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Comment by thwest | Hacker News Reader

> That's a bunch of needlessly cynical and completely ignorant bullshit. [...] It isn't something that's done at the point of a gun.

Alan Greenspan is of the opinion that our Iraq wars were 'largely about oil' and economic stability. The point is debatable, but certainly not completely ignorant bullshit.

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If the 'point of a gun' element was the major determinant in how much currencies are worth, Zimbabwe, which had and has a military sufficient to kill its own citizens, would never have had hyperinflation.

The US's place in the global economy is just a bit difference than Zimbabwe, so that's a false equivalence.

Hint: I was talking about imperialism, not "buy stuff with the national money, citizen!"

The American hegemony is bigger and involves a lot more moving parts, sure, but is that really a difference in kind rather than scale?

And if being a global superpower is the key to running an economy based on fiat money, how did it get that big in the first place?

America didn't start with fiat. The transcontinental railroads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Transcontinental_Railroad) provided the backbone for a continental network that helped unleash human creative potential, much like the Internet is doing today. This led to an economic boom. Then two world wars destroyed Europe while leaving America virtually untouched. In the aftermath America had risen to superpower status (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_World_War_II).

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