I think Tyler’s point is that money originally came from the free market rather than govt dictats. It’s therefore not irrelevant as it shows that, should the politics allow, money could go back to being a free market.

I understand that many of the crashes were created when govt suspended the gold convertability of paper money that was supposedly backed by gold (or silver), or other govt interference (eg tariffs). There is also a difference between a “crash” – ie a recession – and a general fall in prices, for example if production increases faster than gold can be dug out of the ground.

I agree that no-one has a crystal ball, but the predictions of the Austrians were in stark contrast to the mainstream economists meaning that, really, it was only the timing that was not predicted. Here are a couple of links you may find interesting:
http://mises.org/story/3128
http://mises.org/journals/scholar/Thornton6.pdf

Cheers

Sam

Just to be clear, the Libertarian Party of the UK (http://www.lpuk.org) is nothing whatsoever to do with the US LP, although clearly you might expect some of the fundamental ideas to be similar!

We already have a Councillor and there will be some candidates standing in the 2010 general and local elections, so please check us out – we need help to get the message out there before the UK goes completely down the tubes!

Cheers

Sam

First, his story about barter is irrelevant. Economists have this version in which primitive people traded just like us, only without money, but they actually used a lot more gift exchanges and a lot less commerce.

Yes, there were crashes on the gold standard, too, so the gold standard alone is not a guarantee of stability. All it means is the money supply is controlled by a deus ex machina — the mining of gold.

You don’t need to be an Austrian to see how the combination of loose money and over-gearing of banks set the world up for a fall. Most of all, there is no crystal ball, so to say the Austrians predicted something that others could not see is far-fetched.