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Notes -
Money has never been all that stable. Inflation and deflation (mostly inflation) have been with us for all of modernity. There was a nice little blip in the middle where ordinary banks could provide decent returns on savings accounts, but there was never any reason to expect those conditions to remain constant forever.
For most of the 20th century, real interest rates in the United States were positive.
Expanding our window, yes life was nasty, brutish, and short for most of history. But the value to society of sound money is great and its loss should be avoided or at least mourned.
Most of the 20th century banks have global wars and then rebuilding massive continents to invest in. This raised the amount borrowers were willing to pay for investment capital. Today banks have apps to invest in. Completely different environment. Maybe if we boosted military spending back to 10% it could raise borrow demand for capital
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