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Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Some Dumb Ideas That Smart People Advocate

The Gold Standard

This is an idea that we should not have fiat money. Once upon a time all money issued had to be backed up by a gold reserve. If you had a $1 bill issued by the government there was $1 worth of gold in a big safe somewhere. This meant the money supply was usually pretty stable. It remained more or less the same regardless of what was going on in the economy at the moment.

Is this a problem?

Oh you bet it is. As the United States (and other nations) learned you sometimes need to restrict the money supply and sometimes you need to expand it. You'll restrict it to try and keep inflation in check and expand it when you need to create jobs. Without that ability the nation finds itself unable to respond to changing economic situations. Another problem is that the currency is tied to the current value of gold and that is something which can change quickly like if, say, a major gold deposit is located somewhere and mining commences. All of sudden your money isn't worth what it once was and there isn't anything you can do about it.

Also you never know when a super villain will decide to like...nuke your gold or something which would be very, very bad.

So why do people like this idea?

And what happened to the Turnip Standard?




I really have no idea. I can venture two guesses with the first being that it might have something to do with a potential problem with the alternative: that the government can destroy its own economy by over or under printing money. This is something that advocates of the gold standard will bring up but it generally fails to persuade me because governments doing so are the exception not the rule. Zimbabwe does it and their situation sucks. But that country is ruled by a despot who doesn't care if his own people suffer. Wiemar Germany also did so but that was forced on them.

And here in the USA we have controls to prevent this. Specifically the agency that decides on currency production is quasi-independent of the government. This is a feature designed in to not allow government to mess with the money supply for their own political gain at the expense of the larger economy. The agency in charge of this, the Federal Reserve, has one key job: keep the economy stable even at the expense of the money supply.

Oh yes the other guess is that they don't really hate fiat money at all they just hate that Federal Reserve. You see there are a lot of people out there on the internet who simply don't trust it. Why don't they trust it? Mostly because they don't like how it acts in secret. Of course it doesn't really act in secret. That's just in their imagination. But the idea that it is a secret cabal who might be working to the interests of shadowy people at the expense of the rest of the nation appeals to a certain mindset. That mindset being paranoia.

Really the nail in the coffin for this idea is that gold simply will not work. The GDP of the United States is $15.8 trillion. There is only enough gold to account for about $5 trillion. You can see a problem there. And that assumes the USA just goes out and gets all the gold on the planet. It could try but I'm betting doing so would start a few wars it then wouldn't be able to pay for.

The Venus Project

If the people wanting a return to the gold standard value currency stability over economic stability then the people behind this idea are basically the extreme counterpoint in that they want to create a society where there is no currency whatsoever.

How would this work? Basically people would live in circular cities inside self assembling homes. Robots would provide many basic services and the human citizenry would pass the time doing whatever work interests them. If they want to bake then they bake. If they want to give kids vaccine shots then they do that. If they want to train an army of squirrels in the art of ninjutsu then they do that.

Essentially it would be like if you took the idea behind Wikipedia where everyone volunteers their service to a greater cause in whatever way they feel like and applied it to all of society. Your doctor is only a doctor because they feel like it not because it is a high paying job. After all no one gets paid for any job in this society.

It just so happened that the night I first stumbled upon this idea was a night when a water main burst in the street outside my house. It greatly inconvenienced everyone but thankfully the water utility had a crew on the scene right away and they toiled until 3:00AM getting the pipe repaired and our water restored (and not a moment too soon as the toilet situation was getting kind of dire).

Actually, it stood between plumbing and Dog Tobacconist.

Now imagine you are in a society where someone only works on the water delivery system because they want to. And they only do it when they feel like. Does that water main get repaired right away? Probably not. I mean you would be lucky if there was even one guy in the city who even wants to be that guy. And is he going to get out of bed to go work in the wee hours just so you can get rid of the nasty after effects of that dodgy breakfast burrito you scarfed down earlier in the day? Um.....likely not.

So why does this idea appeal to smart people? Well when it comes this idea it seems to be advocated by a very specific group of smart people; young ideologists. They are either still in school or freshly out, brimming with new ideas and just so sure the world needs a major overhaul so things can perfect. Their minds have been blown a few time with new ways of thinking and they seem to have an idea that the old ways are too stuck in tradition. They mean well but they are like a guy fresh out of carpentry school approaching a boat builder and declaring that he will find a better way to build boats because the old way is just too outdated. What that rather naive young person doesn't understand is that boats are built the way they are because of extensive trial and error not because of some regimented system of traditions.

And the same goes for society. Why was a team of workers outside my house toiling into the wee hours of the night to get my water back up? Because they get paid to do that. Humans work because doing so benefits them. Yes some of us do volunteer work too. But that is always only a hobby at best. I have myself handed out meals to the poor but only when I could. If you want me to do that all day, every day you had better pay me something.

Libertarianism/Anarchism

I list these both even though they are often thought of as separate because....screw that! They are the same!

For too long I've heard libertarians tell me they aren't anarchists and anarchists tell me they aren't libertarians and then when they start explaining their ideas I can't tell them apart. Of sure they describe their idea in different ways but when it comes down to it they describe the same thing!

I might describe an animal as a large grey mass, replete with sturdy appendages and a large dexterous front used in the aid of food into a mouth but that won't change that what I'm describing is, ultimately, an elephant!

And what they want is stupid.

Remember my analogy about building boats. Well it comes into play here. We have a society arranged the way it is because we have found that it works. We need government because without it things suck. All the evidence you need of this is how things tend to suck in places that lose their government. Sure commerce is now wide open but what good is that when you've lost all our schools, parks, basic infrastructure and now live in a waste filled dystopia?

When I talk to these people a very specific image comes into my mind: that of a kid that cannot understand why his parents waste money on their mortgage when that money could be used to get them to Disneyland every weekend! The child thinks in terms of immediate benefit and Disneyland every weekend would be an immediate benefit. Taking this idea further we consider that the kid might think losing the parents might be great. Now there is no one to tell him not to eat ice cream for dinner or repaint the couch or play dodgeball in the dining room. And for awhile things might be great. Mom and dad would leave the child in a nice house with food, running water and all sorts of nice things.

But then that stuff will go away or break. What then for the child? Exactly.

So too do the advocates of these ideas look around and see the benefits of society with a government that has provided them with roads, subways, airports, water aqueducts, well regulated food and medicine industries, parks, schools and of course police/firefighters to protect it all. But they don't want to pay for it! They want to do away the mechanism that pays for it all so they can have their fun spree of using and abusing all this until it breaks and then hope someone else foots the bill.

So why do smart people advocate this? Because intelligent people can be selfish just like everyone else. The rest of us just need to be vigilant in opposing it.

Don't play Manapaly with libertards. 
Because, raging narcissism. And probably packing.


1 comment:

  1. This is perfect! The Venus Project is such a ridiculous idea.

    ReplyDelete

Let 'er rip!