Economic Devastation

[OROBTC]

well I disagree on the negative content you give to debtors as they are the ones that create innovation and mobilize capital.
 Also in a deflationary currency there is no such thing as Investors but Hoarders. Hoarders are turned into investors because of inflation. There should be no rest for investors they should always look for profitable opportunities, never let them become hoarders. And as I mentioned before once the capital is commited investors will too prefer inflation as they have turned capital into asset one way or another.
A cash cow can simply be any company that dominates a market with high entry costs and has reached maximum efficiency, not necessary by dubious means but simply by  maturing of its market.

And hoarding is absolutely beneficial because it rewards savers, and it can create a long term investment system by design.

IT CAN ELIMINATE THE GOVERNMENT PONZI SCHEME PENSION SYSTEMS AND REPLACE IT WITH A REAL ONE!

Not to mention, it promotes modesty, and financial sacrifice to productivity!

Hoarding has acquired a bad rap over the decades (centuries). 

But, I see nothing wrong with hoarding of one's assets if there are no better choices out there!  It's part of freedom, and essential to those who value saving "just in case" (of a rainy day).  Savers should be rewarded IMO!

I buy and HODL gold and BTC.  I do spend some BTC as I use it for gold (my only purchases w/ BTC), but the rest I keep.  For several reasons (easy to transport, another class of asset, etc.).

[oblomov]

Hoarding currency is portrayed by authoritarian governments as an anti-social response to economic dislocation.

But, it is an entirely rational response to deflation.

Consider how the SNB acted to counteract deflation in the late 70s to persuade savers to stop "hoarding":  negative nominal interest rates.

The US Fed pursued a ZIRP for 7 years to little avail.   

Since there is no need to keep bitcoin in a bank, unlike hard assets or fiat currency, the government does not have similar levers to force savers to spend their money.

[CoinCube]

well I disagree on the negative content you give to debtors as they are the ones that create innovation and mobilize capital.
 Also in a deflationary currency there is no such thing as Investors but Hoarders. Hoarders are turned into investors because of inflation. There should be no rest for investors they should always look for profitable opportunities, never let them become hoarders. And as I mentioned before once the capital is commited investors will too prefer inflation as they have turned capital into asset one way or another.
A cash cow can simply be any company that dominates a market with high entry costs and has reached maximum efficiency, not necessary by dubious means but simply by  maturing of its market.

The individuals who create innovation and mobilize capital may or may not be debtors. Debtors are simply those who pull consumption forward from the future to the present. One of the more interesting ideas from The Rise of Knowledge is the concept that future innovators will be increasingly dependent on knowledge production and that knowledge production is increasingly non financeable. If this premise is correct the relevance of debt to innovators and growth generators will likewise decline.  

I have nothing against debtors per say, I am one, I took out debt for my student loans as well as for my house. However, the simple reality is that under our current system debt is intrinsically tied to theft. When I took out my loans I devalued everyone else's money in the economy by some small fraction. The biggest beneficiary of those loans is the bank who now get a very reliable payment directly from my salary. Whether I am a beneficiary remains to be seen. Those who lost out in the transaction include everyone holding cash or bank deposits as they experienced a real if imperceptible decline in the purchasing power of their savings. This simple act of theft is the only way to do business or create new money in our economy and as such it is accepted as normal and justified. We are told it is necessary for "liquidity" or to "keep the economy going" and told that reverting to sound money would cause "economic collapse."

If we could travel back in time and talk with the educated Roman elite we would probably find them fielding very similar arguments in favor of their system of latifundium.  
  
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/whic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?zid=6fae6d8fdf9d15a41cc6febe529b8a4e&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CBT2350051324&userGroupName=lith7757&jsid=25f368963f5c91938e51a396aec21fb2

The combination of abundant slaves, cheap land, and borrowed expertise led by the second century B.C.E. to the development of latifundia, estates worked by newly imported slaves who labored under brutal conditions and were kept locked in ergastula, or barracks. Most of these slave plantations were concentrated in south-central Italy and Sicily, where large tracts of land were available and the conditions were well-suited to the development of latifundia.

Investment in latifundia seemed a secure way for the elite to obtain a guaranteed income at a time when growing cities increased the demand for agricultural products

The ancient Roman elite would probably argue that slave labor was required to keep food production going. They would report it as uneconomical to produce food any other way. They would justify any evils of their system as necessary to keep Rome strong and feed its large population. They would belittle reform and warn that abolishing latifundia would lead to famine, starvation and perhaps the collapse of the empire itself.

The sad thing is that those ancient Romans may have been correct. Their system was by that point perhaps dependent on slave labor and sudden reform may have led to catastrophe. However, the dependence of Rome on slavery rather then a defense of slavery is simply a sign of the systemic corruption of Rome. At its heart slavery is a system of theft and is thus fundamentally inefficient. As such it is a system doomed to eventual replacement either externally or internally. Humans have always sought guaranteed income and the theft of another's labor is lucrative especially if it is legalized and enforced. Because of this profit it was not until very recent times that the practice was abolished. The last country to abolish slavery was Mauritania which "officially" abolished slavery in 1981 but did not actually make it a crime to own slaves until 2007. As a human race that is where we stand. We finally made slavery illegal everywhere 8 years ago.

Our economic system like that of the Romans is hopelessly dependent on theft. The entire economy is wrapped and warped by the ebb and flow of debt and fiat currency leaving us in a constant battle to be the fastest to debase everyone else's savings and be the fastest to deploy debt and grab the "income producing assets". Transitioning to any form of sound money seems impossible for it would result in widespread economic collapse with its accompanying high probability of famine, and war. However, like the Romans our dependence on theft is no defense of our status quo. Rather it is simply a indication of systemic rot.

Your description of those who use deflationary currency as hoarders is an oversimplification. It is true that a deflationary currency in an era of growth is redistributive. It allows for the owners of such a currency to claim a portion growth of the economy and its labor without actually contributing to that growth. However, transitioning to an inflationary currency does not necessarily transform hoarders into investors. Instead it simply transforms them from the beneficiary of redistribution to its victims and creates a new class of elite that consists of those who control that newly created currency.

The only economically optimal solution is one in which there is no redistribution. This only occurs in a currency that approximates the ideal of no inflation and no deflation. Such a currency or multiple currencies would maximize the incentive to invest without resulting in a redistributive decline in purchasing power if one chooses not to consume or invest.        

[CoinCube]

So the gold coin I bought just arrived in the mail.
Looks like this.




It is a Titan Bitcoin
https://www.titanbtc.com/

Interestingly they are totally sold out of their copper and silver physical bitcoins but their still have a few left of their rarest run the pure gold physical bitcoins.

Only 150 of these made and to my knowledge only the second pure gold physical bitcoin ever made. The first was the 1000 BTC gold casascius coin.

[OROBTC]

So the gold coin I bought just arrived in the mail.
Looks like this.




It is a Titan Bitcoin
https://www.titanbtc.com/

Interestingly they are totally sold out of their copper and silver physical bitcoins but their still have a few left of their rarest run left the pure gold physical bitcoins.

Only 150 of these made and to my knowledge only the second pure gold physical bitcoin ever made. The first was the 1000 BTC gold casascius coin.

Well, whoa, ho!  Here is someone who is likely to have a Happy New Year!  Nice purchase, perhaps a collector's item if Bitcoin grows as most of us hope.

Gold and Bitcoin, a great combination.  Especially in ONE place.

[CoinCube]

For the end of 2015 and the start of 2016 I wanted to share this moment of joy captured in time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsPDY606Joo

Happy New Year

[thaaanos]

The only economically optimal solution is one in which there is no redistribution. This only occurs in a currency that approximates the ideal of no inflation and no deflation. Such a currency or multiple currencies would maximize the incentive to invest without resulting in a redistributive decline in purchasing power if one chooses not to consume or invest.        

I agree with most of your text, as I strongly believe there is no such thing as morality in macroeconomics, morality comes in politics which is why I put politics above economic growth. Sound money for a household is good and proper but doesnot generalize on the macroscale, also we are not talking about major inflation only a slight percentage that is normally targeted the 2% which is a bit arbitary true but doesnot have major redistributive effects , and the ones that exist I deem them more as equalizing effects.

We have made the conversation again about knowledge age, but as you know, taking up student debt, knowledge doesnot come cheap, so fundless knowledge is not going to be, knowledge is power and there will always be gate keepers. Even if it was completely free so,eone should support you while you study, cause study and work do not mix.

So funding will always be needed to equalize the playing field, be it for knowledge, getting the tools to create house,car, or starting a new bussiness. So a slight inflation guaranties that availability of funding.

Even if we are ushered into a new paradigm, I hold as necessity that at least one equalizing and redistributive force will exist, You may see ideas as minimum guarantee income poping up in euroland as a response to deflationary pressures.
Redistribution in form of diffusion of wealth is a stability requirement, no way around it.

That said current system is ill and ridden with corruption none can argue that, Even in segregating payments system from investment will not ensure that faults will not propagate from one to the other.

[OROBTC]

...

(Copy of my post in another thread, but probably relevant here)


When you get time, TPTB (I know, LOL...), let me know and I will send you my new Public Key (GnuPG) if emailing me via PGP encryption is of interest to you.

Same for you trollercoaster.  Anyone else, PM me, and we'll see.  Maybe I'll invite CoinCube to join in as well, maybe AFTER I get better at using this...

I have a new website that I am working on, my first one.  Right now there is nothing at the Home Page, in the next week or two or three I will start adding material for public enjoyment (a GnuPG tutorial (!), gold information (coin sizes, etc.), Peru photos, some basic Bitcoin info, etc.).

I will also (likely) have a "club" for those interested in "alternative investment", privacy ("for Dummies"), Bitcoin, and related topics.  NO, I will not ask for money, smile,,,

And, I will fairly soon set up a mySQL database with our company sales info (private of course).  Maybe other databases too should I go off in THAT direction...

So, there is nothing there now, that will slowly change.

Once I have an acceptable Home Page, I will announce my website.

[CoinCube]

The only economically optimal solution is one in which there is no redistribution. This only occurs in a currency that approximates the ideal of no inflation and no deflation. Such a currency or multiple currencies would maximize the incentive to invest without resulting in a redistributive decline in purchasing power if one chooses not to consume or invest.         

(Argument for inflation)
..snip..

Thaaanos we have profound differences in opinion. I have broken your post down into its core arguments below.

1) Sound money does not generalize on the macroscale.

This is a claim unsupported by the historical record. Societies including our own have lived under a gold standard in the past. Rome's currency was sound for more or less the entire history of the Roman republic. It was not until the Roman republic failed and Rome became empire that the currency was debased in earnest 



2) Slight inflation targeted at 2% does not have major redistributive effects.

An inflation rate of 2% will result in a loss of almost 50% percent of purchasing power over a period of a single generation 30 years. I would call that a major redistributive effect.

3) The redistributive effects from inflation are "equalizing effects".

I completely disagree inflation primarily benefits first movers those granted the authority to debase the currency. Banks and those with political connections are the prime beneficiaries. Inflation redistributes from bottom and especially the middle class to the financial elite. Rather then an equalizing effect it worsens inequality.

4) Knowledge does not come cheap... So funding will always be needed to equalize the playing field...a slight inflation guaranties the availability of funding.

There is nothing wrong with working to finance an education. Indeed this used to be how it was normally done until we decided to sell out our children's future with government guaranteed non dischargeable student loans. The "guaranteed" of funding you speak up results in ballooning out of control costs malinvestments in non productive fields and lifetimes of debt servitude.

5) It is necessity that at least one equalizing and redistributive force will exist. Redistribution in form of diffusion of wealth is a stability requirement.

To the degree this is true this is what taxation is for. Taxation, however, is much more transparent and thus requires both public justification and also allows for opposition to develop.

6) There is no such thing as morality in macroeconomics, morality comes in politics.

Cooperative rather than predatory behavior develops naturally over time in transparent systems composed of repeatedly interacting agents able to choose between cooperation and defection. Immoral behavior in economic interactions is not sustainable over the long run as victims either go extinct or learn to protect themselves.

For the group cooperation is the superior economic choice. Subgroups with rule systems that facilitate cooperation aka morality will therefore outcompete and eventually replace those without such rules. The fact that Macroeconomics devotes little attention to long term sustainability of systems or the role of morality in maintaining this stability says more about the infancy and incompleteness of macroeconomics then it does about morality.

[STT]

Politics as the bastion of morality makes me chuckle, I hope thats not our last chance.   Not sure if its mentioned, here is misses institute lecture on the decline of the Roman standard primarly silver based originally and then just a mirror of a chaotic empire.

Audio link on there, I wish all history was this well transcribed https://mises.org/library/inflation-and-fall-roman-empire

[RealBitcoin]

1) Sound money does not generalize on the macroscale.

This is a claim unsupported by the historical record. Societies including our own have lived under a gold standard in the past. Rome's currency was sound for more or less the entire history of the Roman republic. It was not until the Roman republic failed and Rome became empire that the currency was debased in earnest 

It was a militarized warmongering society,endless wars cannot be funded by taxes, so they need to debase their currency to fund them.

It was obvious that any militarized society will fall sooner or later. The same happened with some of the early chinese kingdoms.

[sidhujag]

1) Sound money does not generalize on the macroscale.

This is a claim unsupported by the historical record. Societies including our own have lived under a gold standard in the past. Rome's currency was sound for more or less the entire history of the Roman republic. It was not until the Roman republic failed and Rome became empire that the currency was debased in earnest 

It was a militarized warmongering society,endless wars cannot be funded by taxes, so they need to debase their currency to fund them.

It was obvious that any militarized society will fall sooner or later. The same happened with some of the early chinese kingdoms.

If the material they raised funds for was throwaway it would have a net negative effect on the financial side of the society, but thats not always the case.

[RealBitcoin]

1) Sound money does not generalize on the macroscale.

This is a claim unsupported by the historical record. Societies including our own have lived under a gold standard in the past. Rome's currency was sound for more or less the entire history of the Roman republic. It was not until the Roman republic failed and Rome became empire that the currency was debased in earnest 

It was a militarized warmongering society,endless wars cannot be funded by taxes, so they need to debase their currency to fund them.

It was obvious that any militarized society will fall sooner or later. The same happened with some of the early chinese kingdoms.

If the material they raised funds for was throwaway it would have a net negative effect on the financial side of the society, but thats not always the case.

Their wars were profitable until they conquered Europe, because they could not conquer the german tribes.

They almost went bankrupt after Carthage so they quickly conquered Spain , then Caesar conquered France and Egypt, the amount of grain and the minerals from France were enough for a few hundred years.

They started collapsing after the German tribes started attacking them, and their armies deteriorated and were harder and harder to fund. The amount of riots and revolts happening daily in every part of the empire was too hard to control and they collapsed.

Military overextension + Bankruptcy is not a good combo for an empire

[sidhujag]

1) Sound money does not generalize on the macroscale.

This is a claim unsupported by the historical record. Societies including our own have lived under a gold standard in the past. Rome's currency was sound for more or less the entire history of the Roman republic. It was not until the Roman republic failed and Rome became empire that the currency was debased in earnest 

It was a militarized warmongering society,endless wars cannot be funded by taxes, so they need to debase their currency to fund them.

It was obvious that any militarized society will fall sooner or later. The same happened with some of the early chinese kingdoms.

If the material they raised funds for was throwaway it would have a net negative effect on the financial side of the society, but thats not always the case.

Their wars were profitable until they conquered Europe, because they could not conquer the german tribes.

They almost went bankrupt after Carthage so they quickly conquered Spain , then Caesar conquered France and Egypt, the amount of grain and the minerals from France were enough for a few hundred years.

They started collapsing after the German tribes started attacking them, and their armies deteriorated and were harder and harder to fund. The amount of riots and revolts happening daily in every part of the empire was too hard to control and they collapsed.

Military overextension + Bankruptcy is not a good combo for an empire

Well they must have been harder to fund because the funding wasnt as effective as the german one who probably developed better technology.. when the materials used are throwaway or less effective than competitors then you must fix that or risk losing power

[RealBitcoin]

Well they must have been harder to fund because the funding wasnt as effective as the german one who probably developed better technology.. when the materials used are throwaway or less effective than competitors then you must fix that or risk losing power

Well they taxed the moneymakers as always, the merchants who traded goods between Rome and the other provinces, they taxed the merchants who  sold items in cities, they had property tax for all citizens and other minor tariffs , trade fees and smaller taxes.

Income tax didnt exist, and they were able to prosper very well even under hard taxes. The income tax is the worst of them all because it de-incentivizes people to earn.


Back then only flat tariffs existed, and property tax mostly, and it was enough to fund a militarized empire, imagine if they would be peaceful how big they would get?

[sidhujag]

Well they must have been harder to fund because the funding wasnt as effective as the german one who probably developed better technology.. when the materials used are throwaway or less effective than competitors then you must fix that or risk losing power

Well they taxed the moneymakers as always, the merchants who traded goods between Rome and the other provinces, they taxed the merchants who  sold items in cities, they had property tax for all citizens and other minor tariffs , trade fees and smaller taxes.

Income tax didnt exist, and they were able to prosper very well even under hard taxes. The income tax is the worst of them all because it de-incentivizes people to earn.


Back then only flat tariffs existed, and property tax mostly, and it was enough to fund a militarized empire, imagine if they would be peaceful how big they would get?

Im sure they were peaceful but others around them were not.. Once you have power others want it from you and will do anything in their ability to get it because that is what drives people the most.. Its stronger than the will to acquire wealth because it is was precursor to power then and mostly now too.

[CoinCube]

Politics as the bastion of morality makes me chuckle, I hope thats not our last chance.   Not sure if its mentioned, here is misses institute lecture on the decline of the Roman standard primarly silver based originally and then just a mirror of a chaotic empire.

Audio link on there, I wish all history was this well transcribed https://mises.org/library/inflation-and-fall-roman-empire

Thanks for the link it was a very interesting read. I have selected a couple of highlights from it below which really showcase the decay of the late Roman Empire.

To look at the mentality of the Roman emperors, we can look just at the advice that the Emperor Septimius Severus gave to his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. This is supposed to be his final words to his heirs. He said, "live in harmony; enrich the troops; ignore everyone else."

His (Caracallas) sense of priorities was made more explicit when he remarked, "nobody should have any money but I, so that I may bestow it upon the soldiers." And he was as good as his word. He raised the pay of the soldiers by 50 percent, and to achieve this he doubled the inheritance taxes paid by Roman citizens. When this was not sufficient to meet his needs, he admitted almost every inhabitant of the empire to Roman citizenship.

The Roman state was not destroyed by inflation — what was destroyed by inflation was the freedom of the Roman people. Particularly, the first victim was their economic freedom. Merchants ... came under government pressure because the government could not obtain enough material for the war machine through regular channels — people didn't want all that token coinage. So merchants and artisans were now compelled to make deliveries of goods.

So that if you had a factory for making garments, you now had to deliver so many garments to the government requisitions. If you had ships, you had to carry government goods in your ships. When people tried to get out of this they were then, by law, compelled to remain in the occupation that they were in. In other words, you couldn't change your job or your business.

This was not sufficient because, after all, death is a relief from taxes. So the occupations were now made hereditary. When you died, your son had to take up your profession. If your father was a shoemaker, you had to be a shoemaker. These laws started by being restricted to the defense-oriented industries but, of course, gradually it was realized that everything is defense-oriented.

The peasantry, known as the coloni, were leaseholders on both imperial and private estates. They too were formerly a free class. Now under the same kinds of pressures that all smallholders were in in this situation, they began to drift away, trying to find better opportunities, better leases, or better occupations. So under Diocletian the coloni were now bound to the soil. Anyone who had a lease on a particular piece of land could not give that lease up. More than that, they had to stay on the land and work it.

The economy of the West was perhaps more fatally weakened than that of the East. The early 5th century Christian priest Salvian of Marseille wrote an account of why the Roman state was collapsing in the West — he was writing from France (Gaul). Salvian says that the Roman state is collapsing because it deserves collapse; because it had denied the first premise of good government, which is justice to the people.
 
By justice he meant a just system of taxation. Salvian tells us, and I don't think he's exaggerating, that one of the reasons why the Roman state collapsed in the 5th century was that the Roman people, the mass of the population, had but one wish after being captured by the barbarians: to never again fall under the rule of the Roman bureaucracy.

In other words, the Roman state was the enemy; the barbarians were the liberators

[CoinCube]

In my opinion the beginnings of the fall of the Rome can be traced back all the way to 133 BC

From:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracchus

Tiberius was elected to the office of tribune of the plebeians in 133 BC. He immediately began pushing for a programme of land reform, partly by invoking the 240-year-old Sextian-Licinian law that limited the amount of land that could be owned by a single individual.

Central to the Gracchi reforms was an attempt to address economic distress and its military consequences. Much public land had been divided among large landholders and speculators who further expanded their estates by driving peasants off their farms. While their old lands were being worked by slaves, the peasants were often forced into idleness in Rome where they had to subsist on handouts due to a scarcity of paid work.

The senators obstructed his re-election. They also gathered an ad hoc force, with several of them personally marching to the Forum, and had Tiberius and some 300 of his supporters clubbed to death. This was the first open bloodshed in Roman politics for nearly four centuries.

Note the crisis was caused by the widespread expansion of slavery undermining the ability of the middle class to productively work small farms or find gainful employment essentially forcing them into the ancient equivalent of welfare.

Attempts to rectify the situation politically led to the first instance of violence over compromise in Roman politics. From here follows the later death of the republic, the inevitable rise of men like Caracalla and eventually the masses welcoming the barbarians as liberators.

[RealBitcoin]

Im sure they were peaceful but others around them were not.. Once you have power others want it from you and will do anything in their ability to get it because that is what drives people the most.. Its stronger than the will to acquire wealth because it is was precursor to power then and mostly now too.

Yes many barbarians dreamed about conquering Rome and it's riches, remember in these days most of the gold was in their hands.

However Rome was tyrranical too vs the other tribes, they constantly subjugated them and kept them in their domination arena, and when they decided to conquer them all, then they sent armies into their lands, burned down villages, towns, raped women, and enslaved the men to fight in the arenas.

I think this kind of behaviour was very brutal, so no matter how brutal barbarians were, from a civilized society to do all of these was off limits.

A society based on murder, rape and slavery cannot last that much, that is why Christianity spread very fast in the empire, to restore some morality to the people.

[thaaanos]

The only economically optimal solution is one in which there is no redistribution. This only occurs in a currency that approximates the ideal of no inflation and no deflation. Such a currency or multiple currencies would maximize the incentive to invest without resulting in a redistributive decline in purchasing power if one chooses not to consume or invest.        

(Argument for inflation)
..snip..

Thaaanos we have profound differences in opinion. I have broken your post down into its core arguments below.

1) Sound money does not generalize on the macroscale.

This is a claim unsupported by the historical record. Societies including our own have lived under a gold standard in the past. Rome's currency was sound for more or less the entire history of the Roman republic. It was not until the Roman republic failed and Rome became empire that the currency was debased in earnest  

2) Slight inflation targeted at 2% does not have major redistributive effects.

An inflation rate of 2% will result in a loss of almost 50% percent of purchasing power over a period of a single generation 30 years. I would call that a major redistributive effect.

3) The redistributive effects from inflation are "equalizing effects".

I completely disagree inflation primarily benefits first movers those granted the authority to debase the currency. Banks and those with political connections are the prime beneficiaries. Inflation redistributes from bottom and especially the middle class to the financial elite. Rather then an equalizing effect it worsens inequality.

4) Knowledge does not come cheap... So funding will always be needed to equalize the playing field...a slight inflation guaranties the availability of funding.

There is nothing wrong with working to finance an education. Indeed this used to be how it was normally done until we decided to sell out our children's future with government guaranteed non dischargeable student loans. The "guaranteed" of funding you speak up results in ballooning out of control costs malinvestments in non productive fields and lifetimes of debt servitude.

5) It is necessity that at least one equalizing and redistributive force will exist. Redistribution in form of diffusion of wealth is a stability requirement.

To the degree this is true this is what taxation is for. Taxation, however, is much more transparent and thus requires both public justification and also allows for opposition to develop.

6) There is no such thing as morality in macroeconomics, morality comes in politics.

Cooperative rather than predatory behavior develops naturally over time in transparent systems composed of repeatedly interacting agents able to choose between cooperation and defection. Immoral behavior in economic interactions is not sustainable over the long run as victims either go extinct or learn to protect themselves.

For the group cooperation is the superior economic choice. Subgroups with rule systems that facilitate cooperation aka morality will therefore outcompete and eventually replace those without such rules. The fact that Macroeconomics devotes little attention to long term sustainability of systems or the role of morality in maintaining this stability says more about the infancy and incompleteness of macroeconomics then it does about morality.

On
1) Roman empire is not counter-evidence, their fall was as you have quoted because the "citizens did not want to save the state" pretty much the reason the eastern part failed eventually. It was only after magna carta the french revolution and the dawn of national states that states regained their "legitimacy". Btw why also Eurozone will eventually fail too, it is increasingly perceived as an oppressor. The economic unsustainablility of oppressor states is self evident I think in history.
But on to the point now sound money for a state means constant surpluses, that means money taken out of the economy by taxation for what? to keep it idle? why tax it in the first place then? It also means trade surpluses which if not allowed to be balanced back by the currency channel they will balance by other channels but they will balance

On a side-note  Getting cash inflows is not always a good thing as the French indemnity of 1871 has shown. France the payer issued bond and later did much better, while Germany on the receiving end did much worse by getting caught in a speculative bubble.

More here http://blog.mpettis.com/2014/05/why-a-savings-glut-does-not-increase-savings/

2) Its the penalty for not being economically active over a period of a single generation 30 years, but in the short term I wouldn't call it major.

3) Well if done right, cannot blame inflation for the failings of banks. Obviously something is missing from the equation to account for the Minsky moments

4) But thats what funding does it allows you to first have education and work after with all the benefits of education, what is better paying tuition fees grilling burgers or writing software? Having your parents pay for your education is not equalizing the playing field.

5) Taxation is lacking in "resolution" as a redistribution, it is too intrusive, too costly, to enforce it and needs too much management also taxation targets the cash flows not the accumulation.
As a Redistribution mechanism Inflation is like pouring champagne over a pyramid of glasses until all glasses are full, Taxation is like going over every glass and filling them one by one

6) Cooperation is not always moral, which is why we have antirust laws.