The Paranoid Style in American Plutocrats
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/opinion/columnists/covid-climate-cryptocurrency-plutocrats.html
Paul Krugman:
Success all too easily feeds the belief that you’re smarter than anyone else, so you can master any subject without working hard to understand the issues or consulting people who have; this kind of arrogance may be especially rife among tech types who got rich by defying conventional wisdom…
Underlying the whole crypto phenomenon is the belief by some tech types that they can invent a better monetary system than the one we currently have, all without talking to any monetary experts or learning any monetary history. Indeed, there’s a widespread belief that the generations-old system of fiat money issued by governments is a Ponzi scheme that will collapse into hyperinflation any day now.
My take from May 2021:
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/554998-is-bitcoin-the-future-of-money/
The problem with fictional scenarios, like the one painted in Shriver’s novel, as well as with the widespread belief that modern fiat money is purely based on a shared illusion, is that they ignore a key aspect of reality involving key fiat currencies. Major fiat currencies, in fact, have some derived “intrinsic value” due to their status as legal tenders — they are backed by the full faith and power of stable national governments and supported by an elaborate and sophisticated regulatory and financial system.
In her congressional testimony, legal scholar Katharina Pistor noted: “States that have their own currency, issue most of their debt in their own currency and under their own laws, and oversee financial intermediaries that also issue most of their debt in the currency of their home regulator. States ensure asset safety by putting the future productivity of their economies and taxpaying citizens on the line. They insure bank deposits (up to a ceiling) and they stand in for the sovereign debt they have issued.”
It would therefore require a state to utterly fail in some fiscal fashion (as was the case in Venezuela and Zimbabwe in recent years) for citizens to abandon faith in their currency.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/opinion/columnists/covid-climate-cryptocurrency-plutocrats.html
Paul Krugman:
Success all too easily feeds the belief that you’re smarter than anyone else, so you can master any subject without working hard to understand the issues or consulting people who have; this kind of arrogance may be especially rife among tech types who got rich by defying conventional wisdom…
Underlying the whole crypto phenomenon is the belief by some tech types that they can invent a better monetary system than the one we currently have, all without talking to any monetary experts or learning any monetary history. Indeed, there’s a widespread belief that the generations-old system of fiat money issued by governments is a Ponzi scheme that will collapse into hyperinflation any day now.
My take from May 2021:
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/554998-is-bitcoin-the-future-of-money/
The problem with fictional scenarios, like the one painted in Shriver’s novel, as well as with the widespread belief that modern fiat money is purely based on a shared illusion, is that they ignore a key aspect of reality involving key fiat currencies. Major fiat currencies, in fact, have some derived “intrinsic value” due to their status as legal tenders — they are backed by the full faith and power of stable national governments and supported by an elaborate and sophisticated regulatory and financial system.
In her congressional testimony, legal scholar Katharina Pistor noted: “States that have their own currency, issue most of their debt in their own currency and under their own laws, and oversee financial intermediaries that also issue most of their debt in the currency of their home regulator. States ensure asset safety by putting the future productivity of their economies and taxpaying citizens on the line. They insure bank deposits (up to a ceiling) and they stand in for the sovereign debt they have issued.”
It would therefore require a state to utterly fail in some fiscal fashion (as was the case in Venezuela and Zimbabwe in recent years) for citizens to abandon faith in their currency.