Category: Fiat Currency
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
The Swiss Release the Kraken! / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: John_Mauldin
“Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee….
“There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.”
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Switzerland Frees the Swiss Franc / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Frank_Hollenbeck
You can fix your currency or you run independent monetary policy. But you cannot do both at the same time. In spectacular fashion, the Swiss government finally capitulated and decided control over the money supply was more important than a fixed rate against the euro. The Swiss franc rocketed up 30 percent in value minutes after the central bank’s decision to let the currency float.
Saturday, January 03, 2015
The Great Fallacy at the Heart of Modern Monetary Theory / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Jesse
As with all theories that miss the mark, Modern Monetary Theory presents some insights into the matter of course, but seems to hinge on one or two key assumptions that are more matters of assertion than historical or even practical experience. It is founded not so much an economic theory, but on a belief without a firm foundation.
Monday, December 29, 2014
Counting Your Chickens in Dollars / Commodities / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
With silver, you have a rare physical commodity that you can literally take into your possession.
It’s known that quantity, in investment form, is far less than what is perceived by the mainstream. And as a direct consequence, orders of magnitude less than the price indicates.
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Monday, December 08, 2014
What a Reserve Currency Should Look Like / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: MISES
Patrick Barron writes: Much has been written lately, including by me, about the coming rejection of the dollar as the primary reserve currency of the world’s most important central banks.
My prediction is based upon two things: one, that the Federal Reserve is controlled by inflationist politicians whose main goal is to monetize the federal government’s vast annual budget deficits; and, two, that the rest of the world is getting fed up with holding ever more fiat dollars of decreasing purchasing power. In the first instance, as long as the Fed can get away with printing dollars that ultimately are used to purchase federal government debt, there is no reason for it to cease federal debt monetization, or for the federal government itself to balance its budget.
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Friday, November 21, 2014
Paper Money Yielding Madness / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
The mainstream investor (with any time and "money" left), wielding an internet connection, and hell bent for yield is about to feel the temperature drop despite a thousand reminders that the cold winter is coming. (Or perhaps not - if you are in South Florida.)
Zero interest policy scorches the planner and the saver, rotting the seed corn while providing fuel for speculation, breeding the trading culture pestilence we see today. Yet again, another tiresome cycle appears. More bubbles to end all bubbles.
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Thursday, November 20, 2014
The Cultural and Political Consequences of Fiat Money / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: MISES
Jörg Guido Hülsmann writes: It may seem unusual that an economist would talk about culture. Usually, we talk about prices and production, quantities produced, employment, the structure of production, scarce resources, and entrepreneurship.
But there are certain things that economists can say about the culture, and more precisely, that economists can say about the transformation of the culture. So what is culture? Well, to put it simply, it is the way we do things. This can include the way we eat — whether or not we dine with family members on a regular basis, for example — how we sleep, and how we use automobiles or other modes of transportation. And of course, the way we produce, consume, or accumulate capital are important aspects of the culture as well.
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Monday, November 10, 2014
Fiat Wealth Illusion - We Don't Need Your Stinking Principles / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
“Nobody can predict how long governments can get away with fake growth, fake money, fake financial stability, fake jobs, fake inflation numbers and fake income growth. Our feeling is that confidence, especially when it is unjustified, is quite a thin veneer. When confidence is lost, that loss can be severe, sudden and simultaneous across a number of markets and sectors.” - Paul SingerI noticed the following financial cartoon was making its rounds over the weekend. Particularly this section. In case you can't see the image, the quote that stood out was this one:
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Sunday, October 26, 2014
Why Money Doesn’t Measure Value / Economics / Fiat Currency
By: Robert_Murphy
Anyone who knows him personally would attest that David Gordon is a troublemaker. He lived up to this label with a recent review of the new book by Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames. Gordon took them to task for referring to money as a measure of value, analogous to a ruler or clock; Gordon cited the authority of Ludwig von Mises while rejecting such a view. In a previous post here at Mises Canada, I then defended Gordon from the reply of John Tamny. Yet now I see that economist Marc Miles has jumped in the fray, also thinking that Gordon is ignorant of basic economics.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
'Confidence' Is a Corollary of a Fiat Culture / Economics / Fiat Currency
By: Jesse
Economists are fretting about the current notion that the US is caught in a secular stagnation. They are concerned because they believe that this is what is driving stock prices lower. And lower stock market prices are upsetting to their masters.
They are concerned that people are believing in stagnation as a sort of urban myth, and that makes it real. Seriously. Belief is not an effect, but a primary cause in their minds.
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Monday, October 06, 2014
Cerulean Dollars - Go Deep or Go Home / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
“We have deep depth.”-Yoga BerraThe dollar institution is much larger than the Fed, the Treasury or the entire basket of FOREX that derives relative values of backless currencies.
Market action makes market commentary. Few question price discovery -- instead they spend precious time trying to make the fundamentals fit the price. A backwards endeavour. We need to go deeper.
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Tuesday, September 23, 2014
A Post-Petrodollar Play for Triple-Digit Gains / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Money_Morning
Peter Krauth writes: It's now clear as day that both Russia and China are making concerted efforts to move off the petrodollar system.
I've previously written about this petrodollar phenomenon as a developing trend.....
Well now it's no longer developing, it's in active mode.
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Monday, September 22, 2014
One Giant Cluster Ponzi / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
-H. L. Mencken
Recently, The U.S. Treasury ramped up war games via financial sanctions aimed at Russia. The EU is part and parcel to the operation. These interventions are a continuation of the age old warfare referred to as the “currency wars”. Jim Rickards’ recent book on the topic chronicles the use of this tactic.
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Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Why Money Is Worse Than Debt / Interest-Rates / Fiat Currency
By: GoldSilverWorlds
Francis Schutte writes: Everybody has to spend energy, has to work for his living. This is true for Government as well as for the billionaires and for the ordinary employee. Nothing – except for sunshine and air – comes for free. Note that today, sometimes people even pay for sunshine (vacation) and air (airports in Venezuela).
Not hard to understand that today’s fairy tale of “Free Fiat Money” will have a bad ending…or is it? Few people seem to realize the dramatic situation we are in, and that the denial is fed by the propaganda sold by politicians through the mainstream media. The 4th generation (see Galbraith’s Age of Uncertainty) doesn’t seem to be mentally able to grasp the seriousness of the situation the world is in.
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Friday, August 29, 2014
A History of Unlimited Money: Learn From It or Repeat Its Mistakes / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Doug_Wakefield
Thursday, August 28, 2014. Is there anything special about this day? For some it may be an anniversary, marriage or work. For others it may be a birthday. However, chances are it is just another day of the week, following the same routine as last week for hundreds of millions of lives that depend on an economic and financial system they hope will stay predictable.
For Americans today, the answer that has been presented to us repeatedly for years, and sadly seems to have been accepted as necessary to restore our capitalist system, is that the Federal Reserve will merely print up trillions more in debt in order to bring things back to "normal". History is replete with lessons for the Federal Reserve, Keynesian economists, and millions desperate to believe that maybe this time, with trillions more in debt, the temporary riches of the financial markets will become permanent and predictable. Frankly, the only thing predictable about this story is that history keeps repeating itself, and we do not show any desire to learn from our past.
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Thursday, August 28, 2014
A World Without Fractional Reserve Banks and Central Planning / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: John_Rubino
In a very real sense, it is fractional reserve banking and not money itself that is the root of so many of today’s evils. Whenever fractional reserves are permitted, the banking system – including the one that exists today throughout the world – comes to resemble a classic Ponzi scheme which can only function as long as most people don’t try to get at their money.
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Monday, August 18, 2014
Intervention and The Misery of Fiat Currency / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
-U.S. Naval pilot and prisoner of war, James Stockton
Black swans have taken flight. World war is imminent as one new geopolitical flash point develops each week. Slowly, the underlying struggles are fomented by the greatest monetary intervention the world has ever seen.
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Monday, August 11, 2014
Monetary Versus Political Stability - When Day Turns into Night / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
Wherever plunder is less burdensome than labor, it prevails; and neither religion nor morality can, in this case, prevent it from prevailing.
- From Bastiat's "The Law"Representing all things big, institutional investors believe there is no inflation.
The market "behaves" as if there is none. This undercuts value at risk.
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Thursday, July 31, 2014
The Cleanest Dirty Shirt / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
All modern currencies are fiat. The numeraire of the moment floats in a cesspool of policy designed for management and intervention.Money and value become hollowed out concepts.
The eventual return to a sound relationship between human productivity and the value of money will be unloved, to say the least.
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Tuesday, June 03, 2014
The Government's Disastrous Reign over U.S. Money / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: EWI
Very few people know that the United States did not create a monetary unit pegged to "buy" some amount of metal, as if the dollar were some kind of money independent of metal.
In 1792, Congress passed the U.S. Coinage Act, which defined a dollar as a coin containing 371.25 grains of silver and 44.75 grains of alloy. Congress did not say a dollar was worth that amount of metal; it was that amount of metal. A dollar, then, was a unit of weight, like a gram, ounce or pound. Since the alloy portion of the coin was nearly worthless, a dollar was essentially defined as 371.25 grains -- equal to 24.057 grams, or 0.7734 Troy oz. -- of pure silver. (15.43 grains = 1 gram, and 480 grains = 1 Troy ounce.)
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