Oddbean new post about | logout
 Imagine all the deflation that could have taken place.  Govts globally harvested all that productivity and grew the apparatus to control everything. 
 I despise the argument "fiat money is great, look at all the amazing progress of the last 50 years that we've accomplished because of Keynesian economics and elastic money and cheap credit yada yada yada..."

 Not because of, in spite of. 

If the thieves steal 5% of a farmer's crop every year, he doesn't say "look how bountiful my crops have been, theft is so great, hooray for thieves." He says "imagine how much more productive my farm would be if I didn't lose 5% to these worthless thieves 😡". 

Meanwhile the thieves in banking and government have been pissing down our leg for a hundred years while their accomplices in media tell us to thank them for the rain.