Posted On: August 22, 2007, 2:29 pm CDT

Posted By: ALWAYS RIGHT PART II

"so do you think we should abandon the fiat money system ? Should we all carry around little bags of gold to trade for goods and services ? Or should the corn farmer find someone who is willing to trade a tractor for 27 bushels of corn ??

You've got to be kidding."

I don't know that there's any "we," unless you think that everyone who happens to live on the same land mass is part of some unit obligated to each other. The decision to abandon it is each individual's decision; in fact right now, there are payment methods right now that involve electronic transfers of gold and they're being used all over the world in volumes of billions of dollars.

My main point however was that a fiat money system can not help but experience booms, busts, recessions, depressions and declines in the currency value-the dollar of today has lost 95% of its purchasing power compared to the dollar of 1913. In Zimbabwe, the inflation % is in the thousands. A fiat money system would work-if human beings were perfect. But as we don't have any of those on this planet (and no, whenvever someone gets the label "government employee" behind their name, they don't become morally flawless), a fiat money system will never work.