Well, actually I was arguing with Don, not asserting independent claims. Fractional reserve banking plus deposit insurance plus "lender of last resort" seems to be working fine, so far. It's not perfect but it's better than everything else that's been tried, IMO.
There are at least three major topics that get intertwined in the debate, and have been for as far back as I've read:
business people think credit is a good thing; hard money advocates think hard money is a good thing; and a group of people I haven't yet a name for think credit is immoral - maybe because of interest? - it's a religious thing. You probably already know that Muslims think interest is immoral, and you probably already know that the reason Jews were money-lenders in the Middle Ages is because Christian theologists thought that lending money for interest was immoral. That's one reason, maybe the main reason, Jews were hated. (Maybe still the reason they are hated, I couldn't say. It's one of the things I don't "get.")
And there are probably umpteen other issues that get intertwined in the debate, e.g., some people are paranoid about globalization and the New World Order, and hate international bankers. Debtors like inflation, creditors like deflation. Who knows what assumptions people have when they express ideas?
I think a lot of times people don't even realize the implications of some of the ideas they hold. They pick up a smattering of ideas here and there, and never revisit them. |
