To all of the people who have offered explanations for why free banking might not be such a great idea and possible rationales for central banking,
Whoa there, cowboy! I haven’t even started explaining any economics yet. This introduction was only intended to explain how weird and problematic the unique treatment economists afford central banking is. Free banking is only offered as an alternative because it is the natural starting place and is the salient and obvious alternative—that’s just how economics works, except in banking for some reason.
There are in fact all kinds of arguments for central banking, just nobody seems to be able to turn them into the format economists usually require. We’ll get to them in time. Yes, I’m merely a self-taught 20 year-old but I’ve also spent 2 years reading my butt off about this stuff. I know a fair bit more than might be obvious from the introduction.
So apparently this introductory article was really unclear about a lot of things. That’s my failure as a writer and hopefully I’ll get better. But we haven’t even learned any economics yet, so let’s hold off on proposing those solutions.
The multi-part articles are not good format for this website.
This may sound ironically, because we have the Sequences, etc. But when you read them, each article in the Sequences has its own point. If often references previous articles. But it does not rely on the future articles to provide its value.
Perhaps the second part will give some additional information. But it does not exist yet. The votes and the comments are about the first part.
When I think about it, the style you used here (and some other people used it in the past too), is the style typically used for books. The first chapter presents a big mystery, to make the reader interested. Then slowly we move to the solution. Like this:
Why X?
There is A.
There is B.
There is C.
A and B and C imply X.
The problem is that the first part does not provide information, only a question. Even at the second, third, and fourth part, the question is still not answered.
This would be the Sequences style:
There is A.
There is B.
There is C.
A and B and C imply X.
It’s almost the same as the previous, but the introduction is removed. And suddenly each article has its own point. The first article speaks about A. Not about “A as a prerequisite for some future X”. Just: about A. Etc. The advantage is that each article can be enjoyed and discussed as it comes.
Drethelin has already made an implicit point that I’ll make more explicit: Viliam_Bur explicitly contrasted the type of post in question here with the Sequences, But it is also worth keeping in mind that there’s a lot of occasions where people have argued or criticized parts of the Sequences and gotten upvoted for it.
LET’S HOLD OFF ON PROPOSING SOLUTIONS
To all of the people who have offered explanations for why free banking might not be such a great idea and possible rationales for central banking,
Whoa there, cowboy! I haven’t even started explaining any economics yet. This introduction was only intended to explain how weird and problematic the unique treatment economists afford central banking is. Free banking is only offered as an alternative because it is the natural starting place and is the salient and obvious alternative—that’s just how economics works, except in banking for some reason.
There are in fact all kinds of arguments for central banking, just nobody seems to be able to turn them into the format economists usually require. We’ll get to them in time. Yes, I’m merely a self-taught 20 year-old but I’ve also spent 2 years reading my butt off about this stuff. I know a fair bit more than might be obvious from the introduction.
So apparently this introductory article was really unclear about a lot of things. That’s my failure as a writer and hopefully I’ll get better. But we haven’t even learned any economics yet, so let’s hold off on proposing those solutions.
The multi-part articles are not good format for this website.
This may sound ironically, because we have the Sequences, etc. But when you read them, each article in the Sequences has its own point. If often references previous articles. But it does not rely on the future articles to provide its value.
Perhaps the second part will give some additional information. But it does not exist yet. The votes and the comments are about the first part.
When I think about it, the style you used here (and some other people used it in the past too), is the style typically used for books. The first chapter presents a big mystery, to make the reader interested. Then slowly we move to the solution. Like this:
Why X?
There is A.
There is B.
There is C.
A and B and C imply X.
The problem is that the first part does not provide information, only a question. Even at the second, third, and fourth part, the question is still not answered.
This would be the Sequences style:
There is A.
There is B.
There is C.
A and B and C imply X.
It’s almost the same as the previous, but the introduction is removed. And suddenly each article has its own point. The first article speaks about A. Not about “A as a prerequisite for some future X”. Just: about A. Etc. The advantage is that each article can be enjoyed and discussed as it comes.
I want this to be mandatory to read for anyone who tries to post a long series of articles building to a point.
Deleted/Retracted
Drethelin has already made an implicit point that I’ll make more explicit: Viliam_Bur explicitly contrasted the type of post in question here with the Sequences, But it is also worth keeping in mind that there’s a lot of occasions where people have argued or criticized parts of the Sequences and gotten upvoted for it.
You seem to have completely missed the point of the grandparent.
Yup, I wrote that on a bad WiFi connect, I thought I had erased it but then my wifi went out and there it still is.
Erased now as it adds nothing.