A Brief History of Inflation In The Roman Empire

For someone who wants to start getting into the buying-cool-coins-as-gifts train, how do I decide if the shop/internet site is legit? Do you have an internet site that you have bought from before that was a good experience?

Matt, I think you made a careless error by equating Roman debasement with our current habit of printing money. It's true that they can both cause inflation. But the mechanisms at play are completely different. With Roman coins, the silver content was reduced, so merchants had to demand more coins to receive the same amount of silver. Our contemporary money is made of paper that has no significant intrinsic value, so if the Federal Reserve changed the composition of the bills, no one would care. The inflation we are currently experiencing is not driven by a decrease in the intrinsic value of a dollar bill, but rather by increased demand at a time when industry cannot increase supply. If the government gave money to everyone (which would increase consumer demand) AND industry increased output, the ratio of supply to demand would remain unchanged, so prices would not inflate. You cited the 2008 Great Recession and the Economic Stimulus Payments that were issued at that time. It does not appear that the rate of inflation was not significantly affected by these payments. There were some seesaws in the short term, but the overall trend continued downward. Until now, the much larger contribution of our government's habitual deficit spending hasn't pushed inflation beyond 4% since 1990, except for once in 2007, two years before the stimulus payments began. Up until now, increased efficiency has allowed supply to keep up with demand, thus keeping inflation in check. (Big caveat: I am not an economist, but I am running this commentary through someone who is. If he says I'm wrong, I'll publish an apology right here.)

Classical Numismatics just released a video on the “Tribute Penny” referred to by Jesus. It meshes well with this episode: https://youtu.be/4rdsOHLK7I8

Chris Hillman

If you talk about driving, please also talk about city design and the differences by country and century

Sebastian Osterbrink

I really like the idea of an episode on driving. Bonus points if you record the episode while driving together, using the things happening on the road around you to inform the discussion!

Ryan Sedletzeck