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Fiat isn't the problem, bloated government is. We had it the same problem in the 1800s with gold and silver money and even the Romans had it. The same things happened under PM backed currencies and will continue to happen under any currency whenever governments get to big or people realize they can vote them self free stuff.

Completely agree that all currencies will at some point fail and that includes gold and silver currencies as well. Roman coins while very cool cannot be spent anywhere and they had massive debt problems despite a gold and silver based currency.

The PM currency doesn't limit government spending anymore than Fiat encourages it. If you run out of gold or silver you put less into money, borrow it or just straight up default on your bills. This has happened before in the US when we were still on the gold standard. The difference now is that in the past the government was small enough that private wealth could bail it out like JP Morgan did as one example. Now the government is so bloated the Buffets and Rockefellars and Gates could put all their money together and not even be able to bail it out. Fiat is really the only option under such circumstances since the county going bankrupt would be far worse.

The issue isn't the type of money its whose in charge. Gold and silver or fiat will have the exact same result with big government leadership who spend their way into reelection. Inflation isn't ideal but I'm sure the people of Zimbabwe would be much more concerned about corruption and death sqauds then money which the tribes probably dont even use anyway. In the end theres a finite amount of government that any society can support and weve passed that point. No type of currency will change that as both can be manipulated you just do it in different ways. The more important factor to a currencies succes is whose running the show

The Romans debased their own silver and gold coins with base metals so that their available gold and silver supplies could make more coins. This is analogous to printing more un-backed paper money. The bottom line is that their money became cheaper and cheaper, as ours is doing.



I disagree with this. When one runs out of money, one stops spending. Fiat NEVER runs out because any amount can be printed off at any time. Gold and silver, being finite, can run out and when they do, spending stops. The fact that government may be able to borrow large sums of money to spend via selling debt obligations does not reduce the value of gold and silver as money. It is not the gold and silver that are at fault but those who borrow excessively. Excessive borrowing is usually controlled via the bond market. If a government spends too much, creditors will ask for higher interest rates to compensate them for the extra risk inherent in government overspending. We see this in the US, UK, EU, and Japan these days.

Actually, fiat DOES encourage excessive spending because it is so easy to do and, as we all know, that which is easy tends to be done and often to excess.



Which very strongly implies a nation of men and not of laws, since national economic results depend upon individuals and not the legal framework extant at the time. This is why dictatorship is bad. One can have the world's most benevolent dictator who runs everything extremely well but s/he does not live forever and the one to follow may be absolutely terrible. Rome had quite a series of "emperors", many of which weren't too bad for the average Roman but, man, the few who were bad were horrible.

If the government's strategy is badly enough botched, nothing else will matter and that country is in serious jeopardy, not only of financial failure but utter destruction.



Or, one could look at what is being spent as they go along and then say, "Holy cow! We're spending too much. We HAVE to raise taxes, cut spending, or both. Most, if not all, state governments have a balanced budget clause in their state constitutions, so MUST balance their budgets. Yes, they get out of line from time to time but they then must bring their spending in line with their revenues. The federal gov COULD do the same thing but simply refuses to do so.



Can we not get past this by acknowledging that we are both wanting SENSIBLE government spending and not willy-nilly caution-to-the-winds, let's blow it as fast as we can, spending? Our politicians seem to favor the unsustainable latter and not the sustainable former.



Indeed so. Which is why the office of president is limited to 2 four-year terms. They did not want a de facto king via a president with unlimited re-election ability.

Pity that something similar is not also allowed for Congress. While brilliant men, the Founding Fathers never envisioned anyone actually wanting to make a career out of politics. If they had, they would have set it up such that this would be a lot more difficult to do and we would not be stuck with corrupt people making a very nicely feathered and comfy nest for themselves at great public expense.