A hard currency standard is the key to world peace

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm not so sure of that.  Wars existed for tens of thousands of years, tied to fixed currency.

I'm rereading The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers right now, from Paul Kennedy, and it deals directly with the issue of war financing.  Without fiat currency, loans can still be floated, often. Inflation can happen, it's true, but that doesn't mean that wars are impossible on a fixed standard.

Rome saw a massive debasement of its silver denari throughout its Imperial history. And before floating those loans, I'll bet that those governments had been consolidating power and "legitimacy" by buying power and influence with debased coin. You can't just float a massive loan like that without a massive superstructure already in place, one that's probably built up with bad coin.

Nobody has ever consolidated that kind of power on a massive scale without the usage of bad coinage.

Actually, not so.  Spain, for instance, financed its war against Dutch rebels by loans taken against expected silver income from the New World.  England financed its loans based on its nascent industrial power. The support wasn't debased coinage; it was a real increase in wealth based on new discoveries, either technical or geographic in the two examples above.

Saying that "it was probably built up with bad coin" is just another way of you assuming what you wish to demonstrate; circular reasoning.

[mykcob4]

That's the thing, people WERE able to pay for war because people "trusted" their means of financing them.

Ah but Alexander the Great waged war with no financing whatsoever. He conquered the known world without haising a proverbial dime. Sure he assembled assets like horses weapons and men but no wealth to speak of. He went on a ten year campaign without any financing at all. He didn't "buy" anything. He just said lets take Persia and off they went. The next thing you know he owns Asia and the Med.
Granted that might not be the case right now, as a warlord has to actually buy weapons, but with the willingness of corrupt corporations and rogue states to finance such undertakings even if the world used the hard currency of the US dollar, Russia for one could afford to do it. If you hadn't guessed already, large powerful wealthy nations and the corrupt corporations in those nations use proxies to test and gain assets.
Read the manifesto of the Neo-Con Agenda. The NeoCons decided that preemptive armed conflict would give them the wealth power and control that they wanted. It was Dick Chaney's main objective to solidify a corporate controlled world whereby Haliburton would be the corporation that controlled everything. Currency had little to nothing to do with it. Commodities had everything to do with it. After all currency is a representation of commodity asset wealth and nothing more. A dollar is a promise. You provide labor and I give you a dollar that lets you buy the commodity that you so choose. It is an interum trade device. The fact that people save and hoard these promises is a precarious position to say the least. Any state at anytime can change values or renig on promises and the value of the promises held goes out the window. Which is why the teaparty trying to bring down the government was so dangerous and destructive. It would have collapsed the entire financial world (the promise of value).

[zarus tathra]

I'm not so sure of that.  Wars existed for tens of thousands of years, tied to fixed currency.

I'm rereading The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers right now, from Paul Kennedy, and it deals directly with the issue of war financing.  Without fiat currency, loans can still be floated, often. Inflation can happen, it's true, but that doesn't mean that wars are impossible on a fixed standard.

Rome saw a massive debasement of its silver denari throughout its Imperial history. And before floating those loans, I'll bet that those governments had been consolidating power and "legitimacy" by buying power and influence with debased coin. You can't just float a massive loan like that without a massive superstructure already in place, one that's probably built up with bad coin.

Nobody has ever consolidated that kind of power on a massive scale without the usage of bad coinage.

Actually, not so.  Spain, for instance, financed its war against Dutch rebels by loans taken against expected silver income from the New World.  England financed its loans based on its nascent industrial power. The support wasn't debased coinage; it was a real increase in wealth based on new discoveries, either technical or geographic in the two examples above.

Saying that "it was probably built up with bad coin" is just another way of you assuming what you wish to demonstrate; circular reasoning.

How good was their coin before finding the New World? And the Bank of England was one of the first fiat currencies after the fall of Rome. And financing those wars with "promises" is basically the same as debasing your currency, I mean, you're increasing your currency supply without an increase in the thing backing it.

And even if you do find an example of a big war that wasn't financed with bad money, which those examples aren't, the ratio of wars financed more or less legitimately to wars financed with debasement, "promises to pay," and expropriation will probably be very, very small.

This is why the feds seize every new currency. Without the ability to run the printing press without people complaining, they'd be FUCKED.

[Thumpalumpacus]

How good was their coin before finding the New World?

How many wars did they start? Your contention is that a weak currency predates wars.  Aside from evicting the Muslims by 1492, Spain was not an aggressive international power.

And the Bank of England was one of the first fiat currencies after the fall of Rome.

And that was in 1931, well after the First World War, the Boer War, the Crimean War, the War of 1812, the French and Indian War, the ...

You get my drift: a fiat currency obviously was not required to go to war.

 

And financing those wars with "promises" is basically the same as debasing your currency, I mean, you're increasing your currency supply without an increase in the thing backing it.

No, it isn't.  Increasing the monetary supply is not necessarily debasing currency; it depends on what you do with interest rates.

And even if you do find an example of a big war that wasn't financed with bad money, which those examples aren't, the ratio of wars financed more or less legitimately to wars financed with debasement, "promises to pay," and expropriation will probably be very, very small.

Wherein you special-plead.

This is why the feds seize every new currency. Without the ability to run the printing press without people complaining, they'd be FUCKED.

Without government backing, money is much less valuable.  Think about that the next time you buy a six-pack.

[zarus tathra]

Fiat currency isn't the only way to debase currency, one of the primary means of debasing currency is printing coins with inferior silver content but identical face value. In fact, this has been the norm throughout history since the Roman Empire.

And the Bank of England was inaugurated in 1694. Britain could never have built its ginormous navy without the Bank's support.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The Bank of England was on the gold standard until 1931.  It doesn't matter when they started; they weren't fiat until 1931 was my point.

As for your claim of inferior silver content, do you have evidence, or is this just another "probably" thing? Give us some numbers, eh?

[zarus tathra]

Do you really think the BOE was diligent about having a piece of gold for every paper bill it issued? The Bretton Woods system collapsed because the US failed to limit its use of the printing press, and this was in the age of instant telecommunications. And the BOE at one point was forbidden from paying out in gold in a time of war. That law would have been pointless if the BOE had enough gold on hand to back the paper bills in circulation, but obviously the Crown had either been raiding the gold reserves, or the BOE had been running the printing press, or more likely a combination of both. So again, you have war destroying the finances of a country and forcing them to "soften" the currency.

And a source on the debasement of the Roman denarius in the Imperial era is in the OP. The Thaler was special because it was a hard silver coin in an era in which coins had basically no silver in them.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Nowadays, the most valuable financial transactions never touch a single coin in currency. It's all done through banks exchanging numbers. The dollar amounts put on assets is only their 'fair' liquidation value —how many dollars (or whatever) you will get if you convert it to cash. Such figures have jack all to do with whether there exists enough hard currency in the world to cover it.

For instance, there does not exist enough dollars in print to cover the US debt, let alone its worth. It's all numbers, and in the modern world (and even before), most monies exist only as numbers.

[zarus tathra]

Which is why a joule standard would make more sense than a gold standard, although a gold standard would be better than the current system.

[Thumpalumpacus]

So again, you have war destroying the finances of a country and forcing them to "soften" the currency.

But in your OP, you say that softening the currency is the prelude to war -- not the aftermath, as the above alleges.

Which is it?

Do you really think the BOE was diligent about having a piece of gold for every paper bill it issued? The Bretton Woods system collapsed because the US failed to limit its use of the printing press, and this was in the age of instant telecommunications. And the BOE at one point was forbidden from paying out in gold in a time of war. That law would have been pointless if the BOE had enough gold on hand to back the paper bills in circulation, but obviously the Crown had either been raiding the gold reserves, or the BOE had been running the printing press, or more likely a combination of both. So again, you have war destroying the finances of a country and forcing them to "soften" the currency.

And a source on the debasement of the Roman denarius in the Imperial era is in the OP. The Thaler was special because it was a hard silver coin in an era in which coins had basically no silver in them.

Here's what you wrote:

Every major mobilization for war has been financed by a debasement of the currency. .

Fish, or cut bait.  Support your claim. It'd probably help if you defined your terms.

You're equivocating the BoE system with Bretton Woods, and hoping that the less-knowledgeable members won't say anything. BoE is not Bretton Woods: one is fiat, one is resource-based, and ne'er the twain shall meet.

You've argued that every major mobilization for war was financed  by devaluation.

Let's see your numbers.

ETA: That's the second request for numbers.  Do you have any?

[Hakurei Reimu]

Which is why a joule standard would make more sense than a gold standard, although a gold standard would be better than the current system.

There is no currency that can possibly buy off the amount of wealth actually present in the world, because anyone who tries quickly finds that their currency is inflated without limit. What you actually get is a larger amount of currency chasing the same amount of goods, so naturally the prices will go up. Indeed, as wealth is funneled away and concentrated beyond a certain point, people will demand higher and higher prices before they will trade away their goods, because you can't live of any kind of money alone. You have to have food, shelter, and so on. And —yes— energy itself.

No standard of basing will solve this issue.

[Sal1981]

Even if there was some sort of global "solid" currency, it would just take one nation to go soft and start shit.

[zarus tathra]

But in your OP, you say that softening the currency is the prelude to war -- not the aftermath, as the above alleges.

Which is it?

It is the debasement of currency that makes war possible. That has always been my basic claim.

Every major mobilization for war has been financed by a debasement of the currency. .

Fish, or cut bait.  Support your claim. It'd probably help if you defined your terms.

Every single example that I brought up involved the sudden increase of the supply of money without a corresponding increase in a solid commodity.

You're equivocating the BoE system with Bretton Woods, and hoping that the less-knowledgeable members won't say anything. BoE is not Bretton Woods: one is fiat, one is resource-based, and ne'er the twain shall meet.

The BoE was a gold standard that failed in times of war, Bretton Woods was a system whereby foreign countries could exchange USD for $35 on the oz, except they couldn't. So they're actually pretty similar.

You've argued that every major mobilization for war was financed  by devaluation.

Let's see your numbers.

ETA: That's the second request for numbers.  Do you have any?

Every example that I've brought up was an example of debasement, as was every "counterpoint" you've managed to bring up. That's about as good as we're going to get without a more in-depth study.

I'm starting to think that you're deliberately trying not to understand what I'm saying.

[zarus tathra]

Even if there was some sort of global "solid" currency, it would just take one nation to go soft and start shit.

Which is why these currency standards have to be privately run (and guarded).

[Thumpalumpacus]

Every example that I've brought up was an example of debasement, as was every "counterpoint" you've managed to bring up. That's about as good as we're going to get without a more in-depth study.

I'm starting to think that you're deliberately trying not to understand what I'm saying.

Now that's some irony, there.

Every point I've brought up has showed that in the lead-up to war, a sound currency based on a gold standard did not prevent a war.

A working theory has to explain contradictory facts.  You need therefore to explain how a hard currency standard failed to prevent World War One, or the Boer War, or ...

Because what you said was that a hard standard prevents wars.  

I'm trying to understand what you're saying, but all I'm seeing is pretzel logic deplyed in defense of an unsupported (and probably unsupportable) claim.