The Bolívar’s collapse is rather tragic, considering the Bolívar was actually one of Latin Americas’ strongest currencies during Venezuela’s peak from the 1950s to 1970s.
Recessions emerge when the central bank reverses its loose monetary stance. But the seeds of recession were sown earlier by private lending practices that grew out of central-bank money creation.
The only way to end the booms and busts brought by inflationary credit is to eliminate the central bank's counterfeiting that constitutes and creates that inflation.
The idea that money must grow in order to sustain economic growth gives the impression that money somehow sustains economic activity. But this has never been true.
Decades ago, the Chinese state began to accumulate gold merely as part of a makeshift backup plan. But it may have ended up with enough gold to make a real move away from fiat currency, which would be a disaster for its Western competitors.
If the Chinese sell us stuff and then "hoard" the money we pay them, that increases the value of the dollars we continue to hold here in the US, while also leaving us with more stuff to sell elsewhere.
