Under certain circumstances, it can be done. For instance, the HKSB managed Hong Kong's money for decades without scandal or inflation. Of course, the HKSB was a public/private sort of thing.
I think you're flirting with the 'ad hominem' argument when you mock monetary sceptics as believers in madcap conspiracies, or shameless snake-oil salesman of PM collectibles.
Read Franz Pick. The destruction of national curencies he writes about is all too real. The monetization of debt is the inevitable outcome of allowing socialistic deficit financing to dominate our financial markets, which has already happened. That's why government bonds are 'certificates of guaranteed confiscation'.
I don't know when the music(Greenspan's money pump) will stop. I am not a believer in predictive technical analysis, nor have I any inside knowledge as to the course of world political events.
Nevertheless, I do know this: Someday the music will stop; there will be insufficient chairs to sit in, and most of the people will be left with dud tickets.
That's the lesson of history. That, and the fact that governments will lie, and twist and spin until the very end. That's another lesson of history.
I expect NO improvement in the ethics of government; that's why I'm a conservative.
Peace. ;^)
Agreed. That's why, despite the anti-Fed misinformation that crosses the line into kook territory doesn't make any sense. Despite the hype to the contrary, banks are privately owned by normal everyday stockholders just like GM or Microsoft. The Fed is owned by these privately owned banks. The banks appoint the Fed's board of governors, the president appoints the chairman. Any scenario that involves dismantling the Fed also involves turning the money supply over to the elected legislative politicians in Washington. The cure to deficit spending in such a system becomes simply running the printing presses overtime. Back to square one.
You premise that someday "the music must stop" is based on the false assumption that inflation is a big bad bubble that has no choice but to burst. Inflation is a necessary negative feedback in the economic loop that keeps the amount of money slightly higher than the amount of goods. It's the reason that the gold standard won't work anymore... the gold supply is finite and mostly controlled from Moscow and Cape Town. The American economy isn't, and can never be. It's that simple.
I'm a conservative because I believe in personal responsibility and economic freedom. Tying my future to the spot gold market in Moscow would seem counterproductive to that end.