Governments have copped a lot of flack ever since the start of the pandemic, with gasps and finger-pointing as they printed trillions of stimulus.

Is the idea of money-printing by centralized authority bad? When does it make sense to have a centralized leadership and when doesn't it? And more importantly, if the world was on a bitcoin standard when the pandemic started, what could have been done better? These are some of the questions I want to discuss.

The argument against money-printing is that it can lead to monetary mismanagement and currency debasement, both of which are bad for the general public. However, if we are faced with an emergency (such as global pandemic), what's the alternative? Let the markets sort it out? Let the general public decide how fiscal spending should be allocated? Allow the general public to decide and vote on outcomes via a Decentralised Autonomous Government? Give power back to the individuals and hope they can decide what's best in the midst of all the chaos? I just don't see how that's any better to be honest.

Sometimes there are merits to centralized control. For example, what would happen if Tesla was a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation and didn't have a central authority? Would the general public be able to create self-driving electric cars with their token votes? That just seems ridiculous.

Unpopular opinion, but I think the same applies to government. Yes, there are some shady people there (with their own incentives), but again what's the alternative? Under a bitcoin standard, you can argue that incentives are more aligned to general public. Ok so what does that mean? Well, we allow markets to crash and let markets do their thing and things will naturally sort themselves out. We have more wild swings in the cycle. Is this better than the current system which artificially smooths things out? It's hard to say. It's sort of like home insurance. Most of the time you pay premiums and nothing happens to your house, but when your house collapses, then with insurance you're got a safety net. But over time, the insurance premiums will eat away at your savings.