american libertarian when he realizes the founding fathers weren't austrian jewish economists from the 1800s

(pictured: martinelli's sparkling apple cider)

Alexander Hamilton: "The interest rate is now, uh, *sticks finger in the air*, four percent."

Austrian Economist (in tears): NOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU HAVE TO LET THE BANKERINOS SET THE RATE WITH A HECKIN MARKET

Alexander Hamilton: "The dollar is 371 and 1/4 grains of fine silver. I weighed a bunch of Spanish Dollars and took the average, lol"

Austrian Economist (red faced screaming): AHHHHHHHHHH WHAT ABOUT THE HECKIN GOLD STANDARD YOU CAN'T JUST DECLARE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE MONEY

Alexander Hamilton: "We put tariffs on British stuff because F*CK THEM, USA factories RULE."

(crowd): "USA! USA! USA!"

Jeffersonians (throwing tantrum on ground): NOOO, AMERICA SHOULD JUST GROW CORN!!!!!

Austrians: Will no one consider the needs of international finance!?

A currency doesnt have value by "intrinsic" properties, but by which valued items are for sale in that currency. If you have domestic physical production - adding value to commodities - the money has value. If you must import production, you must mortgage your land & commodities.

A lot to wrap your head around.

Consider you are on a desert island. Would you rather have 1000 gold coins and bronze age production process, or modern machine tools that can make anything you need, but only paper tickets to accommodate commerce? Money only buys what exists.

A gain in the economy is, by definition, when value is added - when a low order good becomes a higher order good. You can scalp bits of value as a middleman, but as a nation, when you are selling low value added (commodities) and buying high value-added (manufactures), you lose.

Spain thought she could become wealthy by stockpiling gold from the Americas. But there were holes in her pockets the entire time - where was she by 1800? The British focused on manufactures, and even had they never opened a single mine, the gold of the world flowed to them.

(gold is a reliable emergency money for nations during war, and a independent way to save value for yourself outside the system, etc etc, but we are discussing far more conceptual issues here)