Growth is a goal that’s worth achieving, in most cases, and the current economic paradigm favors it. But when central banks start undermining their fiat economies and crypto companies begin to mimic financial institutions in its name, growth becomes an end in itself with self-destructive tendencies. Deutsche Bank’s head of strategy Jim Reid recently noted that when central banks are so aggressive, Bitcoin starts to look more attractive, while whistleblower Edward Snowden warned the crypto community that the next big bank is not what the world needs. Are they right?
Also read: How to Pay Employees or Get Paid With Bitcoin
While Aiming for Growth, Interest Rate Cuts Inflate Bubbles
Measures to generate and sustain growth, artificially and regardless of the consequences, have become a key policy, widely implemented through interest rate cuts and quantitative easing. Other considerations usually come a distant second, but as crisis after crisis has historically shown, that’s not necessarily the best approach for governments. Expansion, at the expense of basic values, is not the best option for businesses either.
Chasing growth regardless of anything often leads to compromising important principles. When the states do it, they usually distort market economy, resuscitate companies that under normal circumstances would simply go bankrupt, and create bubbles bound to burst at some point in the future. When businesses do it, they sometimes undermine their own industry for the sake of short-term survival or gains.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, catalyzing and maintaining economic growth has been the focus of many political efforts. Governments and central banks on both sides of the Atlantic have applied an old recipe, cutting interest rates to unprecedented levels. On the backdrop of continuing macroeconomic uncertainty and tensions in international trade relations, it has so far failed to
