Do You Support The Gold Standard?

wallyj84

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What are your thoughts on commodity backed currencies? I really don't care, but I always seem to run into people who are "gold heads" and hate the fiat currency that we currently have.

What are your views on commodity backed currencies? Do you prefer them to fiat currency? Is the whole topic stupid?
 

Perados

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I don't think it's a stupid topic but a serious question.

If people talk about gold standard, they think a nation couldn't print unlimited money, but that's wrong. You are always able to rearrange the standard.
And this would destroy the only benefit this system has.

I prefer the account money system, as long as we run an independent central bank with only one goal: a stable currency.
In no way should the central bank try to influence the economy.

What I think we should change is, that average banks are able to multiply central bank money nearly unlimited.
 
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deleted15807

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The idea you can run a $19 trillion economy backed by a precious metal whose price is determined by supply and demand is ludicrous and being totally untethered to how the actual economy is doing.
 
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twoton

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Think of the wars we'd be able to fight with both oil and gold as the prize package.

I think the lure of the gold standard is tied to the lure of the good ol' days, when interest rates of 5 1/4% were painted in gold leaf on bank windows, when a decent cigar was still 10¢, and men wore Arrow collars.
 

Drifterwood

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Gold is just one of thousands of commodities whose market price effectively dictates the value of your paper. Then of course the value of your paper depends on a lot of things, not least whether other people have to have it to purchase commodities.

The US has been running a currency scam for years, the petroleum dollar amongst other examples. You owe a lot of your prosperity to this, though of course your politicians tell you it's because you're so wonderful and hard working. The U.K. also has its own little earners off balance sheet.

You (we) aren't fighting wars over just the oil, it's the oil traded in $ that you are defending.

The Belt and Road initiative will not be subject to the $.

China proposed a global currency as essentially a new Gold Standard, but of course this doesn't suit the people who benefit from and control the current practice.
 
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halcyondays

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The whole topic is stupid. All currencies are themselves traded like commodities which makes them almost meaningless. Central banks printing all the money they want to buy government debt and troubled securities (Quantitative Easing) to maintain the portfolios of the top 1% who own 90% of the wealth adds to the meaninglessness.

That said we could return to a gold standard or even just set amount of currency. The problem with that is that it would quickly become a deflationary currency and deflationary prices even as the economy grows.

The problem with currency is that it's the poorest measure of economic growth or contraction.
 

sodominsane

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I can see seven hatless men and one woman.

You wanna raise me?

What ever happened to the Hat economy?
That's like a where's waldo

The hat economy crashed after the repeal of the ...McMahon hat act

The McMahon hat act required all depression era men to walk around outdoors with hats on for 3 hours a day
 
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keenobserver

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I can see seven hatless men and one woman.

You wanna raise me?

What ever happened to the Hat economy?

LOL. Honestly, I think John F. Kennedy killed it in 1961 thereabouts. Kennedy famously did not like wearing hats in an era where men routinely did wear hats everyday - not ball caps backwards - real honest to goodness hats. There are few photos of him wearing any hats, but when he did wear a top hat at his inauguration he looked famously ill at ease. Men followed his lead and stopped wearing them - at least men of his generation and younger. The men's hat industry was never the same again.
 
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sodominsane

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LOL. Honestly, I think John F. Kennedy killed it in 1961 thereabouts. Kennedy famously did not like wearing hats in an era where men routinely did wear hats everyday - not ball caps backwards - real honest to goodness hats. There are few photos of him wearing any hats, but when he did wear a top hat at his inauguration he looked famously ill at ease. Men followed his lead and stopped wearing them - at least men of his generation and younger. The men's hat industry was never the same again.
Not like the good old days
 
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