Zero Hedge: Two recent books by renowned economists have set the stage for today’s great debate over the future of money in a digital age. In particular, public and private moneys are entering into a sustained rivalry, with far-reaching implications for markets and politics.
Eswar S. Prasad, The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance, Harvard University Press, 2021.
Kenneth S. Rogoff, The Curse of Cash: How Large-Denomination Bills Aid Crime and Tax Evasion and Constrain Monetary Policy, Princeton University Press, 2017.
Ready or not, the financial world is being forced to face the possibility of a future without traditional notes and coins. Is cash going the way of the dodo? Should the prospect of its extinction be welcomed or feared? And what would its disappearance mean for domestic and global markets and politics?
Two recent books by renowned economists have set the stage for the coming debates, highlighting two questions in particular. The first is whether cash should disappear. The second is whether it actually will disappear. Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University and Eswar Prasad of Cornell University have much to say on both issues.
DOES MONEY MAKE THE WORLD GO AROUND?
For Rogoff, cash is a curse. Paper currency, he argues, “lies at the heart of some of today’s most intractable public finance and monetary problems,” and thus should be phased out as quickly as possible.
Prasad, by contrast, is more in the forecasting business. He believes we are in the midst of a financial revolution that is being driven by “FinTech” – the ongoing wave of innovations in financial technologies that are dramatically disrupting traditional ways of doing business. In the vanguard are cryptocurrencies, a new class of financial instruments that threaten to displace conventional notes and coins. “The era of cash is drawing to an end,” Prasad declares, though he hesitates to offer any firm predictions concerning what will come next. Read More …
Opinion: Rogoff and Prasad are world-renown economists. While I’m pretty sure that both men have heard of the mark of the beast, neither man mentions it in their writings.
I once heard an academic say that ‘the Bible has no scholarship’ which perhaps explains why today’s scientists, economists and forecasters have to work very hard to explain life without the Creator.
“All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” John 1:3-5
Therefore there is no clear way to explain science, economics, or forecasts without Him, because all wisdom comes from Him.
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” James 1:5-8
There has never been a generation in 6000 years that has had the ability to track every transaction on the planet until this generation. Once the technology is fully operational, the mark of the beast will follow quickly. Revelation 13:16-17.
