This is a piece that I wrote in response to a request for a guest authorship over at ZeroHedge. It builds on a point, made in yesterday’s piece, that Switters thought had not yet been fully addressed elsewhere in the great Inflation/Deflation debate.
I am interested in your thoughts on this line of thinking. I will send it over to ZeroHedge later on.
My central thesis to this crisis, developed a few years before it even hit, is that the economic troubles are the symptoms, while the money system itself is the cause.
My views on this are expressed in the opening of an article that I initially penned in 2006 but updated in 2008:
Within the next twenty years, the most profound changes in all of economic history will sweep the globe. The economic chaos and turbulence we are now experiencing are merely the opening salvos in what will prove to be a long, disruptive period of adjustment. Our choices now are to either evolve a new economic model that is compatible with limited physical resources, or to risk a catastrophic failure of our monetary system, and with it the basis for civilization as we know it today.
In order to understand why, we must start at the beginning. While it was operating well, our monetary system was a great system, one that fostered incredible technological innovation and advances in standards of living, two characteristics that I fervently wish to continue. But every system has its pros and its cons, and our monetary system has a doozy of a flaw.
It is this: Our monetary system must continually expand, forever.
The article above provides the big-picture backdrop that drives my long-term vision and thinking. I raise it now so that you’ll understand that I principally view the economic world through a monetary lens.
by farmer-brown-2