Fiatch

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Old news that is not yet news is dangerous.

Via The Oil Drum:

The value of fiat currencies erodes over time, while remaining high quality energy increases in strategic value, even if not recognized in monetary terms.  We have a monumental problem - a system whose claims on the future are higher than its real assets.

[image source]

Virginia Postrel writes:

The WaPost notes that the “cap-and-trade” bill sponsored by Henry Waxman and Edward Markey is, in fact, loaded with all sorts of direct federal regulation of a decidedly dictatorial command-and-control nature.”

To determine what will happen next, simply ask yourself what course will most concentrate power.  That’s all this is — a power grab. It will of necessity end very very badly.

Centralized authority via government cannot allocate resources as efficiently as distributed authority via markets.  Misallocation of resources is a non-trivial matter.  It’s critically important.

Politicians know how to play a crisis, though.  And America is still, by and large, numbly and dumbly taking it.

If you believe this has anything to do with Republicans versus Democrats, you are doing it wrong.  Concentrating federal power is the grand unifying bipartisan project.

We don’t have a government problem.  We have the government we deserve.  We don’t have a media problem or even a monetary, health-care, or education problem.

We have a citizen problem.

Why do we still pretend?  What store of value is safe?  What happens next?  What if the Austrian school is right?