Posted on 02/15/2018 1:40:13 PM PST by davikkm
Politicians, economic “experts” and the talking heads in mainstream media will never tell you that monetary policy is the most important issue facing the United States. Whether you realize it or not, monetary policy has a direct and significant impact on all our lives. When the US abandoned the gold standard in the early 1970’s, it steered our economy toward a cliff that we are closer than ever to driving over.
Once the gold standard ended, the Nixon administration went to Saudi Arabia to strike up a deal that would give immense power to the US’s rent-seeking elites for many decades to come. This deal created what’s known as the Petrodollar system. In exchange for weapons and military support, the Saudis agreed to sell their oil exclusively in dollars. Eventually this deal spread to almost every other oil producing nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at investmentwatchblog.com ...
There are so many non-sequiturs in this post it’s ludicrous.
Currency is what people think its worth because it is merely an extension of barter.
It could be written on a note enforceable in a court of law.
"Sell me your cow today and I will deliver to you 40 plump hens tomorrow."
That's a contract.
Currency is a contract.
It is a promissory note which doesn't have to be backed up by gold...just a promise and an experience of delivery on that promise.
Look around you. We are not on the gold standard and the world is just effin fine.
Clearly, since you give so many examples...
On the gold standard, the value of currency fluctuated wildly sometimes losing purchasing power by as much plus or minus 20% a year.
Since we got off the gold standard, monetary value has been pretty stable year to year.
On the gold standard, we were subject to periodic bouts of deflation and the “deflationary depressions” that accompanied them. We had severe depressions every 20 years or so.
Off the gold standard, we’ve only had one depression, the great depression of the 1930’s. The great recession of 2008 never turned into a depression, thanks to the flexibility that the federal reserve had by not being on the gold standard.
“We are not on the gold standard and the world is just effin fine.”
Sure, sure. Wages have stagnated for almost 50 years and meanwhile we have endlessly increasing government debt and federal spending, and the government propping up the stock market by pumping money into it so the rest of the economy doesn’t crash. Doing just effin fine.
Completely false: oil was already priced in US dollars because the US had been the world's largest oil exporter for decades before the 1960's.
Dropping the gold standard gave us instant inflation and enabled open-ended government spending and trade deficits.
When imports exceeded exports, those accounts had to be settled in specie at some point, requiring an net importer to devalue their currency relative to gold and eventually pricing out imports.
This trade-balancing feature of the gold standard was abandoned, enabling first Japan and then China and Germany to rape the US economy.
Yes but we have seem massive inflationary periods because we are told depressions, or lower prices, are a bad thing. I am all for honest money. The federal reserve and central banking is at the heart of dishonest money.
Yes, that’s true, but most of those were caused by fluctuations in value due to new discoveries of gold or silver that were occurring at the same time, since we were still in the age of colonization.
Most of the fluctuations in value of gold nowadays are due to speculators using it as a hedge against inflation of the fiat currencies, as industrial demand is pretty steady, and we do not find major deposits much anymore.
Indeed since the 70s purchasing power has collapsed.
If you want to barter in gold, I am sure some retailers will accept it. Have at it.
Well, except for that 20 trillion in admitted debt and that 100 plus trillion of unfunded liabilities. That stuff is going to hit the fan someday. (unless of course we inflate it away.)
The Beautiful thing about specie currency is that you can't endlessly borrow out of thin air.
And gold would fix this how?
Or you can barter in any other commodity or metal.
Have at it. I do it all the time.
Anyone lending you money after that is a fool.
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Progressive Movement “useful idiot" FDR effectively unconstitutionally repealed the Constitution’s Clause 1 of Section 10 of Article I when he signed Executive Order 6202, that order an attempt to remedy so-called gold hoarding.
"Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts [emphases added]; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility."
Corrections, insights welcome.
My needs aren't the primary issue here. The problem is the economic pollution everyone else produces by using fiat currency.
They keep stealing the value of currency from us by printing and inflating. They've got the system rigged to prop up the rent seeking of various "Lords of Society".
You might just as well suggest I bail the ocean with a spoon.
We’ve not really seen massive inflationary periods.
The worst was the late 1980’s.
If you look at the average inflation over the last 80 years, the Federal Reserve had done a remarkable job of keeping it between 1 and 3 percent.
Over time a small amount of steady inflation adds up, but who cares? Only someone that stores a large amount of cash in their mattress for 50 years cares. The stability in purchasing power in the short term is what businesses need. And the FED has delivered that.
Off the gold standard and on our way to financial disaster.
That’s true. And we certainly don’t want our currency to be at the hands of speculators. A gold standard would cause that. Soros would love that.
And with China the largest gold producer, we don’t want them in control of our currency either.
Without new discoveries, the supply of goods grows faster than the supply of dollars, causing deflation, and deflationary depressions. Depressions would be come the new normal if we went back to the gold standard.
Some people think the gold standard would act as a brake to reign in congressional spending. That’s not true. Congress can promise that your kids will pay other countries in gold for what they borrow today, just as easily as they promise your kids will pay fiat currency.
And every time there was a crisis, Congress moved to debase the currency even when we were on the gold standard.
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