looks like the principal (valid) criticism of the whole modern monetary system is its volatility due to the multiplier effect of bank lending (and re-lending, and re-lending).
Allow me to put my MBA hat on for a moment: if I’m looking at a “black box” asset, let’s say the entire US economy, and I see that it maintains impressive, consistent growth in the long-term over essentially its entire existence. What would I want to do? Lever up! Maximize volatility if I can handle the downswings. How is volatility a bad thing in a long-term successful enterprise?
I suppose the argument for safety in turbulent times always seems to make sense, even when it’s the exact wrong time to be contractionary in strategy…