Speaking in an interview with Kurt Wallace on Rare, Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne made it clear of two things: he thinks Nobel Laureate Keynesian economist Paul Krugman is crazy and that his hope is that bitcoin (BTC) destroys central banking.
Byrne had lambasted Krugman for his work in the past and his notion that when the market fails then the government has to intervene and place more controls. He argued that the Keynesian Nobel Laureate believes in a “Keynesian magic money tree” that has no basis in reality. Byrne also touched upon inflation, central banking and incoming Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
A comment that is making headlines, though, is his hope that bitcoin destroys central banking in the future.
When asked about Krugman’s “Bitcoin is Evil” piece published late last month in the New York Times, Byrne explained that people from his own time look back and laugh at those in the Soviet Union who attempted to run the entire society with large ledger books and “Marxian accounting.”
“Central planning doesn’t work so one could only hope that Bitcoin will do some of these things that Krugman finds evil like destroy the central bank but this is what so crazy about Krugman,” stated Byrne. “He should remember the goal isn’t having a Central Bank the goal is we’re all trying to find what institution is to allow us to cooperate with each other and some of those institutions can be price based and some government based. But he’s confused the means with the purpose.
Byrne went onto explain that in the Fed’s 100-year history, it has maintained a track record of destabilizing prices and devaluing 98 percent of the United States dollar’s value. “So how have they done on the mandate of maintaining stable prices in such? It’s just got a horrible – if they were a business they would have been out of business long ago because they never get anything right.”
In his article, Krugman wrote that he is unconvinced about bitcoin and that it remains unclear as to why bitcoin would be a stable store of value. He stated that every time he asks bitcoin enthusiasts about how it’s a reliable store of value they instead reply that it’s a “terrific medium of exchange.”
Quoting Charlie Stross, it’s argued that bitcoin is nothing but a “libertarian political agenda” that is designed “to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens’ financial transactions.” Essentially, he likened it to their “gold fetish.”
