Category: Fiat Currency
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Friday, December 11, 2009
Thanks to the Fed We Live in a Crystal Meth Economy / Economics / Fiat Currency
As I see it, booms and busts are a natural part of human social behavior. Cycles appear throughout history and are part of the dynamism of humanity of which Butler Shaffer so eloquently writes. If this is so, then what role do central banks play in the modern world?
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Economic Crossroads Means Opportunities for Local Currencies / Currencies / Fiat Currency
- The crisis of 2008-2009 exposed the U.S. financial system as being unstable, subject to abuse, and tending to favor the rich while putting everyone else deeper into debt.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
North Koreans Panic Over Devalued Fiat Currency Revaluation / Currencies / Fiat Currency
The government of North Korea has launched the denomination of the national currency, the won. All citizens of the country will have to exchange their money for new notes. The nation will cut two zeros: 100 wons will thus have the value of 1 won.
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Sunday, November 29, 2009
Alternative World Reserve Currencies to the U.S. Dollar Part 2 / Currencies / Fiat Currency
In last week’s Money and Markets column, I analyzed the three major liquid currencies as prospective alternatives to the U.S. dollar: The Japanese yen, the British pound and the euro. Fundamentally, they all fell short.
As I explained then, these three don’t offer any appeal over the dollar. That’s because the currency market is a beauty contest where the least ugly wins. And not only is the dollar the least ugly, but it offers refuge when fear and uncertainty grip the markets.
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monetary Fraud Means Cold Turkey Thanksgiving 2009 / Commodities / Fiat Currency
The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled. John Kenneth Galbraith (1908- ), former professor of economics at Harvard, writing in Money: Whence it came, where it went (1975).
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
Weighing Alternative World Reserve Currencies to the U.S. Dollar / Currencies / Fiat Currency
The dollar has suffered a landslide of scrutiny and negative sentiment over the past eight months. Yet just nine months ago it was the currency that every investor and central banker in the world wanted to own! The world economy was on the ropes, and the dollar represented safety.
Since then, fear has gradually abated, optimism has returned and this dollar, safe-haven trade has been reversing.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
What Has Government Done to the U.S. Dollar? / Currencies / Fiat Currency
"No legal tender law is ever needed to make men take good money; its only use is to make them take bad money." (Stephen T. Byington)
The U.S. dollar has changed from being a paper certificate for a tangible asset to a fiat currency - a paper note declared legal tender. By looking at the history of American paper money one can clearly see the distinction.
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Friday, November 13, 2009
Expansion of Global Fiat Currencies / Currencies / Fiat Currency
The expansion of global currencies has exceeded nine percent over the last year.
This essay investigates which currencies are contributing the most to this development. One hundred currencies from 95 sovereign nations and five monetary unions have been examined.
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Thursday, November 12, 2009
How the Fed Helped Fund World War I / Politics / Fiat Currency
Governments can pay their bills in three ways: taxes, debt, and inflation. The public usually recognizes the first two, for they are difficult to hide. But the third tends to go unnoticed by the public because it involves a slow and subtle reduction in the value of money, a policy usually unarticulated and complex in design.
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Money, Inflation and Uncertainty / Economics / Fiat Currency
Three decades ago, I was visiting a friend. He was a graduate of the Harvard Business School. He was beginning a successful career as an entrepreneur. We were outside, watching his son play. His son was about five years old. "Robbie," he said, "why does daddy have to go to work every day?" "To buy money," Robbie replied. "No, Robbie. I go to work to earn money."
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Saturday, November 07, 2009
Fed Attempts to Export Inflation Will Fail / Economics / Fiat Currency
If you think people are confused about monetary affairs inside the borders of the nation they live in, you should listen to their explanations of money outside the country, beginning with the idea of "money outside the country."
If you read the financial press, you will run across this phrase: "exported inflation." We never hear the terms "imported deflation" or "exported deflation."
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Why Purchasing Power is More Important than Investment Profits / Economics / Fiat Currency
Growing your money is not the most important element of wealth. In fact, growth should come secondary to the preservation of wealth and purchasing power. Too often do investors get distracted with nominal changes in their personal wealth only to find that the thousands of dollars they have collected is worth considerably less than it was when the initial investment was made.
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Tuesday, November 03, 2009
What is Money and How Does One Measure It? / Economics / Fiat Currency
Money is a difficult subject. There is much confusion as to what it is. There is even more confusion as to the best way to measure it. Yet, before we can measure it, we have to define it.
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Friday, October 30, 2009
Forgotten Fiat Currency Anniversary, One Hundred Years of Legal Tender / Currencies / Fiat Currency
An Address at a Fund-Raising Dinner for the benefit of the Ficino School, Auckland, New Zealand October 28, 2009
The year 2009 will most likely expire without commemorating the centenary of a most momentous event in history that figures prominently as the main cause of the Great Financial Crisis of the century. This event was the so-called legal tender legislation in 1909. The bank notes of both the Banque de France and the Reichsbank of Germany were made legal tender by law, first in France and then, a very short time later, also in Imperial Germany. The rest of the world followed suit. In this way all roadblocks were removed in the way of financing the coming world war through credits and monetizing the resulting debt through the issuance of bank notes.
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Monday, October 19, 2009
Central Banks Systematically Destroying Hard Earned Wealth Through Fiat Currencies / Currencies / Fiat Currency
Human beings are not designed to think in terms of loss, or at minimum, are not built to deal with it well psychologically. And if you look around one can see this in how we have structured our modern day society, with the economy counting on steady and consistent growth even if its not to be. Of course even though it’s not to be, we humans would prefer to be optimistic, and lie about the reality of the situation. Here, because of this desire, our bureaucracy feels they have sufficient license to lie about the economy in increasing measure; whatever it takes to avoid loss – loss of wealth, loss of jobs, and most importantly loss of the fictitious wealth most have saved in fictitious dollars ($’s). Oh yes, naturally when we speak of bureaucracy we cannot ignore the desire for power within the formula, however for our purposes we lump all these desires into one easily understandable obsession, that being the desire to increase and maintain one’s wealth, where today, this also means at any cost unfortunately.
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Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Importance of Gresham's Money Law and Fed Bad Money / Economics / Fiat Currency
"Bad money drives out good money." This aphorism has been known as Gresham's Law for almost 500 years. Sir Thomas Gresham never said it exactly like this. The statement is wrong in its familiar form.
Bad money does not drive out good money in a free market. The free market rewards producers of customer-satisfying products and services. Good money drives out bad money on a free market. The definition of bad money is money that the free market refuses to use. Gresham's law, as stated, is incorrect. The opposite is true.
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Thursday, October 15, 2009
Economists are Committed to the Expansion of Fiat Counterfeit Money / Economics / Fiat Currency
When someone announces the discovery of a new oil field, most people rejoice. There are exceptions. Owners of existing oil wells don't. Growth-hating environmentalists don't. But for most people, a new oil field means an additional supply of a scarce resource. It means slightly lower prices for the resource. What is good for the person who owns the oil field is good for almost everyone else.
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Monday, October 12, 2009
The End of Money and the Future of Civilization / Economics / Fiat Currency
It’s too late for anyone to pretend that the U.S. government, whether under President Barack Obama or anyone else, can divert our nation from long-term economic decline. The U.S. is increasingly in a state of political, economic, and moral paralysis, caught as it were between the “rock” of protracted recession and the “hard place” of terminal government debt.
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Monday, October 05, 2009
Currency Crisis Lesson from War Ravaged Iraq / Economics / Fiat Currency
There has been much ado concerning the Federal Reserve's doubling of the monetary base this past year. Many believe a currency crisis or hyperinflation of the dollar is imminent. Some go as far as to say that this crisis will destroy America.
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Supply of Oxen at the IMF / Currencies / Fiat Currency
Some years ago I penned a paper with the title "The Supply of Oxen at the Fed". I am indebted to Alan Greenspan for a great line in one of his speeches, entitled The History of Money, from where I borrowed my title. He wrote: "If fiat money falters, we may have to go back to oxen as our medium of exchange. In that event, I trust, the Federal Reserve will have an adequate inventory of oxen." My article was designed to reassure Mr. Greenspan that the supply of oxen at the Fed was very secure indeed, in no small measure due to his stewardship.
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