Sunday, April 6, 2014

Rob Wile — St. Louis Fed Vice President: Bitcoin Could Be A Good Threat To A [sic] Central Banks

Last week, St. Louis Fed vice president and director of research David Andolfatto released a presentation on Bitcoin, becoming one of the most prominent central bank officials to study the cryptocurrency.
We caught up with Andolfatto to ask him about why he put this deck together, where he thinks Bitcoin is going, and whether he personally has anything invested in it....
Business Insider
St. Louis Fed Vice President: Bitcoin Could Be A Good Threat To A [sic] Central Banks
Rob Wile

 

6 comments:

David said...

Seemed quite simple-minded to me. He doesn't seem to think it is a particularly important issue that USD is required for transactions with the gov. He seems to think that central banks cause inflation by "printing too much money." While noting that inflation has been a non-issue for 30 years he seems to think inflation is always "just around the corner." He alludes to Zimbabwe, albeit indirectly. Again excessive money printing. I started thinking I was reading at Zero Hedge. Does he even know what he is talking about?

Bitcoin could be useful as an alternative payment system, which could usefully compete with many of the things retail banks do. I fail to see how any of this is particularly relevant to central banks.

David said...

I'm not sure if the bitcoin crowd or critics have really incorporated the insights of Bernard Lietaer on complementary currencies. It's not just a matter of curtailing overweening power, but to bring money where it doesn't normally go. Not everyone is part of the "iphone economy." Also, political/economic systems sometimes break down and it is good to have a back up. One of Lietaer's critics said regarding the Swiss complementary currency the "wer:" "Well, the Wer didn't stop the financial crisis from happening, did it?" Lietaer told him "No, but it probably made its effects less severe and what if the government had decided to monetize it?"

Matt Franko said...

David right the "taxes/fees miss" here is just characteristic as another WEAK/libertarian response from the current crop of people in policy positions...

At least he doesnt have anything good to say about gold...

rsp,

Tom Hickey said...

In this Twitter thread Scott Fullwiler replies to Libertarians on MMT, Bitcoin and complementary currencies.

https://twitter.com/stf18/status/319916821740388352

Ralph Musgrave said...

David,

Re your reference to Andolfatto as "simple minded", that's the impression I got from earlier stuff written by him.

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