Comments on: From a monetary perspective, World War I never really ended

By: Lu An Li

Lu An Li — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 10:52:28 +0000

The excise tax on telephone calls was used to pay for the Spanish American Ware of 1898. A penny taxed on every phone call made. That at the time when of course the telephone and the usage of a great rarity. The telephone excise tax still existing in wartime I think as a “temporary” measure.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 20:33:16 +0000

Personally, I would like to see quasi-libertarian arguments in favor of cryptocurrency as “digital gold” explain how the cryptocurrency will not itself be “disintermediated” in some sense by “account Bitcoin” just as specie-dollars were “disintermediated” by account-dollars. I suggest that the fundamental problem is not technological; rather, it is that the human psyche is uniquely vulnerable to fall victim to the bailment-lookalike fractional-reserve accounting scheme. If “dollars in my account” have the same practical spendability as “dollars in my hand”, then what is to stop me from valuing the former no less than the latter? Nothing. But the true problem is that pro-cryptocurrency people never seem to prioritize cryptocurrency spendability at the expense of cryptocurrency price (invariably denominated in dollars), which tends to show that like any other investor their interest extends little further than their desire to get something for nothing.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 19:09:14 +0000

However, with the widespread holding of centrally issued banknotes and bank deposits that were redeemable for specific amounts of gold, governments could change the redemptive value with the stroke of a pen or eliminate redemption all together.

The phrasing of “the widespread holding of centrally issued banknotes and bank deposits” may tend to mislead, because current bank notes were issued mainly by commercial banks (not the central bank) until 1934, and because bank deposits are not now nor have they ever been centrally issued, and “governments could change the redemptive value with the stroke of a pen or eliminate redemption all together” is an allusion to the Joint Resolution of 1933, which suspended the gold clause in all contracts, public or private, under the apparent authority of the Congress.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 18:58:37 +0000

Keep in mind that the Federal Reserve Act was passed (we are to suppose) December 23, 1913, and Franz Ferdinand was shot June 28, 1914.

By: Alpha Squared

Alpha Squared — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 15:20:02 +0000

What about plunder?

“You must make it your guiding principle that the war must feed the war,” Such was Napoleon’s recommendation to Marshal Soult when he appointed the latter général en chef of the Army of the South in Spain.