Paper Money and the shadow economy
Last night I read several articles by Hernando de Soto and a few interviews on the financial crisis. He focused on the shadowy nature of derivatives. The success of the free enterprise system is based on clear property titles and respecting freedom to exchange. He focuses on the shadowy and artificial nature of the legal instruments used to package subprime mortgages. What is behind them? It seems to me that we could use the same reasoning to weaken the status of paper money. The arbitrary power that monetary authorities have over the value of money creates by force a “shadow” economy. I will try to add links to his articles on this blog, but my point again is that the same arguments used by Hernando to criticize some derivatives, can be used to crticize the concept of fiat money.
Image by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
