Economist: civilization may not survive "death spiral"

[Mnementh]

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.

You're right, Fiat money isn't the problem. The problem arises from the fact, how the money is created. Most countries have no control over it. Central banks have only little control over it. The money is created by private banks. Also, for creating money (writing in a book that amount X of money exists), there will always be created a debt. That's the system, the financial system of the world works: someone wants a credit, the bank writes in the books (computer today) that he has amount X and that he owes amount X to the bank. If everyone pays the debts, than no money at all exists. As we want the economy and wealth to grow, and measure both in money, we need more and more money, so that this growth is possible. That automatically means, that someone has to have more and more debts.

Fiat money is not the problem, debt-based money is a problem.