Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Modern Monetary Theory - This Nonsense Goes Back To Ancient Rome

 I saw the table below on Modern Monetary Theory in a Bloomberg article. If you don’t care to examine it closely here is a one line resume:

=> Print as much money as you want and just give it away, there are no consequences.


I’m willing to bet that this was what Roman emperors thought as they continuously debased their silver denarius, the most common coin in circulation. 

In 35 AD Tiberius struck a denarius that was approx. 98% silver. Its exchange rate to the solid gold aureus coin was 25 to 1. 

By 356 AD during Julian’s reign the denarius had been progressively debased to less than 5% silver and its exchange rate had collapsed to 4.600.000 denarii per gold solidus (it had replaced the aureus). Annual inflation was running at 1000%,  the denarius had lost 99.99945% of its original value.


Which, I guess, is precisely why former Bank Of England chief economist Andy Haldane says that modern monetary theory is neither modern, nor monetary, nor a theory.

Denarius, dollarius…. Meh…  liquidity is all so much water under the bridge. Let’s hope we don’t all drown in it.

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10 comments:

  1. a kind of chickenSeptember 30, 2021 at 5:05 AM

    interesting; 5% of sliver by 0.00065% of value?...

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  2. HellasiousSeptember 30, 2021 at 8:53 AM

    Here is the full story....essentially, the silver content was near zero.

    The basic silver coin of the Roman Empire was the denarius. By decree of Caesar Augustus in 15 b.c.e, It was nearly pure silver, 95–98%, and had a fixed weight and value in relationship to the rest of the Roman monetary system.

    Over the next 270 years, the silver content of the denarius declined gradually and then precipitously to about 2%. This degradation occurred more rapidly in the provinces than in Rome. The microstructures of a series of Roman denarii taken from this time period are used to illustrate these changes.

    The final stage of the denarius was a duplex plated coin with a neatly copper core and a silver surface. This produced a lower-cost coin with an apparent value equal to the previous ones. Eventually, the surface coating was so thin that it quickly rubbed off after the coin left the mint. By this time (280 c.e.), the silver coinage of the empire had almost totally lost its value and had to be reconstituted by Diocletion.

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  3. HellasiousSeptember 30, 2021 at 8:55 AM

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/104458039290116Y

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  4. a kind of chickenSeptember 30, 2021 at 9:55 AM

    thanks man. btw, I am sure you have noticed that Rome's fall mirrors ours.

    Declining birth rate;
    Declining faith in traditions;
    Increasing decadence;
    Quantitative easing.

    I came upon this article that argued that it has biological roots.
    https://www.historyoftheancientworld.com/2015/05/fall-of-roman-empire-can-be-explained-by-biology-researcher-says/

    Basically, what it says is that when people grow up in a surrounding of surplus, certain genes turn on. Do that on a large scale and society itself changes.

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    1. HellasiousSeptember 30, 2021 at 10:50 AM

      Thank you for the link, very interesting article.

      "Most disturbingly, Dr Penman sees exactly the same process as taking place in our own age, but at a “far more accelerated rate” because of the West’s greater prosperity"

      Exactly my thoughts... things are happening FAST, the reaction is explosive.

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  5. a kind of chickenSeptember 30, 2021 at 10:00 AM

    interestingly, you see the same patterns in the fall of Sparta. Declining birth rate, rising... not so much decadence but madness.

    Of this, the declining birth rate is most interesting, one would think that the moment of maximum prosperity, would see a booming birth rate....

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    1. HellasiousSeptember 30, 2021 at 10:55 AM

      When people get "fat and lazy" they also become very egotistical. It's then me, me me... no room for children and the responsibility and personal sacrifice required.

      The Spartsns... I don't know how they really declined after their long war with Athens, but I guess it was mostly exhaustion, which made them vulnerable to the Macedonians of Philip and Alexander.

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    2. a kind of chickenSeptember 30, 2021 at 11:37 AM

      population decline is very strange from an engineering perspective.

      Say there are two groups of people, one that likes to reproduce and one that those not. We would expect that over time, the first group would out number the second, leading to an evolution in favor of more reproduction. How the hell do we get the reverse?

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    3. HellasiousSeptember 30, 2021 at 5:23 PM

      Easily... the group that does not like to reproduce is larger.

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    4. a kind of chickenSeptember 30, 2021 at 6:24 PM

      At first; but over time, the reproducing group should eventually out number the non reproducers.... yet, generation after generation, the fertility rate goes down.

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