• pingveno@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    4 months ago

    Fiat currency doesn’t work like that. It is a way to hold value so that a potato farmer isn’t exchanging a bushel of potatoes for a dentist appointment. It still needs to be backed by productivity in the economy, otherwise you just get hyperinflation. There is no magic.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      And between every dollar being backed by a bushel of potatoes or a dentist appointment and hyperinflation, lies a vast gap of other possibilities. For example future productivity that people believe will materialise which doesn’t exist today. If you factor in debt and look at fiat as a form of debt it should become more obvious why you can create money today that enables people to do work which they otherwise wouldn’t without inflation, let alone hyperinflation, under the assumption of available real resources (labor, tools, metal, land, knowledge, etc)

      • pingveno@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        4 months ago

        But you can’t just assume those real resources exist, especially if you have just triggered a brain drain and disrupted your economy.