Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Shane Ferro — Peter Thiel: There Was Virtue In The Gold Standard


Huh? Theil has been hanging with Glenn Beck too much?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have no idea why this guy Peter Thiel is seen as some kind of guru. I listened to his debate with Graeber and he was completely unimpressive.

Matt Franko said...

Right libertarians have a strong material association with metals ... sometimes its precious metals like we see here and sometimes its guns/firearms... sometimes both..

Magpie said...

I know why he is so well-regarded!

Peter Thiel's real name is actually Tony Hadley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hadley) and he is famous for singing this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSq8ZBdSxNU

Pretty catchy, too.

Ignacio said...

Too bad, I liked some of the Thiel thought on technological progress, venture capital, etc. but his libertardian stuff is just... well, retarded.

Bob Roddis said...

"Right" libertarians DO NOT have a strong "material" association with "metals".

That's just more off your endless nonsense.

It is the fact that the metals are indeed scarce which tends to keep their supply limited and thus unavailable for government agents to engage in Klepto-Keynesian type policies. That's the whole point of scarce metals as money.

I'll say it again. The whole point of using scarce metals as money is to make it completely impossible (everywhere and forever and ever) for the government to engage in your beloved MMT-type policies.

Matt Franko said...

The "golden rule" Bob?

As in 'he who has the gold rules...."

No thanks metal lovers!

Tom Hickey said...

"The whole point of using scarce metals as money is to make it completely impossible (everywhere and forever and ever) for the government to engage in your beloved MMT-type policies."


Yes, that is exactly what MMT says, too, Bob. MMT analyzes different monetary system to show how operationally they delineate different policy space. How much policy space to allow and how to use it are chiefly political questions. MMT analysis shows the potential financial/economic results of different political choices.

Politically, MMT is "Keynesian" in the sense of giving employment top priority economics on the rational that it is the most efficient and effective use of national resources in creating distributed prosperity.

MMT actually agrees with the Austrian analysis that favoring monetary policy through a central bank results in economic asymmetry through asset valuation.

Therefore, MMT recommends the Keynesian approach of addressing effective demand to maintain full employment and optimal output. This requires the fiscal policy space to offset changing nongovernment saving with changing fiscal stance. Hence, MMT favors a monetary arrangement that affords this policy space.

Anonymous said...

"The whole point of using scarce metals as money is to make it completely impossible (everywhere and forever and ever) for the government to engage in your beloved MMT-type policies."

Well, that wouldn't help much. Governments under a gold standard are perfectly capable achieving effective control over the level of gold reserves.

Ignacio said...

Weren't governments too busy thinking we are running out of money we could access to all the gold in the solar system. We are have the technologies.

Metals/gold are not scarce, just libertardian imagination and faith in humanity is scarce. They could have baths of gold and eat gold if they wish, infintie supply of gold in the universe, 0 actual scarcity.