Oddbean new post about | logout
 I disagree. The chaos of unemployment and mass migration would absolutely wreck huge parts of the country. Societal unrest like modern Western economies haven’t seen.

I agree with you in theory … and I agree with the long-term forecast that growth would be sustainable and healthy. But I think millions of people probably wouldn’t make it through the transition period. Not trying to be hyperbolic.

And I mean that as a condemnation of the current system and the inefficiencies / bad infrastructure they’ve built. Not blaming the sound money standard we’d return to…at all.

But still, the implosion of the central bank credit system would be an incredibly disruptive shock to civilization. And because it literally might happen in a year or two vs. historical financial collapses that took decades to fully transition, the pain would be exacerbated.

And from another angle, we’ve built bad, poor quality, non-productive capacity for 50+ years … the overhang of non-productivity of those assets would also hinder growth (i.e. tearing down infrastructure that is no longer useful to replace it with something more useful). 

Further, sound money reduces consumption by raising the hurdle rate. That would lead to an extensive period of hodlers hodling until we clear the overhang of bad assets. During that period, I’m not sure you’d see a lot of physical real infrastructure being built…at least in developed nations. Also, bitcoin will only be able to be earned, not bought … and we won’t “need” as many things as we do today … so that’s another overhang.

I’m a libertarian, bitcoin maxi so don’t get me wrong…I think the transition is SUPER painful. And it’s going to be widespread.