Sound Currency - a currency whose actual value is the same as its nominal value; a currency which does not deteriorate or depreciate or fluctuate in comparision with the standard of values.
Steven, you're interpretation of sound money sounds more like supply and demand.
It is all supply and demand - regardless whether the currency is sound or not. Hard specie is just a commodity, albeit having a one-to-many relationship, which operates on the same laws of supply and demand like any other commodity. That is why our botched up bi-metal standard that conflated gold and silver values ended up with an invocation of Gresham's law, as gold and silver chased one another out of circulation at times. That never had to happen. They could have competed freely with one another and both would have remained in circulation at all times. It was ONLY because a comparative value was declared and FIXED that the market responded with the real truth behind the ever-shifting fundamentals.
Your definition of sound currency deserves closer examination, since "nominal value" of hard currency is nothing more than
a unit of measure - not market value relative to anything else. The "market value" of the "nominal value" of anything, including hard specie, is something else entirely, and is never the same, as it depends on supply and demand of all units concerned, whether goods, services or units of exchange medium.
As for what "the standard values" means, I have no idea. Is there such a thing as "the standard of values"? I would like very much to see such a beast (unless it is talking about units of measurement).
Sound money would be money that is backed by gold or silver or something of value instead of the fiat money we have today.
Correct, provided it is 100% "backed"
at all times. If fractional reserve lending is tolerated, the currency cannot be considered sound, regardless of its backing, since
at all times there will be a percentage of counterfeit derivatives floating and competing for goods and services in the form of multiple conflicting claims to the same wealth.
But that does not mean that a "sound" money supply is fixed - nor should it be, since mining and exports alone (not to mention capital flight from countries with unsound currencies) would increase the supply in circulation as the economy grows, which in turn places downward pressure on all other "like" specie. No problem - it is just a commodity, the more the merrier, as it is limited like any other commodity and the market will adjust.
I do agree that a devalued currency increases prices and by printing money out of thin air does exactly that, supply and demand is driven by consumers and production. Presently, we, as a whole, cannot consume like we once did since 1/4 of this country is unemployed.
No, it's worse - FAR WORSE - than that even. Supply and Demand are both distorted and driven by a distorted supply of currency, and the RIDICULOUSLY artificial business cycles associated with them. And since that currency is available ONLY as debt instruments, the only way to obtain new currency to support the Full Expectation of REQUIRED growth in the form of new debts and debtors to be added - none of which can be paid off in the aggregate without crashing the entire system. That is because if all debts are paid (an impossibility, since it requires new debt to be added), ALL currency disappears from circulation.
None of that has ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to do with being "consumption-minded", or "employed". You can be as austere as you want, and impose that austerity on others (and that day is coming down the pike, trust me on that one), and it will do nothing to save the system from its own logical impossibilities, including the bizarre requirement that, like a heroin addiction, you need increasingly larger doses just to feel "normal".
Health care costs are a completely separate issue driven by large insurance and pharmaceutical corporations.
To name but a very few, albeit large. It is all rooted in protectionism in one form or another.
