The Big Print by Lawrence Lepard #bookstr
A straightforward explanation on how our broken monetary system is caused by fiat money with the inflation that is generated by Central Banks policy.
Pay close attention to Triffin’s Dilemma - the country that supplies the reserve currency must run a trade deficit at all time and that creates a tension between domestic and foreign monetary policy.
Lepard argues that economic well-being isn’t about endless growth (certainly not through inflation), it’s about efficiency and productivity. So as the capitalist economy invests savings in new ideas generating new technologies and doing it in a competitive and free environment we consumers have better and more efficient options. Without a fiat currency that is devalued day by day through inflation we would see prices go down in the economy due to efficiency and better resource allocation.
Deflation is the natural condition of a well functioning economic system.
The money printing is done but the Central Banks. It is argued that the US Federal Reserve has expanded its metrics to include stock market prices. Through quantitative easing and asset swaps the Fed is pushing money in the financial system inflating the stock markets and giving only a few an advantage while the majority is at the mercy of inflation.
The book is easy to read and straightforward on how the financial system works and Triffin’s Dilemma explains much of the domestic tensions in the United States and how they are spilling into trade war with longterm partners. The solution would have been to keep gold as the neutral reserve currency at Bretton Woods. Since Nixon took the US Dollar off the gold standard bureaucratic governments worldwide have printed their currencies into oblivion ruining the savings of billions of honest people.
But we have Bitcoin now.
