Gold Standard

Goldbuggery?

IMAGE(http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/8200000/Austin-Powers-Goldmember-austin-powers-8226595-852-480.jpg)

On one hand this all seems fairly reasonable and the idea of a gold standard has always struck me as laughable but on the other hand how much financial advice do I want from someone who calls themselves Tyler Durden on the internet?

There are many solid reasons to leave a metal standard behind in a modern global economy. Just because you might not trust one person's opinion doesn't mean you should throw out the idea.

The fantasy of a metal standard is that it lets you escape inflation because no one is printing more money. Leaving aside the issues with that, it doesn't even deliver on that promise. It just replaces "the mint prints more money" with "someone found a new gold mine". And even without that, we've got thousands of years of data that demonstrates that you can quite successfully adulterate a metal standard anyway.

The other fantasy is that it'll still retain its value after the collapse, but all true scholars know that the real post-apocalyptic economy will be based on water, fuel, and bullets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovere...

A failure of a nation to meet bond repayments has been seen on many occasions. Philip II of Spain defaulted on debt four times - in 1557, 1560, 1575 and 1596 - becoming the first nation in history to declare sovereign default due to rising military costs and the declining value of gold, as it had become increasingly dependent on the revenues flowing in from its mercantile empire in the Americas.[16][17] This sovereign default threw the German banking houses into chaos and ended the reign of the Fuggers as Spanish financiers. Genoese bankers provided the unwieldy Habsburg system with fluid credit and a dependably regular income. In return the less dependable shipments of American silver were rapidly transferred from Seville to Genoa, to provide capital for further military ventures.
Gremlin wrote:

The fantasy of a metal standard is that it lets you escape inflation because no one is printing more money. Leaving aside the issues with that, it doesn't even deliver on that promise. It just replaces "the mint prints more money" with "someone found a new gold mine". And even without that, we've got thousands of years of data that demonstrates that you can quite successfully adulterate a metal standard anyway.

The other fantasy is that it'll still retain its value after the collapse, but all true scholars know that the real post-apocalyptic economy will be based on water, fuel, and bullets.

I think you mean bottle caps.

NathanialG wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

The fantasy of a metal standard is that it lets you escape inflation because no one is printing more money. Leaving aside the issues with that, it doesn't even deliver on that promise. It just replaces "the mint prints more money" with "someone found a new gold mine". And even without that, we've got thousands of years of data that demonstrates that you can quite successfully adulterate a metal standard anyway.

The other fantasy is that it'll still retain its value after the collapse, but all true scholars know that the real post-apocalyptic economy will be based on water, fuel, and bullets.

I think you mean bottle caps.

Dirt.