Note @sidhujag has been added to Ignore for being a envious, blind, fool. I have clearly documented upthread that Putin invaded Middle East precisely on the day (Oct 1) of 2015.75.
Money has always been what people trust and have confidence in. This doesn't mean the metal itself, but as Armstrong has explained many times it was the stamp on the metal. Even when the invaders took over the Roman Empire, they used the stamps on the coins from the former Empire because it was more trusted.
Bitcoin (crypto-currency on a blockchain) enable trustless money, where we don't have to trust any authority. We trust the decentralized protocol. Now that was the ideal. Unfortunately Satoshi's proof-of-work centralizes and thus we end up trusting Gregory Maxwell and the Chinese mining cartel
I disagree that that trust in the case of hard currencies has anything to do with authorities and the stamp on the metal they make. In fact, in medieval times you could just grab a piece of gold and take it to the royal mint where you got your royal coins stamped for a small fee. This tells us that the stamp had rather a utilitarian function than an existential one. On the other hand, if it all came down to trust in authorities, there would be no case for Gresham's Law where you had essentially the same stamp but, nevertheless, different levels of trust...
Which wouldn't be ever possible unless you in fact trusted the metal more than the stamp on it as you claim
Sorry but if you have access to a lot of data such as Armstrong who has collected all the ancient coins (at enormous cost), you will come to learn that your understanding is factually incorrect.
Why did we build the largest coin collection in the world? Because coins are the documented history of the fiscal mismanagement of centuries of mankind. There is nothing that does not fluctuate even what is used for money.
The Mongols conquered China and maintained their monetary system. They honored the paper money in circulation and used that as the monetary base rather than coins.
The barbarians issued coins at first maintaining the pretense of the Roman Empire pretending that they now held the throne.
...the next target marks the end of the Roman Empire that formally falls in 476AD with the last real emperor. However, then the barbarians assume the throne for a brief period of time. They issued coins that appeared to be Roman in appearance. Effectively, at the end, the barbarians wanted to be Romans where as the Vandals just stripped even the copper from the roofs of temples in Rome.
The idea that money must be tangible also has no basis in fact. Money has been many things to many people. The entire basis of money is you will accept something as money as long as you have CONFIDENCE that in turn someone else will accept it from you.
This idea that somehow gold coin is not fiat has been so misleading. Here is a Roman tax collector gold bar because the government minted gold coins cheating in quality but refused to accept them in return for taxes. Thus, taxes were imposed based upon weight – not coins! Therefore, the gold coins of the day were not trusted and even government had no CONFIDENCE in them, which is why they were NOT legal tender (acceptable for taxes).
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Early attempts at wage and prices controls always failed from Babylonian times right up to the Wage & Price Controls of Diocletian (284-305AD) who attempted to restore silver coinage AFTER the Great Monetary collapse. It did not matter that coinage was restored. CONFIDENCE still collapsed and the coinage was rapidly hoarded and vanished from circulation. So yes, even when the money is of full value, it still will not circulate if people do not BELIEVE government. Indeed, there was still another war and finally Constantine (309-337AD) emerged as Emperor after defeating all rivals. He enjoyed some success but had to abandon Rome and created a new Capital Constantinople and revised the monetary system again.
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Government then began to stamp the image or badge of the city to impress people.However, the first city to “coin” money was also the first to discover “fiat” meaning the value is simply dictated by government
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The whole reason people began to use banks was because the “money” could not be verified. Just because the coins were silver or gold did not mean anything. They could be debased, shaved, or forged. You deposited money in a bank and the bank CERTIFIED you were paying in “good” money. People did not want coins, they wanted the bank paper receipts. Like the moneychanger, the bank was certifying the transaction was taking place with proper value in “money”. Thus, paper money began in middle ages as receipts certifying deposits.
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Ancient Egypt always had “fiat” money receipts for grain in public warehouses trading as money. They did not have any coinage until Alexander the Great conquered them in 334BC. Virginia also had the same system of tobacco receipts that circulated as money in colonial times.
China and Japan were the same. They never had circulating gold or silver coinage. This nonsense that money has to be tangible is NOT supported by the facts. Money has always been based solely upon what someone else is will to accept. Go to a WaWa or Starbucks and try to buy with a gold coin. They will not accept it. Hell, some places will not even take a $100 bill anymore and want plastic. If they do not BELIEVE gold is acceptable for payment or you hand them $1 in 1964 silver quarters to by a $5 coffee, you are out of luck. They will see it as $1 not worth $5. This is the real economy. MONEY is only valuable based upon what the OTHER person believes – not you!
It is NOT the fiat. It is simply CONFIDENCE. Bank and warehouse paper receipts have circulated as money for thousands of years. Even dollars under Bretton Woods gold standard were simply receipts redeemable in gold in international transactions. It was NOT gold that actually circulated. When people as a whole distrust government, then barter replaces official “money” and that can be a lot of things and the worse it gets the more likely it boils down to food. We have run every possible correlation and have the database to do so.
When Genghis Khan invaded China, which was using paper money, he too accepted it and did not devalue the paper money that was in circulation. He too accepted the paper money from the previous emperors.
By the time this economic implosion is over, you will PRAY for HYPERINFLATION. What we face is far worse. It is loss of everything with the risk of tanks rolling down your streets hunting money!
It has always been a confidence game. Those in power are constantly trying to boost the confidence of the people in order to stabilize their control over society. Above is a Roman coin from the tetrarchy period of Diocletian & Maximinus. The term meant “leadership of four” whereas there had been a chaotic period that spanned across 20 emperors whereby they came to power only to be overthrown by another. There was no political stability. The Emperor Diocletian sought to create political stability and established the tetrarchy where there were two emperors and two “Caesars” who were like vice presidents in waiting. The power of governing the empire was split and marked the end of the crisis of the third century.
You do not see hyperinflation in Britain or China despite the fact that both declined from major economic peaks. Money never becomes worthless in a major core society for if the core were to collapse then everything else must fall as well. Genghis Khan accepted the paper currency of China upon his conquest and did not render it worthless. It continued to circulate and he accepted it in payment himself. That is showing the Moguls wanted the dignity of conquering civilization and merely replaced the emperor.
Human nature does not change with time. It remains consistent and this is why history repeats. With the fall of Rome, the invading barbarians wanted to be Roman. Their rulers initially issued coins merely pretending to be the emperor. One of the great kings was Theodebert I (534-548AD) whose tomb is erected and still standing as if he too had been a Roman Emperor. Thus the invaders wanted to be the head of the civilization both in China and Europe showing confidence did not vanish, just a change in ownership and no hyperinflation.
The term ‘barbarous coinage’ of the 3rd century refers to imitative coins that are typically crude in style. Their origin stems from the use of Roman coins outside the empire and as a result there was a high demand that was not often met. Consequently, then shortage of official coinage was compensated by the strike of imitative coinage that was underweight, but there was no real intrinsic metal value. Like US dollars circulate in Russia and China, it is the confidence in the foreign government that provides the inherent value to the monetary instrument rather than the metal content.
Indian Ancient Imitations of Roman Coins
The peripheral economy with respect to the center core economy has routinely imitated the coinage of the dominant economy which is the financial capital of the world. In the case of India, these imitations of Roman coinage in gold are known as far back as the Roman Emperor Tiberius (14-37AD). These are imitations rather than counterfeits for the metal content is the same or at times even better. Pictured here is an Indian contemporary Indian imitation of a gold aureus of Tiberius (AV Aureus 19mm, 6.69 grams) copied from a coin struck at Lugdunum (Lyon) mint issue in modern day France which obviously made it to India.
Even your example is another confirmation that it is indeed the confidence the public has in the authority which drives the use as currency, because the public innately understands that power vacuum of society which
I had explained.
You misunderstand Gresham's Law. The hoarding is for the melt value, not for the currency value. In fact, the hoarding is removing the currency attribute.
