develj I’d amend your formula as such: Productive Population Growth + Productivity Growth. Ethiopia had a population explosion in the 80’s, but it wasn’t productive. In fact it dragged Ethiopia down, (as does much of Africa’s population) relative to each countries economic capacity.
Money is merely a yardstick for measuring and helping to distribute wealth. Pick the system you like best. As davelj pointed out each system has its pros and cons. The last 20 years have seen some amazing growth as well as a horrid collapse.
At this point the usefulness of a monetary system should be measured by its ability to help us sort out the pyrrhic growth from the useful. The system we currently have, as its currently constituted, is not well suited to that task.
I’d like to say I have a neat answer but I don’t. The fiscal restraint forced by a gold standard would be a good start, unfortunately we couldn’t fight any wars or fund our social entitlements. There are many out there who in a vacuum think thats a good thing, I’m not so sure.
The best system I can imagine is one in which those who print the money aren’t doing so for political favor and have real regulators watching not just what they do, but who benefits. I suppose that is just a fantasy.
Josh
