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It doesn't have to be squeaky clean. It just has to be clean enough that the advantage of easy access to liquidity isn't overshadowed by the cost of counterfeiting, extortion and the regulatory effort needed to suppress these.

Once the advantages no longer exceed the disadvantages, the system should be dismantled in good order.

I don't think it's impossible to construct a working financial system on roughly the basis we had in the fifties and sixties... as long as one makes sure that the participants are convinced that the entire sector will be dismantled the minute it stops being a benefit to the real economy.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Dec 27th, 2008 at 07:03:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The system in the 50s and 60s was propped up partly by government investment in cement and ball bearing technologies (or their high tech equivalents) and that's one reason why it worked relatively well. We're still getting those benefits today.

But I'm not convinced that the system back then is the best one to return to. Distributed financing, with strong regulation to prevent extortion and fraud but no central monopoly on finance seems like a more interesting idea.

There were still boom and bust cycles throughout the 50s and 60s. I'd be more interested in a system which was designed to be inherently stable and where growth is measured in the increase of innovative IP being created, with manufacturing taking second place. (After energy supply becomes sustainable.)

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sat Dec 27th, 2008 at 08:43:02 PM EST
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