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RFK Jr. Announces Bold Plan to Back Dollar with Bitcoin (thestreet.com)
9 points by benkan on July 19, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 10 comments


Decades and decades of people touting the supposed evils of fiat money, and I've yet to hear a single convincing, pragmatic argument for why it is worse than any of the alternatives.

We've had the gold standard in the past. During that time, the economy went up and down, just like in the era of fiat. The same is true for countries that backed their currency with foreign reserves. So why is "backing the dollar" such a worthy goal in the eyes of so many people? What real-world problem would that solve?


If you go and paint somebodys house, how many house paintings does society owe you afterwards?

In the Fiat system, you cannot preserve your "house paintings". When you paint an old mans house when you are young, you can't get your house painted when you are old by cashing in your savings from that house painting in your youth.

In a system with a stable currency, you can.

As Warren Buffet once said, a dollar from his youth isn't worth a penny today.


I have yet to hear a single convincing pragmatic argument why fiat currency debasement isn’t theft be counterfeit.

Looking at the purchasing power of any fiat currency in history, they all, without exception tend to zero over time.

A wage earner who works for 40 years in exchange for a fiat currency with 2% annual inflation loses almost 50% of their purchasing power over that time. This is before accounting for taxes.

How is that not theft?


Well those are some bad policies. I'm assuming he didn't consult an economist. If the Fed decided to back some T-Bills with bitcoin, they would be highly speculative unless fully hedged. That's not why organisations buy T-Bills.


His entire schtick seems to be "Experts are lying to you. Believe me instead."

I'm sure he could find some economist, or "economist", to endorse his idea. And the 24x7 news networks will be happy to interview that one person, equal and opposite to every other economist on the planet.


Eventually, the economists will have to recognize that the ecologists are smarter than they are and have a broader view of the fundamental limitations on systems. I.suggest starting with Yale's G. Evelyn Hutchinson (1903–1991).

https://news.yale.edu/2015/11/21/ecology-evolution-climate-c...


I'm pretty sure no economist was consulted on this policy.



RFK Jr. would have better luck marketing his campaign stops as a comedy tour.


And

> making bitcoin profits exempt from capital gains taxes.

...




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