Talk:Meltdown (Woods book)

Cause of over-extended banks
Following the sentence "... the depressions of the 19th century were caused by banks ... issuing paper money, supposedly convertible to gold, in amounts greatly exceeding their gold reserves.", I added the sentence "Many States caused this by regulations requiring banks in that State to monetize the State's debts.". reverted me, saying "Uncited, sounds like OR speculation.".

My addition was based on "Free Banking versus Banking Panics" by Carl Svanberg which says (in part) "Banks were, furthermore, forced to back up their money stock with state bonds. And since states had a tendency to go bankrupt, there was a justified fear that these bonds would eventually lose their value. When the bonds were losing their value banks quickly became insolvent and they had to declare bankruptcy. The 'panics' were, in other words, caused by regulations.". JRSpriggs (talk) 05:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)