Stats for nerds
4recommend
43mentions
15people
2010–2025years
33% recommend63% neutral5% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Inflation started the year after the Fed was created.
See "Monetary History of the United States" by Milton Friedman.
- > claiming that would be rediciulous.
What, then, caused the 40:1 inflation?
> if you believe people being much more knowledgable about those things
My father was head of the business department at a college and taught finance. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of how money worked. He had a degree in economics from MIT and an MBA from Harvard and a PhD in history from KSU.
We had a lot of discussions about this.
But since he has passed on, you might be interested in "Monetary History of the United States" by Milton Friedman.
- I did not deny the dust bowl.
Think about what low crop prices means. It means FOOD IS CHEAP. That's utterly inconsistent with famine. And Roosevelt destroying zillions of pigs and letting their carcasses rot in ditches is famine? It beggars belief.
> It was largely a failure of unrestricted free markets.
The dust bowl was caused by unsustainable farming practices, which were changed as a result. The Depression was caused by the Fed (read "Monetary History of the United States" by Milton Friedman. Not a novelist.)
> Yes, a novel about the dust bowl and it's consequences.
Novels are fictional, and historical proof of nothing at all. Steinbeck was not a historian, and was known to exaggerate for dramatic effect. There are plenty of history books on the Depression written by professional historians. Any credible claims have no reason to rely on fiction.
P.S. My dad went to public school in Long Beach in the Depression. He sat next to Oakies. They weren't starving. Times were hard, yes. But it wasn't famine.
- > Banks issuing debt is exactly how the supply of money grows.
You're overlooking the fact that private debt gets paid back, which reduces the supply of money.
> If someone has told you that inflation is caused only by government excess spending it is because they are pushing the agenda that government is 'bad'.
Or read books like Friedman's "Monetary History of the United States".
Feel free to take a shot at explaining why the US has had zero net inflation from 1800 to 1914 and endemic inflation after 1914? What happened in 1914?
- I recommend you read "Monetary History of the United States" by Friedman. I have.
We've had stock market crashes before and after. None resulted in a Great Depression. Something else was going on to cause the Depression.
The 100% inflation from 1914-1929 indeed was not prevented by the gold standard, but in 1929 people realized they could double their money by converting their dollars to gold. This caused the bank runs which did not stop until all gold exchanges were stopped.
The gold standard ended in 1933, the Depression did not begin to end until 1939 when foreign countries flooded the US with armaments orders.
What the US did in 1914 was called "pegging". It wasn't really a gold standard, the fiat money was just pegged to gold. Pegging has been tried over and over throughout history, a sham that tries to inflate money while pretending not to. It works for a while, and then always results in a massive and destructive correction. The US's correction was the Great Depression.
- "Monetary History of the United States" by Milton Friedman
https://www.amazon.com/Monetary-History-United-States-1867-1...
Unfortunately, it's a bit of a tough slog, it's not written for the popular press. But it's worth it if you're really interested in understanding what's really going on.
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