Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – As Old As Babel

from Jesse’s Café Américain

I liked this quote from Michael Hudson today, although the beginning of the very first sentence is patently not supported by history. Few sovereign nations have the ‘right’ to legislate their own debt terms to their external creditors, or even to issue their own fiat currency in any manner that they may choose without limitation, to the extent that they wish to have commerce with any other nations and groups not under their direct political control.

In this case, modern monetarists tend to conflate the power of exceptional ‘force’ and with the rights of any and all sovereigns. In other words, might can make right, but only in exceptional circumstances. A nation that is large and powerful enough certainly does have the ability to enforce some of its judgements, and not just those regarding debt and money, on the rest of the world, at least for some period of time that it is tolerated.

This is not incidental in any way, but cuts to the very heart of the matter. Power to make arbitrary declarations of value by a central authority and have them accepted generally are the ultimate reach in political power. This is the goal of every tyrant, every despot, and every empire, even if they do not consider themselves to be so as they justify this sort of power in their own minds.

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