Quote from: evoorhees on July 14, 2011, 04:46:48 AM

I think history will show that printing trillions of dollars out of thin air and accumulating trillions of dollars in debt tends to be bad news for a currency. And school children years from now will look back with astonishment, giggling among themselves at the stupidity of the former generation.

Rome is burning, but the Romans are drunk on bread and circuses.

Interesting you say that and mention Rome in the end, because the Roman empire did pretty much the same thing, by decreasing the amount or precious metal in coins and bars instead of printing money. That brought inflation, to which they reacted with price controls, which, as always, brought scarcity and poverty. That kept going on until people started leaving the cities to live in self-sufficient rural villas, what left the cities unprotected, and the rest we all know.

But school children, more than 1.500 years after, don't learn that. And politicians keep following the same destructive steps almost all over the world, just using fancier and more complicated financial tools.