At this year's G20 talkfest, officials will be discussing extraordinary collapse in the value of G20 currencies against gold over the past fifteen years.

 

It is not simply that the value of gold has risen.  Rather, Western currencies have been losing value as a consequence of wildly expansionist monetary policy.

 

As long as one is only comparing the value of currency X to currency Y, it is easy to miss this.  But once one starts to look at the value of G20 currencies in terms of, say, gold - the supply of which G20 finance ministers cannot control - you begin to see a startlingly different picture.

 

When international finance ministers assemble at various jamborees, the talk is of international action to coordinate monetary policy.  In effect, this means that they all agree to debauch their currencies at a similar rate.

 

One consequence is that Western states have been able to transfer wealth from the public to the private sector, without the kind of tax hikes that would otherwise have been necessary.  I think it also helps explain why all governments tend to like these sort of supranational summits.