David Howden on Europe and fiat currency



Subscribe to our newsletter at http://www.goldmoney.com/goldresearch. Episode 117: The GoldMoney Foundation's Andy Duncan talks to David Howden; Chair of the Department of Business and Economics, associate professor of economics at St. Louis University and co-author of Deep Freeze. They discuss the debt crisis in Europe and the race to the bottom between fiat currencies. Howden thinks that the Euro will hold together in the short term, but he is rather pessimistic on the long term outlook of the common currency. One at a time countries which were formerly regarded as "stable" are being dragged into the debt hole. Though he assesses the problems in the United States to be even greater than Europe's, he points out that whenever Euro fears start to creep up the US is benefiting due to the depth of its Treasury market. They go on to talk about the situation in Iceland and Ireland, bank bailouts and the adverse effects of capital controls. With regards to the possibility of a global fiat currency Howden states that such a push would only happen under American involvement which he deems unlikely. Both men express their hopes that the coming currency crisis will make visible the flaws of monopolised money and lead to popular demand for the idea of competing currencies. This podcast was recorded on 22 March 2013.

Comments

  1. This money could be issued by anyone there would just need to be some uniformity of size. All purchasing would be done by weight so no national denominations would be needed. Counterfeiting would be impossible.
  2. I agree. Though, once gold and silver have have done an accounting of all the worlds fiat currency their purchasing power will be so high that it will take a very small amount to be useful as waking around money. I visualize a very thin pieces of gold or silver sandwiched between two thin pieces of clear polycarbonate. Each coin would have only 100,000 oz to 1,000 oz of gold or silver. Cash registers could contain a laser spectrometer that could quickly determine purity and weight.
  3. the debt free currency you are talking about would be inflationary and in the hands of government ,the real elite.
  4. How are they going to spend it if nobody takes it, it has value, it is money. No government can exist for long without fiat money and no man can horde gold while his neighbours starve without being ostracised completely by society and starving to death. Gold and sliver are debt free currencies, it's a little heavy to carry in your pocket but the point is you can back your Paper Money with the value of the commodity, no printing, just a share of the product.
  5. The problem with Gold (or Silver) is that most of it are in the hand of the Elite!!! A currency backed by Gold mean more power to the Elite. The real solution is to issue debt free Money, and band any type of DEBT Currency EVEN if it's supposedly "backed" by Gold. The "US Colonial scrip" is a good example! -Monetary historian expert.


Additional Information:

Visibility: 1754

Duration: 17m 12s

Rating: 18