Unless the money supply can expand at the rate the economy is expanding it will produce deflation which cripples the economy. This is the reason gold and silver are no longer monetary instruments. Governments are not going to allow the economy to collapse and face rebellious citizens.
Gold and silver expand at a rate less than two percent per yr. (for the last 500 yrs. including the looting of the New World's metals by the Spanish) while our long term economic growth rate is a little over 3 per cent. Thus without the advent of credit and paper money we would not have grown as much as we have in the last hundred years.
It is also instructive to examine the origins of the Federal Reserve system. Bankers in the Money Centers fought the idea for decades believing they could handle the periodic financial panics. They did not care that it was the banks and the people in the hinterlands which suffered most during these panics as their money was drawn away to the Money Centers. Let the farmers go bankrupt.
But after the Panic of 1907 it became clear that without a financial giant of the stature of JP Morgan such panics could not be staved off and something else had to be done.
Then the financial class joined forces with the Populists and Progressives to come up with the Federal Reserve and its system of regional banks to assure that the money would not be drawn off to the East as was typically the case.
Most of those highly critical of Central banking do not understand its history or its function and write it off as a conspiracy against the common man. It is not.
I agree that it is not necessarily be a conspiracy against the common man, however it sure doesn't work in our favor.
Lurking'
"Unless the money supply can expand at the rate the economy is expanding it will produce deflation which cripples the economy."
How does deflation cripple the economy??????
Deflation cripples debtors only. For everyone else it raises their standard of living. Why do you think we're buying everything from China??
Delation would cripple the US Government because it is the largest debtor in the history of mankind. Is That Your Point???
Ah NO!
By ALL RIGHTS a currency backed by precious metals should have been appreciating ALL these years, as the Founders provided for, instead of the pennies on the dollar it's worth now.
Our Founder's were genius's, they knew all about the Romans insisting in pure gold or silver coins when collecting taxes, (the coins have the file marks to prove it), but the Roman Republic had no problem issuing new coins that were silver coated copper - much like our copper plated aluminum.
No one should be without a fraction of their porfolio's being in gold.
The Fed and the New Dealers are all part and parcel of the same scam by banking, political and industrial elites, and we the people are reduced to worker bees, in the "Queens" service.