Economist: civilization may not survive "death spiral"

[justinian]

Kasz216 said:

Or to better explain why you need a fiat money... lets look at it this way.

Say we live on an island, with 6 people...

we use sea shells to represent our currency like someone might use gold.

Now imagine the population doubles...

but the amount of currency, mostly stays the same, with fewer sea shells being found... this is a problem. So we need to also use a second source, or everyones prices have to go down, just like they would in a fiat system anyway.  So we use snail shells or something.  This keeps going.

Eventually we run out of stuff with which to back our money, and we're hoarding everything of value in government vaults just so the money keeps its worth... and eventually it's going to fall apart anyway.

Had we not gone to a Fiat based money system, our economy would of never grown so prosperous and we would have already faced the hyperinflation we're worried about today.

The gold and other precious metals wouldn't of increased enough to represent the massive improvenents in the economy created by things like computer programs.

Besides, at the end of the day, while money is just paper.  Gold is just a rock.

 

Gold may just be just like rock but it is globally respected as hard currency that will never fail. It's value may vary but in crisis times people always fall back to it and in these said crisis times it's value rises, often significantly. 

In extreme times of crisis, say a war, if a country wants to trade it's not the potential worthless piece of paper that other countries take into account. It's the gold reserves first, other precious commodities after.

You can keep your piece of paper, I'll always take the piece of rock.

Back to the money. 

I uderstand (and agree) as you pointed out that gold, for example could not possibly last as the currency in a modern growing economy.

I am not saying fiat money was not the way to go forward. It made sense that's why Benjamin Franklin was pushing for it in the US. 

I cannot remember who it was, maybe Franklin himself , that however said in generations to come it would be doomed to fail.